Curated OER
Mud Maps
Learners discuss the location of stores, buildings, and homes in their community. Afterwards, they create a 'mud map' demonstrating the route from one point to another. In pairs, students read travel directions from a brochure, while...
Curated OER
Getting to Know You
Third graders explore different types of poetry and illustrate their own experiences through creating their own poem. In this getting to know you lesson, 3rd graders create and recite their poems with a self-portrait.
Curated OER
African Art and Personal Adornment
Students explore the concept of personal adornment. They view and compile a list examples and compare personal adornment in American culture to that in African culture.
Curated OER
Someone Is In The Kitchen
Students investigate the lifestyles of the Native Americans and look at a recipe found on a website. They read the recipe and pay attention to the measurements. They differentiate between the various measures in order to apply them to...
Other
Milwaukee Public Museum: Indian Country: Oral Tradition
The Milwaukee Public Museum provides this introduction to the Native American oral tradition and oral literature of the Great Lakes region. Describes common themes and characters, including trickster characters and windingo (ice...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Storytelling: Oral Traditions
Students talk about what makes a good story, look at the oral tradition of storytelling, and compare and contrast stories from two different cultural traditions. This is one of four storytelling lessons.
Yale University
Yale New Haven Teachers Institute: Definition of Oral Tradition and Folklore
This curriculum unit for teaching about "Folklore in the Oral Tradition, Fairytales, Fables and Folk-legend" begins with a definition of Oral Tradition.
Other
Central Oregon Community College: African Storytelling
This essay provides an excellent explanation of the importance of storytelling and what the author refers to as "orature," oral tradition as opposed to "literature" or written tradition. Clear examples are provided, including several...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian: Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide
The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide by by Marjorie Hunt is an excellent resource for collecting family and community cultural information. It provides step-by-step information on how to plan and conduct...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: American Masters Collection: N. Scott Momaday
This is a collection of three video lessons from N. Scott Momaday about Kiowa Native American stories, storytelling, and their oral traditions.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Native Voices
This unit features the rich oral tradition of Native Americans storytelling in various genres predating the introduction and influence of English writings, bringing three contemporary authors to light. RI.11-12.8 seminal U.S. texts,...
University of Pennsylvania
Upenn: Oral Traditions in Africa (Lesson Plan)
This website features a lesson plan that can be used by teachers K-12 on oral traditions found in Africa.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide
If you set out to do your own primary research with a tradition-bearer in your community, this guide will be very valuable. Get information about how to get the best results, along with an extensive list of possible questions for the...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Fable and Trickster Tales Around the World
The lessons presented in this website "introduce children to folk tales" and how these folktales are changed and affected by generational and cultural values. Includes several links to further related information on folktales, fables,...
PBS
Pbs: Using Supporting Evidence to Interpret Meaning a Native American Folktale
In this lesson, students will watch a video clip with a Native American storyteller telling a traditional story. Students will use supporting evidence from the story to give meaning to oral and written texts.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Storytelling:the Meaning Behind the Mask
In many cultures, masks are used in oral story telling. Many learning activities are described on this site that will help students learn aspects of story telling and the different ways various cultures used masks.
Alberta Online Encyclopedia
Alberta Online Encyclopedia: Tus: Aboriginal Traditions and Knowledge
The TUS website examines the history and methodologies of land use by Aboriginal peoples. The Multimedia link is an excellent source of oral histories through interviews with elders as well as other knowledgeable people.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Storytelling: Performance and Art
Learners explore how stories can be told without words, such as through performance and art. This is one of four storytelling lessons.
Topmarks Online
Topmarks Education: A Traditional Story: The Gingerbread Man
Read the traditional story of the Gingerbread Man who runs from the little old woman who made him, and from several other characters who want to eat him, until he comes across a fox who offers to help.
Virtual Museum of Canada
Virtual Museum of Canada: Community Stories: Admiral Digby Museum: Digby County: A Journey Through Time
Digby, Nova Scotia is a community with a long history of oral tradition. This has played a large part in preserving the community's history as elders' stories, gleaned from interviews, have been preserved for the future. This exhibit...
University of Richmond
University of Richmond: Rewriting Ethnography
A literary review and criticism concerning the book "Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko. Analyzes the Laguna oral tradition and its presence in Silko's novel.
Read Works
Read Works: Oral Histories
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about the importance of listening to and writing about people's life stories. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
ibiblio
Ibiblio: Cherokee Sacred Stories & Sacred Rituals
Explains the traditional Cherokee rules that surround both telling and listening to oral tradition. Identifies two basic types of Cherokee oral tradition: sacred stories and small animal stories. This site also contains a video of a...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Becoming Visible: N. Scott Momaday
Relying on many elements, including traditional Native American and European American traditions, this biography features the rich literary contributions of N. Scott Momaday. See "N.Scott Momaday Activities" for more resources.
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