The Arts and Native American Culture

By: Megan Olson

Purpose Students will learn about Native

American culture by observing artwork, listening to stories, creating their own Native American inspired artwork, and retelling a Native American story.

Student Objectives Students will listen to, learn, and understand a Native

American story, “How the Porcupine Got His Quills.” Students will observe aspects of Native American artwork

and tools. Students will create a “buckskin” with Native American

symbols and style to depict a story. Students will cooperate in small group work. Students will perform an oral story telling of a Native

American story to class. Students will sequence a Native American story in correct

order to show understanding and story order.

Day 1: Introduction Students will listen to the Native American Story:

“How the Porcupine Got His Quills”. (Story on next slide.)

As a class the story will be discussed for meaning and sharing information about Native American culture and oral story telling.

Information will be shared about how some stories were told through art to depict what happened, just like we have books with pictures to share a story.

Day 1: Story

Day 1: Museum Collection Museum collection with

Native American artifacts and artwork representative of Native American life will be shared with discussion about what students notice about work.

Click on Buckskin to connect to Art Collector.

Day 2: Native American Symbols

Students will listen to the story of the porcupine again, and then practice telling main ideas of the story as a whole class and then with a partner.

Students will be exposed to various Native American symbols to show how they are represented and shown examples (on next slides).

Day 2: Native American Symbols

Day 2: Native American Symbols

Day 2: Buckskin Then students will create

their own “buckskin” to retell the story of the porcupine, example shown using a brown paper bag.

During student work time, examples of Native American music will be played quietly. Click on black rectangle to watch a clip.

Day 3: Small Groups Class will try to retell the story of the

porcupine together, with help from the teacher as needed.

Whole class will then discuss how to work in a cooperative small group.

Students will be put in small groups of about 5 students to work on planning and preparation to retell the story of the porcupine to the class.

Day 4: Performing Story Groups will have more time to meet to finish

preparing. Small groups will present their retelling to the

class. Possible examples will be through plays and skits,

but ideas are up to students. This may take more than one day. Teacher or teachers aid will take pictures of

performances to post to classroom website for families to share.

Day 5: Sequencing Students will individually get story card

pictures that match the story of the porcupine to cut out and sequence in the correct order.

They will be able to add details, color, or words if they would like to show their understanding and ability to retell the story.

Story Cards shown on next slide.

Day 5: Sequencing Cards

Day 5: Sequencing Cards in Order

2

3

4

5

6

Assessment Rubric  1

Basic Expectations

Not Met

2Basic

Expectations Not Met

Completely

3Meets

Expectations

4Exceeds

Expectations

Created a Buckskin to represent story of Porcupine

       

Student cooperates in small group

       

Student participates in retelling of story

       

Student is able to properly sequence story cards.

       

ResourcesIroquois Dancers at Nama 9. (n.d.) Native American Music Awards.

Retrieved August 6, 2009, from http://www.nativeamericanmusicawards.com/media/video/IroquoisDancers.wmv

Macmillan. (1988). Fall Frolics: How the porcupine got his quills. Macmillan Educational Company, 53-54.

Native American Art (2009). Retrieved August 6, 2009, from http://www.artsconnected.org/resource/102664/native-american-art

Native American/Indian Symbol Sheets

Slideshare. www.slideshare.net