Exploring Indigenous Novels In Grades 5 10

Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10: Literature Studies Focusing on Indigenized Worlds offers teachers and students in grades 5-10 a unique framework and specialized sets of resources for collaborative classroom explorations of indigenized worlds created by the Indigenous writers.

The fictional worlds created by many contemporary American and Canadian Indigenous novelists for young people provide unique access to the lived experiences of Indigenous people, past, present, and future and the often inaccessible worlds they inhabit. Readers aged 10-16 will gain many insights about Indigenous people and themselves—Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike—through sustained immersion in fictional worlds where Indigenous people are foregrounded, active, autonomous, respected, and valued. Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10: Literature Studies Focusing on Indigenized Worlds, a companion book for Indigenous Novels, Indigenized Worlds, offers teachers and students in grades 5-10 a unique framework and specialized sets of resources for collaborative classroom explorations of indigenized worlds created by the Indigenous writers. This unique book offers illuminating sets of questions and carefully selected print and digital resources for classroom explorations of 11 Indigenous novels spanning the genres of historical, contemporary realistic, and fantasy fiction. These questions and resources focus student learning on such indigenizing features as ancestral beings, sacred objects, cultural values, celebratory dances, traditional stories, material appropriation, cultural denigration, community leadership, restoration, and more.

The fictional worlds created by many contemporary American and Canadian Indigenous novelists for young people provide unique access to the lived experiences of Indigenous people, past, present, and future and the often inaccessible worlds they inhabit. Readers age 10-16 will gain many insights about Indigenous people and themselves—Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike—through sustained immersion in fictional worlds where Indigenous people are foregrounded, active, autonomous, respected, and valued.

Winner of the Anskohk Aboriginal Children's Book of the Year Award. Finalist for the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award and the Ruth Schwartz Award In just four days young Shi-shi-etko will have to leave her family and all that she knows to attend residential school. She spends her last days at home treasuring the beauty of her world -- the dancing sunlight, the tall grass, each shiny rock, the tadpoles in the creek, her grandfather's paddle song. Her mother, father and grandmother, each in turn, share valuable teachings that they want her to remember. And so Shi-shi-etko carefully gathers her memories for safekeeping. Richly hued illustrations complement this gently moving and poetic account of a child who finds solace all around her, even though she is on the verge of great loss -- a loss that Indigenous Peoples have endured for generations because of the residential schools system. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.5 Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

Winner, CODE’s 2016 Burt Award for First Nation, Inuit and Métis Literature In this important graphic novel, two brothers surrounded by poverty, drug abuse, and gang violence, try to overcome centuries of historic trauma in very different ways to bring about positive change in their lives. Pete, a young Indigenous man wrapped up in gang violence, lives with his younger brother, Joey, and his mother who is a heroin addict. One night, Pete and his mother’s boyfriend, Dennis, get into a big fight, which sends Dennis to the morgue and Pete to jail. Initially, Pete keeps up ties to his crew, until a jail brawl forces him to realize the negative influence he has become on Joey, which encourages him to begin a process of rehabilitation that includes traditional Indigenous healing circles and ceremonies. Powerful, courageous, and deeply moving, The Outside Circle is drawn from the author’s twenty years of work and research on healing and reconciliation of gang-affiliated or incarcerated Indigenous men.

The graphic novel, This Place: 150 Years Retold, includes a variety of historical and contemporary stories that highlight important moments in Indigenous and Canadian history. Written by Anishinaabe educator Christine M'Lot, the Teacher Guide for This Place: 150 Years Retold offers 12 comprehensive lessons that support teachers in introducing students to the unique demographic, historical, and cultural legacy of Indigenous communities and exploring acts of sovereignty and resiliency using circle pedagogy to show the interconnectedness of ideas and topics, primarily in the form of the medicine wheel infusing Indigenous pedagogical practices, such as working with others, seeking holism in understanding, and learning through storytelling engaging students’ understanding and encouraging them to embrace differing worldviews NEW! Incorporating the This Place CBC podcast when studying the graphic novel Lessons in this teacher guide are appropriate to Grades 9–12 English, Grade 11 Global Issues, and Grade 12 Current Topics in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Studies classes. They are also adaptable to relevant university or college courses.

Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize: With striking originality and precision, Eden Robinson, the author of the classic Monkey Beach and winner of the Writers’ Trust of Canada Fellowship, blends humour with heartbreak in this compelling coming-of-age novel. Everyday teen existence meets indigenous beliefs, crazy family dynamics, and cannibalistic river otters . . . The exciting first novel in her trickster trilogy. Everyone knows a guy like Jared: the burnout kid in high school who sells weed cookies and has a scary mom who's often wasted and wielding some kind of weapon. Jared does smoke and drink too much, and he does make the best cookies in town, and his mom is a mess, but he's also a kid who has an immense capacity for compassion and an impulse to watch over people more than twice his age, and he can't rely on anyone for consistent love and support, except for his flatulent pit bull, Baby Killer (he calls her Baby)--and now she's dead. Jared can't count on his mom to stay sober and stick around to take care of him. He can't rely on his dad to pay the bills and support his new wife and step-daughter. Jared is only sixteen but feels like he is the one who must stabilize his family's life, even look out for his elderly neighbours. But he struggles to keep everything afloat...and sometimes he blacks out. And he puzzles over why his maternal grandmother has never liked him, why she says he's the son of a trickster, that he isn't human. Mind you, ravens speak to him--even when he's not stoned. You think you know Jared, but you don't.

Explore the past 150 years through the eyes of Indigenous creators in this groundbreaking graphic novel anthology. Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through Indigenous wonderworks, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact. This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.