Teacher Guide For A Girl Called Echo

The A Girl Called Echo series tells the story of Métis teenager Echo Desjardins, who is struggling to adjust to a new school and a new home while in foster care. Readers follow Echo as she travels through time and experiences pivotal events from Métis history, gains new perspectives about where she came from, and imagines what the future might hold. Written by Anishinaabe educator Reuben Boulette, the Teacher Guide for A Girl Called Echo includes lesson plans specific to each book in the A Girl Called Echo series original articles outlining the history of the Métis Nation and their fight for sovereignty in-depth reading activities that engage students’ critical thinking skills activities that introduce students to the critical study of graphic novels and sequential art This teacher guide will engage students’ understanding of Métis history and culture and encourage reflection on the importance of learning Indigenous histories.

Echo Desjardins, a 13-year-old Métis girl adjusting to a new home and school, is struggling with loneliness while separated from her mother. Then an ordinary day in Mr. Bee’s history class turns extraordinary, and Echo’s life will never be the same. During Mr. Bee’s lecture, Echo finds herself transported to another time and place—a bison hunt on the Saskatchewan prairie—and back again to the present. In the following weeks, Echo slips back and forth in time. She visits a Métis camp, travels the old fur-trade routes, and experiences the perilous and bygone era of the Pemmican Wars. Pemmican Wars is the first graphic novel in a new series, A Girl Called Echo, by Governor General Award–winning writer, and author of Highwater Press’ The Seven Teaching Stories, Katherena Vermette.

Written by Anishinaabe educator Reuben Boulette, this guide includes lesson plans specific to each book in the A Girl Called Echo series original articles about the history of the Métis Nation and their fight for sovereignty activities that introduce students to the critical study of graphic novels and sequential art

Echo Desjardins just can't stop slipping back and forth in time. In Northwest Resistance, Echo travels to 1885, a period of turmoil. The bison are gone, settlers from the East are arriving daily, and the Métis and First Nations of the Northwest face hunger and uncertainty as their traditional way of life is threatened. The Canadian government has ignored their petitions, but hope rises when Louis Riel returns to help. However, battles between Canadian forces and the Métis and their allies lead to defeat at Batoche. Through it all, Echo gains new perspectives about where she came from and what the future may hold.

In Road Allowance Era, Echo’s story picks up again when she travels back in time to 1885. The government has not fulfilled its promise of land for the Métis, and many flee to the Northwest. As part of the fallout from the Northwest Resistance, their advocate and champion Louis Riel is executed. As new legislation corrodes Métis land rights, and unscrupulous land speculators and swindlers take advantage, many Métis settle on road allowances and railway land, often on the fringes of urban centres. For Echo, the plight of her family is apparent. Burnt out of their home in Ste. Madeleine, they make their way to Rooster Town, a shanty community on the southwest edges of Winnipeg. In this final instalment of her story, Echo is reminded of the strength and resilience of her people, forged through the loss and pain of the past, as she faces a triumphant future.

This teacher's guide is designed to help classroom teacher's use the graphic novel series, Tales From Big Spirit, by David Alexander Robertson. The guide provides detailed lessons that meet a wide range of language arts and social studies goals, integrate Indigenous perspectives, and make curricular content more accessible to diverse learners. It is organized into three sections. The first section includes: general instructional ideas for deepening readers' comprehension of text. a framework to further develop students' thinking about history. information about aspects of graphic novels and how to use them in the classroom. The second section includes: specific instructional ideas and suggestions. an overview. detailed teaching and learning sequences (before-, during-, and after-reading format). The appendix includes: strategies and reproducible classroom materials that support and stimulate student learning. historical images that may be reproduced.

Social action art in book form, Perception: A Photo Series encourages readers to look, and then look again. Tired of reading negative and disparaging remarks directed at Indigenous people of Winnipeg in the press and social media, artist KC Adams created a photo series that presented another perspective. Called “Perception Photo Series,” it confronted common stereotypes of First Nation, Inuit and Métis people to illustrate a more contemporary truthful story. First appearing on billboards, in storefronts, in bus shelters, and projected onto Winnipeg’s downtown buildings, Adam’s stunning photographs now appear in the book, Perception: A Photo Series. Meant to challenge the culture of apathy and willful ignorance about Indigenous issues, Adams hopes to unite readers in the fight against prejudice of all kinds. Perception is one title in The Debwe Series.

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.