We will start our lesson out today with this fun Cherokee Legend, "Rabbit's short tail."
This will lead us to a nice discussion about how the Native Americans did not have books and paper/pencil back then. Native Americans passed their stories or legend on by telling their stories from generation to generation. They also used rock in the form of petroglyphs and pictographs to depict stories, religion, and history. Similarly, the Northwest tribes used totem poles to depict their stories.
I will give each group or "tribe" (we are calling our groups "tribes" for this unit) a copy of a tale from their tribe. Their job will be to read the tale as a group, discuss what the main idea and details were that they need to be sure to include in their retell, and then use the remainder of the time to practice the tale which they will include in their presentations to the class on their Native American tribe. We are focusing on the five major tribes from the Utah area. You could easily adapt this unit to include tribes form your area.
As the tribes are working on their tales, I will walk around and assist groups when needed and try to keep the groups focused on the task at hand.