In Context

Objectives: Students will understand the importance of storytelling to Northwest tribes, be creative and develop a contextual, lesson-based story of their own.
Related Web-Activity: Awakening the Past
Subjects: Language, History, Social Studies
ELRS: Writing 2.2; History 2.2; Arts 2.1 - 2.5
Size: Classroom and small groups
Setting: Inside or outside (preferably around a campfire!)
Duration: One hour
Materials: None

Background

Teachers, discuss with your students the root of the word context (text: texere, to weave). Explain how stories are words woven in context, how good stories have no words out of context, and how words gain meaning from the history of the word's use. Tribes of the Northwest consider stories so sacred that the simple act of writing stories down deteriorates the extended meaning of the story—through the loss of the spoken dimension. Help your students understand how tribal spoken stories are highly valued, sacred messages that weave together generations of history into a seamless cultural fabric.

When anthropologists study culture it is always important for them to know the context from which the culture emerged, while also placing their findings in the context of mankind. Northwest peoples lived in a context of cold, wet winters with a bountiful sea, encompassed by vast forests, precipitous mountains and sleepy, yet periodically active, volcanoes. Even though you and I may have not have lived in the context of their world, we have similar desires, hopes and fears. While the characters and places of tribal spoken stories are always placed in the context of their unique home, they have plots and lessons common to the entire human family.

Procedure

Teachers, separate your class into groups of four. Assign one person in each group to be the 'first' and another to be the 'last'. Gather all the firsts aside and charge them with developing the setting of a story. Have them choose an environment, a setting and characters which are in context with each other. Next gather all the lasts together and charge each of them with choosing a lesson for the story: i.e., "and that is why..." Give the remaining two people from each group a copy of the story outline below, so they can begin thinking about the story structure. The firsts and lasts should develop their ideas alone.

After the firsts and lasts have created their settings and lessons, recombine the groups of four. Let all the groups separate and have them develop the plot of the story together. They must develop their story around the setting of the firsts and the final lesson of the lasts. Instruct them to have a main character who is challenged with a problem. The character should fail in the challenge three times before solving the problem. Have them be sure that each component of the outline is woven in context with the next.

Story Outline
1. setting
2. introduction of character
3. introduction of a challenge
4. first failure
5. second failure
6. third failure
7. final success
8. lesson spoken

Groups will have 30 minutes to prepare their story. When they tell their stories as a group, they may act them out or simply have a storyteller. Final stories should be no longer than 10 minutes in duration.