Sarah Records | Content Area Literacy

Mini Unit on Native American Culture

Introduction:
This math lesson would be a part of a unit on Native American Culture (then and now). I have chosen a recipe I found on a blog called Native American Recipes, created by James Buel. It is a modern recipe for pecan cookies that is in an entry entitled “Food on the Reservation.” I wanted to use a recipe that Native American people use today to emphasize modern Native American culture because I think that aspect is often overlooked in classrooms.

Lesson Summary:
My activity would be to first have the students get into groups of three or four and plan a party (number of guests, who they would invite, when and where, etc.). I would then give them the pecan cookie recipe and have them change the yield so that they would also have to change the amounts of ingredients in the recipe (depending on how many they need for their party). They would then rewrite the recipe on a provided recipe card. This activity would require the students to use multiplication and division skills in a meaningful way that they can connect to a real-life situation (TEKS 111.17.b.3).

I chose this group work strategy for this text because I felt like having other students to work through this activity with would be a good way to provide scaffolding for students who may find the activity daunting at first. I think recipes may not be as familiar to some students as others, so I would also use heterogeneous grouping.

Text:

Wild Pecan Cookies

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 ½ cups ground pecans

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat the butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually beat in the flour and pecans. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. Place the balls, 2 inches apart, on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10 to12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool on the pans for 2 minutes. Remove from the pans and place on wire racks. Sift the confectioners’ sugar over the cookies while still warm. Cool completely.

Yield: makes about 31

One Great Text: Article from Teaching Kids News

The One Great Text I shared is an article entitled “Gloomy Underpass Transformed Into Awesome Kids’ Park” that I found on the website, TeachingKidsNews.com. This website is a great resource that provides articles on current events written in language understandable to elementary-age children. I shared this particular article because I hoped it would be interesting to my case study participant. The article is about an amusement park that was built underneath an underpass in Toronto, Canada. I would use this article in a science lesson about the different careers that scientists go into, such as engineers that help build parks like the one in the article (TEKS 3D).

When I read this article to my student, he said that he thought it was interesting because it reminded him of “parks that are really beautiful” and you can see “the cool stuff.” He also liked the picture provided because “it looks really familiar” like the underpasses in Austin.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes on Prezi

Langston Hughes is a famous poet and a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement that occurred between the 1920s and 30s. His poems have a rhythmic sound and are often easy to read aloud (which will be very useful to me as a teacher). Many of his poems and other writings portray racial relationships in the US and can easily be used in a social studies lesson about the civil rights movement (TEKS 5C). Enjoy!

Snippet: Crazy Loco by David Rice

These short stories are loosely based on Rice’s own childhood as a Mexican American in South Texas. I selected this text for my snippet because it takes place in a culture I am not very familiar with. In my future classroom, I want to be able to show children that people like them can be amazing writers too, and this is just one text from a different culture that I plan on sharing one day with my students. This book could easily be used for English/Language Arts or Social Studies.

Here’s a snippet out of the story “She Flies”:

“I pulled the door open, and the sound of hundreds of singing birds wept away the shouts of my parents. The parakeets flew out, and I felt as if I were floating in a rainbow. They swirled around me, their feathers grazing my face, chest, shoulders, and arms. I wanted to float away with them. I could hear them whispering to me as they darted by. I lifted my arms and stood on the tips of my toes, wondering if I was about to fly. The birds swooped into the trees of Tía’s backyard, singing happily. Pájaro, on his kite string, sang too. And Tía Mana dropped the water hose and put her arms up, as if she were trying to embrace the flying colors. She was laughing, and he laugh was the same pitch as the singing birds. (p79-80)”

Sarah Records