INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND
PERSONAL IDENTITY
Literary Circles
WHAT ARE LITERATURE CIRCLES?
Literature Circles are small student-led group
discussions in which each group member has a
specific role and has prepared for the discussion
according to that role.
 For our class we are splitting into several
different literature circles. Most circles will be
reading a different book than the others; in total
we will cover 3 novels
 At times there may be other mediums to
consider, such as related poetry, videos, news
broadcasts, research, etc.
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LITERATURE CIRCLE ROLES
1.
Discussion Director:
Your job is to write down questions for your
discussion.
 These questions should be open-ended (not "yes/no"
questions) and designed to spark interesting
discussion.
 During the discussion, your should encourage all
group members to participate
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2.
Summarizer: Your job is to write a half-page
summary covering all the important events from the
assigned reading and explaining why these events
were significant. How did they change the characters?
How did they develop themes?
LITERATURE CIRCLE ROLES CONTINUED
3. Connector:
Your job is to find at least four connections between the
story and the world/present.
 These connections might relate to current events, personal
experiences, movies or other books, or anything else that
relates to the story in some way.

4. Illustrator:
Your job is to create or find an image that relates to the
assigned reading. Consider drawing a picture, downloading
images from the internet, creating a collage, etc.
 You will write an explanation of how the image relates to
the reading (one full paragraph) and devise a question for
discussion relating to the image.

LITERATURE CIRCLES ROLES CONTINUED
5. Literary Luminary:
Your job is to compile at least three quotations or
passages from the reading that you think are
significant or include interesting/poetic language.
 For each quote, write a few lines discussing what the
quote means and what role it plays in the story (3-4
lines per quote ).

SPECIFIC LEARNING OUTCOMES
(GRADE 11 CURRICULUM)
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(1.1.1) Express Ideas: Weigh and assess the validity of a
range of ideas, observations, opinions, and emotions to
reconsider and/ or reaffirm positions.
(1.1.2) Consider Others’ Ideas: Students will seek others’
responses through a variety of means to clarify and rework
ideas and positions
(1.2.1) Develop Understanding: Students will be taught to
expand and develop their understanding of the text
according to new knowledge, ideas, experiences, and the
responses gathered from other classmates.
(3.1.2) Ask Questions: Explore and question the imagined
worlds of texts from a variety of perspectives to understand
them and bring them to life.
(4.1.1) Generate Ideas: Generate, evaluate, and select
ideas to focus and clarify a topic and perspective
appropriate for audience, purpose and context
OUR BOOK TITLES
Broken Circle by Theodore Fontaine
 Half-Breed by Maria Campbell
 Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

BROKEN CIRCLE BY THEODORE FONTAINE
Book Trailer
Theodore (Ted) Fontaine lost his family and freedom just after his seventh
birthday, when his parents were forced to leave him at an Indian residential
school by order of the Roman Catholic Church and the Government of Canada.
Twelve years later, he left school frozen at the emotional age of seven. He was
confused, angry and conflicted, on a path of self-destruction. At age 29, he
emerged from this blackness. By age 32, he had graduated from the Civil
Engineering Program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and begun a
journey of self-exploration and healing.
In this powerful and poignant memoir, Ted examines the impact of his
psychological, emotional and sexual abuse, the loss of his language and culture,
and, most important, the loss of his family and community. He goes beyond details
of the abuses of Native children to relate a unique understanding of why most
residential school survivors have post-traumatic stress disorders and why
succeeding generations of First Nations children suffer from this dark chapter in
history.
Told as remembrances described with insights that have evolved through his
healing, his story resonates with his resolve to help himself and other residential
school survivors and to share his enduring belief that one can pick up the
shattered pieces and use them for good.
HALF-BREED BY MARIA CAMPBELL
"I write this for all of you, to tell you what it is like to be a Halfbreed
woman in our country. I want to tell you about the joys and sorrows, the
oppressing poverty, the frustration and the dreams. . . . I am not bitter. I
have passed that stage. I only want to say: this is what it was like, this
is what it is still like.“
For Maria Campbell, a Métis ("Halfbreed") in Canada, the brutal
realities of poverty, pain, and degradation intruded early and followed
her every step. Her story is a harsh one, but it is told without bitterness
or self-pity. It is a story that begins in 1940 in northern Saskatchewan
and moves across Canada's West, where Maria roamed in the rootless
existence of day-to-day jobs, drug addiction, and alcoholism. Her path
strayed ever near hospital doors and prison walls.
It was Cheechum, her Cree great-grandmother, whose indomitable spirit
sustained Maria Campbell through her most desperate times.
Cheechum's stubborn dignity eventually led the author to take pride in
her Métis heritage, and Cheechum's image inspired her in her drive for
her own life, dignity; and purpose.
THREE DAY ROAD BY JOSEPH BOYDEN
Set in Canada and the battlefields of France and Belgium, Three-Day Road is a
mesmerizing novel told through the eyes of Niska—a Canadian Oji-Cree woman
living off the land who is the last of a line of healers and diviners—and her
nephew Xavier.
At the urging of his friend Elijah, a Cree boy raised in reserve schools, Xavier joins
the war effort. Shipped off to Europe when they are nineteen, the boys are
marginalized from the Canadian soldiers not only by their native appearance but
also by the fine marksmanship that years of hunting in the bush has taught them.
Both become snipers renowned for their uncanny accuracy. But while Xavier
struggles to understand the purpose of the war and to come to terms with his
conscience for the many lives he has ended, Elijah becomes obsessed with killing,
taking great risks to become the most accomplished sniper in the army.
Eventually the harrowing and bloody truth of war takes its toll on the two friends
in different, profound ways. Intertwined with this account is the story of Niska,
who herself has borne witness to a lifetime of death—the death of her people.
In part inspired by the legend of Francis Pegahmagabow, the great Indian sniper
of World War I, Three-Day Road is an impeccably researched and beautifully
written story that offers a searing reminder about the cost of war.