Cherokee I Poetry Project
Britney Miller
Claremont Elementary
ESL
Context
•The Social Studies goal 2.01 for grade four of the North
Carolina Standard course of student reads, “Locate and
describe American Indians in North Carolina, past and
present.” It is for this reason that the Claremont fourth
grade teams spends an extensive amount of time
researching, visiting and learning about the Cherokee
Nation.
•The field trip to the Cherokee reservation is the pinnacle
event in fourth grade, so I thought I would use this
experience as a foundation on which to build my poetry
project. I want students to be able to understand and blend
what they saw in real life on the reservation with the
information they gather from nonfiction texts and
resources.
Instructional Grouping
• Since the beginning of the semester, I introduced and used
the writer’s notebooks with my fourth grade ELL students
during our pull out classes. These students range in English
Proficiency levels. I have two fourth grade pull-out groups:
low and high. We began our poetry adventure prior to our
Cherokee project. The fourth grade students were learning
about Johnny Appleseed so I thought I would jump in head
first and use this topic as a way of introducing “I poetry” to
my students. In short, it was a miniature poetry project but
it gave the students valuable work experience in
researching, phrasing, and editing I poetry.
Instructional Grouping
Continued
• When it became time to start my Cherokee project, I had to
make a few adaptations to my current schedule. For
starters, I chose to use only one of my fourth grade groups.
This group is comprised of five students: three males and
two females. Four of the five students are Hispanic. Time
was also an issue that quickly presented itself as a problem.
Normally I serve the students twice a week for thirty
minutes. This was not an adequate amount of time for me
to marinate the students in I poetry, help teach them how
to do research, write a group poem, and then give them
sufficient time to complete their individual projects
Instructional Grouping
Continued
• So I went to the fourth grade classroom
teachers and asked to pull my “poetry
group” every day until we were able to
complete our project. One of the difficulties
of being an ESL teacher is the time
constraints we face when trying to plan a
long term project with a short time span
allotment.
Plan
• When I started my introduction to I poetry I
took an exploratory approach. I chose both
published I poetry books: Atlantic, I am the
Mummy Heb Nerfert, Dirty Laundry Pile
and Sierra as well as graduate student I
poetry listed on our class blog: “Elephant
Mother”, “Jesse Owens”, and “Blackbeard”.
Plan
Continued
• Before reading any of these I set a premise
for the students: What do these stories have
in common? What is their purpose for being
written this way? Then as I read the students
would listen for clues that would lead them
to their discovery of “I poetry”. I found this
part of the project to be the most
exhilarating.
Plan
Continued
• Here I had a tidbit of knowledge dangling over my
children’s heads waiting for them to jump up and
catch it for themselves. They were able to pick out
the patterns of “I’s” in the poem as well as decide
their narrators were in fact not the characters in the
story. It was at that point I put a name with the
face they had created. “I poetry” using the first
person format to create a poetic story of person,
character, or object either factual or fictional.
Invitation
We will read and learn about the Cherokee people. We
will take what we learn and create a Multi-genre project
on the Cherokee.
You’re invited on a quest
to find knowledge
about the
Cherokee Nation
Page 1
Project #1: I poem
We will write an I poem on the “Trail of Tears” together
then you will get to pick any Cherokee topic to write
your own.
Here are some Ideas:
-a Cherokee boy -pottery
- a blow gun
-a Cherokee girl - basket - a canoe
Page 2
Invitation
Continued
Project #2: Diary
We will use the information we researched, and our
experiences on our fieldtrip to pretend we are a
Cherokee boy or girl, and write about one day in our
lives.
Project #3: Letter
We write a letter to President Andrew Jackson telling
him what we think about how the Cherokee people
were treated.
Project #4: Recipe
We will use the foods we learned the Cherokee ate and
we will create our own recipes using one of their foods.
Page 3
Page 4
I Poetry Rubric
Pre-Assessment
• To begin our Cherokee project, I gave the students several
pre-project questions. They wrote their responses in their
writer’s notebooks knowing these questions were just to
determine a baseline for their knowledge on the topic. Prior
to writing the questions, I knew the topic of our shared
writing would be the “Trail of Tears” and I had a general
idea of what topics the students were choosing for their
individual projects. I tried to keep this in mind so that
students would be able to demonstrate a larger amount of
content knowledge growth over the course of the project’s
completion.
Pre/Post Assessment
Questions
1. Write everything you can think of that has
to do with the Cherokee people in 2
minutes.
2. What jobs do Cherokee boys do?
3. What jobs do Cherokee girls do?
4. What is the “Trail of Tears” ?
5. List any names of Cherokee people.
6. List the tools that the Cherokee make to
use every day.
Group Research
• Using books I collected from our school library and other
libraries in our county, the students and I worked
collaboratively collecting facts from the expository text
about the Trail of Tears. It was during this time that I
would read excerpts from the text and allow students the
opportunity to discover how to “weed out” the necessary
information from everything else. I would redirect the
students back to our topic to ensure they were picking the
right type of information. I also explained that not all the
facts we collected on the chart would necessarily make it
into the poem. We compiled the facts onto a bubble chart
with the Trail of Tears written in the middle and all the
facts listed around.
Shared Research-Trail of Tears
Fact Transformation
• One of the benefits of using Johnny Appleseed as a
preemptor to our Cherokee project was that I could already
apply new strategies to aid the students in areas I had just
recently seen them struggle. When they were writing
Johnny Appleseed I poems I noticed a trend where students
could collect the facts but they weren’t sure how to
transform the facts into ideas and emotions that would be
appropriate for our “I poems”. So this time I used this as
part of our group shared writing exercise.
Fact Transformation
Continued
• We used our facts bubble map and as a class transformed
the facts into ideas and sentiments that would fit into our
graphic organizer. An example of a fact transformation
would go as follows: 4,000 Cherokee Indians died on the
Trail of Tears I cried when 4,000 Cherokee died along
the way and were buried in the tiny pieces of my broken
heart. Since our perspective is from the viewpoint of the
land itself we spent a lot of time contemplating what would
be important to the land, and how the land would react to
what was going on. This worked with the poetry devices I
chose for this project: personification and onomatopoeia.
Shared Graphic Organizer
Personification
Mini Lesson
• Since the topic I chose was not human, I felt that
personification was an appropriate poetic feature to include
in one of my mini lessons. As we were transforming facts, I
stopped and we revisited the book Sierra by Diane Siebert.
As we reread the story I would stop and ask “Can a
mountain do this?” By the third stop they were able to pick
out things as I read without me first prompting them. Then
I introduced the word personification; I pointed out it had
the word person inside because it is something a person can
do, but an object or animal can’t.
Personification
Mini Lesson
• So then we went back to our graphic organizer and looked
at where we could insert personification. I was very pleased
at how naturally my students took to this poetic feature. In
the past I have seen lessons where personification was
given as a definition and then students were asked to
underline examples from a given text. The outcome of
course was exponentially different. Students were not able
to identify personification using the definition they were
given much less apply it to their own writing.
Onomatopoeia
Mini Lesson
• Another poetic feature I thought would lend
itself well to our Cherokee project was the
use of onomatopoeia. So we revisited the
book Dirty Laundry Pile, we looked
specifically at “Washing Machine”. Then I
had the students tell me what they liked the
most about the poem. They said they liked
the different funny words, they make funny
sounds”. That is when I gave them the word
onomatopoeia.
Onomatopoeia
Mini Lesson
• We then read more poems from the book and tried to pick
out any onomatopoeia like in “Crayon Dance” and
________. After the students had some time practicing
finding onomatopoeias in other poems we went back to the
graphic organizer to see if we could add any to our shared
poem. For example: I hear the galloping hooves, ba-dadomp, ba-da-domp, ba-da-domp, of the hunter’s horses as
they try to feed their starving families since the soldiers
didn’t feed them.
Shared I Poem-Draft
Shared I Poem- Published
Individual Research
• As part of the students’ individual research, I decided to use
our ESL class blog/wiki. Each student has their own wiki
page where they not only have access to research websites
but they can also write down the facts they find on both
websites and in nonfictional library texts. The first day of
student individual research was taxing because it was our
first time using the wiki/blog so we were going over the
procedures of logging in and editing our wiki pages. I felt
that using the wiki/blog during the individual research
phase not only would be of high interest to the students but
it would also provide them an opportunity to develop their
digital literacy skills.
Individual Research
• Prior to the first day of research I searched
the internet for appropriate, reliable, and
user friendly websites for the students to use
during their research. Sites that I found
useful I created links on my wiki page so all
the students would have to do was click the
hyperlink. I felt this would save a lot of time
typing in web addresses and prevent
students from getting onto a site they
shouldn’t by accident.
Individual Research
Recording Facts on Wiki
Miguel’s Wiki Facts
Cynthia’s Wiki Facts
Transforming Facts to
Graphic Organizer
Miguel’s
Graphic Organizer
Cynthia’s
Graphic Organizer
Creating First Draft
Miguel’s Blow Gun I Poem
1st Draft
Cynthia’s
Cherokee Girl I Poem
1st Draft
Editing and Redrafting I Poem
Miguel’s Blow Gun I Poem
2nd Draft
Post Test Using Projector
Post Test
I Poem
Graph Organizer Format
I see
I hear
I touch
I smell
I feel
I look
like
I want
I know
I dream
I cry
I think
I worry
I wonder
Pre Test
7
6
5
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
4
3
2
1
0
Miguel
Cynthia
Jocy
David
Post Test
8
7
6
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Miguel
Cynthia
Jocy
David
Pre/Post comparison
18
16
14
12
10
Pre Test
Post Test
8
6
4
2
0
Miguel
Cynthia
Jocy
David
Discussion of Pre/Post Test
• I was fairly surprised with the post test results.
There were several questions where students had
more information on the pre-test than the post test.
• But overall every child improved in their overall
facts from the pre to the post test. I especially
happy with the growth that both Miguel and
Cynthia have made through this project. Miguel
grew from 6 facts to 12. Cynthia grew from 11
facts to 17. That is why I chose their poems for
analysis.
Discussion of Pre/Post Test
Continued
• Since the subjects of the I poems were so diverse I
chose questions that covered most all subjects.
When I redo this project in the future, I will only
require students to answer questions regarding
their research topic.
• I was tickled most with David’s response to Q 4the trail of tears. He wrote, “it’s a long story with
lots of information”. Obviously he’s correct, I just
thought it interesting for him to make this
statement in lieu of giving any specific facts.
Miguel’s Poetry
• I have been the most amazed at Miguel’s progress
throughout this project. He has been able to research,
find facts, and create honest thoughts to demonstrate
the life of a Cherokee blow gun.
• Although his poem is not yet at the published stage, he
had 9 content units where only 8 were required.
• I especially enjoyed the emotions and concerns he
included in his poem. He did a wonderful job
embodying the desires, fears, and thoughts of a
blowgun.
Miguel’s Poetry
Continued
• Not all student could use both
onomatopoeia and personification due to
subject matter.
• Miguel used two examples of
personification.
– I cry when the Cherokee man chopped me
down and dried me and straightened me.
– I am thirsty and hot because they put a fire
under me.
Miguel’s Poetry
Continued
• Miguel used one example of onomatopoeia.
– I hear fishes flapping in the blue river, flip-flop
flip-flop, when they are swimming.
• Both uses of poetic language were used correctly in
the proper context.
Cynthia’s Poetry
• Since Cynthia’s topic, a Cherokee girl, was
already human she was unable to use
personification in her I poem.
• Due to time constraints she was only able to
complete the first draft prior to the deadline.
• She was able to include 9 content units in
her poem, with only 8 required. My most
favorite aspect of her writing was the
personality she added to it.
Cynthia’s Poetry
Continued
• One of my favorite lines
– I hear my mom scream as I come out her belly.
I am a baby girl.
•
Since Cynthia was only in the first draft stage,
she only had one example of poetic language,
onomatopoeia in her poem.
– I see all the horses galloping around me, ba-dadomp ba-da-domp. I pretend I am riding a
brown horse with my hair blowing in the wind.
Cynthia’s Poetry
Continued
• I love how Cynthia integrated what she learned in
our shared writing about the Trail of tears and her
research on the life of a Cherokee girl.
• She took those facts and transformed them into
heartfelt and genuine concerns.
– I worry about my family and my people because the
white man could kill them or do something.
– I cry because lots of Cherokee people died because of
the white man.
– I think the white men have not been fair to us because
they don’t give us nothing to eat or drink.
Overall Reflections and
Conclusions
• I have really enjoyed working on this unit with my
students. They have learned more from their
research and their writing than simply reading an
informational text.
• This unit was incredibly difficult to complete in a
non classroom atmosphere due to scheduling and
time constraints.
• I plan to publish their finished poems to our wiki.
Bibliography
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Cherokee Poetry Unit Bibliography
Bial, Raymond. (1999).The Cherokee. New York: Benchmark Books.
Claro, Nicole. (1992). The Cherokee Indians. New York: Chelsea House.
De Capua, Sarah. (2006). The Cherokee. New York: Marshall Cavendish/Benchmark.
Donlan, Leni. (2008). Cherokee Rose. Chicago: Raintree.
Elish, Dan. (2002). The Trail of Tears: the story of the Cherokee Removal. New York:
Benchmark Books.
Englar, Mary. (2006). The Cherokee and their history. Minneapolis: Compass Point.
Kent, Deborah. (2005). The Trail of Tears. New York: Children’s Press.
Lepthien, Emilie U. (1985) The Cherokee. Chicago: Children’s Press.
Lund, Bill. (1997). The Cherokee Indians. Mankato, Minn.: Bridgestone Books.
McAmis, Herb. (1999). The Cherokee. Austin, Tex.: Raintree Steck-Vaughn.
Press, Petra. (2002). The Cherokee. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point Books.
Salas, Laura P. (2003). The Trial of Tears, 1838. Mankato, Minn.: Bridgestone Books.
Sioux, Tracee. (2004). Native America Migration. New York: PowerKids Press.
Todd, Anne M. ( 2003). The Cherokee: an Independent Nation. Makato, Minn.: Bridgestone
Books.
Websites Used
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
ESL wiki/blog- http://xserve.catawba.k12.nc.us/groups/britney_miller/
NC Cherokee Reservation Website- http://www.cherokee-nc.com/
Cherokee Heritage Website- http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/
Wikipedia article- Cherokee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee
Wikipedia article- Blow gun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowgun
Wikipedia article- Basket weaving
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_weaving#Native_American_basketry
7. FAQ of Native Americans- Cherokee Peace Chiefs
http://www.bigorrin.org/cherokee_kids.htm
8. Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Website- Atta Kul Kulla
http://www.danielboonetrail.com/historicalsites.php?id=190
9. Basket weaving blog- history of basket weaving
http://cherokeebasketweaving.blogspot.com/
10. Atta Kul Kulla videohttp://www.fortboonesboroughlivinghistory.org/html/atta_kul_kulla.html