Connected To Everything is a short story from the prestigious Teaching Tolerance magazine. the short, powerful narrative reveals a mother's pain as she must try to comfort her children after a forced move. The speaker is an unnamed Salish woman leaving her tribal home in the Bitterroot Valley for the Flathead Reservation in the Jocko. In just a few paragraphs, the author captures the importance of place in her writing, clearly delineating the many ways the character is connected to her homeland.
In my full-title school, many (if not most) of my students have had lives disrupted with frequent moves. My students will probably readily identify with the experience of being uprooted. Students could take segments of the piece and arrange them into a "Found Poem" as a close reading exercise, similar to the "Word Mover" tool that can be found on the ReadWriteThink site. The Word Mover tool uses Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, but the "Connected To Everything" story uses equally powerful words, and would be more easily understood by my students.
The students would enjoy the process of seeking out the most powerful segments, copying, pasting, arranging and formatting. Along the way, they would learn valuable text editing skills too!
For older students and adults, the short film The Worst Thing They Ever Done offers a sobering overview of how the Indian Allotment Act affected the residents of the Flathead Reservation. The testimonials of Tribal elders echo the sentiments of the speaker in Connected To Everything, and illustrate the pain and injustice inflicted upon the tribe. The film does end on a positive and hopeful note, as much of the lands are slowly being regained by the Tribe.
For older students and adults, the short film The Worst Thing They Ever Done offers a sobering overview of how the Indian Allotment Act affected the residents of the Flathead Reservation. The testimonials of Tribal elders echo the sentiments of the speaker in Connected To Everything, and illustrate the pain and injustice inflicted upon the tribe. The film does end on a positive and hopeful note, as much of the lands are slowly being regained by the Tribe.
i was trying to find a segment that might be used with young learners. I am thinking that the segment at about 12:00 might work to accompany the Connected To Everything piece, as it really drives home the idea that the indians "were not the visitors" although they were made to feel as if they were. The map above shows the regrettable loss of native lands due to the allotment act.
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