LEARN NC

3.5 Cherokee language

By Lisa Hodges

Provided by The North Carolina Humanities Council.

The Cherokee Language Lesson Plans were developed by Lora Oxendine Taylor. Mrs. Taylor is a Lumbee Indian, married to a Cherokee Tribal member. She recently joined our Middle School staff as a Cherokee Language Teacher. She teaches language, culture and history to our 7th and 8th grade students. This class is mandatory for all students and continues throughout the school year.

Her lesson plans offer other North Carolina teachers an opportunity to teach Cherokee Language, Culture and History as it is currently taught in our school system.

Laura has shared the following ideas to enhance the classroom culture and increase student learning:

  • In order that students experience what their elders experienced, students may not speak English language while in class (unless there is a medical emergency) for two weeks.
  • Students must create sentences phrases in order to communicate. They must write the phrase, the response that one would expect to receive, and share orally with the class.
  • Students are required to work on their folder projects as a final grade, equal to a test grade.

Individual and group projects include:

  1. Writing animal short stories.
  2. Designing animal card invitations.
  3. Developing animal fables with original illustrations.
  4. Producing an animal game.
  5. Constructing a crossword puzzle using animal tokens.
  6. Charting out Cherokee Celestial Animals on the Celestial map.

Cherokee Clothing

Students create a book using male and female paper figures and clothing material swatches. Teacher handed out and discussed information on cultural clothing and dyes used by the Cherokee. They discussed how clothing changed from animal materials to European dress style over time.

Money, Sweets and Foods

The lesson began with a vocabulary list. The class was divided into groups of 3 – 4 to create posters using written Cherokee language for each team to present orally in Cherokee language. On Friday, a Cherokee WCU student came in to speak with the students about the importance of preserving their language and culture. The presentation was video recorded and pictures were taken of the students as they worked on their posters. The class plans to develop a DVD for a final comprehensive presentation in April 2008.

Animals

The students will use traditional animal totem cards; each student draws a card and identifies the animal totem within him or herself. The students will develop a book using drawings and phrases to present to the class in Cherokee language. The students will also locate the native constellation animal on a celestial chart.

Inspirational native cards are used in the class daily to assist students in understanding a different perspective on life and their involvement in it.