Dynamic dialect: Horace Kephart and Our Southern Highlanders

Students will read an excerpt from Horace Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders and explore how language and dialect have changed over the years.

A lesson plan for grades 8–10 English Language Arts

By Billie Clemens

Learn more

• Do You Speak American?: Smoky Mountain Speech This is an excellent and scholarly site through PBS and will give the reader an excellent background on Smoky Mountain dialect.

Related pages

• North Carolina Cherokee Indians: The Trail of Tears: In this two week unit, students will study the Cherokee by participating in literature circles, learning about Native American story telling, writing a letter to Andrew Jackson to protest against the Creek War, and more.
• The North Carolina mountains in the early 1900s through the writing and photography of Horace Kephart: Students will develop an understanding of daily life and culture in the mountains of North Carolina during the early 20th century through photographs and written sources; practice visual literacy skills and gain experience analyzing visual and written sources of historical information; and learn to revise their early analyses of historical sources and to synthesize the information found in different kinds of primary documents by planning a museum exhibit.
• The Craft Revival and economic change: In this lesson plan, originally published on the Craft Revival website, students will interpret photographs and artifacts as representations of western North Carolina’s economy at the turn of the century. They will also analyze historical census data and produce a visual web that will represent the changing nature of the economy of western North Carolina.

Related topics

• Learn more about American history, Appalachia, Horace Kephart, North Carolina, culture, dialects, history, language, language arts, social studies, and stories.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• describe aspects of Appalachian culture in the early 1900s. Students will analyze ways that language and dialect have changed over the years.
• become acquainted with primary source material through the use of Our Southern Highlanders.
• identify key linguistic elements that were peculiar to Southern Appalachian dialect and early 20th century authors.
• analyze key customs and traits that were unique to the Southern Appalachians.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

90 minutes

Materials/resources

• copy of Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life Among the Mountaineers
• class set of excerpt of pages 84-92 of Our Southern Highlanders by Horace Kephart (you may also use the online version)
• chalk-board and/or overhead transparencies

Technology resources

An overhead projector & blank transparencies.

Pre-activities

Teachers should become familiar with the information on dialect located on the websites listed and have read the chapter on Bear Hunting from Our Southern Highlanders.

Activities

1. Explain to students that language evolves over time. The teacher should give examples of lingo that was common in her high school years. Then ask the students for a few examples-just a few. Then lead the students into a discussion about how writing has evolved. Discuss the difference between formal and informal writing. Ask students to give one or two examples of writing informally - i.e. a note to a friend vs. an essay. Then discuss Instant Messaging or IM-ing lingo.
2. Divide the class into manageable groups of 4-5 students. Each group should select a scribe for the group. Students then will brainstorm IM lingo or terminology. Students should also list common phrases or words that have a peculiar meaning for today’s time but if read by someone 100 years from now might seem confusing.
3. Next bring the class back together and discuss the results: a member from each group may write a few of the examples on the board or a transparency.
4. Now distribute the excerpts of “Bear Hunt” to the students. Students are to read silently the selection and should underline words they do not understand. Remind students that dialect is often written phonetically.
5. Next the students should get back into their groups. Each group should compile a list of 10 words or phrases that were unique to the Southern Appalachians. Next, each group should compile a list of 5 phrases from the author that characterize the writing from that time period.
6. Bring the groups back together and discuss the selection.

Assessment

• Students may be evaluated on their class and group participation.
• Grading for group work may be done on an individual basis by having each student write their name on a slip of paper and a 100 beside it. Each time you have to call on a student to get back on task deduct 20 points from the 100. The teacher should mark out 100 and write an 80 for the first infraction and so on down the list.
• Optional closure activity: Have students write a one-two page essay describing and activity using teenage dialect and lingo.

Supplemental information

Comments

This lesson was created in conjunction with a seminar on Horace Kephart offered by the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching and NC ECHO.