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Lesson 2

We will view and listen to an oral storyteller’s version of a Native American coyote story. Then, we will build our knowledge of symbolic and repeating stories told within Native American cultures by reading and discussing an excerpt from Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko’s Storyteller.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I use questions to focus my attention on a story and its key details?

  • Can I accurately write down and summarize the narrative details of an oral storyteller’s presentation of a coyote legend?

  • Can I make valid, text-based comparisons among three legendary stories told in different forms?

Texts

Core

  • Digital Access
    • “Coyote Dances with a Star,” Joe Hayes, Joe Hayes, 2016
  • Unit Reader
    • “Introduction,” “But Sometimes What We Call ‘Memory,’” “Coyotes and the Stro’ro’ka Dancers,” excerpts from Storyteller, Leslie Marmon Silko, Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2012

Optional

  • Digital Access
    • “Native American Coyote Mythology,” Traditional Myth, Native Languages of the Americas, 2016

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Listen – Discuss

We will learn about coyote tales and how and why they reappear within and across Native American cultures.

Listen to your teacher discuss the folk genre of coyote tales and how and why they reappear within and across Native American cultures.

Activity 2: View

We will watch the folk Storyteller Joe Hayes tell the story “Coyote Dances With A Star.”

Watch "Coyote Dances with a Star" and use the following questions to guide your viewing, writing down your thoughts in your Learning Log:

  1. What story details stand out as you listen to Joe Hayes tell the story? How does his storytelling delivery influence what you notice?

  2. What does the story tell us about how Coyote came to dance with the star and why he became a "flash of white light"?

  3. What two very different impressions of Coyote’s story and fate do the other animals express?

  4. Was Coyote a fool or a hero? What evidence from the text offers the strongest support for this interpretation?

Activity 3: Discuss

As a class, we will discuss “Coyote Dances With A Star” to compare our understanding of the story’s narrative details and meaning.

Participate in a class discussion of "Coyote Dances with a Star" by sharing your responses to the questions from the last activity.

Activity 4: Listen – Discuss

We will learn about Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko and her book, Storyteller.

Listen as your teacher reads aloud about Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko and her book Storyteller.

Activity 5: Listen – Read – Write

We will listen to, read, and annotate a legendary story written in the form of a poem by Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko, from her book Storyteller.

Listen to and follow along with the read-aloud of "Coyotes and the Stro’ro’ka Dancers" from Storyteller.

During the reading, annotate the text for details about what happens to the coyotes in the story.

Consult the Annotating and Note-Taking Reference Guide for information on annotating texts.

Activity 6: Read – Discuss – Write

We will use questions to further annotate and discuss the story poem as a class.

Reread, annotate, and discuss "Coyotes and the Stro’ro’ka Dancers." Use the following questions to guide you to key details:

  1. What events does the story recount about how the coyotes tried to reach the dancers’ feast "down below in the valley"?

  2. How and why do the coyotes come to their downfall? What evidence from the text supports your response?

  3. What is the positive resolution of the coyotes' fall for the Pueblo dancers? What evidence from the text supports your response?

Share what you have identified and annotated with the class. Then discuss the following question, based on what you heard and felt while listening to the story being read dramatically:

  1. How do Silko’s poetic uses of space and line breaks create a sense of a storyteller’s voice recounting the legend?

Activity 7: Read

For homework, we will independently read Silko’s “Introduction,” using guiding questions to analyze her discussion of stories and storytelling within Laguna Pueblo culture.

In preparation for this homework reading, follow along as your teacher or one of your peers reads aloud the first two paragraphs from the introduction to Storyteller. Your teacher will discuss the concepts of narrationandnarrative structureand will show how Silko uses them to discuss the importance and experience of storytelling.

For homework, read the introductory essay added to Silko’s 2012 edition of Storyteller.

Use the questions below to analyze what Silko says about stories and storytelling within Laguna Pueblo culture. Write down key details in your Learning Log.

  1. How does Silko explain and support her opening claim that "nearly everything of consequence that we tell one another involves narration or story"?

  2. What does Silko suggest about why stories were so important in "the survival of human species"?

  3. How might we summarize what Silko is saying about her Pueblo culture when she says in Paragraph 7, "The entire culture, all the knowledge, experience, and beliefs, were kept in the human memory of the Pueblo people in the form of narratives that were told and retold from generation to generation. The people perceived themselves in the world as part of an ancient continuous story composed of innumerable bundles of other stories"?

  4. How might what Silko says about storytelling in her Pueblo culture be seen as also true for other cultures? What evidence supports your claim?

  5. What kinds of stories did Silko’s relatives tell her when she was a girl?

  6. How did the stories that Silko heard as a girl represent different aspects of her evolving culture?

  7. What might Silko mean when she concludes by claiming that "Old stories and new stories are essential"? What evidence from the text supports this interpretation?