I think I survived a big mistake…
The week before last in Introduction to American Culture and Literature, I forgot to hand out to the students "The Girl and the Chenoo" story for homework, so I was freaking out and entertaining various ways to salvage the situation, like putting 120 sets of the story in my office door box for students to come get and asking another teacher to tell his Introduction to Linguistics class the message, or reading the first part of the story in class with the students last Wednesday and then having them read the rest for homework, etc. etc. Finally, I thought to tell them the story in class and then give them the paper copy to read for homework to check their listening etc., and that's what I did. So I made my own script, shortening the story but keeping all essential things and simplifying some things and adding a few touches of my own, and I found some images to have Aki my stellar TA show on the screen at certain points (moose, bear with two cubs, two deer, mountain lion, scary tracks, lodge, two cover illustrations for the story one with Little listener the heroine but not the Chenoo monster, the other with the Chenoo but not Little Listener, and a pic of Chief Dan George to illustrate the old man with long white hair and kind eyes that the monster becomes. And then I practiced by going through the script and tightening or clarifying it, and then practicing it in the shower Wednesday morning and walking to school that morning and so on. AND I did it in class! I told them I was going to tell them an Indian story for girls because after all Indians originally didn't have written stories but oral ones, and then I felt guilty for making it seem like it was my intention from the start and told them the real reason was that I'd forgotten to give them the story for homework the week before, and we could laugh about it, mostly. And I introduced the story by going over some key vocabulary etc. and by telling them that one column of desk/chair people would be responsible for saying something interesting about Little Listener after the story, one column for saying something about the Chenoo, one column for saying something about the theme/message of the story, and one column for saying something about their impression of the story (I was attempting to focus their listening and make them pay attention, and it mostly worked, I think, apart from the usual students who usually fall asleep in class and can't understand my English anyway.) And then I did it! I made a few mistakes but almost got it right, and I think the students could enjoy and I could enjoy their enjoying, parts like Little Listener greeting the giant cannibal monster Chenoo as "Grandfather" and inviting him in her lodge to eat stew and sleep, and the monster calling her "Granddaughter" and deciding not to eat her now that she and he were family, and the ending when the Chenoo exits the big sweat lodge sweated down to old man size and then coughs out his icy monster heart in the shape of a man so Little Listener can pick it up and throw it in the fire to melt it and enable him to stay human shape forever. And then Little Listener and her brothers brought their grandfather back to their village, and they were still living there happily together the last time I visited them! The next Day Aki said it was a good idea and impressive (to her anyway), and seemed like "kami shibai" (an old Japanese form of entertainment where traveling guys would tell stories to kids while showing them different pictures to illustrate the stories). And a few students have posted comments on our class blog to say they liked doing a story telling like that and like the story itself, etc. So... I might start doing it that way every year!
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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