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Lesson 15: Braiding Sweetgrass, “Sitting in a Circle”

50 min

California CCSS: Focus Standards

California CCSS: Supporting Standards

ELD Standards

Student Lesson

Lesson 15: Braiding Sweetgrass, “Sitting in a Circle”

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Student Learning Objectives

Content

Students will analyze how Kimmerer uses examples in "Sitting in a Circle" to argue that learning comes from many sources, not just teachers and books, and how this idea connects to responsible relationships with the natural world.

Language

Students will narrate and discuss how learning from experience and the natural world shapes responsibility, using temporal sequencing, reflective language, and varied verb moods to explain how firsthand learning changes the way people relate to nature.

Foundational Skills

Students will practice fluency with a selection from “Sitting in a Circle” using a teacher’s model reading, echo reading with the class, and individual practice with a partner.

Essential Question

What does it mean to live responsibly within natural systems?

Connections to

Knowledge-Building:

Students examine what Kimmerer’s students learned about the marshlands in their fieldwork to further explore different sources of learning that can lead to stronger human relationships with nature.

Enduring Understanding:

Students analyze Kimmerer’s students’ learning and explore the idea that, when knowledge is shared between generations and worldviews, it can restore balance between people and the planet.

Future Lessons:

In Lessons 16 and 17, students will use the ACE Strategy to write informational text about Braiding Sweetgrass. Students will create oral arguments about Kimmerer’s ideas toward nature in Lesson 18.

Unit Performance Task:

Students examine the ways that other students learn firsthand about the importance of reciprocity, which students can use to inform their reciprocity research and presentations in the Performance Task.

Lesson Pacing

Lesson Flow	Purpose of Learning Experience
Launch5 Minutes	Students will discuss with a partner the connections between “Sitting in a Circle” and earlier chapters.
Literacy Lab10 Minutes	Students will practice fluency by reading an excerpt that focuses on the idea that learning can come from many sources.
Learning in Action30 Minutes	Part A: Analyzing Braiding Sweetgrass: “Sitting in a Circle” (RI.8.3) Students will work with a partner to analyze “Sitting in a Circle” using text-dependent questions. Part B: Analyzing Author’s Point of View (RI.8.6) Students will complete a graphic organizer on the different sources of learning and engage in a partner discussion about Kimmerer’s point of view about learning and deepening human relationships to nature.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary Addressed in Lesson

Not available for this lesson

Vocabulary for Additional Support

Not available for this lesson

Material List

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith, illustrations by Nicole Neidhardt
Unit 3 Lesson 15 Student Edition
Web Chart graphic organizer

Routines

Think-Pair-Share
Turn and Talk
Fluency Practice
Quick Write

Lesson Sequence

Fluency Practice

Say these Directions: We are going to practice reading fluently, which means reading clearly and with meaning. We will do this using a passage from the chapter “Sitting in a Circle” in Braiding Sweetgrass. In this passage, Kimmerer’s students debate what they owe to the marshlands after taking so many plants.

First Reading (Modeling): Present paragraphs two through four of the section “Gratitude and Reciprocity” on p. 205, starting with the paragraph “Claudia asks, 'I don’t mean this to sound disrespectful . . .” and ending with the sentence “The others groan and then look at me, waiting for a reaction.” Model reading the paragraphs fluently; then lead a brief class discussion on the gist of the paragraphs.

Ask: What is the gist of these two paragraphs?
- Students are debating what they “owe” the marshlands in exchange for taking cattails and other plants, showing that they are learning about issues like gratitude and reciprocity as they study plants in the field.

Second Reading (Guided Practice): Explain that you are going to read the paragraphs a second time as a class so you can better pay attention to why the author is telling this story here and what she is trying to say by including it. Have the class echo-read the paragraph; then ask the following discussion question:

Ask: What is the author trying to say by telling this story?
- The author is trying to say that learning can occur in many places, not just books and classrooms, and the debate about gratitude and reciprocity happening in the marshlands is a great example of how effective it can be.

Say these Directions: Third Reading (Independent Practice): Read the paragraphs one more time to practice your fluency. Take turns reading and providing feedback with your partner.

Students partner-read the text.
- Partner A reads. Partner B provides feedback.
- Partner B reads. Partner A provides feedback.

Connection to Today’s Learning

Say: Today, we’ll continue exploring Kimmerer’s trip to the marsh with her students. We’ll look at how the experience shows that learning can come from many places—not just classrooms and books—and how these lessons can lead to more responsible relationships with nature.

Part A: Analyzing Braiding Sweetgrass: “Sitting in a Circle” (RI.8.3) (15 minutes)

Tell students to choose a partner to discuss the key sections of “Sitting in a Circle” in Braiding Sweetgrass (pp. 191–207).

Turn-and-Talk

Instruct students to take out their copies of Braiding Sweetgrass and display the questions. Explain to students that they will skim the chapter and use their homework annotations to discuss the questions below.

Say these Directions: Skim “Sitting in a Circle” and use your homework annotations to discuss the following questions with your partner. Go back and reread key parts of the text as you talk through the questions, and take some notes on each question. You can use these notes to help you in the next part of the lesson.

What different sources of learning does Kimmerer describe in this chapter?
- She mentions building the wigwam and considering “this design,” analyzing its shape and cultural importance (p. 194), going shopping “at the marsh” (p. 194) to gather plants, discussing the plants’ uses, and debating the students’ impact and their debt to the environment in return. The different sources of the learning are more experiential.
How does Kimmerer contrast "sitting in a circle" with traditional Western school-based education?
- She talks about all the ideas you learn from literally sitting in a circle in the wigwam, including the advantages of the shape itself as well as its cultural meaning. For example, she says “the sun will show them” the significance of having the entrance face east so they can greet the dawn each day (p. 194). So students are learning the significance of these experiences instead of just reading about wigwams in a book.
According to Kimmerer, what does learning from the natural world teach us that books and teachers cannot?
- She talks about what students do and don’t know from classroom education, saying, “The students come already knowing a lot about ecosystems and can identify an impressive list of plants. But when I ask how these plants take care of them, they cannot say.” (p. 192) It seems like she’s saying what you learn from the natural world is more about your relationship with an ecosystem rather than just naming the different parts of it. Additionally, Kimmerer also mentions that “plants are our oldest teachers, why not let them teach?” (p. 201), which demonstrates that she believes the strongest teaching comes from the natural world rather than learning from human teachers and books.
How does Kimmerer connect learning from nature to establishing responsible relationships with the natural world?
- By having the students gather materials from the marsh, she also gets them to think about that process in terms of gratitude and reciprocity, leading to a debate about what exactly they “owe” the marsh for what they took and how they can pay it back. “When we really think about it, we just shoplifted at the swamp,” a student says on p. 205. This shows how learning directly from nature can help you change the way you think about your relationship with it as a human and how that relationship could be more responsible.

Circulate through the room as students work, asking pairs to briefly share their answers to the questions.

PURPOSE

Support students in analyzing how Kimmerer presents learning as emerging from multiple sources, including place, lived experience, community dialogue, and the natural world.

SAY / ASK

Push students to move beyond listing sources of learning and toward explaining what each source teaches.

Encourage students to compare experiential learning with classroom learning precisely.

Prompt students to use reflective language to explain how the students’ understanding changes in the marsh.

Recast list-like answers into analytical comparisons: “They learn from the marsh and from discussion” → “Kimmerer shows that students learn from direct experience in the marsh and from reflecting together in discussion, not only from formal instruction.”

Strengthen comparisons with connectors: while, unlike, instead of, in contrast, because of this.

Expand reflective responses: “This helped them see . . .” “This changed their understanding of . . .”

“One source of learning Kimmerer describes is ___.”

“She contrasts ___ with ___ by showing ___.”

“According to Kimmerer, learning from nature teaches ___.”

“This matters because ___.”

“The experience in the marsh helped students realize ___.”

Treat students’ own experience-based learning as valuable background knowledge.

Encourage students to compare the text’s ideas with times they learned something more deeply by doing rather than reading alone.

WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

If students only identify classroom vs. marsh, prompt: “What exactly can the marsh teach that a book cannot?”

If students answer TDQ 4 too vaguely, redirect them to the “Gratitude and Reciprocity” section.

If students list examples without explanation, prompt: “How does that example change the way humans think about nature?”

Student names multiple sources of learning accurately.

Student compares experiential and classroom learning.

Student explains how this learning supports responsible relationships with nature.

Teacher Tip
Encourage students to think about the difference between reading or learning about something in a classroom and experiencing it firsthand. You may want to ask students to recall a time when they learned something from a firsthand or experiential experience, what the value of that was, and how it was different from learning the same idea or information from a different source.

Situation	Try this
Struggling with: Connecting Learning from Different Sources to Responsible Relationships with Nature	Direct students toward the section labeled “Gratitude and Reciprocity” (p. 205) and ask specific questions to scaffold their analysis. Ex. What are the students debating here? How did their learning from the marshlands help lead to this debate? How does the debate relate to Kimmerer’s broad ethical ideas about gratitude, reciprocity, and responsible relationships between humans and the natural world?
Ready for extension	Ask: What would you say if you were one of the students participating in the debate described in the “Gratitude and Reciprocity” section? What experiences would help you decide what to say? I would say that we do owe the marshlands something for taking the plants, and what we owe them is to help protect them and keep them healthy. I think my experience of being out there, wading in the water and gathering plants, would help me see how important the marshland is and why we need to protect it.

Pulse Check (RI.8.3)
How does Kimmerer contrast what students do and don’t know about the marsh ecosystem from classroom learning alone? She says they know a lot about other ecosystems and how they work, but not how the marsh ecosystem works specifically. Incorrect: She says that they do know a lot about the marsh ecosystem, but not about how they, as human beings, relate to it. She says they know about individual plants and how they grow, but not how those plants are related within the marsh ecosystem. Incorrect: She specifically says that they do know a lot about the ecosystem and says what they don’t understand is their own relationship to it. She says they know a lot about how the ecosystem is threatened and why this is important, but not how it is threatened. Incorrect: She focuses on the fact that they know about the ecosystem but not how they relate to it, so if anything, they know how it is threatened but not why this is important. She says they know a lot about the different plants and how they are related, but not how they can help us. Correct: She contrasts their knowledge of plants and their ecosystem with the ignorance of their own relationships to the ecosystem as humans.

Pulse Check (RI.8.3)

How does Kimmerer contrast what students do and don’t know about the marsh ecosystem from classroom learning alone?

She says they know a lot about other ecosystems and how they work, but not how the marsh ecosystem works specifically.
- Incorrect: She says that they do know a lot about the marsh ecosystem, but not about how they, as human beings, relate to it.
She says they know about individual plants and how they grow, but not how those plants are related within the marsh ecosystem.
- Incorrect: She specifically says that they do know a lot about the ecosystem and says what they don’t understand is their own relationship to it.
She says they know a lot about how the ecosystem is threatened and why this is important, but not how it is threatened.
- Incorrect: She focuses on the fact that they know about the ecosystem but not how they relate to it, so if anything, they know how it is threatened but not why this is important.
She says they know a lot about the different plants and how they are related, but not how they can help us.
- Correct: She contrasts their knowledge of plants and their ecosystem with the ignorance of their own relationships to the ecosystem as humans.

Part B: Analyze the Author’s Point of View (RI.8.6) (15 minutes)

Display a Web Chart graphic organizer for the class with the center bubble labeled “Sources of Learning.”

Explain that you will use the Web Chart to help students map the different sources of learning described in “Sitting in a Circle” in Braiding Sweetgrass.

Say these Directions: In the middle of your chart, write “Sources of Learning.” Think about the sources of learning that Kimmerer describes in the chapter. Map them in the chart.

Instruct students to independently complete the web chart, outlining the different sources of learning described in “Sitting in a Circle.”

After students have a few minutes to complete the web organizer, lead a whole-class discussion to ensure that students have named all the sources of learning in the chapter.

- [circle 1] classrooms and books
- [circle 2] on-site observation with equipment
- [circle 3] direct interaction with nature
- [circle 4] hands-on experience
- [circle 5] discussion and debate
Say: As Kimmerer describes each of the sources of learning, she shares her perspectives and opinions regarding them. Sometimes she states her point of view directly. Other times, the reader must infer her point of view based on the information she provides.

Turn-and-Talk

Transition students into partners. Have students refer to their web charts and the text as they discuss the following questions with their partners.

Say these Directions: Work with a partner and use your web chart and the text to discuss the following questions about Kimmerer’s point of view.

On p. 192, the author writes, “The students come already knowing a lot about ecosystems and can identify an impressive list of plants. But when I ask how these plants take care of them, they cannot say.” What can you infer about Kimmerer’s point of view of classroom and book education from her observation?
- These lines suggest that Kimmerer believes that there is knowledge to be gained from classrooms and books, but that knowledge is actually less important than an authentic understanding of our relationship with plants. For example, she implies that knowing the “Latin names” does not necessarily allow people to purposefully interact with the plants in a way that helps them know “the beings themselves” (p. 192).
Kimmerer writes, “The value of greeting the dawn is not yet part of their thinking, but the sun will show them.” (p. 194) What does this comment tell you about Kimmerer’s perspective on the natural world?
- Kimmerer talks about the sun as if it will play the role of a teacher. With this reference, the author shows that she respects nature as an equal or perhaps even more important than a human teacher. Instead of telling the students or explaining the “value of greeting the dawn,” she allows nature itself to teach the students and build a relationship with them (p. 194).
What does Kimmerer hope her students learn at the Cranberry Lake Biological Station? How does she support the students’ learning? How is this goal different than the goal of classrooms and books?
- Kimmerer wants her students to develop their own personal relationships with the natural world. She supports their learning by providing hands-on experiences that change students’ minds. For example, Natalie first notes that the cattail is “slimy” (p. 197). As a result of her interaction with the plant, she comes to understand that “it’s almost as if the plants made these things for us.” (p. 198) Kimmerer models reciprocity and respect when they go to the forest to gather roots. She explains, “First we give; then we take.” (p. 202) The goal of classrooms and books usually focuses on the acquisition of facts, whereas Kimmerer’s goal is the establishment of a way of life that involves respecting and honoring nature by developing an authentic relationship with nature.

After partners have discussed the questions, lead a whole-class discussion in which students volunteer their ideas.

PURPOSE

Support students in describing how Kimmerer’s examples show that learning can come from many sources—including observation, shared discussion, and experiences in nature—and how these experiences shape people’s relationships with the natural world.

SAY / ASK

Encourage students to refer to specific examples from the text, such as sitting in a circle, observing plants, or gathering roots in the marsh.

Help students clearly compare different learning environments, including the one Kimmerer describes and those they have experienced in school.

Guide students in explaining why these differences in learning environments matter, not just how they are different.

Use the Web Chart to help students identify multiple sources of learning.

Recast reactions into analytical observations: “They learn outside” → “Students learn through direct experience in the natural environment.” “In Kimmerer’s description . . . , while in many classrooms . . .” “Both learning environments . . . , but they are different because . . .”

Support explanations with linking phrases: “This example shows that . . .” “As a result . . .” “Because of this . . .”

“One example of learning in the chapter is ___.”

“Kimmerer shows that students learn by ___.”

“In the chapter, students learn by ___, while in many classrooms students learn by ___.”

“This difference matters because ___.”

“A responsible relationship with nature requires ___.”

Encourage students to connect the ideas in the text to their own learning experiences in school, at home, or in their communities.

Reinforce that people can learn through discussion, observation, and hands-on experiences and that different ways of learning can all contribute to understanding the natural world.

WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

If students summarize the text only, prompt: “How does this example show that learning can come from more than one source?

If students struggle to compare learning environments, use a frame: “In Kimmerer’s chapter, students learn by ___, but in many classrooms students ___.”

If students make simple observations, prompt deeper thinking: “What does this example help students understand about nature?”

Student identifies a specific example of learning from the text.

Student compares different learning environments.

Student explains how learning through experience or observation can shape people’s understanding of the natural world.

Provide students with a confidence continuum (i.e., 1–5). As needed, model how to demonstrate a level of confidence using the continuum.

Reflection
Self-reflect on the discussion you just completed. Assess how confident you are in your ability to compare different ways of learning, such as the environment Kimmerer describes and the classrooms you have experienced, using the Reflection routine. How confident are you in your ability to compare different ways of learning, such as the environment Kimmerer describes and the classrooms you have experienced?

Reflection

Self-reflect on the discussion you just completed. Assess how confident you are in your ability to compare different ways of learning, such as the environment Kimmerer describes and the classrooms you have experienced, using the Reflection routine.

How confident are you in your ability to compare different ways of learning, such as the environment Kimmerer describes and the classrooms you have experienced?

Lesson Materials

(1 total)

Web Chart264 KB

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Status updates

California CCSS: Focus Standards

California CCSS: Supporting Standards

ELD Standards

Student Learning Objectives

Essential Question

Connections to

Lesson Pacing

Vocabulary

Vocabulary Addressed in Lesson

Vocabulary for Additional Support

Lesson Sequence

Think-Pair-Share

Fluency Practice

🎯PURPOSE

🗣️SAY / ASK

👁️WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

Part A: Analyzing Braiding Sweetgrass: “Sitting in a Circle” (RI.8.3) (15 minutes)

Turn-and-Talk

🎯PURPOSE

🗣️SAY / ASK

👁️WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

Pulse Check (RI.8.3)

Part B: Analyze the Author’s Point of View (RI.8.6) (15 minutes)

Turn-and-Talk

🎯PURPOSE

🗣️SAY / ASK

👁️WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

Reflection

Quick Write

Lesson Materials

PURPOSE

SAY / ASK

WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

PURPOSE

SAY / ASK

WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED

PURPOSE

SAY / ASK

WATCH FOR / SUPPORT IF NEEDED