Lesson 14: Braiding Sweetgrass, “In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place”

Think-Pair-Share

Instruct students to take out their copies of Braiding Sweetgrass.

• Lesson 13 Homework: Students were instructed to read the chapter “In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place” in Braiding Sweetgrass (pp. 178–189) and annotate for the lessons Nanabozho learns about living with nature in their Journal.

Remind students that this chapter focuses on a mythical story that teaches a moral lesson. Remind students of the fables they read at the beginning of Unit 8.2 to learn about allegory. Summarize “The Hare and the Tortoise” and “The Fox and the Crow” to remind students of these stories. Next, instruct students to do a Think-Pair-Share.

Say these Directions: Think about how “The Hare and the Tortoise” and “The Fox and the Crow” from Unit 8.2 both teach a moral lesson. Then turn to your partner and discuss the moral each story teaches and the way the story shows the moral. Be prepared to share your thoughts with the class.

• “The Hare and the Tortoise” taught a moral lesson about arrogance and believing you are better than others. “The Fox and the Crow” teaches a moral lesson about believing flattery or being self-absorbed.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Today, you’ll analyze how the author uses the Nanabozho story to develop her ideas and show how deeply important those ideals are to her Indigenous culture.

Give One, Get One

Say these Directions: Review the words vigorous, thrive, sustain, and restore. All of these words appeared in a part of Braiding Sweetgrass that you read during this unit.

Review Target Words: Present the four previous target words to students and briefly review them and their definitions.

• vigorous: full of life

• thrive: to grow or develop well

• sustain: to cause something to continue for a long time without interruption.

• restore: to bring something back that has been previously taken away or depleted

Instruct students to work with a partner to create scenarios associated with the target words and their meaning.

Create Scenarios: Take turns posing the following questions to each other and creating a response that helps illustrate the meaning of the target word. Repeat as time allows.

• Partner A: What would a vigorous plant look like?

• Partner B: What conditions at school would help you thrive as a student?

  • (Student responses may vary.) I said that a vigorous plant would be growing fast and have very green leaves because it would be healthy. My partner said that having breaks and getting help when he needs it at school would help him thrive and do well.

• Partner A: How would you sustain a fire for a long time?

• Partner B: How could you restore a wall that had been vandalized?

  • (Student responses may vary.) I said that you would sustain a fire by feeding it more wood because that’s what it needs to keep going. My partner said that you could restore a vandalized wall by painting over it so it looks like it did before.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Understanding this vocabulary will help you analyze today’s reading and understand the connections it makes between stories and values.

Part A: Analyzing Text Structure and Word Relationships in “In the Footsteps of Nanabozho” (RI.8.3, RI.8.5, L.8.5.b) (20 minutes)

Students will reread targeted sections of the chapter “In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place” in Braiding Sweetgrass and then discuss their responses to the questions below.

Display the excerpts and questions for students to refer to throughout their close reading and discussion.

Say these Directions: Take out your copies of Braiding Sweetgrass and reread the following excerpts from the chapter. After rereading the excerpts, discuss the questions below with your partner. Take notes on your responses; they will help you complete the writing assignment in the next part of this lesson.

• Excerpt A: The paragraph on p. 183 that begins “Names are the way we humans build relationships . . .” and ends with the sentence “As our human dominance of the world has grown . . .” on p. 184.

• Excerpt B: The paragraph on p. 184 that begins with “Nanabozho was counseled by many plants too . . .” and ends with “. . . and ecological knowledge.”

• Excerpt C: The first paragraph of the White Man’s Footstep section on page 186, ending with the sentence “. . . the Original Instructions too” on p. 188.

Discuss the following questions with your partner:

• Which sentence in Excerpt A states the key concept of the paragraph? How does the author support that idea with the remainder of the sentences?

  • The first sentence expresses the key concept of the paragraph: “Names are the way we humans build relationships . . .” The author uses her own experience and imagination as an example to show that we need to know the names of living things in order to have a real relationship with them. Then, she writes, “Philosophers call this state of isolation . . . ‘species loneliness.’” (p. 184) She uses the academic term for not having a relationship with the “rest of Creation” to develop the idea that we as people have become more powerful but much more isolated (p. 184).

• What key concept is presented in Excerpt B? How does the author structure this paragraph to develop the key concept?

  • The key concept is that the plants and animals of Earth taught Nanabozho what he needed to know to survive and how to respect Mother Earth. The author uses specific examples of the knowledge he gained to develop the concept. She explains, “Beaver showed him how to make an axe . . . Grandmother Spider’s web became a fishnet” (p. 184).

• In Excerpt C, Kimmerer considers the difference between immigrants and Indigenous people. She then discusses naturalization. How are these words related? How does this relationship between the words help you better understand their meanings?

  • The author sets up the direct contrast between immigrant and indigenous, showing that these are exclusive of each other. She explains, “Immigrants cannot—by definition—be Indigenous.” Then, she uses the analogy of the White Man’s Footstep to bridge the gap between immigrant and indigenous by introducing the word naturalized. Her description and comparison to citizens helps the reader understand that once a plant or person is naturalized, they are an important and functioning part of an established system (pp. 186–188).

• What does the “White Man’s Footstep” metaphor teach us about how people who are new to a land can learn to live in harmony with it?

  • The “White Man’s Footstep” plant, which “is not Indigenous but ‘naturalized’” (p. 188), is a metaphor for how people who are not indigenous to a land can learn to live there with respect and reciprocity. Just as the plants became naturalized to the land, the author suggests that people can learn to live in harmony with a place by learning from nature and striving to become naturalized to it as well.

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

Part B: Independent Writing on the Nanabozho Story (RI.8.3, W.8.4, W.8.9.b) (15 minutes)

Transition students out of their pairs to complete an independent writing assignment about the Nanabozho story.

Display the writing prompt below to students and review it with them.

Say these Directions: Think about how the story of Nanabozho guides humans toward responsible behavior in nature. Choose ONE moment from the chapter that acts as an "instruction" and write one to two paragraphs to describe:

• The instruction

• How the Nanabozho story teaches it

• Why it matters and how it can be applied today

Use evidence from the text and at least one vocabulary word from this unit (vigorous, thrive, sustain, restore) in your writing.

Transition students into writing a response independently.

• One instruction is to ask permission and take only what is given when dealing with nature. The Nanabozho story teaches this when Nanabozho sings so loudly that he doesn’t hear the birds warning him and is surprised when the bear challenges him. After that, he learns “to sit quietly at the edge of the woods and wait to be invited” (p. 185), and he tells the creatures in the woods, “I wish not to mar the beauty of the earth or to disturb my brother’s purpose. I ask that I be allowed to pass” (p. 185).

This matters for how we live today because we need to have that same attitude about using natural resources or developing land. We can’t literally ask a forest if we can build a house there, but we can pay attention to what’s happening within the ecosystem in the area and decide whether developing there is a good idea. Then we can develop in a sustainable way so that humans and the ecosystem can both thrive. I think that’s really what Kimmerer means by “asking permission.”

Peer Feedback

Instruct students to share their writing with a partner and give them feedback. Display the sentence frame below as a guide.

Say these Directions: Switch papers with your partner. Read each other’s work, and then give your partner feedback on their writing.

• One part of your writing that is a strength is __________. You could strengthen this point by __________.

  • One part of your writing that you did really well was using lots of textual evidence to explain the metaphor of the “White Man’s Footsteps” plant. You could strengthen your point by explaining more about what people can learn from that metaphor today.

Instruct students to complete the following homework in preparation for the next lesson.

• Read the chapter “Sitting in a Circle” in Braiding Sweetgrass (pp. 191–207), take notes in your Journal for the following:

  • Annotate one or two moments where Kimmerer describes a practice, relationship, or lesson that connects to what we've learned in the previous lessons related to the Honorable Harvest, Nanabozho's footsteps, or reciprocity.