Planning a novel unit is very exciting, but it can also be overwhelming! That is exactly how I felt when I first started teaching The Birchbark House.
In the Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich the narrator tells a riveting historical fiction story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas. Through vivid details, figurative language, native storytelling, Ojibwa vocabulary, and impeccable sentence structure, this novel opens its pages to a variety of educational opportunities.
Before The Birchbark House was implemented into our state curriculum, my school district piloted the new Guidebook curriculum that included this novel.
When I first started teaching this book, I didn’t know how I was going to finish it.
Teaching Birchbark House: Struggles are was REAL!
Year 1: It dragged on and on and on and on and on.
Year 2: Boredom! Not again! Close the book! Moving on! NEXT!
Year 3: Books collected dust! SKIP!
Year 4: Louisiana Department of Education teamed up with Learnzillion, and Guidebook 2.0 was released. Resources to guide instruction will help with everything, right? WRONG!
I still faced many obstacles: long chapters, not enough time to read and complete novel study, challenging vocabulary (Ojibwa words) that neither students nor I can pronounce fluently, students grow bored at times, and NO ASSESSMENTS available.
As a result, I decided to take on the challenge to make this novel study both educational and exciting!
Birchbark House Struggles Become Strengths
Long Chapter and Challenging Ojibwa Words
- Solution: Read aloud from YouTube.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIs94oWaaFI
Understanding the Ojibwa Tribe
The Ojibwa were an Eastern Woodlands Native American tribe. Narrative accounts of the daily lives of the Ojibwa tribe is shown through the eyes of a young girl.
A New Take on Birchbark House Questioning
Although I love class discussion, sometimes we need more excitement in our day!
- Instead of giving students a list of questions to answer, divide students into groups and assign each group a different question.
- Use a chat mat sheet for students to record their answers. I like to have each student write an answer on a sticky note. After each group member answers, the group creates a collaborative answer. They take the best information from each sticky note and write a new, final answer.
- Allow each group to present answers to the class.
- Remember to assign group roles such as reader, scribe, presenter, and time keeper.
Create iMovie Trailers for Birchbark House Summaries
Students can create their own summaries of an event/chapter/the book, character descriptions, theme development, and much more using iMovie Trailers. This website breaks down everything you need to know for your students to create trailers and has many printable templates for students to plan their trailer before creating it in iMovie.
https://learninginhand.com/blog/2014/8/6/plan-a-better-imovie-trailer-with-these-pdfs
Activities Aligned with Learnzillion Birchbark House Unit
How the First Americans Became Indians (Birchbark House Lesson 4)
- Since I do not have a class set of the book The First Americans: Pre-History to 1600, I took a picture of the pages and created a PDF of Chapter 4: How the First Americans Became Indians.
- Then I created a task for students to complete.
- To make this a digital task, I uploaded this document on Microsoft OneNote. This would work for Google Docs as well, or you can print the pages if students don’t have computer access.
- Students completed the task in OneNote using highlighters and adding text boxes. Again, print option is available.
Download
Native Americans Impact on the Land (Birchbark House Lesson 6)
- How did Native Americans change the landscape of the New World? This free download includes a student assignment sheet with text-dependent questions and a constructed response. Use this with the article “Controlled Burning” from Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491. Questions and assignment align to Louisiana ELA Guidebook Birchbark House Unit Lesson 6.
Christopher Columbus and His Arrival into the New World (Birchbark House Lessons 11-12)
Since the best questions in a Learnzillion lesson are hidden, I created a visual that includes all of the questions and information to keep me on track and keep my students engaged.
- Lesson 11 includes a presentation with a summary of the text from The First Americans: Pre-History to 1600 Chapter 15.
- Lesson 12 includes a group activity. You can use this type of activity with any set of comprehension questions throughout the novel.
- Group your students into 5 groups.
- Each group is assigned 1 question.
- Students choose group roles then follow the directions on the handout to answer the assigned question.
- The Presenter of each group will present the answers to the class.
- BAM! You will love handing over this assignment to your students and letting the students take control of their learning and teach the class.
- Add a self-reflection and a peer-evaluation to use this lesson as your observation lesson.
Birchbark House Assessments | Tests
- High-quality assessments help teachers and students prepare for end-of-the-year state testing. DO NOT waste your time with recall questions. Assessments should be tasks that require students to refer back to the text.
- Questions should mirror state assessments. The Birchbark House is the perfect novel to introduce students to how third person point of view affects the story, how text structure is used to tie events together, how the characters develop throughout the story, how images impact the text, how figurative language and vocabulary create beauty, and how the Native Americans were affected by colonization. (Sample questions are included below the following image.)
- Since the chapters of the book are divided into season, I created an assessment for each season.
- Each assessment includes a writing prompt and a writing rubric.
- Click the image below to view assessments.
Birchbark House Sample Questions:
1.) How does the narrator’s point of view influence how the event on page 131 is told?
2.) Which three pieces of evidence best describe Omakayas’s special connection with nature, especially animals.
3.) Which details best support your answer for Part A? Choose one detail for Omakayas and one detail for Two Strike Girl.
- a.) Page 95: “I’m dancing the rice this year!” Two Strike Girl told Omakayas right off.
- b.) Page 97: “Here,” said Two Strike Girl, dumping hers off. She gathered herself to spring away, but Grandma caught her.
- c.) Page 97: “Two Strike Girl’s crooked and gaping (in its weave)…”
- d.) Page 95-96: “Omakayas grumbled when Grandma asked her to go pick reeds.”
- e.) Page 97: “…Omakayas’s regular and straight in its weave…”
- f.) Page 98: “Omakayas felt proud and bold.”
The BEST test-prep is high-quality instruction and assessments all year!
Excellent Birchbark House Book Summary Video
5 FREE Interactive Birchbark Activities and Many Discussion Questions for Lessons 1-4
Complete the Birchbark House form below to receive this FREE gift.
- Vocabulary Chapters 1-4
- Character Chart (characters, character traits, character interactions)
- Development of a Character Chart: Omakayas (Chapters 1-14)
- Character Relationship: Omakayas and Old Tallow
- Character Relationship: Omakayas and the Bears
- Discussion Questions and Answers
- Whole class discussion questions for Chapter 1-4 include questions and answers that are aligned to Learnzillion Guidebook lesson.