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Unit
I
Defining
Terms
Lesson 3 Folk
Genres
I've been quilting since I was
old enough to sew. My mother always done that, and I was a nosey
little old girl, and I always stood in the way. Every scrap she'd
drop, why, I'd pick it up and sew. I kept sewing until I got where I
could make a good block, and she put it in her quilt as
encouragement.
––Cloaner Smith,
Claiborne Parish
from Traditional Quiltmaking in
Louisiana
Grade
Levels
4-8
Curriculum
Areas
English Language Arts,
Social Studies, Visual Art
Purpose of
Lesson
Students are introduced to different folk genres. They hear
personal narratives of people in Louisiana and identify their
folklife. This lesson brings together the concepts of the unit: folklife, folk groups, and folk genres.
Lesson Objectives/Louisiana Content Standards, Benchmarks, and
Foundation Skills
- Students classify folklife traditions into folk genres.
H-1A-M6 Conducting research in efforts
to answer historical questions. (1, 2, 3,
4)
ELA-6-M3 Classifying various genres
according to their unique characteristics.
(1,2,4,5)
ELA-7-M2 Problem solving by using
reasoning skills, life experiences, accumulated knowledge, and
relevant available information. (1, 2,
4)
G-1C-E4 Identifying and comparing the
cultural characteristics of different regions and people; (1, 2,
3, 4)
- Students connect folklife to places and people in Louisiana.
ELA-6-E1 Recognizing and responding to
United States and world literature that represents the
experiences and traditions of diverse ethnic groups. (1, 4,
5)
ELA-7-M2 Problem solving by using
reasoning skills, life experiences, accumulated knowledge, and
relevant available information. (1, 2,
4)
ELA-1-E6 Interpreting texts to generate
connections to real-life situations. (1,2,4)
- Students make decisions on how to use and communicate their
findings.
ELA-2-M6 Writing as a response to texts
and life experiences (e.g., letters, journals, lists).(1, 2,
4)
ELA-2-M4 Using narration, description,
exposition, and persuasion to develop various modes of writing
(e.g., notes, stories, poems, letters, essays, logs). (1,
4)
CE-1VA-E2 Exploring techniques and
technologies for visual expression and communication. (2,
3)
CE-1VA-M5 Producing ideas for art
productions while engaging in both individual and group
activities. (1, 5)
CE-1VA-M6 Identifying the
relationships between the arts and other disciplines through art
production. (4)
Time
Required
5-7 days
Materials
Duplicate copies of Parts III and IV of What Is Folklife and Why Study It? Make one
or more copies of the Some Basic Types of Folklife charts. This
lesson provides a choice of several activities for extended
development of concepts, so prepare materials for the ones you
choose.
- For the Folk Genre Museum activity, use postcards from around the
state or images from the Louisiana Folklife Photo Gallery and
cards with titles of each folk genre.
- For the FOLKPATTERNS Card
Game, print and cut up the cards.
- For the Bingo
activities, print and duplicate the Bingo cards. For Oreo cookie
activity, provide Oreo cookies for all students.
- For the Word
Quilt activity, prepare one-inch wide strips of
construction or colored paper in many dark and light colors, make
duplicates of the Word Quilt Template, and provide glue sticks and
posters or roll paper.
Put students' journals in an easily accessible place. Print and
duplicate the worksheets and assessment tools listed below for the
activities you choose.
Technology
Connections
Internet Resources
What Is Folklife and Why Study It?
Voices of Louisiana
Louisiana Folklife Photo Gallery
Louisiana Quilt Documentation Project
Louisiana Quilt Guilds
Quilt
Guilds Worldwide
Adaptation
Strategies
Some Basic
Types of Folklife
Student Worksheets
Voices of Louisiana
Worksheet
FOLKPATTERNS Card
Game
New Orleans Folklife
Bingo
North Louisiana Folklife
Bingo
South Louisiana Folklife
Bingo
Bingo Worksheet
(Blank)
Microsoft Word
version of Bingo with suggestions
Louisiana
Bingo Worksheet (Word Document)
Online Scavenger
Hunt
Word Quilt
Worksheet
Word Quilt
Template
Letter From a
Folklorist
Seasonal
Round Worksheet
Life
Cycle Poetry Worksheet
Assessment Tools
K–W–L
Assessment Sheet
Creating
an Exhibit Checklist
Creating
an Exhibit - Group Checklist
Things I've
Learned About Folklife Worksheet
Evaluation
Tools/Opportunities
Process
- K–W–L
Assessment Sheet
- Journals
- Voices of Louisiana
Worksheet
- Folk genre museum
- FOLKPATTERNS Card
Game
- Folklife Bingo
- Word Quilt
Worksheet
Summative
- K–W–L
Assessment Sheet
- Creating an
Exhibit Checklist
- Creating
an Exhibit - Group Checklist
- Things I've
Learned About Folklife Worksheet
Products
- Voices of Louisiana
Worksheet
- Online Scavenger Hunt
Worksheet
- Some Basic
Types of Folklife - student-designed posters
- Word Quilt
Worksheets
- Word quilts
- Letter to a
Folklorist
- Seasonal
Round Worksheet
- Life
Cycle Poetry Worksheet
Background Information for the
Teacher
Review the Folk
Genres section of the unit introduction of Unit I Defining Terms.
To Prepare
If the essay What Is Folklife and Why Study It? is
written above your students' reading ability, refer to the Adaptation Strategies
for ways to adjust and modify it to levels that students can
understand. Select the appropriate Bingo worksheet for your class or
make your own. Purchase a bag of Oreo cookies for the How to Eat an
Oreo activity. Gather postcards of assorted images of folk genres or
select and print images from the Louisiana Folklife Photo Gallery. For the
Word Quilt activity, familiarize yourself with the various patterns
that can be designed using the Word Quilt Template by reviewing the
quilts on the Louisiana Quilt Documentation Project
webpage. Bookmark these pages and access them on the classroom
computers before students begin this activity, and assemble
materials for Word Quilts. If possible, enlarge one or more copies
of the Some Basic
Types of Folklife chart on a copy machine to use as
reference during this lesson. It would also be helpful to leave the
charts on the wall for student reference. If students will be using
the Letter From a Folklorist activity, locate individual or groups
of folklorists to whom students may send their letters.
4th and 8th Grade
Activities
Folk Genres
- Remind students that folklife consists
of activities that we carry out within folk groups.
Because there is so much folklore in our lives, we need a system
for talking about it. Folklorists have defined certain folk
genres–or categories–to help us categorize the folklore we want to
discuss. As a pretest, use the K–W–L Assessment
Sheets to have students brainstorm the topic of folk genres. Ask them
to write down what they Know and what they Want to Know. It is
likely that many have not heard of folk genres. If this is the
case, be sure that they write some statements in the W -
"Want to Know" - column.
- Have students read Part III Folk Genres and Part IV Why Study Folklife? of What Is Folklife and Why Study It? Use
the teaching aid poster, Some Basic Types of
Folklife, to review the different folk genres with
students. Ask students to reflect on what has been discussed and
write about one or more folk genres in their journals.
- Distribute the Voices
of Louisiana Worksheet. Explain that these stories are
taken from the Voices of
Louisiana webpage and represent various kinds of folk
traditions around the state. Review the definitions on Page 1. Then, read the
first story on Page
2 aloud to students and review the folk groups and folk
genres listed in the example. Challenge students to explain why
they do or do not belong with this story.
Divide students
into groups and have them work together to identify the folk
groups and folk genres in the remaining stories listed and write
their findings in the charts provided on the worksheet. It is
important to review the results of all the groups together as a
class, because it is very likely that their answers will
differ––and that they can all be correct. Encourage students to
debate each group's findings.
- If you feel that students need further instruction and/or
practice to develop the concept of folk genres fully,
use one or more of the following activities:
- Help students analyze images and classify them into genres
by creating a Folk Genre Museum with postcards or images from
the Louisiana Folklife Photo
Gallery.
- Divide class into groups of eight students.
- For each group, prepare cards with titles of each folk
genre and place them in a circle on the floor. Have students
stand in a circle around the cards.
- Ask students to create Folk Genre Museums by laying down
their images or postcards wherever they see a relationship.
- Give each an image to examine in depth. They must decide
which folk genre it represents. Remind them that it is
possible for an image to represent more than one genre, and
players make decisions based on their previous experiences and
the folk
groups they belong to. In other words, there are no
"correct" answers.
- Students take turns placing their images in one of the
genres. They must also give a brief explanation of why they
believe it belongs there.
- If desired, ask students to construct one class Folk Genre
Museum. Place a new set of title cards in the center of the
classroom and ask groups to place their postcards or images in
the correct folk genre.
- Have students discuss as a group why they laid images
where they did, make adjustments, and reach consensus on the
final museum design.
- Students can assess their work on the Folk Genre Museum
with the Creating
an Exhibit Checklist. First, have them evaluate their
own work in the "Self" column. Then, if desired, the teacher
can evaluate their work in the "Teacher" column. Or, they can
use the Creating
an Exhibit - Group Checklist.
- Another way to help students discover the folklife around us
is the FOLKPATTERNS
Card Game from the FOLKPATTERNS 4-H Leader's Guide, Michigan 4-H Youth Programs. The activity is
suitable for ages seven and up. Certain cards may be more
suitable for younger or older students. Teachers may read the
cards for pre-readers and have the students respond orally. You
can make your own cards with suggestions more specific to
Louisiana folk cultures listed on the Louisiana Bingo
Worksheet. For suggestions, see the Microsoft Word
version of Bingo.
- Make the card game by printing and cutting up the cards.
- To play, have the group form a circle and place the cards
face down in the middle of it.
- Select a student to pick a card and answer the question on
it. If he or she cannot answer it, ask for volunteers. There
are no right or wrong answers! Continue the process until all
the students in the circle have chosen a card and answered a
question. Students may answer orally or in writing. Certain
cards, such as "What is your favorite holiday? How does your
family celebrate it?" may be suitable for longer written
responses.
- If time permits, ask students to come up with additional
examples for some of the questions, or see how many different
variants the
class has of the same tradition. Talk about the many
traditions we all have.
- Explore folk genres by using this Folklife Bingo activity.
Select New Orleans Folklife
Bingo, North
Louisiana Folklife Bingo, or South Louisiana Folklife
Bingo, depending on the location of your school. Or make
your own with the blank Bingo Worksheet
provided.
- Have students check off the traditions that they have
done.
- Ask students to explain the traditions.
- Ask them to talk about how they learned it. From whom?
When? Where? Who else in their folk group does it? How long
has it gone on?
- Together, classify traditions according to genres
described in the essay. Students may also refer to the Some Basic Types
of Folklife chart when classifying the traditions.
- You and the students might discuss how many answers should
come from interviewing others in the classroom or outside the
classroom as homework. One method is to ask them to put a
person's initials in the box or write a brief description.
- As with conventional Bingo, all answers must be verified,
which can lead to interesting discussion.
- Distribute the K–W–L Assessment Sheets that were used as a
pretest and ask students to complete the L column to show what
they learned about folk genres.
Review of Folklife, Folk
Groups, Folk Genres
- Several activities for reviewing the three main concepts
presented in Unit 1 are
provided below. Use as many as needed to ensure that all students
understand the concepts.
- How I Eat an Oreo Cookie.
- Have students write a description of "How I Eat an Oreo
Cookie."
- After they write about the process, ask several students
to come to the front of the room to eat an Oreo. Do they
simply bite into it? Do they unscrew it? Do they want to dip
it in milk? How did they learn how to eat an Oreo? From a
family member? From a television commercial? Is this the
"best" way to eat an Oreo cookie? (Having students defend the
way they eat the cookie may reveal values of their folk
groups.) If they learned from both a family member and
television, this is an example of how a mass-produced,
commercially advertised item can be part of both folk and
popular culture.
- Continue discussing the Oreo cookie in relation to genres:
The cookie is NOT folk material culture because it is
mass-produced for commercial purposes. However, it may be
eaten in a traditional manner, when one person takes the time
to teach another person a "special way" to eat an Oreo or
someone observes a new way of eating an Oreo and adapts it.
- Ask students if they have a personal narrative about a
time when they ate an Oreo cookie to show how it may overlap
with oral traditions. Also, ask if there is a family recipe
that uses Oreos. Do any students have any special beliefs
about Oreos? Do they eat them for good luck, for example?
Explore the possibilities for classifying their use of the
cookie into different folk genres.
- Continue discussion of the "best" way to eat an Oreo
cookie. Put the "unscrewers" in one group; the "dunkers" in
another; the "unscrewers + dunkers" in another; the "biters"
in another, etc. Form as many groups as ways of eating the
cookie. Have them list on a sheet of paper the things they
share in common about eating Oreos they way they do. How did
they learn? Why have they chosen this way?
- Have students discover what they have in common as a folk
group. Have one member of each group present their discussion
to the rest of the class.
- The Online Scavenger
Hunt is another activity that pulls together the
concepts of folklife, folk groups, and folk genres. Students
must find examples of folklife on several webpages and check off
the ones they can locate. Have students conduct the scavenger
hunt and give a prize to the student who can locate the most
resources.
- Use the teaching aid poster, Some Basic Types
of Folklife, to review concepts with students, then have
them design their own posters using information they have
learned in this lesson.
Communicate Findings
- After breaking down the study of folklife, folk groups, and
folk genres into three lessons, it is a good idea to do activities
that bring the concepts all together. The Word Quilt Worksheet is
a creative activity that allows students to address all three
concepts at once. For this activity, you will need strips of
construction paper or dark and light colored paper cut in one-inch wide
strips; the Word Quilt
Template, glue sticks, and poster or bulletin board. See
the Word Quilt
Example.
Explain that the Log Cabin design is a
very old pattern used by American quilt makers for a very long
time. Students create poems about folklife, write the lines of the
poems on strips of colored paper, then paste them on Word Quilt
templates to form quilt squares. They then combine the squares
artistically to create a "quilt" on posters or the bulletin board.
- Distribute the Word
Quilt Worksheet to students and have them complete Steps
1, 2, and 3 in which they write their own definition and what
they mean in students' lives and then choose two examples.
- Have them review the poem in the Example on Page 3, then write
their own poems on the blank lines.
- Copy the poem on the Word Quilt
Template, with the title in the center square and one
line of the poem in each rectangle. The poem should be written
in a "circle" around the center. This will allow them the
flexibility of choosing different designs and/or colors in later
steps, because correct phrases can then be copied on the colors
chosen for each rectangle in the block.
- Have students view examples of traditional Log Cabin quilts
on the Louisiana Quilt Documentation Project
webpage. From the homepage, select "Search Database." Encourage
students to notice the variations that can be made by different
placements of light and dark strips.
- Students choose one of the designs and select paper strips
in the colors that are needed for the design.
- Have them cut the paper strips in the correct lengths to fit
the spaces where they will be pasted, write the phrases of the
poem on the colored strips, and glue the strips to the template.
- Assemble all the Word Quilt blocks on roll paper or poster
board to make a large "Word Quilt." Post it on the bulletin
board.
- You can consider alternative procedures such as having
students work individually, creating their own Word Quilt poems
and blocks. This makes for a better class quilt. They could also
use family photos instead of definitions, or type the poems on a
page with the quilt square and publish a class book.
- If students are interested in learning more about quilting,
find a quilter or quilt groups in your area and have students
interview them about their traditions. Some resources are Louisiana Quilt Guilds and Quilt Guilds
Worldwide.
- Students can assess their work on the Word Quilts with the
Creating
an Exhibit Checklist. First, have them evaluate their
own work in the "Self" column. Then, if desired, the teacher can
evaluate their work in the "Teacher" column.
- Distribute the Letter From a
Folklorist. Ask students to read the letter and write
their own responses. In their response letters, students can use
the poetry they wrote for the Word Quilt Worksheet as
a starting point. The letter should describe any tradition that is
important to the student. It should cover at least two points: 1)
a description of the tradition, and 2) an explanation of why the
tradition is important. The length of the letter should be
established by the teacher, based on students' ages and
performance levels. Locate individual or groups of folklorists to
whom students may send their letters, and help them mail the
letters.
- As a final assessment for the unit, have students complete the
Things
I've Learned About Folklife Worksheet and have an informal
sharing of information.
4th and 8th Grade
Explorations and Extensions
- Complete a Seasonal Round
Worksheet to discover traditions and customs you practice
through the year. Then classify the customs into folk
genres.
- Complete the Life Cycle
Poetry Worksheet to read about an important tradition to
one person and then to write a poem about a tradition of your
own.
Unit I Resources
Unit I Outline
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