Louisiana Voices Educator's Guide  
Getting Started With This Guide  
Study Guide Summary  
Outline of the Study Guide  
Study Unit I Defining Terms  
Study Unit II Fieldwork Basics  
Study Unit III Discovering the Obvious: Our Lives as "The Folk"  
Study Unit IV The State of Our Lives: Being a Louisiana Neighbor  
Study Unit V Oral Traditions--Swapping Stories  
Study Unit VI Louisiana's Musical Landscape  
Study Unit VII Material Culture-The Stuff of Life  
Study Unit VIII The Worlds of Work and Play  
Study Unit IX The Seasonal Round and Life Cycles  
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Unit IV Outline

Introduction - The State of Our Lives: Being a Louisiana Neighbor

Lesson 1: Louisiana's Major Folk Regions

Lesson 2 Geography, Ecology, and Folklife

Lesson 3 Sense of Place

Unit IV Resources 9this page)

 

 

LDOE

 

Unit IV Resources

The State of Our Lives: Being a Louisiana Neighbor

Find resources helpful for Unit IV lessons below. More resources may be found in the Louisiana Folklife Bibliography.

Allen, Barbara. Sense of Place: American Regional Culture. University Press of Kentucky, 1992. A good teacher resource on studying place.

Alvarez, Louis, and Andrew Kolker. Yeah, You Rite! Center for New American Media, 1984. 28 minutes. This look at the various linguistic dialects found in New Orleans reveals what people learn and assume based on language and treats issues about language attitudes. The documentary brings together history and linguistics to demonstrate how New Orleans became such a linguistically diverse city. Using both interviews with people on the street and cultural experts, the film displays a mix of perspectives.
CARTS Newsletter.Sense of Place. City Lore and Local Learning, 2002. Among articles in this issue find "La Trace du Boudin," about Lafayette, LA, high school students' documentation of regional foodways.

Comeaux, Malcolm. Atchafalaya Swamp Life: Settlement and Folk Occupations. Vol. 2 of Geoscience and Man. Louisiana State University School of Geoscience.

Community Works Journal is the leading place-based education online journal.

Duhe, Jeff. Louisiana Parade I: Camp Ruston--German POW Camp. Louisiana Public Broadcasting, N.d. A 15-minute look at the German POW camp in Ruston through interviews with former camp workers and local residents. Available through Louisiana Public Broadcasting Instructional Television.

Duhe, Jeff. Louisiana Parade I: Chenier Caminada and the Hurricane of 1893. Louisiana Public Broadcasting, N.d. The story of the disastrous hurricane of 1893 told through oral family histories of Chenier Caminada, Leeville, Golden Meadow, Grand Isle area, 14 minutes. Available through Louisiana Public Broadcasting Instructional Television.

Duhe, Jeff. Louisiana Parade II: Poverty Point. Louisiana Public Broadcasting, N.d. A brief look at the theories about Poverty Point's ancient American Indian population, the site preservation, and educational programs at Poverty Point, 15 minutes. Available through Louisiana Public Broadcasting Instructional Television.

Duhe, Jeff. Louisiana Parade II: The Irish in New Orleans. Louisiana Public Broadcasting, N.d. The film looks at the history of the Irish in New Orleans and the revival of Irish cultural pride. 10 minutes. Available through Louisiana Public Broadcasting Instructional Television.

Hopkins, Martha E., et al. The Language of the Land: The Library of Congress Book of Literary Maps. Library of Congress, 1999. Features over 200 literary maps from the Library's collections, including real and imaginary places.

Louisiana Folklife Program. Folklife in the Florida Parishes. Louisiana Folklife Program and Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, Southeastern Louisiana University, 1989. Although out of print, many libraries in the state have this useful book of articles and photos of many traditions and ethnic groups of Louisiana's Florida parishes.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Ernest J. Gaines: Louisiana Stories, 1-hour video for grades 6-12 on the life and work of the author of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, and A Lesson Before Dying.

Onebane, Donna. Voices of Pointe Noire: A Study of Place and Identity. Diss. University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 1999. An excellent source for any study of South Louisiana or sense of place. Available in libraries through Dissertation Abstracts.

Pitre, Glen. The Chitimacha. Cote Blanche Productions, 1995. A 12-minute video explains the Chitimacha Indians origins, legends and folkways, including river cane basket weaving, going back to prehistoric times.

Pitre, Glen. Haunted Waters-Fragile Lands: Oh, What Tales to Tell!. Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, 1994. This documentary presented by the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program uses folklore, history, cultural anthropology, wetlands ecology, biology, and geography to explore the Barataria-Terrebonne area of Southeastern Louisiana. In this "story of people and the environment," the theme that emerges is "The things we do can have enormous, unexpected consequences." 1 hour. The video and study guides are available online.

River of Words links educators nationally to encourage young people to document nature, write poetry, and create artwork. An annual art and poetry contest is co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Center for the Book. Check the website to find the Louisiana coordinator.

Ryden, Kent. Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing, and the Sense of Place. University of Iowa Press, 1993. Another teacher resource linking sense of place, folklife, and writing.

Sillery, Barbara. Hidden Nation: The Story of the Houmas, Louisiana's Largest Native American Tribe, 57 minutes. Keepsake Productions, 1993. This film gives a detailed account of the Houmas' history and traces their migration to their present home in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes. The film features numerous interviews with Houma people.

Sobel, David. Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years. Heinemann Press, 1998. K-8 resource for studying the geography of childhood, map grids, mapping perspectives, and related children's literature.

Spitzer, Nicholas R. Louisiana Folklife: A Guide to the State. Louisiana Office of Cultural Development, 1985.

Sunstein, Bonnie and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research. Prentice Hall, 2002. This teacher resource provides excellent exercises to aid students' fieldwork, observation, and writing skills.

Taylor, David. Documenting Maritime Folklife, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 1993. This resource illustrates the types of information students could collect in a maritime region to explore sense of place, geography, and folklife.

 

Unit IV Outline

 

National Endowment for the Arts.

 
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