English 10 and 11 First Peoples: Teacher Resource Guide
This document provides full unit planning guides for courses that satisfy grade 10 and grade 11 English language arts (ELA) requirements in British Columbia. Each unit includes preparation guides, suggested texts, external resources, and suggested writing assessment materials or assessment rubrics, as appropriate. This document also provides guidance on communicating with parents and community members about the material that is used in the course, some of which is sensitive in nature. This resource is appropriate for schools or instructors creating new courses or introducing units that include Native American themes and voices. Assessments, mostly formative in nature, are frequently provided for the specific unit.
This teachers guide combines a variety of classroom activities with excellent content. The selection of resources appears to be rigorous and, in at least a few cases, includes resources related to American Indians in the United States, such as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. The authors provide ample caveats about the resources and their use, including language and sensitive themes. The communications quality, including wording and design, is excellent throughout the 147 pages. Many of the units could be effectively incorporated into U.S. high schools. The authors are to be commended for providing at least some formative assessment tools. Utility could be quite high based on the above. Although evidence of effectiveness is not provided, careful selection of resources described in this document, combined with teachers’ expertise in unit selection, should make this a useful tool.