Learning goal: To consider what is “crooked” about the text and how the text connects to nature.
| TASK
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SUGGESTED LEARNING ACTIVITIES
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| Gather
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Start with a quote from the book, “rivers are always asking to roam, to go looking for new places” (Porter, 11).
1. Humans can also be like rivers and go roaming and looking for new places. Take a 10-minute nature walk in silence and invite learners to pay close attention to one to three living beings that they encounter (e.g., rocks, minerals, trees, grass, birds, flowers, weeds, etc.).
2. Return to the learning space and have learners consider the following questions:
a) How did it feel to roam and possibly find a new place?
b) What role do you play in the lives of the living beings that you found? What role do they play in your life?
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| Synthesize
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Once grounded, have learners turn to the first three chapters of the book and invite the learners to consider the following questions in groups of three in relation to the structure of the text:
1. How is this book “telling it all crooked” thus far?
2. What are you noticing about the structure of the text?
3. Identify three metaphors in the chapters.
4. What connections to nature and other living beings are you noticing through the text?
5. How does the book make you feel thus far?
6. How does this text relate to your own life? What memories are coming up for you from your life?
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| Transfer
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1. Have learners journal for 10 minutes about which part of the first three chapters stands out to them the most. Invite learners to think and write about how these chapters relate to the land, themselves, and Indigenous history in Canada.
2. Read pages 33–70 for homework.
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