Unit 4: Resilience and Resistance
Unit 4: Resilience and Resistance
How do individuals and communities demonstrate resilience in the face of oppression, trauma, or displacement?
In what ways can survival itself be an act of resistance?
How do stories of endurance, identity, and heritage help us understand different forms of resistance?
What role does literature play in preserving cultural memory and resisting erasure?
This unit explores resilience and resistance through storytelling, focusing on how words can promote survival and healing. This unit emphasizes personal and cultural perseverance, showing how remembering language and heritage can be acts of resistance. Students will analyze narratives of displacement, systemic oppression, and survival, examining how language preserves histories, challenges dominant narratives, and gives voice to the silenced. The unit will also explore language as a mediator of reality, studying topics like the death and suppression of language, particularly in contexts such as Native boarding schools.
Approximately 6-8 weeks.
Indian Horse Vocab Bank
We Are Not From Here Vocab Bank
Night Vocab Bank
Maus Vocab Bank
We Are Not From Here (Jenny Torres Sanchez)
Indian Horse (Richard Wagamese)
Night (Elie Wiesel)
Maus (Art Spiegelman)
"A Litany for Survival" (Audre Lorde)
Excerpts from Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer)
"We Wear the Mask" (Paul Laurence Dunbar)
TED Talk: The Power of Storytelling to Heal Trauma
Articles on Native Boarding Schools & Language Suppression
Personal accounts from refugee and Indigenous survivors
Memories of Sherman School (Link)
Chumash Life (YouTube Page)
Chumash Government Website (Link)
Chumash Cultural Center (Link)
Redbud Resource Group (Link)
Seeing Our Native Students: A Guide for Educators (Link)
This State Had The Most Indigenous Boarding Schools In America (Link)
Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Crisis (Link)
The Inconvenient Truth of Smokey the Bear (Link)
Native Knowledge 360 (Link)
Essential Understandings (Link)
California Indian Museum and Cultural Center 7 Essential Understandings (Link; Source Link)
Native Ways of Knowing Booklist (Link)
Informative/Explanatory Essay – Exploring how resilience and resistance are portrayed in the novel(s) and how storytelling preserves cultural identity.
Literary Analysis – Analyzing theme development, character growth, and symbolism in the chosen novel(s).
Book Reflection Portfolio – Ongoing journal responses, annotation checks, and personal reflections on reading progress.
Socratic Seminar – Deep discussions on resilience and resistance in the text(s).
Creative Writing Response – Students write their own narrative of resilience inspired by the novel(s).
Final Project (Individual or Group Choice) – Could include a visual project, multimedia presentation, or synthesis essay.