Movie & Book Discussions.
Show the movie Smoke Signals. How is it similar or dissimilar to the book? Incorporate a movie viewing into a discussion of Sherman Alexie's writing. Or show an inspirational basketball movie and discuss how sports, competition, and team-playing can help bring people together or tear them apart.
Check out the list of DVDs and books on the Read-Alikes page.
Cartooning, Illustration, or Visual Arts Workshop.
Some possible presenters could include:
- Michael Rossi
Our OBNJ poster artist is located in North Jersey and could present a variety of programs from computer illustration demonstrations, creating flipbooks, and basic illustration, drawing, and painting techniques. Contact: the.illustrator.mike@gmail.com.
- Steve Nyman
Mr. Nyman is located in Denville, NJ and he offers a Cartooning and Caricature Workshops, including how to draw political cartoons. Contact: caricaturesbystevenyman@aaacaricatures.com.
- Steve Barr Mr. Barr is a professional cartoonist who offers children's programs to libraries and schools. His experience includes work with gag cartoons, comic strips, storyboards, and character design. Contact: stevebarr0705@drawbooks.com.
Programs could also involve creating a "Comic Slam," where each person draws/writes a panel of a comic and passes it onto the next person in order to create a collaborative comic.
Teach Your Talent.
Invite students and readers to come together to share what they know. Encourage them to learn from each other and try something new! Participants can pair up to learn a new talent (tying a tie? learn to square dance? whistle through your fingers? speak a sentence in another language?) and then each individual can present his or her new talent to the group. Everyone knows something that someone else doesn't.
In Our Own Words.
- Make a collaborative "diary" using a blank journal and have each participant write in it about how they feel different or unique. This could be done anonymously in your library or classroom, and it could be accomplished online or in print. The ongoing or final product could be used to initiate discussion or it could simply remain a quiet place to share ideas.
- Organize a memoir-writing workshop. Invite English or Writing Teachers from local high schools or colleges to present in your library or contact a local published or unpublished writer.
- Audrey O'Neil is located in Atlantic City and one of her jobs is offering editorial consultation to those who wish to develop their manuscripts or who seek feedback. Contact: oneal@turningmemories.com.
- Roz Reisner is the author of Read On . . . Life Stories : Reading Lists for Every Taste and has presented on adult memoirs for teens at the annual Youth Services Forum. Contact: roz@thereisners.net.
E-Scraps: Diaries, Journals, Log, and Blogs.
This website provides specific examples and strategies for creating electronic, educational, experiential, and engaging scrapbooks as well as diaries. The words "diary" and "journal" are defined and different formats are described.
Perspective Writing Workshop.
Engage your readers and students in a writing workshop where you offer prompts on writing from a different perspective or ask them to write about the events in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian from the perspective of a character OTHER THAN Junior.
You can find a variety of writing prompts using some of these links:
Sharing a Confined Existence.
Seek out members of your community and invite them to share unique experiences with your teens. Those who have experienced concentration camps, strict religious or cult upbringing, reservations, and other isolated environments can discuss how these experiences can affect the way one lives his life.
- Jayanti Tamm recently spoke at the Youth Services forum about her coming-of-age memoir, Cartwheels in a Sari : Growing Up Cult, about her experience growing up inside a cult in New York City. Contact: info@jayantitamm.com; or for speaking engagements: elavelle@randomhouse.com.
- One by One Speakers Bureau can offer programs that enhance the dialogue among decedents of survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and resisters of war and genocide. Contact: OnebyOne_Inc@hotmail.com.
Learn from Experience.
Individuals involved with institutions like New Jersey's Straight & Narrow are often willing to speak with teens about drug and alcohol addition and rehabilitation. Discuss the impact of alcoholism on individuals and families and invite someone to meet with your group and speak from personal experience.
Share Oral History.
Encourage communication among all members of your local community by asking seniors to share their stories with teens. You can create a multi-media production by having teens interview and visually record senior community members and post the information on your website to share with everyone. Team up with a local history librarian, local historian, and the history and technology departments are local schools. For an example, check out the Oral History Project constructed by Franklin Lakes (NJ) Public Library with students at Franklin Avenue Middle School.
Creating Culture.
Read aloud the picture book Weslandia by Paul Flesichman. Provide a wide variety of materials and ask students to create their own cultural artifacts and the story of their culture (real or imagined). Discuss whether or not culture is something that can be created or inherited.
Celebrate Native American Heritage Month.
Did you know November is Native American Heritage Month? Check out audio and video presentations related to Native American history, online exhibitions and more.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Discuss the role of Native cultures in the First Thanksgiving and prepare whatever your community considers a traditional meal. Or have a community feast where you ask each participant to bring a dish from their culture. Use some of the resources provided in the Related Websites portion of this website to guide your discussion.
Famous Native Americans.
Review the life and works of Native Americans and/or Native American Tribes. You can create your own written or artistic pieces mimicking the original style of famous Native Americans, including:
- Fritz Scholder (Artist, Painting)
- Joy Harjo (Poetry)
- Luci Tapahonso (Fiction, Poetry)
- Simon Ortiz (Poetry)
Native New Jersey.
Libraries and schools could request presentations from New Jersey Native Americans. Native New Jersey's programs are "fun and interactive" and they offer educational programs for young people, as well as multi-media presentations for adults, educators, and special needs groups. Some of their programming features
- Pow Wow style dancing
- Traditional Lenape style dancing
- Drumming
- Native Crafts
- Native food
- History lessons
- Cultural awareness training
Requests for large scale presentations or "Mini-Pow Wows" are handled in conjunction with the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribe's Outreach and Education Initiative.
Traditional Native American Crafts.
The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian offers a lot of resources and instructions for making traditional crafts.
- Beading/Embroidery.
- Free Native American Beadwork Patterns.
Free resource for Native American beading patterns and designs. Dozens of free patterns, many taken extracted from authentic and historic beadwork pieces.
- NativeTech.
Native American technology and art relating to beading and weaving. Includes the use and techniques of glass beading, woven wampum beadwork, Seminole beads, and pendant types.
- Polymer Clay Tutor.
Instructions for how to make a beaded bookmark with polymer clay beads and wire.
- Dreamcatchers.
Dreamcatchers are an authentic American Indian tradition, from the Ojibway (Chippewa) people, who would hang handmade "dream-catchers" as a charm to protect sleeping children from nightmares.
- Mask-Making.
Masks were important to Native American people. Discuss their importance and create your own masks complete with a story of its history and importance.
- Dollmaking.
Using the Smithsonian guide, Native American Dolls, available at www.nmai.si.edu/education/files/SiYC_Dolls.pdf, discuss doll-making as part of Native culture. Make your own dolls using whatever material you fell comfortable with. It can be as simple as string dolls or be a more elaborate creation based on the materials available at your local craft store.
- All Crafts.
Provides free dollmaking projects and patterns, including information on making a variety of cloth dolls.
- Incredible @rt Department.
Provides lessons about figurative sculpture and creating wrapped dolls (pictures included).
- Bowl & Dice Game.
Here you can find information about and rules for playing this and other traditional games, or you can play online!
- Quilting.
Use the NMAI's teacher guide, To Honor and Comfort Native American Quilting Traditions , to host a discussion and craft program where you discuss the role of quilting in the community. Some free quilt blocks are available in this guide, and also here.
- Compare and contrast to African American quilting traditions, particularly those relating to the Underground Railroad.
- Invite a local quilter to demonstrate different kinds of quilts and to talk about how quilts are made.
- Find some simple quilt patterns with books like Creative Quilting with Kids by Maggie Ball or Kids Start Quilting with Alex Anderson.
- Create a community quilt with one teen librarian's suggestions:
- Choose a simple pattern. Consider a nine-patch or even a four-patch. Choose the size of the quilt block (most common are 9", 10" or 12").
- Give everyone in the group a copy of the pattern along with written instructions.
- Have each person make one block and then sew them together. Note: Everyone sews differently and even if you give everyone the same pattern, the finished blocks will be different sizes. You will have to check each block and size to make the quilt work.
- Check out books like Kids Quilt Together : The ABC's of Group Quilts by Kathy Emmel or Community Quilts : How to Organize, Design, and Make a Group Quilt by Karol Kavaya & Vicki Skemp
- Create a quilt for charity.
The OBNJ Committee would like to thank the YA Section of the New Jersey Library Association as well as various wonderful librarians across the country (via listservs) who offered programming suggestions to be used with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
