Video
Narrative Writing Using Life's Events: The Winter Count
Transcript
[Audio Description.]
Hi welcome everyone I am Brenda Larabee, and I am from Stuart Nebraska. I teach at Stuart public schools. And today we're going to be talking about narrative writing using some of your own life events. I've partnered with the Nebraska Writing Project
and the National Park Service at Agate Fossil Bed's National Monument in order to bring you this lesson today. So let's get started.
Let's first begin by talking about what is narrative writing. Narrative writing is a really powerful way for you to share your own life's story. When you take your own life events
and you turn them into writing, you can create a really compelling story. And in this presentation. we're going to take a look at the indigenous people using winter count to document important life experiences. And then, we'll try to take a look at how you can document your own life events into a historical narrative also.
The first thing we have to do is find your story. So as you think about your life events
and how they've shaped you, we want to think about those moments that
are really important, and really stand out in your life. maybe there are lessons that you've learned or experiences that you've had - either negative or positive experiences.
and then we'll start from those Finding Your Story pieces to create this powerful narrative.
So let's take just a little bit of time to do some brainstorming. I want to spark some ideas possibly and then give you time to pause and actually brainstorm. So your events that you're thinking during this 3 minute pause, might be things that happened when you were really young maybe you remember playing with a friend and having an encounter on a bicycle, or maybe you remember something in your middle years, Maybe you remember first learning how to play a sport, your first experience on a volleyball court,
or at a football field. Maybe you remember something just the other day. Maybe you tried something new for the first time or maybe you have experienced a really joyous
moment where you won a state championship. Maybe you have something that is really sad that you would like to share. Maybe the loss of a pet or a loved one. Whatever those things are, go ahead and pause this video for about 3 minutes and just brainstorm those moments in your life.
Thank you Brenda. I'm standing in front of Agate Fossil Beds Running Water Winter Count. Artist Dawn Little Sky, a Lokota woman who lived on the Pine Ridge reservation, created this modern chronology of events impacting the lives of James Cook, and Red
Cloud, and the place called Agate Fossil Beds. The winter count reads in a clockwise spiral. Events beginning in the center with creation of Earth and skip years until the birth of Red Cloud in 1821. The events are then portrayed yearly until the death of James Cook in 1942 after which, they resume skipping years. Many of these events were taken from actual historic Lakota winter counts, such as those belonging to White Man Stands in Sight, American Horse, Lone Dog, and Blue Thunder.
Plains Indians use winter counts to keep track of their history, picking one event each winter to stand for this year's activities such events were kept in memory and painted
on hides to help the storyteller's recollections.
So let's take a closer look at some of these. We're starting here in the middle and we're
going to be rotating around so here in the middle we have the creation of Earth and the four elements all moving in a clockwise motion moving on to dinosaurs. And then here about 65 uh 21 million years ago, we have animals that were caught in a drought
condition and they died. thus giving us places like Agate Fossil Bed's
National Monument. The little arch over the top means that they passed ov', passed under or died. Moving along here, we have The pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock in
1620, and as we travel around, we have in 1821 the birth of Red Cloud. Any pictograph here where you see of Red Cloud depicts Red Cloud. As we travel along again, moving around, oops, oh I went one too many, sorry.
In 1840 -1841 is the beginning of the Oregon Trail, the road heading west. And the first settlers start moving through Indian Territory. Later on, down uh within 10 years, you have the development of Fort Laramie in 1849, designed to help those travelers and also protect gold miners heading west. As we travel up through here, in 1857 Warren, uh, Lieutenant Warren comes through this area surveying. Also in Kalamazo Michigan, a man named James Cook is born. A little cook kettle above him, above him.
1861, the beginning of the Civil War, and also right next to that is the Homestead Act
which allowed homesteading in the areas. As we come along, we have the creation and completion of the Union Pacific Railroad later in the decade. Moving up along here and around, Rancher James Cook purchases what is now called the Agate Springs Ranch,
and in 1892, Erwin Barbour comes onto the ranch and discovers a spiral fossil that he calls the devil's corkscrew. Coming around here, see some other notables from around here and we start going around the edge here of the last portion. We're moving along now.... but, In 1939 1940, We also have the completion of of Mount Rushmore,
- 1940... In 1941, the winter of 1941 and 1942, we have not only the attack on Pearl Harbor, but we also have the death of James Cook. As we come on down, we have what we can recognize as the atom bomb. In 1965, many American Indians are encouraged to leave the reservations and get jobs in the city. In 18 uh 1957 or excuse me 1955, Eddie Little Sky gets a job at Disneyland, the newly open Disneyland in California, greeting visitors to Frontier Land. He then goes on to become a Hollywood actor and also is the husband of Dawn Little Sky. In 1969, the Indian occupation of Alcatraz. Also 1969, is uh, excuse me, Neil Armstrong lands on the moon. 1991 is probably one of the most up-to-date ones here, but the movie Dances with Wolves
wins the Academy Award it is one of the first films that feature Lakota, uh Lakota Indians using their own language.
If you have time, please come to Agate Fossil Beds, explore our winter count, and take a moment and look at some of these pictographs. And see if you recognize any
other important events.
Back to you Brenda.
Thank you AJ for sharing how the winter count works. And now, our students have brainstormed their own life events, and they've heard Ranger AJ talk about the
Winter Count of Dawn Little Sky.
So it's now time for you to find out which hidden story in your life you would like to elaborate on and make your own narrative about. So go ahead and pause this video, and spend just a couple of minutes determining which story you would like to tell.
We've focused on hidden stories of Agate throughout this series, and now we want to expose one of the hidden stories that you have. So go ahead and pause, and we'll join you in just a little bit,
All right we are back. Thank you for doing that... create.... that coming up with your own story. We're ready to start the structure of your story.
So much like AJ was telling you about the winter count beginning at the center and working its way out, going in a clockwise fashion. A good narrative also has some sort of structure that way. So you might want to start at the beginning of your story and work forward, or you could start at the present and sort of do like a flashback and work your way backwards. Whatever, whatever structure you decide, that's going to help guide your Reader through our story.
So go ahead and pause the video again, and think about the structure of your story. And we will rejoin you in just a little bit.
Welcome back. When you were listening to AJ talk about the the things that were on the winter count, they were one event per year that they were noting as being a significant event of that year. With your narrative, we want to recall more detail and some emotion
in that piece. A great way to get this detail in is for you
to think about all of your senses. What do you hear? What do you see? What do you smell? What do you feel? What do you taste? And then don't forget about your emotions
too because those feelings those emotions that you have can also help us be a part of that moment. So go ahead now and pause this video. I'm going to suggest about five minutes that you you might need to recall the details of these events...this event, that you are writing about. So go ahead and jot those things down, and
if you remember any specific dialogue that you would have had during that encounter,
jot that down as well. That will help to bring us into your story, adding that detail and emotion. All right we'll join you back in about 5 minutes.
Welcome back.
So now that you've added that detail and emotion, it's time to actually write your story.
But before you write that story, you might want to determine whether you want
to write it as a first-person narrative or a third-person narrative. So the first-person narrative is this the part where you would write it as I did this. I said this. We said this
So these were, these were people that were actually there as the first account. If you're writing it as a third person narrative, you'd be writing it as They said... He said... She said... -that kind of a narrative. So looking at the picture that I have on the
left of this slide, you'll see that the woman is holding a camera, and she's taking a photo. So she's the one taking the photo, so she probably wants to tell this account as a first-person account. So go ahead and pause your video, and write your narrative with as much detail, emotion, and dialogue as you can. And teachers it depends how long you would like to give students for this. They could take as long as you have, and I will go ahead and pause for just a little while, and then I'll give you the finish up steps
that you can do on your own.
Here we are at the finish up steps. You've written your narrative Then you want to spend some time editing and revising it. It's a good idea to read through your story. Maybe even aloud. Read it to a friend. And think of ways that you can improve it. Maybe something's a little bit unclear, and you want to add a little more detail. Or maybe, the person listening just doesn't quite feel the emotion that you would like them to feel. Are there confusing things? Did you ramble a little? Do you need to cut some things? You can make all of those changes to make your narrative stronger.
And then once you have your narrative in this picture-perfect way, you would like to share it. So whether you publish it online. Share it with your friends and family. Share it back with the Writing Project via me if you'd like to. Your narrative can be a really important part of you telling your history, and this is a great way for you to connect
with other people. Whether they be in your family, or whether they be in your friend set, or just in a social gathering where you'd like people to know more about you.
So thanks for writing with us.
This has been brought to you by the Nebraska Writing Project and the Nebraska park, or excuse me, the National Park Service, specifically Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.
Hidden Stories of Agate cooperative. And if you would like to share your stories, you can feel free to share them with me, at Blarabee@stewartbroncos.org or you can share them with the park.
Description
This is the third of four videos created for the 2023 Agate Writing Festival. The theme was Hidden Stories. Watch a ranger talk about how Lakota tribes used Winter Counts to recount stories. Then, a teacher from the Nebraska Writing Project walks students through the process of narrative writing and supports them in creating their own stories.
Duration
15 minutes, 32 seconds
Credit
Nebraska Writing Project
Date Created
10/26/2023
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