Acadian Memorial Foundation, Inc. - Save Our History Grant 2005 -2006

Let the Children Speak!

Educator’s Guide
Lesson 2        

Purpose of Lesson

To learn about the Acadians’ life in Acadie.

To learn about the Acadians’ life in Louisiana .

Resources

Save Our History Educators’ Manual, Grades 5-8, Activity 3: Oral History

Early Acadians Resource List <ADD URL>

Internet Resources

Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site

Acadian and French Canadian Ancestral Home

The Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana

An Acadian Parish Remembered

Adaptation Strategies

Worksheets

What Do You See?

Photo Clues  

Note Taking

Evaluation Instruments

I Learned

 

Activities

1.       Arrange a Field Trip for the class to visit the Acadian Memorial, Museum of the Acadian Memorial, and the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site.  Contact the Acadian Memorial at 337-394-2258 or www.acadianmemorial.org.   Contact the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site at 337-394-3754 or 1-888-677-2900 toll free or http://www.crt.state.la.us/parks/ilongfell.aspx.

 

2.     Visit the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site via the Internet. Tell students they will be visiting it on their Field Trip.  Ask them to predict what they will see there.

 

3.      In later lessons, students will be writing stories about the first Acadians to settle in Louisiana . The stories will need to be very informative and tell what life was like in the late-1700s when the Acadians arrived.  Accordingly, it would be wise for you to divide class into groups and have each group focus on getting as much information as they can on an assigned topic during the field trip.  Topics to be covered include:

 

·        Life Before The Deportation

·        Life During The Deportation

·        Life After The Deportation

·        ,Work

·        Living Conditions

·        Fun, Play

·        School

·        Food

·        Indians

·        Toys

·        Communication

·        Social Class/Status

·        Travel

·        Language

·        Clothing

·        Education

 

 

 

Students will later share information they have gathered, so that all students can use it in their stories.

 

4.     Before the field trip, have students write about what they know or think they can figure out about life for a child in 1765.    Then have them move to groups and brainstorm about the topic.  Group should make a group list of everything mentioned.

 

5.     Access the Acadian and French Canadian Ancestral Home webpage and click on the Deportation Paintings and Acadian Life links to see depictions of Acadian life in Acadie.  Have students study the reproduced paintings and engravings for clues about the Acadian life in Acadie and the Deportation.  Using the What Do You See? worksheet, have students record all of the information they can discover for the categories listed.  Have students share the stories they write with these facts.  They will provide important background information for the stories of actual Acadians they will write in later lessons.

 

6.     Using the Photo Clues  worksheets, have students view the Mural, The Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana, and record all of the information they can discover.

 

7.     Begin researching in books in the Early Acadians Resource List <ADD URL>.  Try to get parents, librarians, etc. involved.   Students keep adding to their Group Lists.

 

8.     Follow the Buildings in Time Activity on page 27 of the Save Our History Educators Manual, Grades 5-8 .to plan activities that students will do on the Field Trip to the Acadian Memorial and the Longfellow Evangeline State Historic Site.

 

9.     On the day before the Field Trip, have groups share all information gathered with whole class.

 

Evaluation

1.       Print and distribute the I Learned Evaluation sheet and have students write things they have learned in the appropriate columns.  Continue adding to the categories after future lessons.  These statements will provide rich details for the stories they will write in Lesson 5.

 

Extensions  

1.       Important background information on the Acadians in Acadie can be found on these two webpages The Arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana  and An Acadian Parish Remembered .  Print and read relevant parts of them to students.  Have them use the Note Taking  worksheet to record information as they listen.  Have them add information from their notes to their I Learned worksheets.  

AccessAdaptation Strategies for ways to help students comprehend material written above their reading level.  

Louisiana Content Standards

H-1A-E2         Recognizing that people in different times and places view the world differently.  (1, 3, 4)

H-1A-M6        Conducting research in efforts to answer historical questions.(1, 2, 3, 4)

H-1B-E1         Describing and comparing family life in the present and the past.  (1, 2, 3, 4)

H-1B-E2         Relating the history of the local community and comparing it to other communities of long ago.  1, 2, 3, 4)

ELA-1-E6       Interpreting texts to generate connections to real-life situations;  (1, 2, 4)

ELA-7-M2      Problem solving by using reasoning skills, life experiences, accumulated knowledge, and relevant available information.   (1, 2, 4)

ELA-1-M5      Using purposes for reading (e.g., enjoying, learning, researching, problem solving) to achieve a variety of objectives.  (1, 2, 4, 5)