by boot | Feb 19, 2025
Have students imagine Shin-chi’s first night at the school. Ask students: How might he be feeling? What about his older sister — how might she be feeling about sleeping there again? What might be different about this time? (Having her brother there now, having a...
by boot | Feb 19, 2025
Ask students: Why do the characters in the story have English names? How do you think they felt not being able to keep their own names? How would you feel if someone came and renamed you and you couldn’t be called your name anymore?
by boot | Feb 19, 2025
Ask students: What teaching does Shi-shi-etko tell her brother? Do you think he will remember?
by boot | Feb 19, 2025
Ask students: Why do you think their father gave Shi-shi-etko a tiny canoe before they left? What evidence does the author give that lets you know how the adults are feeling about the two children leaving for residential school?
by boot | Feb 19, 2025
Shi-shi-etko doesn’t want a repeat of what happened the previous year when the people at the residential school cut off her braids and threw them away. She asks her grandmother to cut them for her, and afterward she and Shin-chi go “up the mountain to put their braids...
