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Unit
I
Defining
Terms
Lesson 1 What Is
Folklife?
On the bottom of the ladder you
have what you call a roustabout, who runs around and does everything
that nobody else wants to do. He's a "grunt." He unloads and stacks
pipe, mops, cleans, paints, that kind of thing. . . . After
roustabouts, you have the floorman, who is also known as a
roughneck. They work the actual drilling floor on the rigs, and make
up or break up the pipe. Their job is probably the most dangerous.
There was, and still is, a macho stigma attached to that job--some
of the old-timers especially might sort of be proud of having lost a
finger or whatever. The description of a typical roughneck or
roustabout used to be that he weighed 250 pounds or more, that at
least three-quarters of that was located above his belt-line, and
that he used a two-inch bull-plug for a hard-hat. In other words, he
was a pin-head, and the job called for all brawn and no brains,
which really isn't true.
--John Vidrine,
Lafayette Parish
from Oilfield Lore
Grade
Levels
4-8
Curriculum
Areas
English Language Arts,
Social Studies
Purpose of
Lesson
Students are introduced to the term folklife through a
student essay, discussion, and activities. They learn that folklife
is transmitted through everyday activities. They learn about variants, motifs, and cultural
processes of folk, popular, elite cultures,
and to connect folklife to everyday
experience. For an alternate way of introducing these basic concepts
using children's games and play, see Unit III Lesson
1.
Lesson Objectives/Louisiana Content Standards, Benchmarks, and
Foundation Skills
- Students learn that everyone, including themselves, has
folklife.
H-1C-E4 Recognizing how folklore and
other cultural elements have contributed to our local, state,
and national heritage (1, 3,
4)
ELA-4-M5 Listening and responding to a
wide variety of media (e.g., music, TV, film, speech). (1, 3, 4,
5)
ELA-4-M4 Speaking and listening for a
variety of audiences (e.g., classroom, real-life, workplace) and
purposes (e.g., awareness, concentration, enjoyment,
information, problem solving). (1, 2, 4,
5)
ELA-2-M5 Recognizing and applying literary
devices (e.g., figurative language, symbolism, dialogue). (1,
4)
G-1C-E4 Identifying and comparing the
cultural characteristics of different regions and people; (1, 2,
3, 4)
- Students learn to define folklife and how folklife is transmitted through everyday
learning.
ELA-4-M5 Listening and responding to a
wide variety of media (e.g., music, TV, film, speech). (1, 3, 4,
5)
ELA-5-M2 Locating and evaluating
information sources (e.g., print materials, databases, CD-ROM
references, Internet information, electronic reference works,
community and government data, television and radio resources,
audio and visual materials). (1, 3, 4,
5)
H-1A-M3 Analyzing the impact that specific
individuals, ideas, events, and decisions had on the course of
history. (1, 2, 3, 4)
H-1C-E4 Recognizing how
folklore and other cultural elements have contributed to our
local, state, and national heritage. (1, 3,
4)
- Students learn differences between folk, popular, and elite
cultures.
H-1D-M6 Examining folklore and
describing how cultural elements have shaped our state and local
heritage. (1, 3, 4)
ELA-7-M2 Problem solving
by using reasoning skills, life experiences, accumulated
knowledge, and relevant available information. (1, 2,
4)
Time
Required
3-5 days
Materials
Duplicate the essay What Is Folklife and Why Study It? for all
students. Provide journals for students to record their thoughts
during the lesson. These could be steno pads, notebooks, or sheets
of paper stapled together. Print and duplicate the worksheets and
assessment tools listed below.
Technology
Connections
Internet Resources
What Is Folklife and Why Study It?
Glossary
Adaptation
Strategies
Student Worksheets
Everyday Learning
Worksheet
Types of Folklife
Worksheet
Cultural Processes in
Action Worksheet
Venn
Diagram
Music in
Everyday Life Worksheet
Assessment Tools
- Student journals
- Cultural Processes
In Action Worksheet
Evaluation
Tools/Opportunities
Process
- Journals
- Lists of customs and word games
- Types of
Folklife Worksheet
- Cultural Processes
In Action Worksheet
Products
- Journals
- Lists of customs and word games
- Everyday
Learning Worksheet
- Cultural Processes
In Action Worksheet
- Venn
Diagrams
- Oral presentations on personal folklife
Background Information for the
Teacher
Review the Folklore and
Folklife, Motifs and
Variants, Context, and Cultural
Processes sections of the Unit
Introduction of Unit I Defining Terms.
To Prepare
To get a thorough understanding of the concepts, terminology, and
goals of this unit, read the Unit Introduction of Unit I Defining
Terms. Look at your curriculum to see where openings exist
for introducing folklore and folklife to your
students. There are many. If the essay What Is Folklife and Why Study It? is
written above your students' reading ability, refer to the Adaptation Strategies
for ways to modify it.
4th and 8th Grade
Activities
- Have students keep journals during the lesson to
record questions and thoughts that occur as they work through the
activities. Also encourage them to record observations,
information collected, hypotheses, and inferences about the
concepts they are learning in this lesson.
- Ask students to tell you what they think of when they hear the
word "folklore." Write the key terms they say on the board.
Explain to students that there are several words that people use
to talk about folklore: folklife, traditions, culture, to name a
few. (For the rest of this lesson, we're going to rely more on the
term "folklife," although it is, for all intents and purposes,
interchangeable with "folklore." Some folklorists believe that
"folklife" is more embracing of material culture and customary
behavior than "folklore," which the general population often tends
to associate mainly with verbal traditions.)
- Write on the board the Louisiana Voices definition of
folklife, found in the Glossary:
"The living traditions currently practiced and
passed down by word of mouth, imitation, or observation over
time and space within groups, such as family, ethnic, social
class, regional, and others. Everyone and every group has
folklore." Ask students to tell you some sayings that
they've learned from friends, such as "Sticks and stones may break
my bones, but words can never hurt me."
Then ask if they
can think of any word games they learned from watching and
imitating others at school, such as a hand-clapping rhyme or "one,
two, three, four, I declare a thumb war," or "one potato, two
potato." Ask if they remember when or how they learned these
traditions. Chances are, they won't remember. Stress that
frequently we learn folklore when we
don't even realize it, through "everyday learning." If students
cannot remember how they learned the traditions, reassure them
that this is okay! They may not remember precisely because we
acquire folklore almost
unconsciously, among various folk groups in daily life.
- Distribute copies of What Is Folklife and Why Study It? Have
students read the first page and Part I: Defining Folklore. Then ask them
to reflect on the essay and write their thoughts in their
journals.
- Divide the classroom into two groups. Each group chooses a
"captain." Write on the board two folklife categories, Customs and
Word Games, and assign one to each group. The groups must
brainstorm for five minutes to think of as many words or phrases
as possible that belong to their assigned category. The captains
write these on the board, then the whole class discusses whether
each item is, in fact, folklife. Have them refer to the definition
on the board for their decisions. For each correct answer, the
team gets a point. The team with the most points wins.
- Distribute the Everyday Learning
Worksheet. Have students work individually, rather than in
groups. It is important for them first to understand their own
everyday learning experiences. Give students time to complete the
worksheet, then have them take turns reading their answers to the
class. Discuss together how they learned their everyday
traditions. If desired, have them write reflections on this topic
in their journals.
- Explain that folklore and traditions can have motifs, such as a
trickster joke or tale, but there can also be variants, or
different versions of traditions. For instance, Brer Rabbit from
the American South, Anansi from West Africa, or Coyote from Native
Americans are all tricksters. For other examples, refer to the Variants, Motifs section
of Unit 1
Introduction.
Be sure to ask whether any students
have variants, or different versions, of the traditions on their
Everyday Learning
Worksheets. Ask students to share other things similar to
what's on the worksheet that they've learned in an "everyday way."
Not everything they share will be folklife, but at this point you
want to stress the process of how people learn traditional
activities--through word of mouth, imitation, and
observation.
- Distribute the Types of Folklife
Worksheets. Have students find examples of motifs and
variants on their Everyday Learning
Worksheets and write them in the blanks.
- Throughout this discussion, students will generate expressions
not only of folk
culture but also of popular and
elite
culture. Spend some time explaining the different levels
of culture. Have students refer to the definitions in Part 2 on
the Types of
Folklife Worksheet as you explain the different levels of
culture. Folk
culture is learned primarily by word of mouth and
observation. We also learn from and interact with popular
culture coming from radios, televisions, the Internet,
magazines, and other mass media. Elite culture
is learned through formal instructions at schools, colleges,
museums, music conservatories, and art schools. Ask students to
tell you how they learned that on Halloween, a person goes from
house to house saying "Trick or treat?" (folk culture) Then ask
where they learned about Spider Man (popular culture). Then ask
them where they learned that the Declaration of Independence was
signed in 1776 (elite culture). Explain that sometimes these three
categories overlap. Ask them where they first heard about
Cinderella. A spoken story? A written story? A Disney film? The
ballet? All these forms? If so, they've experienced Cinderella
through folk, popular, and elite processes. Have students complete
Types of Folklife
Worksheet, then discuss their answers in groups or as a
class.
- Distribute the Cultural Processes in
Action Worksheet and ask students to decide which items
are folk
culture, popular
culture, or elite culture
expressions and which are mixtures. Design a simpler version of
this worksheet for younger students or ask them to design one as a
test of what they have learned about folk, popular, and elite
cultural processes. Discuss students' conclusions -- not everyone
will agree. See the Teacher Key
developed by the FolkWriting Project for appropriate
answers.
- Have students write reflections about this lesson in their
journals.
4th Grade
Explorations and Extensions
- Use the words from the two columns, Customs and Word Games, to
complete a Venn
Diagram that compares these genres.
- Connect everyday learning to music by completing the Music in Everyday
Life Worksheet in Unit VI Lesson
2.
- Give a short oral presentation on one item of folk
culture.
Unit I Resources
Unit I Outline
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