Louisiana Voices Educator's Guide  
Getting Started With This Guide  
Study Guide Summary  
Outline of the Study Guide  
Study Unit I Defining Terms  
Study Unit II Fieldwork Basics  
Study Unit III Discovering the Obvious: Our Lives as "The Folk"  
Study Unit IV The State of Our Lives: Being a Louisiana Neighbor  
Study Unit V Oral Traditions--Swapping Stories  
Study Unit VI Louisiana's Musical Landscape  
Study Unit VII Material Culture-The Stuff of Life  
Study Unit VIII The Worlds of Work and Play  
Study Unit IX The Seasonal Round and Life Cycles  
Educator's Links  
Louisiana Voices Milestones  
Educator's Guide Glossary  
Educator's Guide Credits
Educator's Opportunities For Professional Development  
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Unit III Outline

Introduction: Our Lives as "The Folk"

Lesson 1:The Child: Games and Play Today and Yesterday In Louisiana

Lesson 2: The School--School Culture Across Louisiana

Lesson 3: The Family--Louisiana Family Folklore

Lesson 3, Activity 1: Naming Traditions

Lesson 3, Activity 2: Family Pictures

Lesson 3, Activity 3: The Family--Louisiana Family Folklore

Unit III Resources

 

 

LDOE

 


                                                                                                                 Activity 1  Activity 2  Activity 3
Unit III
Discovering the Obvious: Our Lives as "The Folk"

By Paddy Bowman, Sylvia Bienvenu, and Maida Owens

We children played outside under the fig trees. Emery Bourgeois was the farmer. I was his helper. Libbon . . . Bourgeois and his brothers, Mac and Willard, had filling stations. Howard may have been the engineer. I was the only girl farmer. Aunt Beulah reminded me of the many fights we had. Our whole machinery for the imaginary rice fields we planted were made from empty cans. Tin cans were treasured as toys. . . . Then we had to pretend we had wagons, horses, rice planters, and even a deep well, too. We made many canals and we would use the long handled water pump in the yard to irrigate our rice fields.

--Effie Andrepont, Acadia Parish


Unit Introduction

The idea of "the folk" arose as 19th century European scholars began studying peasant life and looking for quaint old ways of doing things. For example, the Grimm Brothers collected many tales, which they later revised and published. Early folklore scholars collected ballads and tunes as well, searching for ancient songs. Today folklorists study many forms of traditional cultural expression, contemporary as well as from the past. They collect from all classes of people, not just rural residents or recent immigrants. Unit III introduces students to folklife concepts and definitions and, most importantly, grounds them in their own folklife so that they begin to see that everyone has folklife. By starting with themselves, students will be able to comprehend further folklife studies more fully. They will start to learn that many traditions cut across various folk groups, yet each family has its own unique folklife. If you undertake no other units in this guide, these lessons are the most important.

 

Unit III Resources

Unit III Outline

 

National Endowment for




            the Arts.

 
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