TEACHERNET Education Webspace - RPS

By Jordan Wheeler and Dennis Jackson (2005)

Summary

Christmas at WAPOS BAY is a selection from Coteau Books' From Many Peoples series that tells the story of children from different cultures. This story is about three young Cree children who have traveled from the city to northern Saskatchewan to spend Christmas with their Mushom (grandfather) and Kohkum (grandmother) on the trapline. Because of a fire the previous summer, animals are scarce and they are worried that they won't have enough food for when all of the other relatives arrive. Talon, Raven and their cousin T-Bear take matters into their own hands. They sneak out of the cabin early in the morning and take Mushom's dog team to try to hunt down a moose whose tracks they noticed the day before. When the adults realize what they have done, Mushom heads out to find them. A storm catches them out in the bush, Mushom falls ill and the children are forced to use all of the survival skills that Mushom has taught them to get home safely.

Strategies

Modeled Connections

• Text - to - Self

I remember visiting my grandma and grandpa who lived a long way away from where I lived at Christmas time. They lived in a city like I did so visiting them was much different from Talon's, Raven's and T-Bear's visit. I was always glad to be there with them. I think I know how Talon, Raven and T-Bear feel visiting their grandparents because of how I felt.

Their Mushom and Kohkum's cabin reminds me of a friends cabin up in northern Saskatchewan. The only way you could get to it was by boat in the summer and to ski across the lake in the winter. It was quiet and peaceful because there weren't any other people living in the area for miles around them. It was like Mushom and Kohkum's cabin because there was no running water, clocks or television. They used a wood stove to cook on and heat the cabin too. It was different though because this was my friends' holiday home. It wasn't where they lived all year.

• Text - to - Text

Do you remember reading A Team Like No Other? When I read about Freedom and Shadow and the other dogs at the beginning of the chapter, I thought about A Team Like No Other with Stephen and his Dad and their dog team with Skoki. I remember the friskiness of the dogs and how much they loved to run. Remembering the illustrations in the picture book helped me to think about what things look like in the novel.

• Text - to - World

Not having enough food at Christmas time is something that families in our community deal with too. The worry that the children and their grandparents have is the same that people here have. Do you remember collecting money to adopt a family at Christmas last year? We did that for a family here in Regina so that they could enjoy their Christmas time together. Remembering how happy the family was to get the food we brought to them made me realize how worrying it is not to have enough food and how disappointing that would be especially at Christmas time when I look forward to being with lots of family.

Guided Connections

As you read your novel today, see if you can make connections. They might be to things you remember from your own life or other books or movies you have seen.

Use your sticky notes to write the page number and write the connection code to tell if it is a T-S, T-T or T-W connection. Write just a few words about your connection so that you can tell a partner what it is at the end of our reading time today.

As you are reading, I will come around and see how your connecting is going.

Modeling Monitoring Meaning

As we read, we sometimes come across a word of sentence that we don't know the meaning of. In this story, there are a few Cree words that you might not know. There is one on page 3 when Mushom says "Wanska, my grandchildren. It's a good day to trap. The dogs are waiting for you." He is waking them up so that they can go hunting. I'm not sure what "Wanska" means but I think it might mean "wake up" or "good morning" because of what Mushom is doing and saying at that time.

Not knowing what it means exactly is okay because I can still understand what is happening. It's all right if I make a guess based on what is happening in the story.

Because I'm curious, I'm going to write that word and the page number on a sticky note and put it on our question board. Maybe someone else can help me learn what that word means.

As you read today, make sure that if there is a word or sentence that you don't understand, you use a sticky note to mark it. Think about whether it is important to the meaning of the story. Sometimes you can make a guess and read on but sometimes it is important that you find out what it means so you know what is happening. We will look at our questions later to see if we can help each other out.

Visualizing

This story is helping me to make great pictures in my mind. I think some of my pictures come from my connections to other stories and movies I have seen about dog teams and winter. Some of my pictures come from the words that the author uses too.

On page 2, the text says that "Freedom barks and shakes the snow of his body and the other dogs do the same…" I can just see that happening, with snow flying all around them and the sounds of the dogs barking. I think the snow is sparkling in the sun and the crystals of snow in the air make everything very bright and sparkly.

On that same page, the authors describe what the cabin is like and I'm trying to get a picture in my head of what it looks like with it's one room, the window, stove and eating area, the kitchen area and the sleeping area. I have smelled fresh bannock before and that smell comes to me when I see the bannock sitting on a plate at the table. Mmmmm. I would love to wake up in the morning and smell that good smell!

I can keep track of my thinking in a chart like this called a two-column note form. I need to write the page number and a few words from the text that triggered my thinking. Then I need to describe my thinking. If it is a visualization, I would mark it with a V. It would look something like this:

What the Text Says	My Strategy Thinking
p. 11 snow stretches above the horizan…three sundogs tagging along	V - I can see the snow stretching into the distance until it meets and almost seems to blend in with the sky far away. Sundogs tell me it is very bright and COLD out!
p. 25 they stare across the frozen water to the mainland…burnt trees to the horizon	V - I have seen forests that have been burnt down and it is so sad to see with black trunks still standing but no branches and lots of little stumps and logs that have fallen over.

As you read today, see if you can make pictures in your mind. They might be things you see or smells, tastes or things you hear and feel. If you want to use sticky notes, we will stick them into a two-column note form later. You can keep track of your thinking right on the two-column note form if you want. Remember to mark you mental images with a "V". We'll stop part way through our reading time and share some of the mental images that you are making.

The Willow Awards site does not include extra activities for this story. Some extensions to this story might include:

• finding a recipe and making bannock Determining Importance
• researching trapping and hunting in Saskatchewan and presenting your findings Determining Importance, Synthesis
• researching Saskatchewan animals in the lives of trappers, wild animals or dog teams Determining Importance, Synthesis

Students may need support in using the above strategies in order to complete these activities independently.