What Cree Children's Drawings Reveal About Words and Imagery in the Cree Language (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Structural Analysis of Cree Children's Drawings: Part 2
Actes du vingt-cinquième congrès des Algonquinistes, 1994
This is the second in a series of five papers about the drawings of Cree children from the First Nations community of Kaschewan, Ontario. The author analyzes 18 pictures drawn by four children who sat together for about an hour at the kitchen table of their grandfather's house. Facsimiles of the drawings are arranged into a concordance. As in the previous paper, there is a prevalence of Ninja turtle images. These are interspersed with images of a dog barking outside a house, a snake, a hunting scene, a depiction of the local church and a map of the community. The author identifies the underlying theme of the clash between good and evil and observes a variety of visual and unconscious verbal associations based on iteration.
A Structural Analysis of Cree Children's Drawings: Part 1
Papers of the twenty-fourth Algonquian Conference, 1993
This is the first in a series of five papers about the drawings of Cree children from the First Nations community of Kaschewan, Ontario. It is based on fieldwork the author conducted for his PhD between September 1990 and May 1991. The author begins with an overview of life in the community and then analyzes 58 pictures drawn by five children who sat together watching TV in their grandfather's house. The drawing continued over a one-hour period. To facilitate analysis, the author has arranged facsimiles of the drawings into a concordance. The prevalence of images from the Ninja turtles movie, which was very popular at the time, is striking. The author identifies a variety of visual and unconscious verbal associations based on iteration.
A Structural Analysis of Cree Children's Drawings: Part 3
Papers of the twenty-sixth Algonquian conference, 1995
This is the third in a series of five papers about the drawings of Cree children from the First Nations community of Kaschewan, Ontario. The author analyzes 36 pictures drawn by three children who sat together around the kitchen table in their grandfather's house. Facsimilies of the drawings are arranged into a concordance. Images of Ninja turtles are prevalent, along with depictions of scenes of goose hunting, camping, airplanes, televisions, leaves and a snowman. The author identifies parallels between one drawing and a traditional Cree legend, as well as the recurring theme of the battle between good and evil.
A Structural Analysis of Cree Children's Drawings: Part 4
Papers of the twenty-seventh Algonquian conference, 1996
This is the fourth in a series of papers about the drawings of Cree children from the First Nations community of Kaschewan, Ontario. The author analyzes 36 pictures drawn by five children who sat together around the kitchen table in their grandfather's house. Facsimilies of the drawings are arranged into a concordance. Images of Ninja turtles, Super-Mario (a video game character), geese, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, a witch, a man wearing a hat, and devils predominate. As the drawings were made at the end of October, the author suggests much of the imagery has association with Halloween. The recurring theme of the clash between good and evil, found in many of the children's other drawings, is also present.
Language and Literacy, 2019
In this paper, we report on the first phase of an initiative we undertook to develop a classroom tool to document and describe children’s emergent writing. Here, we describe the process through which we developed an analytic framework to assist us in identifying patterns in young Indigenous and non-Indigenous children’s graphic representations in response to three formal tasks. Participating children lived in 11 northern, rural communities in two Canadian provinces. The resulting patterns, consistent with those described in the literature on children’s emergent writing, suggest the need to explore further how children use the verbal mode while representing meaning graphically.
Cree language use in contemporary children’s literature
Book 2.0, 2019
An increasing number of children’s books are being written, illustrated and published in Indigenous languages, responding to the urgent need for children to be exposed to their ancestral languages to further the goals of language revitalization across all ages and restore intergenerational language transmission. Such publications range in style from instructional language-learning books that feature a picture alongside associated text – helping children to learn words in a manner similar to using flashcards – to fully developed storybooks written entirely in an Indigenous language or in a bilingual format, with an Indigenous language and an official, national or colonial language sharing the same page. This article focuses on three recent books that have adopted the final approach outlined above – using English as the primary medium with Cree woven into the text throughout the book: Nimoshom and His Bus (Thomas 2017); Stolen Words (Florence 2017); and Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock (Hunt 2019).
"Land Talk" in Iiyiyiuyimuwin (Eastern James Bay Cree)
(Eastern James Bay Crees) talk about their local land environment. Through morpho-semantic and discourse analysis, it seeks to unearth how the geography is represented in the Iiyiyiu lexicon and discourse. Specific consideration is extended to how Iiyiyiuch primarily orient themselves in land navigation, and how linguistic spatial location description is used to situate reference points. The argument is made that Iiyiyiuyimuwin encodes for three linguistic frames of reference with strong preference for an "absolute" orientation system. Preliminary testing of Iiyiyiuyimuwin compatibility with Innu-aimun leads to evidence that the Iiyiyiu way of semantically organizing the geography is reflected in the morphology. The intention of this thesis is to contribute to the documentation and preservation of Iiyiyiuyimuwin, with the implication that current and future generations may continue to know how the language has inherently guided Iiyiyiuch in the Iiyiyiu way of life. iii ᓅᐦᑖᐐ ᑭᔮᐦ ᓂᑏᔨᔨᒥᒡᐦ ᓂᐱᒋᔅᑎᓂᒸᐎᒡ ᐅᔮ ᒥᓯᓂᐦᐄᑭᓂᔨᐤ iv Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible if it was not for the immense generosity and strong support I received throughout this research journey. To thank any one person or organization more than any other is just not doable since I believe that the nexus of people and organizations that have helped and encouraged me in my journey are all of such importance and of great influence. This thesis would not have been possible if it was not in part for the following: Thank you to the Cree School Board Post Secondary Student Services for their financial sponsorship, and academic and resource support throughout my academic endeavors over the years.
Lips' Inking: Cree and Cree-Metis Authors' Writing of the Oral and What They Might Tell Educators
This paper argues that the varieties of English that Indigenous poets in Canada are bringing to the page indicate their concern to serve Indigenous peoples’ purposes rather than worrying first-and-foremost about following the rules of Standard Canadian English (SCE). Moreover their language practice can thus be understood as a form of linguistic self-government. The article documents the mixing of Cree, Michif, and English languages in Indigenous communities and reviews evidence of the ways teachers are responding to this mixing. It then argues for acceptance of “Creenglish” and “Michiflish,” linguistic hybrids of English and Cree and of English and Michif, the Métis language, respectively. It does so on the basis of evidence that Creenglish is acting as a stepping stone to language mastery and because Indigenous poets in Canada are using these varieties of English in creative and politically important ways. After detailing the multiple functions that Creenglish and Michiflish are serving in the poetry, this study considers specific instances of usage in the work of Cree and Cree-Métis writers Louise Halfe/Sky Dancer, Maria Campbell, Gregory Scofield, and Neal McLeod.
Indigenous Children's Use of Language During Play in Rural Northern Canadian Kindergarten Classrooms
This article reports on research examining the social purposes of Indigenous kindergarten children’s language and their construction of Indigenous cultural knowledge within and through interactions with peers during dramatic play and play with construction materials. The participants are three teachers and 29 children from two rural northern Canadian Indigenous communities that are accessible only by plane and winter roads. Data sources are video-recordings of the children’s play interactions taken over 4 months and their teachers’ perceptions of the Indigenous knowledge that the children construct in their play. Unlike results of many standardized oral language assessments indicating deficits in Indigenous children’s language, our results showed that children used language for a wide range of purposes; a range that corresponds with results of previous studies of nonindigenous children’s play interactions. Participating Indigenous children most often used language for learning and language for imagining in their play. Their teachers were heartened to see that their students, most frequently the girls, also used language for disagreeing and asserting themselves. Teachers felt that children were constructing powerful cultural identities that would contribute to positive change, if they could use language in these ways outside their Indigenous communities, as well. Participating children took up Indigenous cultural meanings in their play, such as relationships with the land and among family members. In some cases, they created hybrid narratives, bringing together elements of popular culture as well as traditional Indigenous land-based activities, such as fishing and hunting, into their play interactions.