"Know Your Roots": Development and Evaluation of an Oral History Curriculum for Native American Middle-School Students

American Indian children have systematically been denied the opportunity to learn about their origin stories and oral traditions in the mainstream American public school system and have suffered from approaches long documented as failing them. Tribal entities across the nation are making concerted efforts to revitalize Native languages and cultural practices. Language tables and conferences focusing on language and cultural revitalization strategies are increasingly common as the need for gathering information from community members becomes more apparent. Key to ensuring the continuation of traditional practices is involving the community's youth. While several oral history projects exist across the nation and within American Indian communities, there appears to be little, if any, culturally relevant oral history curricula finding its way into the schools, particularly those serving high populations of Native students. A review of published oral history literature did not locate a formal curriculum designed for a school setting where Indian youth gathered information from family and community members. To strengthen a traditional practice of indigenous education, the authors undertook the task of developing their own curriculum. Their goals are to describe the oral history curriculum developed by the Youth Intervention Project (YIP) and its evaluation. This article present results of a survey of Indian students' interest and concerns regarding their tribal culture administered to sixth graders before the oral history program. Evaluation results of the curriculum are presented. (Contains 1 table and 12 notes.)