Thunder Rolling in the Mountains

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider the significance of land and nature in Indigenous cultures. How might a connection to the land shape a community’s identity and response to external threats?

Teaching Suggestion: This question relates to the theme of Connection to Home. To strengthen student understanding of this topic, you might encourage your class to look at land acknowledgements all over the country. They could research which tribes live or used to live on the land where they currently live, then you could extend this Short Answer with the additional task of having students write a land acknowledgement. Writing a thoughtful land acknowledgement might involve significant research, so you might consider putting students in groups for this activity.

• “Native Perspectives: Land Ownership” - In this summary, three Indigenous experts discuss the history of tribal land and how their tribes perceive land ownership.
• “A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” - This article from the Native Governance Center explains the importance of land acknowledgements and gives guidance on how to write them.