Throughout history, people who have been called “explorers” have been associated with making discoveries and changing the way others view the world. Stories of their journeys have turned them into heroes who found new trade routes, created new maps, gained land and wealth for their home countries, and inspired other explorers. Yet, what some might call the “Age of Exploration,” others might call the “Age of Conquest and Colonization.” The difference lies in who is doing the “exploring,” who/what is being “explored,” who is telling the story of exploration, and who has been silenced.
This task culminates into students writing and illustrating an historical fiction (counter)narrative that (re)tells the story about the encounter between the indigenous Hawai’ians and Captain James Cook. As an instructionally-embedded task, it first anchors around examining a picture book called Encounter by Jane Yolen, which provides a counternarrative to the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus. Through a read aloud of this creative interpretation of the “discovery of America,” students will get a perspective about Columbus’ arrival to the Americas from the point of view of an indigenous boy. Students will then deepen their understanding of the text and the idea of colonialism by utilizing a grade appropriate critical analysis framework to engage in a Socratic seminar dialog. Following the close reading of the text, students’ final performance task will then be to research and then create their own picture book about the encounter between the indigenous of Hawai’i and Captain James Cook.
NOTE: The final task is aimed at examining the context of native Hawai’i. The local context of the students should be considered and should inform how to modify the final task in a way that is more relevant, as desired.
