LESSON PLANS FROM THE UNIT
Darlene Cronin
Family & Consumer Sciences: Foods - Corn
Grades 9-12
Lesson Essential Question(s) and specific topics–
1.
2.
3.
4.
Where does corn from?
Why is corn such as essential part of native cultures?
How is corn used in mass food production?
How is corn used historically compared to its modern day uses?
Objectives (Broad)
1. To identify
where corn
comes from
2. To identify
specific uses of
corn for food
preparation and
consumption in
modern foods
3. To relate parts of
the corn stalk
and ears of corn
to stages of
human
development
4. To research
current usage of
corn in mass
food production
What will your students better understand and be better able to do as a result of
this lesson?
1. History of corn and its migration vs. stories of corn (native perspective).
Students will read short stories from the historical/scientific/native
perspectives, compare and contrast using graphic organizers such as a
Venn diagram, etc.
2. Students should be able to identify and specify how corn is used to make
many food items such as corn on the cob, roasted corn, kneel down bread
and blue corn mush.
3.
Teacher and students will procure the materials, cook and eat Navajo
kneel down bread, etc.. and make in their home economics class and/or
watch a video/DVD.
4. Students will identify current usage of corn in food preparations, etc.. by
researching topic and writing a two page report and/or an informational
poster. (genetic modifications, usage of corn syrup, diabetes education,
etc.)
What instructional tasks and activities will you and your students do? (see below)
Formative and/or
summative assessments How are these tasks and activities connected to the objectives and assessments?
(see above and below)
1. Students will
receive daily in1. To read several short stories on how native people use corn and understand
class grades on
the significance of its usage. Students will do a compare and contrast of
the 0-20 point
native stories on corn.
scale (formative)
2. Read and/or use excerpts on the history of corn along with maps of corn
2. Students will
migration. Do a Venn diagram for each. Group activity will focus on
also receive 1
combining all notes into one Venn diagram.
project based
3. Students need to participate in research activities and produce a poster of
outcome grade
how corn is used in mass food production.
based on their
4. Use various form of corn products in food preparation and/or research on
posters and/or
corn products.
research paper
on a topic with
corn.
3. Students will
receive a grade
on food
preparation.
What will you be doing?
What will the students be doing?
Stage 1: First the teacher will provide a short
reading in the content area that is grade appropriate
for her students. Next the teacher will provide an
example of how the corn stalk educational
philosophy actually looks.
Stage 1: Students will construct their own corn stalk
model poster and cross reference information to how
native people used corn in their everyday life. Then
the teacher will provide the students with materials to
create their own poster using pictures of their family
or pictures from magazine to form a family life cycle.
Stage 2: To apply information, students will research
where corn comes and how it is used to produce food
for humans, etc.
Stage 2: Students will prepare a food item that has
corn in it. (Corn roast, make pancakes with syrup,
etc.)
Step 3: Prepare a food item to share in class.
Stage 3: Students will research a corn product.
Primary sources:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Coyote and Corn story (Lapahie) www.lapahie.com/Coyote_Cornfield.cfm
dine.sanjuan.k12.ut.us/bichiya/breads/kneeldown.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ig9C41ZJnw (Kneel down bread preparation)
Bruchac, Joseph. Return of the Sun. The Crossing Press, Freedom, California. 1990
archaeology.about.com/od/mterms/qt/maize.htm
Indian Country Today, Five Genetically Modified foods you Should Never Eat, July 15, 2013
Historical background information:
1. Navajo Corn Stalk Philosophy of Education poster/picture
2. Yazzie, Ethelou. Navajo History, Navajo Curriculum Center, Chinle, Arizona. 1971
3. Traditional Navajo creation stories (Navajo Curriculum Press, Rough Rock, Arizona.)
www.lapahie.com/Creation.cfm
4. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html
Annotated bibliography of secondary sources:
1. Cajete, Greg (2010). Native Use of Plants. Whispering Wind Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
2. Lapahie, Greg (2000). www.lapahie.com/Creation.cfm
3. Navajo Curriculum Press (1988). Traditional Navajo Corn Stalk Philosophy of Education. Rough Rock,
Arizona Press.
Stages of child development (insert real example)
Vegetative Stages
Description
VE
Emergence -Birth
V1
One leaf with collar visible-Childhood
V2
Two leaves with collars visible -Childhood
V(R1)
(n) leaves with collars visible -Adulthood
VT
Last branch of tassel is completely visible-Old Age
"How A Corn Plant Develops", Special Report No. 48, Iowa State University,
Reprinted February, 1996.
extension.entm.purdue.edu/fieldcropsipm/corn-stages
Stage
Stories of the Corn
(Coyote and the Cornfield)
Note: The Navajo (Din4) word for Coyote is m2’ii, but the Din4 word for the Coyote of Navajo mythology is
’!ts4 Hashk4. The Din4 word for "cornfield" is D1’1k’eh. The Din4 word for "wildcat" is n1shd07.
**On Lapahie website- has instructions on how to install Navajo Font. )
www.lapahie.com/Coyote_Cornfield.cfm
While trotting along through the pinons one day, Coyote saw a wildcat sitting on a high limb. "Hey, Cousin,"
Coyote called to him. "What are you doing up there?" "Looking for food," said the wildcat. "I'm very hungry. I
saw this bird's nest up here and thought there might be some little birds in it. But there was nothing but a rotten
egg ... What are you doing, Cousin?".
"I'm on my way to the farmer's cornfield. I'm going to have a dinner of sweet, juicy, just ready-to-eat roasting
ears. Why don't you come with me?" Wildcat came down from the tree and sat near Coyote.
"So corn has ears! Isn't that what you said?" "Yes. You tear them from the corn stalk, pull the husks back and
eat the kernels." "I never thought of eating ears," the wildcat said. "Usually I leave the ears . . . What is corn?"
"The best food you ever tasted," Coyote said, smacking his lips. "And there's so much in one field that you can
have all you can hold ... I hardly can wait. Come on."
"How far is it?" the wildcat asked. "I've had hard luck hunting, and I'm very weak. I doubt if I could run far
until I've had something to eat." It was quite a long way, but Coyote wanted to fool the wildcat.
"Oh, it is only a little way over there," he said, pointing his lips in the direction of the cornfield. "Over a couple
of hills." "But won't the farmer chase you out of the field?" the wildcat asked, still undecided. "As I said, I'm
hungry and weak. I won't be able to run very far or very fast." "The farmer will chase us if he catches us
stealing his corn," Coyote said. "I'll help you run fast. I know a magic way." "Well, all right, then," the wildcat
said. "I'll go. But I still don't know what corn is."
Coyote tried to explain. "First, there's a green cornstalk with nice green leaves. Then a stick grows out of the
cornstalk. And on this stick these soft, yellow, milky kernels grow. They're wrapped in husks. You pull the
husks back and chew the kernels off the stick."
"Is it all yellow?" the wildcat asked, trotting along beside Coyote. "No, some of it is white, and -- " "Like
snow?" the wildcat interrupted. "True," said Coyote, "and some of it is red, and - " "Like blood?" the wildcat
asked. "Yes, and some of it is blue. Like the sky at night." "I'll go with you all the way," the wildcat said. "I
can't imagine that red, white, blue and yellow stuff that's sweet and soft and grows on a stick, but I want to see it
and taste it."
With Coyote leading, they ran up one hill, then another and another. The wildcat grew tired. His tongue hung
out. He was puffing and panting. He staggered as he ran. "I can't go any farther. Cousin," he called to Coyote.
"But look! "Coyote encouraged him. "There's the cornfield down below us. That green patch. Surely you can
make it that far." The wildcat was too tired to argue. "You go on," he said. "I'll come more slowly."
Coyote ran fast down the hill to the cornfield. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" he said as he reached the first rows of
corn. "Yum, yum, yum! I'm glad I'm hungry." He looked back. He could see Wildcat coming slowly down the
hill. Then he began tearing the ears from the cornstalks and eating the juicy corn.
When the wildcat caught up with him, Coyote had his mouth so crammed with corn that it dribbled from the
corners. "Help yourself. Cousin," he mumbled and went right on eating. "I'll rest a little while, first," said the
wildcat, flopping down in the shade and going to sleep immediately.
Coyote went on greedily pulling ears of corn from the stalks, stripping back the husks and chewing the kernels
from the cobs. He almost had his fill, and his stomach was bulging when he heard the farmer and his three sons
coming.
A rock whizzed past his ear. Another went over his shoulder. "Run, Cousin, run," he yelled at the wildcat.
"They're after us." Away he went, sprinting past the wildcat and up the hill, a half-eaten ear of corn in his
mouth. The wildcat awoke and began to run for his life.
"What's your magic for running faster?" the wildcat called to Coyote. The coyote's mouth was full. He just
turned his head from side to side, rapidly. Wildcat thought he meant that he should turn his head from side to
side in that fashion. He tried it. It made him dizzy. He began staggering. He staggered right off the edge of a
little canyon and fell into the branches of a cedar. The farmer and his sons went past him without seeing him.
Coyote was too full of corn. He began to get tired. He knew he had to think of a trick, or the farmer and his
three big sons would catch him. He dropped his ear of corn and began dodging - around this bush, then that
rock, then into a gulch and up a hillside. When he thought the farmer and his sons had become confused, he
crawled into the deep shade of a bush and lay very quiet.
The farmer and his sons looked and looked, but didn't see Coyote. Soon they gave up and went home. Coyote
watched them disappear over the hill. Then he curled up and went to sleep. He never did know what became of
that hungry wildcat.
Story 2
Bruchac, Joseph
The Coming of Corn (Anishinabe)
Rugs/weaving-Yeii/Corn
www.google.com (Navajo Rugs) or [email protected]
NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art
NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY OF CORN
Read about some Uses of Indian Corn
Try some Recipes from the Woodland Culture Area
Evolution of Maize Agriculture
Corn or maize (zea mays) is a domesticated plant of the Americas. Along with many other indigenous
plants like beans, squash, melons, tobacco, and roots such as Jerusalem artichoke, European colonists in
America quickly adopted maize agriculture from Native Americans. Crops developed by Native
Americans quickly spread to other parts of the world as well.
Over a period of thousands of years, Native Americans purposefully transformed maize through special
cultivation techniques. Maize was developed from a wild grass (Teosinte) originally growing in Central
America (southern Mexico) 7,000 years ago. The ancestral kernels of Teosinte looked very different from
today's corn. These kernels were small and were not fused together like the kernels on the husked ear of
early maize and modern corn.
By systematically collecting and cultivating those plants best suited for human consumption, Native
Americans encouraged the formation of ears or cobs on early maize. The first ears of maize were only a
few inches long and had only eight rows of kernels. Cob length and size of early maize grew over the next
several thousand years which gradually increased the yields of each crop.
Eventually the productivity of maize cultivation was great enough to make it possible and worthwhile for
a family to produce food for the bulk of their diet for an entire year from a small area. Although maize
agriculture permitted a family to live in one place for an extended period of time, the commitment to
agriculture involved demands on human time and labor and often restricted human mobility. The genetic
alterations in teosinte changed its value as a food resource and at the same time affected the human
scheduling necessary for its effective procurement.
Maize in New England
As the lifeways of mobile hunting and gathering were often transformed into sedentary agricultural
customs, very slowly the cultivation of maize, along with beans and squash, was introduced into the
southwestern and southeastern parts of North America. The practice of maize agriculture did not reach
southern New England until about a thousand years ago.
A Penobscot man described the transformation of maize for the shorter growing season of northern New
England. Maize was observed to grow in a series of segments, like other members of the grass family,
which took approximately one phase of the moon to form, with approximately seven segments in all, from
which ears were produced only at the joints of the segments. Native Americans of northern New England
gradually encouraged the formation of ears at the lower joints of the stalk by planting kernels from these
ears. Eventually, as ears were regularly produced at the lower joints of the cornstalk, the crop was
adapted to the shorter growing season of the north and matured within three months of planting.
Native Americans of New England planted corn in household gardens and in more extensive fields
adjacent to their villages. Fields were often cleared by controlled burning which enriched not only the soil
but the plant and animal communities as well. Slash and burn agriculture also helped create an open
forest environment, free of underbrush, which made plant collecting and hunting easier.
Agricultural fields consisted of small mounds of tilled earth, placed a meter or two apart sometimes in
rows and other times randomly placed. Kernels of corn and beans were planted in the raised piles of soil
to provide the support of the cornstalk for the bean vine to grow around. The spaces in between the
mounds were planted with squash or mellon seeds. The three crops complemented each other both in the
field and in their combined nutrition.
Native Americans discovered that, unlike wild plants and animals, a surplus of maize could be grown and
harvested without harming their environment. Tribes in southern New England harvested great amounts
of maize and dried them in heaps upon mats. The drying piles of maize, usually two or three for each
Narragansett family, often contained from 12 to 20 bushels of the grain. Surplus maize would be stored in
underground storage pits, ingeniously constructed and lined with grasses to prevent mildew or spoiling,
for winter consumption of the grain.
The European accounts of Josselyn in 1674, indicate Native Americans used bags and sacks to store
powdered cornmeal, "which they make use of when stormie weather or the like will not suffer them to
look out for their food". Parched cornmeal made an excellent food for traveling. Roger Williams in 1643,
describes small traveling baskets: "I have travelled with neere 200. of them at once, neere 100. miles
through the woods, every man carrying a little Basket of this [Nokehick] at his back, and sometimes in a
hollow Leather Girdle about his middle, sufficient for a man three or foure daies".
Cornhusk bed mat; Iroquois.
Rolled husks sewn with basswood cord.
Cornhusk foot mat; Seneca.
Braided and sewn in a coil.
Braided Edge.
Fringe from spliced cornhusks left on one side.
Native American Origins of Maize
Many Native American traditions, stories and ceremonies surround corn, one of the "three sisters"
(maize, beans and squash). Even in New England there are many variations on how maize was brought
or introduced to Native Americans here. Generally in southern New England, maize is described as a gift
of Cautantowwit, a deity associated with the southwestern direction; that kernels of maize and beans
were delivered by the crow, or in other versions the black-bird. Responsible for bringing maize, the crow
would not be harmed even for damaging the cornfield. Other Algonquian legends recount maize brought
by a person sent from the Great Spirit as a gift of thanks.
Cornhusk, wool and basswood cord
twined bag; Narragansett (made in 1675).
Cornhusk moccasin; Seneca.
Two-strand twined construction.
New England tribes from the Mohegan in Connecticut to the Iroquois in the Great Lakes region had
rituals and ceremonies of thanksgiving for the planting and harvesting of corn. One ceremony, the Green
Corn ceremony of New England tribes, accompanies the fall harvest. Around August Mahican men
return from temporary camps to the village to help bring in the harvest and to take part in the Green
Corn ceremony which celebrates the first fruits of the season. Many tribes also had ceremonies for seed
planting to ensure healthy crops as well as corn testing ceremonies once the crops were harvested.
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