ACTIVITY Argumentation in “An Indian Father’s Plea”

1.14

Learning Targets
LEARNING STRATEGIES: • Analyze the structure of an argument.
Think-Pair-Share, Marking
the Text, Graphic Organizer, • Construct an argument effectively in a persuasive letter.
Discussion
Before Reading
1. What relationship may exist between culture and argumentation? How might the
concept of culture require the skill of argumentation? Think-pair-share with your
ACADEMIC VOCABULARY partner. (You may want to consider works you have previously read in this unit.)
A concession is accepting
something as true. A refutation
is proof that an opinion is wrong The Structure of an Argument
or false. Although arguments are varied in their structure, content, and context, five key
elements are almost always found in an effective argument.

The Hook
My Notes • The hook grabs the reader’s attention.
The concept of culture • It often establishes a connection between reader and writer and provides
may require the skill of background information.
argumentation because, • It can be, but is not limited to, an anecdote, an image, a definition, or a quotation.
certain cultures are
similar and you may have The Claim
to have a support of why • The claim comes in the opening section of your paper.
certain cultures differ • It states your belief and what you wish to argue.
from each other • It can be straightforward and clear, for example, “I believe that …”.

Support: Reasons and Evidence

• Your support is the reasoning behind your argument.
• You provide supporting evidence for your claim (data, quotes, anecdotes, and
so on) and use support to create logical appeals.

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Counterclaims: Concessions and Refutations
• A concession recognizes the arguments made by the other side.
• A concession builds your credibility by objectively discussing the other side and
granting that the other side has some validity.
• Following the concession, a refutation argues at length against the opposing
viewpoint by proving your side has MORE validity.

Concluding Statement
• A concluding statement draws your argument to a close, restates your claim,
and makes a final appeal.
• Avoid repeating information, but sum up your argument with a few final facts
and appeals.

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During Reading
2. As you read “An Indian Father’s Plea” by Robert Lake, mark the text and write My Notes
the elements of argumentation in the My Notes section of your text.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A member of the Seneca and Cherokee Indian tribes, Robert Lake is an
associate professor at Gonzaga University’s School of Education in Spokane,
Washington. His tribal name is Medicine Grizzlybear.

Essay

An Indian Father’s

Plea
by Robert Lake (Medicine Grizzlybear)

Wind-Wolf knows the names and migration patterns of more

than 40 birds. He knows there are 13 tail feathers on a perfectly
balanced eagle. What he needs is a teacher who knows his
full measure.
Dear teacher, I would like to introduce you
to my son, Wind-Wolf. He is probably what you
© 2014 College Board. All rights reserved.

would consider a typical Indian kid. He was born and raised on the reservation. He has KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
black hair, dark brown eyes, and an olive complexion. And like so many Indian children How does this paragraph
his age, he is shy and quiet in the classroom. He is 5 years old, in kindergarten, and I establish the speaker’s
can’t understand why you have already labeled him a “slow learner.” position?
At the age of 5, he has already been through quite an education compared with his
peers in Western society. As his first introduction into this world, he was bonded to KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
his mother and to the Mother Earth in a traditional native childbirth ceremony. And How does the speaker
he has been continuously cared for by his mother, father, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, keep his audience in mind
grandparents, and extended tribal family since this ceremony. with the support for his
argument?
From his mother’s warm and loving arms, Wind-Wolf was placed in a secure and
specially designed Indian baby basket. His father and the medicine elders conducted
another ceremony with him that served to bond him with the essence of his genetic
father, the Great Spirit, the Grandfather Sun, and the Grandmother Moon. This was all
done in order to introduce him properly into the new and natural world, not the world
of artificiality, and to protect his sensitive and delicate soul. It is our people’s way of
showing the newborn respect, ensuring that he starts his life on the path of spirituality.

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 ACTIVITY 1.14
Argumentation in “An Indian Father’s Plea”
continued

The traditional Indian baby basket became his “turtle’s shell” and served as the
My Notes first seat for his classroom. He was strapped in for safety, protected from injury by the
willow roots and hazel wood construction. The basket was made by a tribal elder who
had gathered her materials with prayer and in a ceremonial way. It is the same kind
of basket that our people have used for thousands of years. It is specially designed to
provide the child with the kind of knowledge and experience he will need in order to
survive in his culture and environment.
Wind-Wolf was strapped in snugly with a deliberate restriction upon his arms and
KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS legs. Although you in Western society may argue that such a method serves to hinder
What element of an argument motor-skill development and abstract reasoning, we believe it forces the child to first
is displayed in the sentence develop his intuitive faculties, rational intellect, symbolic thinking, and five senses.
beginning “Although you in Wind-Wolf was with his mother constantly, closely bonded physically, as she carried
Western society . . .”? him on her back or held him in front while breast-feeding. She carried him everywhere
she went, and every night he slept with both parents. Because of this, Wind-Wolf ’s
educational setting was not only a “secure” environment, but it was also very colorful,
complicated, sensitive, and diverse. He has been with his mother at the ocean at
daybreak when she made her prayers and gathered fresh seaweed from the rocks, he has
sat with his uncles in a rowboat on the river while they fished with gill nets, and he has
watched and listened to elders as they told creation stories and animal legends and sang
songs around the campfires.
He has attended the sacred and ancient White Deerskin Dance of his people and
KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS is well-acquainted with the cultures and languages of other tribes. He has been with
What do you notice about the his mother when she gathered herbs for healing and watched his tribal aunts and
kind of evidence the author grandmothers gather and prepare traditional foods such as acorn, smoked salmon, eel,
uses to make his claim? and deer meat. He has played with abalone shells, pine nuts, iris grass string, and leather
while watching the women make beaded jewelry and traditional native regalia. He has
had many opportunities to watch his father, uncles, and ceremonial leaders use different
kinds of colorful feathers and sing different kinds of songs while preparing for the
sacred dances and rituals.
As he grew older, Wind-Wolf began to crawl out of the baby basket, develop
his motor skills, and explore the world around him. When frightened or sleepy, he

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could always return to the basket, as a turtle withdraws into its shell. Such an inward
journey allows one to reflect in privacy on what he has learned and to carry the new
knowledge deeply into the unconscious and the soul. Shapes, sizes, colors, texture,
sound, smell, feeling, taste, and the learning process are therefore functionally
integrated—the physical and spiritual, matter and energy, conscious and unconscious,
individual and social.
This kind of learning goes beyond the basics of distinguishing the difference
between rough and smooth, square and round, hard and soft, black and white,
similarities and extremes.
For example, Wind-Wolf was with his mother in South Dakota while she danced
for seven days straight in the hot sun, fasting, and piercing herself in the sacred Sun
Dance Ceremony of a distant tribe. He has been doctored in a number of different
healing ceremonies by medicine men and women from diverse places ranging from
Alaska and Arizona to New York and California. He has been in more than 20 different
sacred sweat-lodge rituals—used by native tribes to purify mind, body, and soul—since
he was 3 years old, and he has already been exposed to many different religions of his
racial brothers: Protestant, Catholic, Asian Buddhist, and Tibetan Lamaist.

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It takes a long time to absorb

and reflect on these kinds of My Notes
experiences, so maybe that is
why you think my Indian child
is a slow learner. His aunts and
grandmothers taught him to count
and know his numbers while they
sorted out the complex materials used
to make the abstract designs in the native
baskets. He listened to his mother count each and
every bead and sort out numerically according to color while she painstakingly made
complex beaded belts and necklaces. He learned his basic numbers by helping his father
count and sort the rocks to be used in the sweat lodge—seven rocks for a medicine
sweat, say, or 13 for the summer solstice ceremony. (The rocks are later heated and
doused with water to create purifying steam.) And he was taught to learn mathematics
by counting the sticks we use in our traditional native hand game. So I realize he may KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
be slow in grasping the methods and tools that you are now using in your classroom, What element of an
ones quite familiar to his white peers, but I hope you will be patient with him. It takes argument is displayed in
time to adjust to a new cultural system and learn new things. the underlined sentences?
How do they improve
He is not culturally “disadvantaged,” but he is culturally “different.” If you ask him the effectiveness of the
how many months there are in a year, he will probably tell you 13. He will respond speaker’s claim?
this way not because he doesn’t know how to count properly, but because he has been
taught by our traditional people that there are 13 full moons in a year according to
KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
the native tribal calendar and that there are really 13 planets in our solar system and
How does the speaker
13 tail feathers on a perfectly balanced eagle, the most powerful kind of bird to use in
utilize juxtaposition for
ceremony and healing. effect?
But he also knows that some eagles may only have 12 tail feathers, or seven, that
they do not all have the same number. He knows that the flicker has exactly 10 tail
feathers; that they are red and black, representing the directions of east and west,
life and death; and that this bird is considered a “fire” bird, a power used in native
doctoring and healing. He can probably count more than 40 different kinds of birds,
tell you and his peers what kind of bird each is and where it lives, the seasons in which
© 2014 College Board. All rights reserved.

it appears, and how it is used in a sacred ceremony. He may have trouble writing his
name on a piece of paper, but he knows how to say it and many other things in several
different Indian languages. He is not fluent yet because he is only 5 years old and
required by law to attend your educational system, learn your language, your values,
your ways of thinking, and your methods of teaching and learning. So you see, all of
these influences together make him somewhat shy and quiet—and perhaps “slow”
according to your standards. But if Wind-Wolf was not prepared for his first tentative
foray into your world, neither were you appreciative of his culture. On the first day of
class, you had difficulty with his name. You wanted to call him Wind, insisting that
Wolf somehow must be his middle name. The students in the class laughed at him,
causing further embarrassment.

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Argumentation in “An Indian Father’s Plea”
continued

KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS While you are trying to teach him your new methods, helping him learn new tools
How does the tone shift at this for self-discovery and adapt to his new learning environment, he may be looking out
point in the essay? How does the window as if daydreaming. Why? Because he has been taught to watch and study the
the author achieve this shift? changes in nature. It is hard for him to make the appropriate psychic switch from the
In terms of argumentative right to the left hemisphere of the brain when he sees the leaves turning bright colors,
structure, what is the author the geese heading south, and the squirrels scurrying around for nuts to get ready for a
doing here? harsh winter. In his heart, in his young mind, and almost by instinct, he knows that this
is the time of year he is supposed to be with his people gathering and preparing fish,
deer meat, and native plants and herbs, and learning his assigned tasks in this role. He is
caught between two worlds, torn by two distinct cultural systems.
My Notes Yesterday, for the third time in two weeks, he came home crying and said he
wanted to have his hair cut. He said he doesn’t have any friends at school because they
make fun of his long hair. I tried to explain to him that in our culture, long hair is a
sign of masculinity and balance and is a source of power. But he remained adamant in
his position.
To make matters worse, he recently encountered his first harsh case of racism.
Wind-Wolf had managed to adopt at least one good school friend. On the way home
from school one day, he asked his new pal if he wanted to come home to play with
him until supper. That was OK with Wind-Wolf ’s mother, who was walking with them.
When they all got to the little friend’s house, the two boys ran inside to ask permission
KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS while Wind-Wolf ’s mother waited. But the other boy’s mother lashed out: “It is OK
Notice how the speaker if you have to play with him at school, but we don’t allow those kind of people in our
incorporates direct quotations house!” When my wife asked why not, the other boy’s mother answered, “Because
in this example rather than you are Indians and we are white, and I don’t want my kids growing up with your
simply talking “about” the kind of people.”
incident. How do precise
words further an argument? So now my young Indian child does not want to go to school anymore (even
though we cut his hair). He feels that he does not belong. He is the only Indian child in
your class, and he is well-aware of this fact. Instead of being proud of his race, heritage,
and culture, he feels ashamed. When he watches television, he asks why the white
people hate us so much and always kill our people in the movies and why they take
everything away from us. He asks why the other kids in school are not taught about the

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power, beauty, and essence of nature or provided with an opportunity to experience
the world around them firsthand. He says he hates living in the city and that he misses
his Indian cousins and friends. He asks why one young white girl at school who is his
friend always tells him, “I like you, Wind-Wolf, because you are a good Indian.”
Now he refuses to sing his native songs, play with his Indian artifacts, learn his
language, or participate in his sacred ceremonies. When I ask him to go to an urban
powwow or help me with a sacred sweat-lodge ritual, he says no because “that’s weird”
and he doesn’t want his friends at school to think he doesn’t believe in God.

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So, dear teacher, I want to introduce you to my son, Wind-Wolf, who is not really KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
a “typical” little Indian kid after all. He stems from a long line of hereditary chiefs, The direct address of a an
medicine men and women, and ceremonial leaders whose accomplishments and unique absent or imagined person
forms of knowledge are still being studied and recorded in contemporary books. He has (“dear teacher”) is called
seven different tribal systems flowing through his blood; he is even part white. I want an apostrophe. What is
my child to succeed in school and in life. I don’t want him to be a dropout or juvenile its effect in the speaker’s
delinquent or to end up on drugs and alcohol because he is made to feel inferior or argument? Why does he
because of discrimination. I want him to be proud of his rich heritage and culture, and choose to place it here?
I would like him to develop the necessary capabilities to adapt to, and succeed in, both
cultures. But I need your help. KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
“But” is a signal of a shift.
What you say and what you do in the classroom, what you teach and how you
What kind of shift does the
teach it, and what you don’t say and don’t teach will have a significant effect on the
sentence “But I need your
potential success or failure of my child. Please remember that this is the primary year
help” signal?
of his education and development. All I ask is that you work with me, not against me,
to help educate my child in the best way. If you don’t have the knowledge, preparation,
experience, or training to effectively deal with culturally different children, I am willing
to help you with the few resources I have available or direct you to such resources.
Millions of dollars have been appropriated by Congress and are being spent each My Notes
year for “Indian Education.” All you have to do is take advantage of it and encourage
your school to make an effort to use it in the name of “equal education.” My Indian
child has a constitutional right to learn, retain, and maintain his heritage and culture.
By the same token, I strongly believe that non-Indian children also have a constitutional
right to learn about our Native American heritage and culture, because Indians play a
significant part in the history of Western society. Until this reality is equally understood
and applied in education as a whole, there will be a lot more schoolchildren in grade
K-2 identified as “slow leamers.” KEY IDEAS AND DETAILS
Underline the speaker’s call
My son, Wind-Wolf, is not an empty glass coming into your class to be filled. He is to action in these closing
a full basket coming into a different environment and society with something special to remarks.
share. Please let him share his knowledge, heritage, and culture with you and his peers.
© 2014 College Board. All rights reserved.

Unit 1 • Cultural Conversations 79

ACTIVITY 1.14
Argumentation in “An Indian Father’s Plea”
continued

After Reading
My Notes 3. In the graphic organizer below, identify examples of the five elements of
argument that appear in “An Indian Father’s Plea.”

Element of Example from the Text

Argument
"Dear teacher, I would like to introduce you to my son, Wind-Wolf. He is
Hook probably what you would consider a typical Indian kid. He was born and
raised on the reservation. He has black hair, dark brown eyes, and an
olive complexion. And like so many Indian children his age, he is shy
and quiet in the classroom. He is 5 years old, in kindergarten, and I
can't understand why you have already labeled him a
"slow learner.

Claim "So I realize he may be slow in grasping the methods and tools that
you are now using in your classroom, ones quite familiar to his white
peers, but I hope you will be patient with him. It takes time to adjust to
a new cultural system and learn new things.
He is not culturally "disadvantaged," but he is culturally "different.'

Support “If you ask him how many months there are in a year, he will probably tell
you 13. He will respond this way not because he doesn't know how to count
properly, but because he has been taught by our traditional people that
there are 13 full moons in a year according to the native tribal calendar and
that there are really 13 planets in our solar system and 13 tail feathers on a
perfectly balanced eagle, the most powerful kind of bird to use in ceremony
and healing.”

Concessions/ the teacher says that Wind Wolf does give

Refutations answers that are incorrect, because of the system that
they operate in.
fi
Call to Action The parent wants the teacher to learn more
about the child's culture so that the teacher
can teach other kids about his culture.

© 2014 College Board. All rights reserved.

Thus, preventing cultural ignorance in future
generations.

Gave us ideas of why wind wolf

would struggle with modern style
education systems. they expanded on how the
teacher is ignorant about the ways of
4. Discuss the effectiveness of the writer’s organization of ideas with your group
Wind Wolf's culture. There was also the members. How does the organization help or hinder the argument?
reoccurring issue of Wind Wolf rejecting
his culture to " t in". This allows for us
as readers to sympathize with Wind
Wolf. Check Your Understanding
Argumentative Writing Prompt: How effective is the speaker’s argument?
Taking on the perspective of the unnamed teacher, respond to the speaker’s
appeal in a letter. Be sure to incorporate the following elements in your letter:
• Use the structure of an argument that you saw modeled in “An Indian
Father’s Plea.”
• Specifically address his appeal by quoting his words and phrases within
your letter.
• Incorporate varied syntax structures in your writing.

80 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 10