Exploring stories and other texts helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the world.

• Respond to text in personal, creative, and critical ways.
• Apply appropriate strategies to comprehend written, oral, and visual texts, guide inquiry, and extend thinking
• Recognize and appreciate the role of story, narrative, and oral tradition in expressing First Peoples perspectives, values, beliefs, and points of view

Strategies & Processes Features

• Reading strategies
• Writing Processes

Language Features, Structures, and Conventions

• Features of oral language
• Multi-paragraphing
• Language change
• Elements of style
• Usage
• Syntax and sentence fluency
• Conventions
• Presentation techniques
• Rhetorical devices
• Connotation and denotation

• Mangilaluk Graphic Novel
• DK – Read and become familiar with the section on Spirituality in the DK – Pages 5-24
• IQ – Pages 30-32

How do relationships with the spiritual world, other people, the land, and ourselves shape who we are?

For this inquiry-based writing assessment, students will be tasked with creating a written piece of work that is best suited to their talents & interests (reflective, expository, persuasive, narrative, poetic, etc.) Students should be provided with a range of multi-modal writing styles to engage in and should choose the one they feel the most connected to.

Students will be able to choose a writing topic from one of the following essential questions. Each question is tied to one of the major themes that students will have explored throughout the novel. Each theme is a stream of inquiry that is directly connected to a series of passages from the graphic novel, which students can use as reference points for their writing & textual analysis.

Connection to Place: How does one’s connection to their place and their experiences in that place, impact who they become?

• “Others spend their lifetimes searching for a home, a place to belong, a place where they are safe. I am one of those children.” (pg. 4)
• “As a teenager in Tuk, I was like a piece of driftwood. I would come and go here and there and wash up at home eventually. “ (pg. 54)
• “I relished the embraces and the comfort of the rhythms of my Arctic home. I was so torn—like the slob ice in the ocean during freeze-up, I attached and then receded, protecting myself from holding fast.” (pg. 77)
• “I was so scared to leave, but living in Tuk, my soul was dying one day at a time.” (Pg 58.)

Resilience: What is the importance of resilience in one’s life?

• “I had earned my place here and I deserved a shot. That was my mantra.
  That’s how I survived.“ (pg. 70)
• “I had to summon whatever strength remained in my frail body and again journey to find a home.” (pg. 82)
• “As hard as it was to decide to come home, it was harder still to decide to leave.” (pg. 78)
• “He wants nothing more than for children who grew up like him to know that they deserve better and that the possibility of safety and love exists—sometimes you just have to stay alive long enough to find it.” (pg. 96)

Hope: What is Bernard’s source of hope and how does he find hope in others?

• “My life changed in an instant when I met Dr. Catherine Jones. I had not felt care and compassion in years. All of a sudden it was like I had my humanity back. I felt an overwhelming sense of possibility.” (Pg. 65)
• “To see a man with so much promise and life battling with the very virus I was living with inspired me.” (Pg. 84)
• “I continued to pursue healing for the experiences I had gone through in my more than 50 years on this earth—through new friends, a stable life, and the consistent love and support of the Dr. Peter Centre.” (Pg. 87)
• “I felt a sense of pride and belonging welling up within me when I walked through that door. What a hopeful sound hearing my Inuvialuit name called out.” (Pg. 66)

Spirituality: How are spiritual connections to culture and people a source of healing?

• “The song of my ancestor, my namesake—Mangilaluk—and I stood
  in my new atikluq and slipped on the leather gloves that male dancers wear, and I danced among them. And I healed.” (Pg. 94)
• “The ceremony was beautiful. Every moment was infused with a love and respect I had only when I just began to understand it was possible for me. And I received it. I opened my heart and I let them help heal it.” (Pg. 94)

Student-chosen theme : In this stream, students would create their own question based on a theme that they identified throughout Mangilauk & are passionate about exploring.

Students who choose this stream would also need to identify some passages from the graphic novel that they feel are connected to their chosen theme.

For students interested in this path, there are some key scaffolds to help identify a theme & writing a meaningful question to explore:

1. Ask students the following guiding question to help identify a theme:
   • What do you feel was the most important “lesson” from the novel?
   • What is a recurring concept that is consistent throughout the novel?
   • What personal connections did you make to Bernard & the novel?
2. Next, have students go through the text and highlight passages that they feel reflect the theme they are interested in. Then have them verbally justify why those choices are relevant.
3. Finally, have students create a question based on the theme & passages they have identified. The question should be broad enough that the student can extend it beyond the novel, but should still have direct connections to the text. Some helpful questioning starters include:
   • “How does…”
   • “ To what extent…”
   • “Why is…”

Note: Students working on this topic should also decide what type of writing style & genre best matches their chosen theme.

Due to the wide range of writing genres & styles that may develop from this assessment, the teacher should co-create their criteria for success with their students. This criterion should be broad so that it encompasses the variety of writing styles that students may choose to engage with for their final product.

An effective scaffold for this is asking students the question: What makes an effectively written piece of work?

Some exemplar criteria for this assessment could include:

1. Organization of Writing. (organization of thoughts & ideas, and the quality of writing; grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, correct use of paragraphs, organization.)
2. Connection to the text. (The written piece references the text directly and uses the text insightfully to enhance the delivery of the audience’s understanding.)
3. Understanding of themes & ideas. (The written piece reflects the themes that have been chosen and provide an in-depth textual analysis of those themes beyond the graphic novel.)