The 2020-2021 school year has brought challenges and opportunities to stretch and grow in new ways to all of us. When KIBSD’s Rural Schools was awarded an Alaska Comprehensive Literacy Development grant from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development during the 2019-2020 school year, we could not have predicted everything that was ahead of us. There were plenty of things that we had planned to do in our Reading English & Alutiiq Development (READ) project that we were just unable to do or had to get creative to reach our goals in new ways.

One big accomplishment for our READ project was the hiring of Sperry “Guuitka” Ash as the grant funded Literacy Specialist. Mr. Ash was brought on board to help support our teachers and students in literacy teaching and learning and were most fortunate that Mr. Ash is also able to masterfully integrate the Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) culture and culturally relevant teaching strategies into his work. When working to revise our Year 2 budget for our READ project, he shared an idea that he had been working to bring to fruition for several years, ever since he had learned of the idea from an Indigenous Language conference he had attended in Arizona.  He had a dream of using Japanese style Kamishibai theater boxes and story cards to teach stories through the Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) language, and introduce traditional stories and storytelling to our students. He was able to begin the process by working on lesson plans for five stories and purchasing a Kamishibai box while working for the Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak. He mentioned this to me one day and we were able to integrate this into our READ project.

We commissioned the building of our story boxes and carrying cases for our five rural schools and our Rural Schools office by local wood worker Seth Minyard. We took the stories and commissioned the artwork for story cards by local Alutiiq artist, Hanna Sholl. Hanna also painted a each land and water scape scene unique to the community for which the theater box is destined. We partnered with the Alutiiq Museum to revise the language of the stories so that they are ready for printing our story cards. Together with our partners, our  Sugpiaq version of Kamishibai story boxes became a reality. We call them “Quliyanguarwit”- Story Places. Mr. Ash states, “I was fortunate to hear traditional stories from our late grandma. This is a great way to introduce those stories in the classroom and help our students become carriers of our ancient unigkuat & quliyanguat. The ciqlluaq (sod house) design will help our students imagine stories, legends and history as they were told in the barabara. We will place story cards in the screens and the teacher can retell traditional stories with visual images. The script will be on the back of each card to help guide the storyteller. Students can make story cards to present to the class. Using story cards to tell traditional stories supports reading and writing skills.”

During the next years of the READ project, we look forward to teaching and practicing our stories and working with students to have them create their own stories and present them either through story cards, shadow puppets, or puppet shows.