Lesson Key Facts

• Grade(s): 4, 5, 6
• Subject(s): Dance, English Language Arts, Social Studies, Native American, Tribe Approved
• Duration of lesson: 30-45 minutes
• Author(s): Yvette Ward May, Brenda Beyal, Aldean Ketchum, Jack Cantsee Jr., and Griselda Rogers

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This lesson has been approved by the White Mesa Community Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council. Before teaching this lesson, please explain to your students that there are many Indigenous tribes in the United States and that this lesson specifically focuses on the White Mesa Community of Ute Mountain Ute, and does not represent other Native American groups. It is the hope of the White Mesa Community that other native tribes will respect their choice to share these aspects of their history and culture.

Background Information: The White Mesa Community Ute Mountain Ute selected this lesson content in answer to the question, “What would you like the students of Utah to know about you?” One of their responses was to share their history. This lesson is meant to support, raise awareness, and include the arts (dance-movement), with USBE Core Standards, to teach the history of the White Mesa Community. Aldean Ketchum, Jack Cantsee Jr., and Griselda Rogers represented the (WMCUMU) in crafting the lesson to provide accuracy, and authenticity.
 

For the Teacher:

Ute Vocabulary: In preparation for this lesson, please become familiar with these Ute words, meanings, and pronunciations. Avikaan Nuuch: Ute Words and recorded pronunciations
 

Please review: For the Teacher: Teaching Movement Helps.pdf

To create a safe environment for movement:

• There are many ways our bodies can communicate ideas, feelings, art, stories, and even experience history. Encourage self-expression through movement. Invite students to dance-freely, in their own beautiful ways, as if no one is looking.
• Prepare a large movement space. Identify safe spatial boundaries for students to stay within throughout the lesson.
• Establish a signal for students to respond to when starting/stopping a movement experience (for example, drum, and 3, 2, 1…freeze in shape/place).
• Before the lesson, use painter’s tape to create a small 8+ foot square on the floor. It will be used as a smaller/confined movement space, towards the end of the lesson.

LESSON:

Upload: Slideshow

Introduction:

Teacher: Find a space on the floor. Lay on your backs. Choose whether your eyes are opened or closed. Whatever makes you feel most comfortable. Rest your hand on your abdomen. Breathe in and out deeply and slowly. Feel the consistent rhythm of your heart beat. Listen to this music…What does the music of this flute remind you of? What does it resemble in nature?

Upload and play the original flute melody by Aldean Ketchum, an Elder and member of the White Mesa Community Ute Mountain Ute:  Come and See. Come to Me by Aldean Ketchum. (You will play this again near the end of the lesson. So, keep the link open.)

Upload the following links before teaching the lesson:
After they listen to the flute music, play these nature sounds at the same time as you read below.
1. Wind Blowing Across The Forest Meadow / Wind Through The Grass, Crickets,... 
2. NO MUSIC - 3 Hours of  Pure Trickling Water Sounds
 

Slide 1: Starry night sky

Teacher: Imagine you are up in the mountains, sleeping under a bright starry night sky.  Can you hear the gentle breeze and the trickling stream? Imagine that you are covered by warm blankets, and you are filled with wonder as you breathe in the cool-clean mountain air. What would it be like to live every day so close to nature? Stay lying down. Listen carefully. I am going to play this drum. Allow the drum beats to resonate inside of you. Where do you feel the vibrations? When you are ready, allow the rhythm to awaken your body movement, and gently rise up to a standing position.

Play the drum, with an interesting, awakening rhythmic pattern for 10-30 seconds. End drumming as you say…

Teacher: 3, 2, 1, Freeze in your place. Every living thing has an important part to play in this beautiful world of ours. All living things deserve to be seen, understood, and respected. The Ute Mountain Ute people see and connect deeply with their homelands. They have very special earth-understanding, traditions, and ecological knowledge. Today through movement we are going to learn about the Avikaan Nuuch, the Ute Mountain Ute White Mesa Community and how they came to live where they live today.  

Slide 2: Harmony and balance with nature

Teacher: Look at that stack of balanced rocks. Notice how narrow the base is, and yet all of the individual rocks are balanced perfectly. Can you use the rock as a metaphor to balance your body?” What does balance and harmony feel like in our bodies? How can you balance your inner self along with your physical self (mental, physical)? Stand with your two feet apart. Notice your core and center of balance. Try standing on one leg. Now bend your knee and crouch down low. Can you find your center of balance? When the drum begins to play again, explore interesting positions that help you find and feel the need for balance.

(Begin drumming) Invite students to try some new balancing poses they’ve never done before.  Balance down low. Balance reaching high…etc. after about 10-30 seconds…

Teacher: Make a final strong balanced pose…and …3, 2, 1, freeze.    
 

Teacher: The Avikaan Nuuch believe balance is needed to survive and grow. Let’s explore using images of other things that are meaningful to the history of the Avikaan Nuuch.

Slide 3: Mountains

Teacher: For the Avikaan Nuuch, the mountains provide all that is needed to live. (Water, food, shelter, medicine) Jack Cantsee Jr., a White Mesa Elder said, “Yet, you don’t just go. You must watch where you are stepping, as you walk through the brush, observe, listen, and be thoughtful on your journey. Watch where you go and watch what you say.”
 

How would you see the mountains differently if you viewed them as your Earth Mother, providing all that you need for life? 

What shapes, lines, levels, and structures do you see in these mountain images? (Student responses will vary) Visualize how these descriptions can represent these mountains, so dear to the Avikaan Nuuch. Show what that looks like through movement. 

Before you begin drumming, invite the children to work together to form shapes, lines, and levels that represent what you see in the images. Prompt students with descriptive words and phrases. (Allow about 30 seconds max) …and call 3, 2, 1, freeze.  

Slide 4: Rivers bordering ancestral territory

Teacher: Water played a key role in guiding the Avikaan Nuuch to decide where they would travel during the different seasons. To them, rivers are living waters. As they move, they can be predictors. They can give life or take life. It is all up to you, how you experience them. Areas rich in water were referred to as paasa’akat. The San Juan River acted as a southern border, the Green River as a northern border, and the Colorado River as the western. Look at these images, and think about what you know about the movement of water?

Upload music selection: Vesuvius (play until about 1:12)

Invite a volunteer to be the “flow of the river” leader. When the music begins, invite students to gradually fall in line, moving behind the leader, creating a great long-flowing river. Use the full movement space. As the tempo of the music changes, change the tempo of the river’s movement. If space allows, have students create three rivers that flow in the space. 

Slide 5: Deer, elk, and horses

Teacher: Animals played a crucial role in Ute culture. They knew that the animals were here before people. They learned to follow the animal migrations. Deer and elk provided essential food, clothing, shelter, and tools. When a Ute baby was born, they were wrapped in the skin of an animal, and carried the spirit of the animal throughout life. The people used every single part of an animal, when it was harvested.

Horses were introduced to the Utes around 1692. Horses “changed the Nuuch way of life dramatically in terms of social, economic, military/political, and tribal relations.” The Utes loved their horses and would often race them. They would paint and braid their hair.

Teacher: Look at these images or visualize an animal that you love. How could you move your body in relation to how an animal uses their body? (student responses will vary) For survival, an animal must keep alert to all the sounds and movements around it. Try to use every moving part of your body, like the Avikaan Nuuch use every part of an animal. (ex: eyes, neck, waist, toes, knees, etc.) When the drum starts, begin to create and show your ideas.
 

Begin drumming, acknowledge student quality-movement choices. When ready end with 3, 2, 1…Freeze, hold your position.

Invite students to come and find a place to sit within the taped-off space in the room.

Slide 6: Dramatic changes to the Wiinuuch ways. Spanish invasion.
 

Slide 7: Western migration- pioneer settlements

Slide 8: Uranium mining. Need to move

Teacher: What would it have been like for the Avikaan Nuuch (White Mesa Community Ute Mountain Utes) during these times? How does it feel to be uprooted, forced, or limited in the ways that we choose to live our lives?

Invite the students to visualize how these ideas can be expressed as movement poses, while remaining seated, within the boundaries of the taped-space…remembering to be respectful of those around them. Demonstrate, as needed. Play the drum with a steady even heartbeat rhythm, and invite students to change their poses as you call out the different words or phrases they shared.
 

Teacher: 3, 2, 1…freeze and hold your position.
 

Slide 9: White Mesa Community beginnings

Slide 10: White Mesa Reservation

Slide 11: Present day improvements

Slide 12: Jack Cantsee Jr. audio recording

Invite children to create a large circle, where they can all see each other. Have students take a moment and look at all of their classmates and greet them with their eyes showing that they truly see one another. This movement activity will allow the children to make connections across the circle, loosely symbolic of the ongoing circle of life, like the connection of the White Mesa Ute Mountain Ute with their cherished homeland, people, their ancient history, and present-day culture and traditions.

Slide 13: Aldean sitting under a rock shelter in Allen Canyon.

Teacher: Earlier we listened to a flute piece created by Aldean Ketchum. Look at this image of Aldean Ketchum playing his flute, sitting under the cover of an ancient ancestral mountain-shelter in Kana’ Wiiyach, Allen Canyon. What must it be like for him to create music out in nature, in that special historic place? For our last movement sequence, stay in your place in the circle, freely create movement reflecting whatever Aldean’s music makes you feel.
 

Music link: Come and See. Come to Me by Aldean Ketchum

After 10 seconds of free movement, prompt the students to find and select someone across the circle from them and begin to mirror or copy the artistic movements they are making, until the song ends. Have students join you and sit in a group.

Teacher: We have just shared the history of the White Mesa Community of Ute Mountain Utes, through dance and visual imagery. Let’s talk about what we have learned.
 

Reflections: 

Select from the following discussion questions and share ideas as a class.

• What have you learned about the Avikaan Nuuch, The White Mesa Community of Ute Mountain Ute today?
• What may happen when two or more cultures, with significant differences, come into contact?
• How did Aviikann Nuuch life change as new people and settlements came into their ancestral territory?
• What did you learn about their history and who they are as a people?
• Is any part of their history like your own?
• We can make a difference for good. What can we do better to deeply acknowledge, see, and understand others?
• Like the Avikaan Nuuch, how can we show respect and honor for nature, the land, and the living things around us?
• How can we build a better community of acceptance, support, and compassion for others and all living things that are unfamiliar, or different from what we know?
• What did you discover about yourself?
• How did movement and dance help us to artistically explore, discover and make connections with the White Mesa Community of Ute Mountain Utes and ourselves?
• Why is it important for us to understand and care for our earth?
• What can you do to connect better with the earth, or your personal history and culture?

Additional Activity Option:

If time permits, invite students to write a sentence and/or draw an image about something they would like to remember from what they learned and experienced in this lesson. When complete, display these in the classroom or on top of student desks, and invite students to see their peers' thoughts and drawings.
 

• Conceptualize, generate, develop and organize artistic movement ideas and work, connected to themes and images of Ute Mountain Ute history.
• Listen to others' ideas and cooperate when creating dance and solving movement problems
• Make still and moving shapes with positive and negative space.
• Differentiate and perform movement with metric and irregular phrasing and respond to tempo changes as they occur in dance and music.
• Synthesize and relate knowledge from personal and collaborative experience to make and receive art, and relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding
• Recognize that for centuries the historic tribal groups of Utah—the Ute Mountain Ute have adapted to their ever-changing environment.
• Reflect on the implications of western settlements on Native American communities.
• Collaborate, express, and listen to ideas, integrate and evaluate information from various sources, use media and visual displays as well as language and grammar strategically to help achieve communicative purposes, and adapt to context and task.
• Participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations, using age-appropriate vocabulary, on topics, texts, and issues.
• Combine movement concepts with skills in small group (3-5) activities and/or dance.
• Exhibit responsible behavior in independent group situations.
• Reflect on personal social behavior in physical activity.

This lesson can be used to meet standards in many grades and subject areas. We will highlight one grade’s standards to give an example of application.

Fine Arts Dance: Grade 4

• Strand: CREATE (4.D.CR.) Students will conceptualize, generate, develop and organize artistic ideas and work.
• Standard 4.D.CR.1: Demonstrate willingness to listen to others' ideas and cooperate when creating dance.
• Standard 4.D.CR.2: Identify ideas for choreography generated from a variety of stimuli to solve given movement problems.
• Standard 4.D.CR.3: Develop a dance study, alone or with others, that expresses and communicates a main idea.
• Standard 4.D.CR.4: Manipulate and expand movement possibilities to create a variety of movement patterns and structures…
• Standard 4.D.P.1: Establish spatial relationships with other dancers while safely using levels, directions, focus, and pathway designs in near-, mid-, and far-range movement.
• Standard 4.D.P.2: Make still and moving shapes with positive and negative space.
• Standard 4.D.P.4: Demonstrate fundamental dance skills through locomotor and non-locomotor sequences.
• Standard 4.D.P.5: Differentiate and perform movement with metric and irregular phrasing and respond to tempo changes as they occur in dance and music.
• Standard 4.D.P.6: Analyze, describe, and perform movement phrases using contrasting energy and dynamic changes.
• Standard 4.D.P.9: Use performance etiquette and performance practices during class, rehearsal, and in formal and informal performance spaces.
• Standard 4.D.R.1: Use basic dance terminology to describe patterns of movement that create a style or theme.
• Standard 4.D.R.2: Discuss the characteristics that make a dance artistic.

• Strand: CONNECT (4.D.CO.) Students will synthesize and relate knowledge from personal and collaborative experience to make and receive art. They will relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding

  • Standard 4.D.CO.1: Explain how the main idea of a dance is similar to or different from one's own experiences, relationships, ideas, or perspectives.
  • Standard 4.D.CO.2: Select a topic of study in school and develop research questions to explore, then choreograph movements that relate key aspects about the topic that communicate the information; discuss what was learned from researching the question and creating the dance.

  Social Studies: Grade 4

• STRAND 2: PRE-EXPANSION (BEFORE 1847) Students will learn that while recorded history spans only a few centuries, humans have lived in the land now called Utah for thousands of years. They will recognize that for centuries the historic tribal groups of Utah—the Goshute, Navajo (Diné), Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute—adapted to their ever-changing environment.
  • What may happen when two or more cultures, with significant differences,
    come into contact?
• Standard 4.2.1: …Explain the importance of the geography of the land that would become Utah in the culture of one or more prehistoric or historic Native American cultures.
• Standard 4.2.3: Use primary and secondary sources to compare important aspects of the ways of life of at least two Native American tribal groups (for example, Ute, Paiute, Navajo (Diné), Shoshone, Goshute) existing within the land now called Utah and how those ways of life changed as settlers from Europe arrived prior to 1847.
• STRAND 3: EXPANSION (1847-1896)
  Students will learn about the unprecedented migration, dramatic cultural change
  and conflicts, and new technologies of this era…They will learn about some of the implications of this settlement on Native American communities.
  • How did Native American life change as settlement continued?
• STRAND 5: A NEW MILLENIA (2000–PRESENT) …They will recognize that
  most current events (for example, interactions between Native American sovereign
  nations and state and federal governments, concerns about water, tensions and questions about the proper role and jurisdiction of local, state, and federal governments, ideas about how best to grow Utah’s economy) have their roots deeply embedded in Utah’s rich history. They will also understand that, while forced to
  make even further adaptations as they came into contact with European explorers,
  Native Americans still thrive as eight sovereign tribal nations in Utah.
• Standard 4.5.1:... and explain efforts to preserve and maintain their culture.
• Standard 4.5.5:…propose positive steps individual students or groups of students can implement (for example, raising awareness through digital media, energy and resource conservation, letter writing, fundraising).

English Language Arts: Grade 4

• Speaking and Listening (4.SL) Students will learn to collaborate, express and listen to ideas, integrate and evaluate information from various sources, use media and visual displays as well as language and grammar strategically to help achieve communicative purposes, and adapt to context and task.
• Standard 4.SL.1:
  Participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations, using age-appropriate vocabulary, on topics, texts, and issues.
  a.    Respectfully acknowledge and respond to comments and claims.
  b.    Participate in conversations by asking questions, acknowledging new information, connecting responses with reasoning and elaboration, and keeping the discussion.
• Standard 4.SL.3: Use age-appropriate language, grammar, volume, and clear pronunciation when speaking or presenting on topic.

Physical Education: Grade 4

• Standard 4.2.3: Combine movement concepts with skills in small group (3-5) activities and/or dance.
• Standard 4.4.1: Exhibit responsible behavior in independent group situations.
• Standard 4.4.2: Reflect on personal social behavior in physical activity.

• Slide presentation and screen
• Movement space
• Handheld drum
• Become familiar with Ute Pronunciation Guide: Avikaan Nuuch: Ute Words and recorded pronunciations
• Upload music selection: Vesuvius (play until about 1:12)
  • Other “river” music options:
    • Peter Kater - River
    • Ascent
• Masking tape for creating a 8+ foot square movement space on the floor.
• If needed for additional activity: Art paper, writing, drawing, and coloring tools for each student.

This lesson is supported by the National Endowment of the Arts and the Utah Division of Arts & Museums  

• History is referenced from:
  • Conversations with White Mesa Community Ute Mountain Ute Members: Aldean Ketchum (Elder), Jack Cantsee Jr. (Elder, Bear Dance Chief), and Griselda Rogers (Education Director)
  • As If the Land Owned Us, An Ethnohistory of the White Mesa Utes, Robert S. McPherson, The University of Utah Press, 2011
• For the Teacher: Teaching Movement Helps 
• Familiarize yourself with dance vocabulary: B.E.S.T. Elements of Dance, or Dance/Home | BYU Arts Partnership, Axial and Locomotor Movements
• https://utahindians.org/archives/whiteMesa/history.html  
• https://nativegov.org/news/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/  
• Allen Trail near South Cottonwood Road

1. Aldean Ketchum, playing his flute in Allen Canyon:  taken by Dirk Elzinga, BYU Linguistics
2. Meadowbrook Elementary Students: taken by Brenda Beyal, 2024
3. Meadowbrook Elementary Students: taken by Brenda Beyal, 2024