Acadian Story: We Are Here To Stay
This series of articles was originally published in the Bangor Daily News April 23-27, 2001.
Author | Contents | Collaborators | Sponsors | Teachers Resource
Cynthia Matthews, is a Maine Geographic Alliance Teacher Consultant, and Sacopee Valley High School (Hiram) French teacher. She wrote the articles as part of the outreach asked of Maine Geographic Alliance Teachers Institute graduates. Cindy’s motivation for writing the series stems from her belief in the importance of making connections to the French language in our own state. She teaches her students that French is not a ‘foreign’ language, it is one of our native languages.
Click on the Chapter hyperlinks above for each article. The contents are:
- Chapter 1 – Where is Acadia?
- Chapter 2 – Who are Acadians?
- Chapter 3 – Life in Acadia
- Chapter 4 – Acadian Food
- Chapter 5 – Acadians Today
Scroll down the ‘Extensions’ side bar for teaching ideas related to each chapter.
Extensions
There is a Glossary of French Terms, Think About It, and Use Your Newspaper section for each chapter.
Three organizations collaborated to produce these articles
- Maine Geographic Alliance
- The Canadian-American Center
- Bangor Daily News Newspapers in Education
Maine Geographic Alliance – a partnership of leaders bringing geography to life – is an organization of Maine teachers from all grade levels and disciplines who seek to teach geography. Funded primarily by the National Geographic Society, their work includes support of and participation in the National Geography Awareness Week, the Teachers Institute – an annual one or two week study tour, and meetings and workshops held around the state to teach and promote geography education among teachers.
The Canadian-American Center’s work is to teach, conduct research, and to provide outreach about Canadian studies. The outreach activities include providing relevant Canadian teaching materials, conducting teacher workshops, and offering an annual Canadian Studies Teachers Institute. The goal of the outreach is to enthuse and enable teachers to add Canada to the K-12 curriculum.
See www-dev.umaine.edu/canam/outreach/ for links to resources for teaching about Canada.
The Bangor Daily News Newspapers in Education staff strive to link the relevance of newspaper reading with Maine curriculum. Their mission is to promote the use of the newspaper as a key resource for teaching concepts and skills in all subject areas and at all grade levels. The Bangor Daily News is a daily paper with a circulation of 70,000/daily and 85,000/weekend, covering 6 of 16 counties in Maine.
Acadian History and Culture Teachers Resource is a 290 page activity-based resource designed to be used by teachers in conjunction with the five articles. It was created to broaden the teaching potential of the articles, by offering relevant resources and activities keyed to Maine State Learning Results. This Teachers Resource is available for $12.00 (to cover cost of production and postage) from the Canadian-American Center. Order form.
Publication of the series was sponsored by Duke Energy, and The Town of Veazie. Their contributions allowed teachers to purchase the series of newspapers for their students at a very reduced price, making it very affordable to teachers (who often pay out of their own pocket)
Sponsored by:
Contact:
Maine Geographic Alliance
Bangor Daily News
Canadian-American Center