What does it really mean to be Oneida today?

The main goal for today was to begin drawing up some plans for our final project, but after thinking more about it last night, I realized there's no real way to answer the question, "What does it mean to be Oneida today?" without knowing more about my students...

So we warmed up today with a couple of writing exercises I cooked up last night:

A Day in the Life
Create an itinerary that describes a typical day in your life. When does your day begin? What are the day's events? Who are the people you interact with? What is the highlight of your day? What is your routine for ending your day?

10 true things (from the work of Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein)
Make a list of ten things that are true to you. This list can be true only to you, or you can share these truths with another person/group. The point of this list is to name 10 true things that you know to be true to your life, about life in general, at this present moment.

10 true things about being Oneida
I challenged my students to tell me 10 true things about being Oneida. What are things that I won't find in a text book? What are ten true things about being Oneida that are true to you?

We made our 10 true things lists on post its and posted them on the windows. After taking a look, we got some pretty good conversation going about the many different meaning behind the idea of 'being Oneida'.

I learned that some of my students are 100% Oneida and some are only part Oneida, mixed with German, Irish, Navajo....Some students know a great amount about Oneida history and some are clueless, uncomfortable even, with talking about being Oneida. Also, almost all of these kids have grown up on the reservation, and most are likely related, but have not met one another before participating in this program...I'm hoping to take advantage of this kind of diversity and use it to fuel some of the ideas behind our project...

Oh..AND I learned about a little something called an Indian Taco (see below). It's kind of like a Mexican taco, but on fry bread. It's just as rich, meaty, delicious (and - if this is a word - caloric) as it looks.