Introducing Children's Author Traci Sorell: Discover Her Work and Knowledge

By Andrea Page and Jackie Arnold, 2023 CLA Breakfast Chairs

What do teachers, teacher educators, and librarians want?

When choosing high quality literature to build your classroom library, it’s important to think about the following:

• Have I included authentic, culturally diverse literature?
• Am I choosing material easily integrated into lesson plans?
• Have I chosen different types of literary voices?
• Have I selected a diverse group of writing styles?

Trade books can supplement your curriculum and allow students to make connections across content areas. Reading and analyzing a variety of worldviews helps develop empathy towards others, can improve writing skills, as well as critical thinking skills in readers.

Add Native Children’s Authors and Books to Your List

A fabulous author to include is Traci Sorell (Cherokee), an accomplished author whose significant works are about “people and events not usually found in classroom texts.” She wants to “remedy inaccuracies and model a respectful approach to Native stories.”
 
Traci is a Keynote Speaker at this year’s National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference in Columbus, Ohio. She will be a featured author at the Children’s Literature Assembly (CLA) Breakfast in November.  Sign up for the conference and get a breakfast ticket to meet one of America’s current literary rock stars!

4 Ways to Integrate Traci’s Books in the Classroom

1) USE CORE QUESTIONS WHILE READING

Paired with We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga (ill. Frané Lessac) and Indian No More (co-author Charlene Willing McManis).

According to renowned educator Laura Robb, “Issues and core questions breathe life and energy into class discussions, add the twist - the connector - that adolescents need to bond to books, ideas, and concepts” (Robb, 2008, p. 94).

Picture Book Core Questions about Relationships

• What brings people closer together, forming a strong bond?
• Why are relationships with others and the environment important to Cherokee people?
• Why is it important to learn from past relationships?
• What separates people in relationships?
  

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga (2018)
Book description from publisher’s website

A look at modern Native American life as told by a citizen of the Cherokee Nation The word otsaliheliga (oh-jah-LEE-hay-le-gah) is used by members of the Cherokee Nation to express gratitude. Beginning in the fall with the new year and ending in summer, follow a full Cherokee year of celebrations and experiences.

Curriculum/Theme Connections: Family and kinship, personal narratives in poetic form, contributions of family members to society, expressing gratitude across four seasons.

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Middle Grade Core Questions about Justice / Injustice

• Explain what is just and / or unjust in your book.
• Is it possible to repair injustices? Explain.
• How did “termination” affect people’s lives?
• Is the law always just? Explain.
  

Indian No More (2019)
with co-author Charlene Willing McManis
Book description from publisher’s website

Regina Petit’s Umpqua family has always lived on the Grand Ronde Reservation. But when the federal government enacts a law that says Regina's tribe no longer exists, Regina becomes "Indian no more" overnight - even though her ancestors were Indian for countless generations, she lives with her tribe and practices her tribal customs. Having been forced from their homeland, the family enters the Federal Indian Relocation Program, and they move to Los Angeles. Regina finds a whole new world in her neighborhood and has never met kids of other races. Her neighbors have never met a real Indian. For the first time in her life, Regina faces racism personally.

Curriculum/Theme Connections: History of tribal sovereignty and removal, effect of termination, identity, family and kinship, resiliency.

2) USE T-CHARTS DURING OR AFTER READING

Paired with Powwow Day (Ill. Madelyn Goodnight) and Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer (Ill. Natasha Donovan).

As you read, collect text evidence that shows how an author reveals story elements (download T-chart as PDF).

Powwow Day (2022)
Book description from publisher’s website

River wants so badly to dance at powwow day as she does every year. In this uplifting and contemporary picture book perfect for beginning readers, follow River’s journey from feeling isolated after an illness to learning the healing power of community.

Curriculum Connections: family events, competitions, writing a personal narrative (Write about a time when you were sick and missed out on something important to you.)

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After reading, fill in a 3 -2 -1 chart (download as PDF) to show your understanding of the story.

Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer (2021)
Book description from publisher’s website

Mary Golda Ross designed classified airplanes and spacecraft as Lockheed Aircraft Corporation’s first female engineer. Cherokee author Traci Sorell and Métis illustrator Natasha Donovan trace Ross’s journey from being the only girl in a high school math class to becoming a teacher to pursuing an engineering degree, joining the top-secret Skunk Works division of Lockheed, and being a mentor for Native Americans and young women interested in engineering.

Curriculum Connections: Values - education, cooperation, humility, determination, perseverance, notable Native Americans, STEAM concepts.

3) EXPERIENCE AUTHOR'S VOICE USING MENTOR TEXTS

Paired with We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know (ill. Frané Lessac) and Contenders (ill. Arigon Starr, Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma).

Author’s voice is a combination of word choice and language usage in sentence structure, fluency, and rhythm.
 
Author’s voice appeals to the senses. Read the story aloud and LISTEN to how the sentences flow. What do you notice about the rhythm of the sentences? How do they connect to the story? Go on a scavenger hunt (download as PDF) to collect the words the author has chosen. How does the word choice plus the style of the sentences enhance the story?

You’ll notice that the introductory writing voice in We Are Still Here sets the tone and structure of the book, similar to beginning a lesson for a class. The individual voices shine in their presentations, like individual students speaking, in real life, in front of a class. Similarly, in Contenders, the characters bounce back and forth between the two, with short, curt sentences, followed by long sentences. Can you hear the action of the baseball game? Strong verbs make the story active and lively. What else did you discover?

We Are Still Here! Native American Truths Everyone Should Know (2021)
Book description from publisher’s website

Twelve Native American kids present historical and contemporary laws, policies, struggles, and victories in Native life, each with a powerful refrain: We are still here! The book illuminates a tremendous amount of historical information in an engaging, classroom framework. Each fictionalized student presents on a topic that is relevant to the historical and present lives of Native American communities.

Curriculum Connections: vocabulary unique to present day Native communities, education is important.

Contenders (2023)
Book description from publisher’s website

The true story of John Meyers and Charles Bender, who in 1911 became the first two Native pro baseball players to face off in a World Series. Charles Bender grew up on the White Earth Reservation in Northwestern Minnesota. John Meyers was raised on the Cahuilla reservation in Southern California. Despite their mutual respect for each other’s talents and their shared dedication to Native representation in baseball, the media was determined to pit them against each other. However, they never gave up on their dreams of being pro baseball players and didn’t let the supposed rivalry created by the media or the racism they faced within the stadium stop them. They continued to break barriers and went on to play a combined total of nine championships.

Curriculum Connections: primary sources, bias in media, mascots, racism, prejudice, determination, perseverance, baseball history, role models.

4) USE POETRY TO EXPRESS EMOTIONS

Paired with At the Mountain's Base (ill. Weshoyot, Alvitre) and Mascot (co-authored with Charles Waters)

Poetry can be about any topic that matters to you, surprises you, and/or makes you look at everyday life in a new way. Poetry has many forms.

• Analyze the poetic form of a book and use it to write about your own topic.
• Traci’s picture book, At the Mountain’s Base, is a poem honoring military members. How did she use prepositions? How did she tie military service to homelife?
• Write your own preposition poem. Who would you like to honor?
  

At the Mountain's Base (2019)
Book description from publisher’s website

A family, separated by duty and distance, waits for a loved one to return home in this lyrical picture book celebrating the bonds of a Cherokee family and the bravery of history-making women pilots.

Curriculum Connections: Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, World War II, pilots, women in the military.

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There are two sides to a story. How do the authors show many viewpoints in their story Mascot, a novel-in-verse?

Mascot (release date September 2023)
Book description from publisher’s website

In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An eighth-grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change. Now six middle-schoolers–-all with different backgrounds and beliefs–-get involved in the contentious issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly. Told from several perspectives, readers see how each student comes to new understandings about identity, tradition, and what it means to stand up for real change.

Curriculum Connections: prejudice, Native culture, stereotype, athletic competitions, debates, finding courage, cooperation.

Meet Traci Sorell at the CLA Breakfast at NCTE

We hope you will add the work of Traci Sorell to your classroom libraries. The four strategies above can be paired with other books as well. #WNDB #SupportNativeCreatives
 
Come and meet Traci at the 2023 NCTE Conference in Columbus, Ohio on November 16-19, 2023. Registration for the conference and tickets for the CLA Breakfast will become available in late summer. Plan to register for the conference and sign up for the CLA Breakfast on Sunday to hear Traci talk about her books and her contributions as a children’s author. We hope to see you there!

CITATIONS LIST

Robb, L. (2008). Differentiating Reading Instruction: How to Teach Reading To Meet the Needs of Each Student. Scholastic Teaching Resources: Theory and Practice.

Andrea Page (Hunkpapa Lakota) is a children’s author who has a published book, Sioux Code Talkers of World War II (Pelican Publishing Co. 2017). She hopes to have more published books in the future. In the meantime, she writes educator guides for publishers and works on projects for We Need Diverse Books (WNDB). Andrea serves as a Board member of the Children’s Literature Assembly (CLA) of the NCTE. She lives in Rochester, NY with her husband. Please visit www.WriterAndreaPage.com.

Jackie Arnold is an associate professor at the Department of Teacher Education of the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio. Jackie is co-editor of the Dragon Lode, a children's literature journal published by the International Literacy Association Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG).