A Day in a Wampanoag Village

Vicken Meneshian

It is dawn in the Wampanoag Village. Winter is coming soon. The water splashes on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. The purplish sky stretches across the horizon as if it just woke up. A Wampanoag family sleeps in their wetu. The wetu is still dark inside. The men start to wake up to go hunting.

It is sunrise in the Wampanoag village. The birds fly together in the pale sky. A Wampanoag man comes back from his long hunt. He caught venison for a yummy venison stew that his wife will make for the family to eat.

The calm waters splash on shore and the sky is purplish-blue and white. It is morning. A man makes an arrowhead at his wetu with a rock. He scrapes a really small rock so it gets sharp. Sparks are flying! Another man eats venison soup so they can go hunting again.

The sky is blue and reddish-orange. The men are so tired that they sleep on the grass. They came from a long, long hunt. The fire blazes and keeps them warm. The grass gets darker as the sun disappears behind the mountains.

The sky is dark in the Wampanoag Village. The moon is huge and white and shines on the fish in the ocean so the men can catch them. The water is blue, cold, and quiet. A Wampanoag man spears fish for his family to eat in the morning. The wind pushes his mishoon out to sea where there are thousands and thousands of fish. The snow will come soon.

This is one of the many books which came to life while the

students of Mrs. Mattson’s 3rd grade class explored the rich

relationship between visual imagery and the written word.

This Time of Day book was created as a part of Picturing

Writing: Fostering Literacy Through Art®, an art-and-

literature-based writing program developed by Beth

Olshansky at the University of New Hampshire. The

program is designed to support the acquisition of literacy

skills in children with diverse learning styles. A research-

based literacy program, Picturing Writing has proven its

effectiveness in dramatically improving student writing.

After a visit to Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth,

Massachusetts, our class combined the Time of Day unit

with our study of the Wampanoag Indians and Pilgrims to

create our own, unique visions of “A Day in the Life of

Plantation.”

December, 2010