Ziigwan :)

Boozhoo:

Geget igo ingichi-minwendam, miinawaa imbegosendam i’iw waa-pi-inakamigak ☺. I am feeling wonderful and inspired again ☺. I was at a traditional language conference in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario this last week and was powerfully reminded of the connections between our language, ceremony, and the sacredness of Anishinaabe thought. It was just fantastic. A few of the presenters are fairly serious immersion style teachers and they reaffirmed my absolute faith in this system of education. Hopefully the
upcoming MN Indigenous language symposium can be as inspiring to each of you :).

http://www.d.umn.edu/enigikendaasoyang/symposium/index.html

I expect that Lynn Velander will be providing us with some information on how to register for the credit soon ☺. I will keep us in the know.
Please note that this week we will be working with the Gresczyk text again instead of the Hadley book. I was going to do some Hadley discussion but I think I will save that for our next face to face session – I would rather get people grounded in Gresczyk and have a good solid mini-unit in this regard. Please do check out the text and post in the WIKI and the WIMBA area in Moodle soon.

I also hope the work on the speech is coming along okay. It many ways, it is like the “final essay” you would do in another course. It requires research, and instead of multiple drafts, it may require multiple practice sessions. So please think of it this way ☺. In our next face to face session we will be having some time to practice this together in small feedback groups before we do the “final presentation piece”. This will help us build confidence and give some vital hints beforehand ☺. The speech does not have to be done perfectly – so please don’t worry about that at all. What is important is that you do it. But still, the continual practice will help you tremendously so I encourage you to do this, endaso-giizhig – each day, niibowa endaching – many times!

Okay, so this is more a mini-blog update for today I am going to post the UM Connect session on Grescyzk this evening – but I am feeling a little bad about this as not everyone has had a chance to post on the first few pages yet ☹ . Still, we must move on and I encourage you to catch up as soon as you can.

Mii iw ziigwan noongom :) Booch igo gidaa-miigwechiwendaamin ayaandakiiwang :)