This page is for teachers preparing to teach a culturally integrated unit from the SSD Cultural Department. New to Sitka? Start here. Teaching a Cultural Department unit for the first time? Start here. Just want a refresher? Start here.
It's about a 10-minute read.
A short orientation before you teach.
The Sitka School District Cultural Department creates culturally integrated units for every grade level, PreK through 12th. These units are designed to bring Lingít language, knowledge, Sitka history, and place-based learning into your regular classroom, without replacing your adopted curriculum, and without adding hours to your day.
Each unit is built in partnership with Sitka Tribe of Alaska, the Sitka Native Education Program (SNEP), culture bearers, and cultural specialists. The knowledge in these units belongs to this community. We share it carefully, with consent, and with respect for protocol.
These units are designed to be taught by any teacher, regardless of background or prior cultural knowledge. You don't need to be Native to teach them. You don't need to speak Lingít. You don't need to be an expert. You need to be willing.
Use this every time you begin a new unit. Pin it to your planning board.
Every unit starts with an Overview of Unit page and an About This Unit page. These tell you the essential question driving the unit, the cultural themes for the month, how this unit connects to what students learned in earlier grades and what's coming next, and the culminating event (if there is one).
Read these first. They are short. They will tell you what this unit is really about, not just what to do, but why.
Every lesson includes a Build Background Knowledge section. This is for YOU, not your students. Your guide may include:
In some units, the slides are color-coded: blue is for YOU, green goes on the SCREEN. Pay attention to those signals. They're there to help you teach with confidence.
Building background knowledge takes real time, usually 30 to 60 minutes for the unit, plus 10 to 15 minutes before each lesson. Don't skip it. The whole unit rests on your confidence with the material.
Many units include lessons co-taught with culture bearers or cultural specialists from the SSDCD or SNEP. These are the most powerful moments in the unit, and they require planning ahead.
For example, the Kindergarten and 1st grade stewardship lessons require PHS collaboration. The 2nd Grade Celebration Unit culminates in the grade-wide Celebration event. The 3rd Grade Volcano Unit includes lessons taught at the Sitka Sound Science Center.
How to request a culture bearer or cultural specialist:
Each lesson lists Materials Needed. Most are simple, such as chart paper, markers, printed slides, and classroom basics. Some are specific to the unit (specific slides to print, natural items to gather, ACT Kits to check out). Any materials you need for the units, the Cultural Department is happy to purchase. Check the materials list at least a week in advance.
If you're not the only teacher at your grade level teaching this unit, plan together. Many units include team reflection prompts at the end. The work gets better every year because teachers share what worked and what didn't.
Before you teach, it helps to know what this curriculum is trying to do, and what it isn't.
Every unit is grounded in Sitka | Sheet'ká and the land, water, and people of this place. Students learn about herring in the sound, volcanoes that shaped the islands, clans whose houses still stand, history that happened in this harbor. The place is the curriculum.
Cultural learning is woven INTO the units you already teach, not added on top. The 2nd grade study of community now includes Lingít clan houses. The 3rd grade volcano unit includes Lingít names, oral history, and the use of volcanic rock in dugout canoes. Standards-aligned. State-tested content still happens. Culture is the lens, not the lecture.
Skills and themes spiral upward. Kindergarteners learn about community and belonging. 2nd graders deepen into Lingít clan structures. 4th graders examine perspectives. 5th graders take action by proposing more inclusive ways to celebrate Alaska Day, for example. Each year builds on the last.
Every unit explicitly addresses Alaska State Cultural Standards (for both students and educators), ELA standards, history, science, and arts standards. The standards are listed at the beginning of each unit. You can show your administrator exactly which boxes are being checked.
If a lesson ever feels like decoration (masks for Halloween, headbands for a parade), pause. Real cultural integration is about understanding, respect, and relationship. The headbands students make in the 2nd Grade Celebration Unit have meaning because students have learned what clan emblems are and aren't.
These units are living documents. They get better every year because teachers like you teach them, reflect on them, and tell us what worked and what didn't. Your team reflection at the end of every unit is part of the curriculum.
If you want to adapt a lesson, that's encouraged! Teachers know their students best. But please don't substitute cultural content from other tribes (Lingít is not interchangeable with Yup'ik, Athabaskan, or Inuit cultures), and please check with the Cultural Department before adding cultural material from outside the unit. Cultural integrity matters more than any single lesson.
For every teacher who's nervous about getting it wrong.
This is the hardest part for many teachers, especially teachers who are new to Sitka, new to teaching, or not Indigenous themselves. So we want to be clear:
Whether you are Native or not, we are all learning together how to bring more cultural opportunities to our students. Give yourself permission to learn, make mistakes, and learn more.
There are no wrong questions. Ask a lot of them. The Cultural Department, SNEP, your culture bearers, and your colleagues are here to support you.
There are only about 6 to 8 fluent Lingít language birth-speakers left. This means that revitalizing the language is more crucial than ever before. Our goal is not that you speak Lingít perfectly. Our goal is that the language is spoken.
Give it a try. Make mistakes. Showing your students that you are trying to incorporate the language sends a strong message, regardless of your language ability.
Tape this inside your classroom door. Try one this week. Try another next week.
You will. Every teacher does. Here's where to turn.
Download the printable version to keep in your planning binder.
Download the printable guideThree things to remember.
These units are designed by educators, for educators, in partnership with the community. They've been taught, reflected on, and improved. We are always open to feedback. These units should feel woven into our fabric of what we do.
Students, Native and non-Native alike, can hold this work. They're ready to learn about clan houses, herring, the complexity of Alaska Day, and Lingít language. They are not too young. They are not too distracted. Bring it to them with seriousness and joy, and they will rise to it.
You don't need to know everything. You need to be willing to learn, to ask, to make mistakes, to apologize when you get it wrong, and to keep going. That's the model we're showing students. We are here to help you too.