1. Ask students: What does the word culture mean? Write responses on the board.

2. Have students discuss their own cultures and begin naming different aspects of those cultures including food, arts, crafts, stories, songs, dances, and languages.

3. Ask students: How would you rank the aspects of culture in order of importance to keep a culture alive? Have students complete the ranking in groups.

4. As a whole group, discuss what students ranked as most important and why. Explain to students that without language, many of the other important aspects of culture and traditions have the potential to lose meaning and might go dormant, or become inactive, altogether.

Engaging with the Story

1. Tell students that they will watch a short film called Marie’s Dictionary. The film is about Marie Wilcox, a Native American woman who is the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni. Marie lives in Visalia, California, located in the Central Valley. Use Google Earth or a map to show students this location. As they watch the film, direct students to note that for seven years, Marie created a Wukchumni dictionary. As a child, Marie spoke Wukchumni with her grandmother and much later, recorded words from memory to create the dictionary. 

2. Let students know that there are subtitles at the bottom of the screen in some parts of the film. Explain to students that they will need to read those as well as listen. As students watch the film, ask them to observe how important it is for Marie to preserve the Wukchumni language. What do you think it would be like to be Marie, the last speaker of her language?

Delving Deeper: Learning Activities

1. Give students a note-taking sheet and ask them to write down their thoughts and questions while watching the film. One alternative to regular note-taking is to have students think of one word or a short phrase which depicts what they are thinking and feeling as they view the film.

2. Before viewing the film, ask students: What do you think it means to be a fluent speaker of a language? 

3. Watch the film Marie’s Dictionary (10 minutes).

4. After viewing the film, ask students the following questions:

   • How do you think Marie feels about her language? Why do you think the dictionary is important to her? 
   • How are Marie’s daughter Jennifer and her great-grandson Donovan helping to preserve the Wukchumni language?
   • Oral storytelling has been a part of the human experience for thousands of years, providing a way for language to be remembered without documentation. "How We Got Our Hands" is an oral story told by Marie in the film. Which cultural values and traditions are reflected in oral storytelling?  
   • “Stories are for people what water is for plants,” said Chicasaw writer and poet Linda Hogan. In what ways are stories meaningful? Why do you think Marie’s story is meaningful?  
   • How would you feel about being the last known speaker of your language? Would you feel a sense of responsibility to preserve your language? Why or why not?

5. Put four pieces of poster paper around the room. Write the following themes at the top of the poster papers: Empathy, Preservation, Language, and Culture. Ask students to write their notes (or one-word descriptions and/or phrases) about the film on each poster, pairing words and phrases that are relevant to each theme. Discuss the notes students took.

6. Cultural historian Larry Swalley from the Lakota tribe said, “The language, the whole culture of the Lakota, comes from the song of our heartbeat. It’s not something that can quickly be put into words. It’s a feeling, it’s a prayer, it’s a thought, it’s an emotion—all of these things are in the language.” Many Indigenous phrases and songs do not directly translate into English or other languages. How might language revitalization and preservation efforts contribute to the story of humanity?

Reflecting & Projecting

1. Students will write a letter to Marie Wilcox. Ask students to respond to the following questions in their letters:

   • What part of Marie’s story had the most impact on you? Why? 
   • How might Marie’s dictionary impact her culture for future generations? 
   • What questions or comments do you have for Marie? 
   • Share responses as a class.

2. Ask students to choose an aspect of their own language(s) for further exploration. How does their family use language to document parts of their culture? Is there a traditional recipe, craft, family story or phrase that they could share? Students can ask family members at home and bring back ideas to class. Some examples might include one of grandma’s well-loved recipes, a family song, or a story that wasn’t written down. Ask students: What actions can you take to help preserve your own family traditions? (1-2 paragraphs)

What's Happening Now

1. Five years after filming Marie’s Dictionary, the director returned to visit Marie at her home in Visalia, California and made the film Wukchumni (15 minutes). He learned that Jennifer is regularly teaching Wukchumni classes to members of the community. After watching the film, ask students to write a paragraph in response to the following questions: 

   • What has changed since Marie created the Wukchumni dictionary? 
   • How has the revitalization and preservation of Wukchumni become a collective effort across multiple generations?

2. Divide students into groups. Assign each group (or have students choose) one of the following films to watch: Karuk (21 minutes), Tolowa Dee-ni’ (17 minutes), or Recording Kawaiisu (16 minutes). Each story, like Marie’s Dictionary, documents Native families and communities in California and their efforts to revitalize their languages. Ask students to discuss the following questions in their groups and prepare to share their responses with the class: 

   • Describe the language revitalization efforts in each film. How is each community or family revitalizing their language? Make a list of the similarities and differences between the revitalization efforts documented in Marie’s Dictionary and the selected film—Karuk, Tolowa Dee-ni’, or Recording Kawaiisu.