Introduction
Raising Ourselves by Velma Wallis

Raising Ourselves is a wonderful book to share with learners. Velma Wallis writes honestly and with passion about her people's struggle with alcoholism and cultural loss.

Born in 1960, the sixth of thirteen children, Velma Wallis comes of age in a two-room log cabin in remote Fort Yukon, Alaska. Velma grows up in the raw, unsettled aftermath of a cultural invasion of her village on the Yukon River. The author's great aunts still speak Gwich'in but their children, the generation of Velma's mother and father, speak only English because the Native language was forbidden in schools run by white outsiders.

In this Novel Study you will find:

• Prereading Section
  
  
• Chapters 1 – 19
  • Vocabulary for each chapter
  • Comprehension questions with answers from each chapter
  • Reflection and journal writing
  • Discussion questions
  • Extended activities
    
    
• Epilogue and Review

Prereading

• The first section sets the stage for reading the novel.
• Learners read the preface and make predictions about the novel.
• Learners draw on their own life experiences to answer questions.

Chapters 1 – 19

• Vocabulary

  • Each chapter has an activity for reviewing vocabulary.
  • Some of the activities include: looking up words in the dictionary, matching definitions and words, reading words in context and guessing definition of words, etc.
  • Chapters 5, 10 and 15 review the words from the previous 5 chapters.