How the Stars Fell into the Sky by Jerrie Oughton-Multicultural Literature Review

In this retelling of a Navajo legend, First Woman is trying to find a way to write the laws that people need to know. She cannot write them in the sand, because the wind will blow it away. She cannot write it in the water because it will not stay. She decides to take her star jewels and write the laws in the sky. Coyote sees First Woman, and begins to help her write the law in the sky. First Woman tries to explain the importance of these laws, but coyote becomes impatient with the time-consuming task, and while First Woman is not looking, he thrusts all of the star jewels into the sky at once, creating an incomprehensible clutter of stars that First Woman could not undo. To this day inexplicable confusion will dwell among the people because of Coyotes foolish haste. Native American tales like this one are great to use in writing workshops, because you can have the students come up with their own explanation for some sort of natural phenomena, such as how frogs got their webbed feet, or anything else that they can imagine. By reading this book, you can also tell a good bit about the things that are important in this culture. For example, in this tale you can see that patience is considered a virtue, and laws and rules are important to them. It is always fun to look at what other cultures consider to be important virtues, and why that particular culture has picked that virtue out as more important than others. This is a great Native American tale, that students would enjoy reading.