Storytelling in the Yup’ik Immersion Classroom

Sample Mini-Stories

2. Piipiq ‘The Baby’

In this short scene, the students witness a baby that begins to cry, cries louder and then bawls. I used one of Anderson and Marsh’s (1998) suggestions on teaching vocabulary words in a variety of ways. The students experience using a vocabulary word in which the base-word changes. The story has one character while the rest of the students tell the story while gesturing and fill in the crying of the baby. One student holds the baby (in our improvisation we used a bag of plastic teddy bears covered with a cloth sheet) while the other students chant:

Una qanemciuguq: Piipiq. This is a story: The Baby. Piipiq qianguq. The baby is beginning to cry. [The students make a beginning crying sound like a baby.] Piipiq qiangiinartuq! The baby is crying harder. [The students make a longer crying sound.] Piipiq qalervagtuq! The baby is bawling! [All the students make a loud bawling sound.] Aanam qarutaa piipiq, “Tua-i.” Mom shushes her baby, “That’s enough.”

Piipiq qianguq. Baby is beginning to cry.

	Piipiq Baby		Piipiq qianguq. Baby is beginning to cry.
Position arms like you are holding a baby.		Make a facial crying expression wiping the corner of your eyes.
	Tua-i. That’s enough.
Hold and pat baby like you are holding her.

1. Tuntuvak Taqukaq-llu The Moose and the Bear
2. Piipiq ‘The Baby’
3. Kuskaq Avelngaq-llu Cat and Mouse
4. Kegluneq Maqaruaq-llu Wolf and Rabbit
5. Muluk’uuryulriik The Two That Wanted Milk
6. Piipiq Ellamun Anvailegmi Before Baby Goes Outside
7. Nacarraam Aciani Under the Hat
8. Neryugtuten-qaa? Do You Want to Eat?
9. Aataq Qenertuq Dad is Angry
10. Catangqerta Yaassiicuaraam Iluani? What is Inside the Little Box?

Table of Contents