Hello!

Welcome to Elitnaurvik within East's blog! EWE was started in 1987 at East High School as a partnership between the Anchorage School District, ASD Indian Education, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Bilingual Education and Migrant Education to help educate Native students and to make sure families are involved with their child's education.
more at ASD's EWE page
_____

Elitnaurvik is a Yup'ik word which means "a place to learn." When the first missionaries landed in rural Alaska and shipped in timber to build schools, the first thing they had to do was explain what a "school" was, and no one was able to do it effectively. "A place to learn" made perfect sense, but a single place to do all learning - not so much. Cook Inlet Tribal Council recognizes the challenges in educating Alaska Natives and American Indian students in a way that is culturally relevant yet that still prepares them for a life in an ever more Westernized and cross-cultural world. We also recognize the challenges rural students face when they must relocate to a city the size of Anchorage and hope to ease their transition into an urban world. At EWE we hope to provide students a safe and comfortable setting to explore their traditional cultures and develop their minds and voices. We offer classes in language arts, math, mass media and Native games as well as a transitions class specifically geared toward the incoming rural student.

It is my hope that the students in EWE use this blog over the course of the semester to share what they learn and what they love in addition to and apart from the assignments I may ask of them as their language arts teacher. I have asked them to build this blog as a forum for their voices. I want them to share with you their thoughts on what we read together as a class, the questions they encounter and the interests that they hold. I hope that you, their readership, find them to be as engaging a group of young people as I, their teacher, do.

Please visit CITC's website to learn more about our mission to work in partnership with Our People to develop opportunities that fulfill Our endless potential.

~Mr. Knight
Language Arts Teacher
EWE
East High School