The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Lesson Plan

Traditional Hmong Wedding Attire

Kind of Activity:

Research

Objective:

Students will research traditional and modern Hmong garments.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.8

Structure:

In Chapter 8, Fadiman writes that her boyfriend came to Merced and Foua used the opportunity to dress Fadiman up as a traditional Hmong bride:

First Foua picked up a phuam, a pink-and-black sash at least twenty feet long, and wound it around me like a ribbon around a maypole... Then came the tiab, a pink, green, and yellow skirt with about five hundred accordion pleats...Its cross-stitching was so fine it looked like beading....Over that went a pink brocade sev, a kind of apron,...