For South Carolina classrooms
A South Carolina primary source, aligned indicator by indicator.
What the standards actually say
South Carolina's social studies standards were replaced in 2019. The set now in effect does not name the Catawba, the Cherokee, the Yemassee or the Waccamaw. It does not name any tribe at all.
That is deliberate rather than an oversight. The 2019 standards are built around inquiry: they ask students to work from primary and secondary sources and to analyse continuity and change, instead of recalling a list of names. Grade 8 is South Carolina history; grade 4 covers colonisation and settlement.
We think that design is defensible, and better for a book like this one than a list would be. But it has a consequence worth naming plainly: with no tribe on the page, whether a South Carolina student ever meets a South Carolina tribe depends entirely on which sources their teacher reaches for. The state has recognised tribes. A student can finish school here without encountering one.
So this is not a complaint about the standards. It is a source offered against them as written — and the guide is free.
Social studies
Indicator wording is quoted from the South Carolina Social Studies College- and Career-Ready Standards (2019).
| Indicator | What it asks | Where the book answers |
|---|---|---|
| 8.5.CC | Continuities and changes in South Carolina's identity from civic participation. The indicator names military service, political activism, and use of the courts and legislation. | The 82nd Airborne. Founding the tribe. “I ended up suing the state, and I won.” State recognition in 2005. |
| 8.5.CX | South Carolina's part in the Modern Civil Rights Movement. | The segregated school. A state that said there were no Indians in it. |
| 8.1.CC | Native Americans' experiences, “including their efforts to preserve their cultures.” | Thirty years of preserving Waccamaw culture, written from inside it. |
| 8.1.E 8.2.E 8.3.E |
Use a variety of primary and secondary sources to examine multiple perspectives. | The book is the primary source — his own writing, uncorrected. |
| 4.1.CX | Contextualise the experience of Native Americans in South Carolina. | The Dimery Settlement, in his own account of where his people came from. |
English language arts
South Carolina's 2024 ELA standards name the text types that qualify, and memoirs, autobiographical sketches and primary sources are among them. Walk Easy is all three.
| Indicator | What it asks | Where the book answers |
|---|---|---|
| ELA.8.AOR.4.1 | Analyse an author's perspective or purpose, and how the author uses rhetoric to advance it. | Thirty years of letters that all begin “My Brothers and Sisters,” written to persuade his own people. |
| ELA.8.AOR.5.3 | Trace the development of an author's argument and the reasoning or rhetorical appeals used. | His petitions and his letters to a congressman, a senator, the Department of Justice and the ACLU. |
| ELA.8.AOR.2.2 | Analyse how supporting details develop two or more central ideas across informational texts. | Identity and recognition run through every source in the book, from the childhood memoir to the resignation. |
The guide
Three pages, US Letter, prints clean in colour or greyscale: the alignment above, what the book covers, and six discussion questions grounded in real passages.
Download the teaching guide (PDF)
Class sets and school visits. The Waccamaw Indian People already run School Day at the pauwau — heritage taught hands-on, built for classrooms, with its own guidance for teachers and schools. Registration and details are there, and a class set of the book can be asked for at the same place.
A note on the other book. A fuller biography, Chief, is in preparation for adult readers. Walk Easy is the one for a classroom — read about it here.