Question

our children go to public school systems in oklahoma, and they see teachers that don’t look like them, don’t reflect who they are as a people. we’ve always been acculturated to believe that the bia (bureau of indian affairs) or the indian health service or somebody else had better ideas for us than we ourselves had, and so trusting our own thinking... is the single most important task... read noah’s paraphrase of the excerpt.
student work
wilma mankiller says that cherokee children go to public school systems in oklahoma and see teachers who don’t look like them. cherokee people have been acculturated to believe that the bureau of indian affairs or the indian health service have better ideas for them than they have for themselves. mankiller says that the single most important task is to get the cherokee to trust their own thinking.
which mistake did noah make in his paraphrase?

Explanation:

To solve this, we analyze the original excerpt and Noah's paraphrase:

1. Original Excerpt Details: The original says "we've always been acculturated to believe that the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) or the Indian Health Service or somebody else had better ideas for us than we ourselves had". It also says "trusting our own thinking... is the single most important task".
2. Noah's Paraphrase Analysis:

• Noah adds "to get the Cherokee to" before "trust their own thinking", which changes the original meaning. The original emphasizes trusting one’s own thinking as the task, not getting others to trust it.
• Noah also specifies "Cherokee children" and "Cherokee people" (the original uses "our children" and "we" from a Cherokee perspective, but this is more of a clarification than a mistake). The key error is the added phrase altering the action of trusting.

Noah incorrectly added "to get the Cherokee to" when paraphrasing "trusting our own thinking... is the single most important task". The original emphasizes the Cherokee trusting their own thinking, while Noah’s phrasing implies getting them to trust (suggesting an external action, not self - trust). Also, the original includes "somebody else" as a source of "better ideas", but Noah omits this, but the main error is the misphrasing of the trust - related task.

Answer:

Noah added the phrase "to get the Cherokee to" when paraphrasing the part about trusting one’s own thinking, which changes the original meaning. The original states that trusting one’s own thinking is the task, while Noah’s version implies an external action of getting the Cherokee to trust their thinking. Additionally, Noah omitted "somebody else" from the list of entities with "better ideas", but the primary mistake is the misphrasing of the trust - focused task.