Teach the Essential Understandings by Teaching the Essential Understandings

As longtime readers know, Deb Mitchell and I have been slowly, ever so slowly, revamping our hands-on history footlockers. We most recently took on Lifeways of Montana's First Peoples, and although it had some great lessons and cool material culture, we decided to pretty much start from scratch.  

It was Deb's idea. She said: "If the Seven Essential Understandings regarding Montana Indians" really are essential, and we want every student to know and understand them before they graduate from high school, then we should give teachers the tools to teach them explicitly." And that's how the "Montana's First Peoples: Essential Understandings" footlocker was born. 

I'm as proud of this footlocker as anything we've produced. The artifacts are amazing, so when we start circulating the trunks again (hopefully next fall), you are definitely going to want to check this one out. (Get a preview by scrolling through the footlocker content photos, starting on page 5 of the user guide.) However, even if you can't order the trunk, I strongly encourage you to download the user guide, since most of the lessons can be done without ordering the trunk. 

We've written each lesson to teach an Essential Understanding, and we end almost every lesson by asking students--with help--to conduct a close reading of the Essential Understanding, and then to summarize it in kid-friendly language. By the time you've worked through these footlocker lessons, your students should know and understand the EUs. 

Want More Details? Read On  

Lessons 1 and 2 address Essential Understanding 1: "There is great diversity among the twelve sovereign tribes of Montana in their languages, cultures, histories, and governments...." with a fast-paced game (I Have, Who Has), the video Tribes of Montana and How They Got Their Names, and an exercise that has students up and moving around as they explore and share information (including maps) about tribes that were here c. 1800. 

We address EU 2: "...there is great diversity among individual American Indians..." in Lesson 3: What Does It Mean to Be Apsáalooke? This lesson asks students to compare the music of Crow rapper Supaman with traditional Crow drummer Shane Doyle.

Lesson 4: Traditional Knowledge offers three ways (song, story, and art) to explore EU 3: "The ideologies of Native traditional beliefs and spirituality persist into modern day life... each tribe has its own oral histories, which are as valid as written histories."  

Lesson 5 introduces two EUS, EU 4: "reservations are lands that have been reserved by or for tribes..." through treaties and EU 7: "American Indian tribal nations are inherent sovereign nations." The first part of the lesson explores the act of treaty-making (including troubles in translations) and asks students to calculate the amount of land tribes ceded to the US government versus the amount they retained for their own use. Part 2 introduces the concept of sovereignty and then explores one way the Fort Peck Tribes are exercising their sovereignty--bison restoration. 

Lesson 6, which addresses EU 5 ("Much of Indian history can be related through several major federal policy periods") will works best with the trunk itself, since it has students creating a museum about the different federal Indian policy periods using the artifacts in the footlocker. 

For EU 6 ("History is a story most often related through the subjective experience of the teller"), we created Lesson 7: Rosebud Battlefield or Where the Girl Saved Her Brother? Comparing Points of View. After analyzing two illustrations (from different perspectives) of the Battle of the Rosebud/Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, and being introduced to some background information on the battle and the Great Sioux War, students conduct a "Circle of Viewpoints" exercise, in which they consider multiple perspectives on the battle.  

We've taken Lesson 8 directly from OPI's Crossing Boundaries Through Art: Seals of Montana Tribal Nations unit as a culminating exercise that touches on several EUs. 

I really love this footlocker, and I hope you will too! Check out the user guide and let me know what you think. 

P.S. The footlocker aligns with the new social studies content standards as well. (You can join us on April 20 from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. to learn more about those new standards at our monthly PD. Register here.)