More on RAFT assignments

After reading the post "Raft Writing and World War I," Sue Dailey, a long time middle school teacher, reading specialist, and teacher consultant for Montana: Stories of the Land, wrote an enthusiastic endorsement of RAFT writing that I thought was worth sharing. 

I’m thrilled that you are recommending RAFT writing to your members! ... I used it many, many times in my Montana History curriculum.  The things I like best about RAFT are

1. the students really need a good understanding of the content to be able to write a good RAFT paper, so all the good study/reading strategies (notetaking, transformation, discussion) come into play before writing;  
2. it is especially effective when LA/Social Studies teachers are teaming or when the teacher is teaching both LA and history – the LA part is the actual writing instruction and reading sources (e.g. narratives, letter writing, journaling) and the history teacher applies those skills to content; 
3. RAFT assignments allow students to learn what “voice” in writing means as they take the role of a person involved in events and have the opportunity to show emotion and opinion.  

She also very generously sent some of the RAFT assignments she used when she taught 7th grade Montana history, which you can access here. These include applying to join the Corps of Discovery, a letter home from the Montana gold fields, and testimony for a town meeting hosted by the EPA about drilling for oil and natural gas along the Rocky Mountain Front. She said grading these was a lot more fun than grading traditional essays. Bonus!

If you haven't already, I encourage you to check out the RAFT assignment we created for our Montana and the Great War project. And please feel to email me your favorite RAFT assignment so I can share it to the list. 

More Teaching Strategies (mostly, but not exclusively, middle and high school)

Last week I featured interesting teaching strategies I'd culled from the various blogs I read. In response, I got a nice note from retired teacher Sue Dailey, who wrote to remind me about RAFT. RAFT is a strategy that I highlighted last year in two posts: "RAFT Writing and World War I" and "More on RAFT Assignments." RAFT has mostly been used by ELA teachers, but it is great for history teachers too, and the products are more fun to grade than your standard essay. 

RAFT stands for Role (who are you as a writer), Audience (who are you writing to), Format (are you writing a letter, diary entry), and Topic. It is extremely flexible: you are a drought-stricken farmer in the 1920s (role) writing to the governor (audience) in a letter (format), telling him of your condition and to asking for help (topic). Or you are a young person in the eastern United States (role) writing to Lewis and Clark (audience) in a letter (format), applying to become a member of the Corps of Discovery (topic.) You can read more and find more sample RAFT assignments here.

RAFT works in classrooms from upper elementary to high school. 

Here are some other middle and high school strategies (and tools) that seemed worth exploring, all from the remarkable Glenn Wiebe: 

The first is NowComment, a free "cloud-based collaboration tool for discussing and annotating online documents." Glenn describes it in his blog post "NowComment: Easy, powerful, and collaborative evidence analysis." 

The second is having students work with hexagons, which Glenn highlights in his blog post It puts kids to sleep. And just so ya know . . . that’s a bad thing. (Plus 18 ways to make it better). That post features a number of ways to engage students besides lecturing (18 in fact). I mentioned  "Word Sorts" and "Crop It" in my last teaching strategies post, but using Hexagons seemed to me to be better suited for middle and high school students, so I saved it for this post. From Glenn's blog:

"The basic idea is that students are given a set of laminated hexagons and asked to write key words or phrases from a specific topic on them using dry erase markers. You can also create hexagons with words or phrases already on them. Students then link together related hexagons and be prepared to explain why they arranged the hexagons the way they did. 

"Why hexagons? Because they’ve got six sides and when you give a pile of them to kids, they immediately start fitting them together and making connections. This makes relationships much more visible to your students. You also can see how kids are thinking as they are thinking, providing important formative feedback."

And, guess what? Russell Tarr, over at Tarr's Toolbox, has created an online hexagram generator to make your life easier!

Both Glenn and Russell have pictures of students working with hexagons, which gives a good glimpse of the power of this strategy.

Other strategies that I've highlighted in previous posts include:

• Visual Thinking Strategies
• Speaking and Listening strategies, including Gallery Walks and "Speed Dating," Socratic  Circles, and Structured Academic Controversy 
• Question Formulation Technique (teaching students to ask their own questions)

What's your favorite strategy? Email me and I will share it out.

Time Travel: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

When she was in grade school, my daughter loved the Good Times Travel Agency books by Linda Bailey. The Binkerton Twins would travel back in time, and it was never what they expected (for example, they became serfs, rather than a lord and lady, when they visited the Middle Ages and they were shocked by the hard work and poor living conditions.) Perhaps that's why I was smitten by this activity from one of my favorite social studies bloggers, Russell Tarr: "Design a 'Time Travel Holiday' to see a period from different viewpoints."

Tarr's initial exercise is simple: "When introducing students to a particular historical time and place, get them to research different geographical locations associated with it. The class should then produce a travel brochure designed to persuade holidaymakers about all the wonderful things to expect if they take a time-travelling vacation." 

What I thought was brilliant was his followup activity: "to force students to assess the period from a negative perspective, ask them to write a dramatic complaint letter [to the travel agency] outlining all the horrible sights, sounds and smells they experienced" during their "holiday from Hell." 

In his post, Tarr expands on variations of this activity (and provides details for visiting the sites of Ancient Rome).

I, of course, started thinking about how the activity could be applied to Montana. Certainly, students could promote "time travel" adventures to the romantic Old West, promoting a steamboat trip up the Missouri or Yellowstone rivers, a visit to a gold rush town, or to the cattle frontier of eastern Montana. Then tourists could complain about the lack of fresh fruit, being forced to push their stagecoach out of the mud, or the tedium of a steamboat voyage.

These time traveler assignments are good examples of RAFT writing. RAFT stands for role, audience, format, topic. In a RAFT assignment students take on a Role (in this case, promotional travel agent or unhappy customer), and write for an Audience (potential customer or misleading travel agent), adopt a Format (brochure or letter), and focus on a Topic (life in the assigned place and historical era). We have a RAFT-based lesson plan on Montana during World War I. If you want to learn more about RAFT or get some other suggestions for RAFT assignments I recommend these earlier posts. 

What Tarr's assignment does so well though is insisting that students take on two roles, one that looks at the positive and one that looks at the negative. I can imagine this dual approach beyond his original time travel tourism trope. For example, fliers recruiting homesteaders or men to work in the Butte mines matched by letters home from miners or homesteaders. Or letters from the same miner or homesteader--one back to family members during the journey anticipating the opportunities to be found and another after they had settled in. (Or in the case of homesteading, one during the wet years and the other during the drought.)

There are lots of possibilities here, so I hope you take it and run. If you do, I'd love to hear how you used it and how your students responded.

RAFT Writing and World War I

Our first Montana and the Great War lesson plan is up. It has teachers leading students through a guided exploration of the Montana and the Great War Story Map before asking students to produce a classic RAFT writing assignment. RAFT stands for Role (who are you as a writer), Audience (who are you writing to), Format (are you writing a letter, diary entry), Topic. 

In this lesson plan, students are ask to take on the persona of a person living in Montana during the war or a Montana soldier at the front (Role), and then to write either a letter or a diary entry (Format) about their experiences during the war as informed by their research (Topic.) (Audience is either themselves--if a diary entry--or the letter recipient.) We've targeted the lesson to 5-8 grade, but I think it will work well in high school too.

This should be a comfortable assignment for English teachers, but I only learned about RAFT a few years ago, when Helena High School teacher Jean O'Connor worked with us to develop a similar exercise for the Great Depression. Her students were reading Grapes of Wrath, and to bring it home, she had them conduct research in the Montana Governors Records, where they found heartrending letters from farmers (some of which we digitized) detailing their struggles on drought stricken farms. Details of her project are here.

If you use either of these lessons, let me know. And if you have had students exercise their historical imagination by writing RAFTs on a different topic, I'd love to know that too (including how you had them do their research.)

P.S. Only ONE person has completed the Montana and the Great War scavenger hunt I posted a few weeks ago. Submit your answers to win your choice of the following books:

• Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West. Clemens P. Work (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005).
• Copper Chorus: Mining, Politics, and the Montana Press, 1889-1959. Dennis L. Swibold. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2006.
• Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917. Michael Punke. Reprint edition, 2007. New York: Hachette Books.
• Beyond Schoolmarms and Madams: Montana Women's Stories. Martha Kohl, ed. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2015.
• Mining Childhood: Growing Up in Butte Montana, 1900-1960. Janet L. Finn. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2012.

Worth a Second Look

I've been writing Teaching Montana History for a long time now (over ten years!) so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that I don't remember every idea I post about. But I always am surprised--and delighted--when I stumble on a good idea from past years that had completely slipped my mind. That happened recently when I was scrolling through the Teaching Montana History blog, looking for something else. Here are two strategies I think deserve to be remembered--and implemented!--both of which align to Common Core ELA standards while engaging students deeply in content.

 

Transforming Textbook Text into a Found Poem

Master teacher Jim Schulz turned me onto the brilliant idea of asking students to create found poems from short sections of their textbook or other complex text.  Why brilliant? Because it requires students to read and reread the complex informational text to discern and then summarize the main ideas. Jim says students will need a guiding question. Inspired by Jim, I created a a sample assignment for the section "The Dawes Act: Allotments Subdivide the Reservations," from Chapter 11 of Montana: Stories of the Land:

• Using the text (including sidebar quotations, posters, image captions, etc.), on pages 219-222 of Montana: Stories of the Land, create a found poem that answers the following question: What conclusions can you draw about the policy of allotment?

Looking for more ideas about how to integrate poetry into Montana history (or Montana history into a poetry unit)? Check out the original post.

Time Travel: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I'd also forgotten about the time travel assignment I found on history teacher Russell Tarr's fabulous site, Tarr's Toolbox. This is a classic RAFT* writing assignment, with a twist: "have students consider multiple viewpoints, first by selling the positives of a certain time or place in the brochure, and then, in a complaint letter about the vacation from hell, by highlighting all the problems." I thought, and still think, this would be a great assignment when studying the cattle frontier, to encourage students to analyze both the realities and romance of the Old West.

Do you have a favorite strategy--a slightly out-of-the-box way of engaging your students? Let me know and I'll share it out.

*RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. Here a more detailed explanation and a model RAFT writing assignment about Montana and WWI. 

P.S. Don't forget our upcoming online Professional Development (for which you will be able to earn one renewal unit). We'll gather via Zoom on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, to share our best ideas and resources for integrating Montana history into U.S. history. Sign up for the session here. And best wishes to all for a joyous and healthy 2021.

 

Conflict and Compromise....

In its recent post, "Timely Connections: Slavery & Compromise," TPS Barat saw a teachable moment in White House chief of staff John Kelly's recent statement that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War” and "firestorm of impassioned responses" that ensued. They gathered contemporary articles, background material, and primary sources, to allow classes "to put the pieces of the story together" for themselves. If this topic interests you at all, I highly recommend that you click through to their post.

This may not seem closely tied to Montana history--except as Montana is tied to the rest of the nation. And for the fact that until this August, Helena had what was thought to be the northernmost Confederate Memorial in the United States. On August 16, the Helena City Commission decided to remove the Confederate Fountain from Helena's Women's Park. Two days later, the fountain had been taken down.

Interested in pursuing that Montana tie-in? Add these articles about the Confederate Fountain to the information gathered by TPS Barat, seeing especially: "Those who've studied Confederate fountain's history weigh in on removal plans," Helena Independent Record, August 17, 2017, and "Text of revised language for Confederate fountain signage," Helena Independent Record, January 21, 2016.

This might be a good opportunity for a simulation, with some students playing City Council members and others being proponents and opponents for council removal. We created a similar simulation some time ago focused on coal and coalbed methane mining on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. If you use it, you might want to find a few more up to date readings for the students, but I think it remains a worthwhile lesson. You can find it here.

P.S. Conflict and Compromise in History happens to be this year's National History Day theme. I'll be posting more on National History Day soon.

P.P.S. Anna Baldwin of Arlee High School sent this excellent idea to deepen RAFT assignments in response to "More Teaching Strategies," published last week: "Extension: after students have become comfortable with RAFTs written by teachers, ask students to write the RAFT assignment for each other. In other words, they come up with the R A F T. Doing this asks them to think about the pieces of the story more deeply, especially around perspective and topical importance."

Teachers' Choice: Favorite Elementary Lessons

Every spring, I survey readers, both to get feedback on how to make Teaching Montana History better and to gather everyone’s favorite lessons so I can share them with the group. I love learning what has actually worked in the classroom—and being able to share teacher-approved lessons. So, without further ado, here are some of the answers elementary teachers gave to the question “Describe (in brief) the best Montana history or IEFA lesson or project or resource you taught this year--the one you will make time for next year no matter what.” Stay tuned for future posts featuring the answers from middle and high school teachers. [I've added some links, and a few comments in brackets--couldn't resist putting my oar in.] 

Justine Hurley, who teaches grades 3-5 in White Sulphur Springs, wrote: "This year I used the Montana Indian Stories Lit Kit.  The students really enjoyed the interactive puppetry that can go along with the stories.  We studied this footlocker after Christmas and it was very useful in getting the kids engaged after a long winter break!  Next year I intend to use the To Learn A New Way footlocker.  I will be creating in-depth social studies lessons and field trip based on this footlocker!" [Discover more about both of these footlockers by exploring the User Guides, posted on our Footlocker page.] 

Susan Seastrand, who teaches K-8 in a one-room school, used the Charlie Russell pictures that were part of our Montana's Charlie Russell packet. [We sent one to every public school library--but if you want one for your classroom, send us an email and we'll send you one while supplies last. You can also access all of the packet material (including the images, biographical PowerPoints, three hands-on art lessons, and five ELA/social studies lessons) on our website.]

Christine Ayers, a 3-5 teacher from Polson, wrote: "Honestly, there are so many! The ones that came to mind first, are the resources on Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. We have used those lessons as a base for so many discussions throughout the year. Just those two lessons have sparked in-depth, critical thoughts and debates for the entire year. Fourth graders getting a different perspective and developing empathy is something I will make time for every year, thanks to these lessons!" [Mike Jetty offered some great links on Thanksgiving in his guest post last year on Native American Heritage Month.]

April Wills, who teaches second grade in Bainville, wrote: "The best lesson I teach is Preserving Eastern Montana History with iMovie. Students research, develop questions and record information. When the whole project is done we create iMovies to preserve that knowledge and share with other students. Each year is different, this year we researched homesteads within 50 miles of our town. Students partnered up with high school students to complete their tasks, this also varies each year with the classes we join with depending on scheduling." 

Shannon Baukol, who teaches 3-6 in Pray, wrote: "The best history  lesson I have taught this year is a map layering activity with Montana reservations and tribal affiliations, tied in with a Literary Study on tribes outside of Montana." [She may have used some of the maps available through OPI's Indian Education Division, particularly this one of territories in 1855 and this one showing reservations today. If you are interested in providing a visual on Indian land loss, you may also want to check out this amazing 17-second animation that shows Indian land loss using the chronological collection of land cession maps by Sam B. Hillard, of Louisiana State University, which was published in 1972 in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Maps looking at land loss due to allotment are also extremely informative. You can download a map set focused on the Flathead Reservation here.]

Whitefish Technology teacher Michael Carmichael also understands the power of maps. Each year he works with his third graders to create animations of shrinking tribal land. Last year, I was so intrigued I asked him to share details. He wrote: "Students were given different animation project choices including one about  Montana Reservations. The students’ task was to show how traditional tribal areas changed and shrank with the introduction of reservations. Students needed to select three tribes to animate the boundary changes. This lesson activated prior classroom knowledge and utilized free online animation program that was age appropriate and allowed students multiple ways to create their animated infographic. Students accessed traditional tribal territory maps and modern Reservation maps to use as their background before using the drawing and painting tools to create the visual of the shrinking reservations. Animate is free and easy to use on all platforms via the web. Some of the map resources students utilized are:

• http://www.montanatribes.org/learning_activities/maps.html

• http://www.native-languages.org/montana.htm

• http://www.opi.mt.gov/pdf/IndianEd/Resources/MTIndiansHistoryLocation.pd

They also used the  student safe search resource “Bing in the Classroom.”(Free for Schools)."

Bill Moe, Libby 3-5 teacher, loved Mapping Montana A-Z. He declared it "great fun." [Another teacher said her 4th-grade students got frustrated with the exercise and recommended shortening it by placing students in groups and dividing up the alphabet (so one group mapped A-F, another G-L, etc.). She's now teaching 8th grade and says those students love the lesson plan as is.]  

Another teacher also recommended map resources: "I liked the presentation Ruth Ferris gave us using old and new state maps with tribal names. It was interesting to see how Montana has changed over time using maps." [I asked Ruth, and she thought the maps she presented came from MontanaTribes.org.]

A 3-8 art teacher had his students make parfleche bags. 

A 3-5 teacher has embraced combining history and language arts. For example, she read Hattie Big Sky as a read aloud. [I just read this book this summer--what a great tie-in to so many topics in Montana history, including the effects World War I.]

One 3-5 teacher wrote: "I have used women in Montana History information with my students in reading and language arts." [We've gathered our resources on Montana women's history here. Lesson plans particularly appropriate for elementary are Women and Sports: Tracking Change Over Time, Montana Women at Work: Clothesline Timeline, and Biographical Poems Celebrating Amazing Montana Women.] 

Angela Archuleta, a librarian in Lewistown, wrote: "I did a primary resource session from Glacier National Park. I would like to conduct some of the  RAFT exercises in Google Classroom." [I don't know if she used it, but we have a footlocker focused on Glacier that offers a number of primary sources. You can review the user guide here and learn about how to order here. More information on RAFT here and here.]

One K-5 librarian wrote: "I began the 4th graders on Yellowstone Kelly and the newspapers from long ago. I'd like to go deeper into Boot Hill Cemetery and Yellowstone Kelly. One "teachable moment" occurred when one of my students asked who Charlie Russell was. It allowed me to open up the kit we all received about him and talk to the students about his impact on Montana and Western Art." 

A K-5 library teacher recommended using the historical newspapers now available online. [Here are some tips.]

A 3-5 teacher recommended playing Indian games. [Here's a Traditional Games Unit from OPI.]

A few of you listed field trips as the best thing you did: 

• "We took a school field trip to the Lewis and Clark Interactive Museum in Great Falls that was wonderful." (Grades K-2)
• "We took the class on a field trip to the BigHorn Battlefield. Before leaving we used many resources from the MT Historical Society emails I received over the course of the year. Most recently we used the piece about History and location of MT tribes for our research projects." (Grades 3-5)

Do you have a favorite lesson you'd like to share? If so, email me with details and I'll share it with the group. 

Reading for Winter Break

Who has time to read all of the blog posts that show up in your inbox? I know I don't. So I thought that some of you might appreciate a roundup of the most popular Teaching Montana History posts of 2017, to peruse over break, in between showings of "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

• Teaching with Montana: Stories of the Land provided links to the textbook's rich companion website, information about the new username and password (Teachers/Agate), and information about the one-hour online training that folks can take for one OPI renewal unit.
• Summer Reading was another look back, with link to particularly popular posts, including "Evidence Analysis Window Frames" and "Teaching Indian Literature and/or Literature about Indians."
• Newsela talks about the Newsela website, which offers nonfiction text (including news articles and primary sources) at multiple reading levels.
• Salt Dough Maps provides a step-by-step tutorial (with pictures) on this popular classroom project. 
• Can We Find a Teachable Moment through the Smoke? suggested resources to teach about the history of fire and fire policy.
• Montana and the Great War talks about the new resources available through the Montana Historical Society's World War I website, including lesson plans, one of which is discussed at length in RAFT Writing and World War I. 

If these posts don't strike your fancy but you still want to troll Teaching Montana History for new ideas, lesson plans, or resources, I suggest visiting the website and scrolling down until you see "Labels" on the righthand side of the page. Then simply click on what interests you--art, contemporary Montana, elementary,  IEFA, teaching strategies. ... You get the idea. (I haven't been entirely consistent in how I've tagged entries over the last seven (!) years, but the tags make a good starting point for exploration.)

p.s. Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy 2018! I'm taking the week off, but the genie in the computer is hard at work. Hence this email.

Links Roundup

I have a file in my computer where I tuck away interesting links, intriguing strategies and other things worth sharing. Here are a few unrelated, but I hope, interesting tidbits.  

Teaching about Slavery

Runaway slave ads: In collaboration with the Hard History Project, Freedom on the Move "created a searchable database of fugitives from North American slavery...There are endless possibilities for using the database in your classroom." To make things easy for you, they "created four lessons you can use to bring the ads to life and introduce students to the brave people who resisted slavery by running away." 

Sherrie Galloway, a former Library of Congress Teacher in Residence, posted an intriguing lesson on the TPS Teaching Network that used a five-minute clip from Henry Gates' TV show, Finding Your Roots of Pharrell Williams reading excerpts from a narrative created from an interview conducted during the 1930s with his great, great aunt, who was born enslaved twelve years before the end of the Civil War. That of course led me down the YouTube Rabbit Hole, and I watched similar two to five minute clips with other African American celebrities--Queen Latifah, Nas--discovering information about their own ancestors, enslaved and free. What's powerful about these short clips (besides the fact that they are so short) is that they make slavery real and personal, not something that happened a long time ago to faceless, nameless people, but something that happened to the families of people who are living now. (To access the lesson, you have to join the TPS Teaching Network--but it's free!) 

RAFT Writing and Charlie Russell

I don't remember the name of the brilliant teacher who proposed this idea. My apologies. They sent it to me in response to one of the lesson plans we created for Montana's Charlie Russell. Our lesson is

• “The Rest of the Story” (grades 3–7) engages students in an analysis of several pieces of Russell art before asking them to choose one to use as inspiration to write a story.

"The Rest of the Story" asks students what's going on in the picture, say Bronc to Breakfast, what they think happened right before, and what they think happened right after. And then asks students to write a story. 

The teacher suggested a clever variation: "Students find Charlie Russell paintings very engaging, and they love to tell stories. Another way you could use this idea is to have the students choose to be one of the characters in the painting, and they write a letter home telling about their experience." 

It's Not Too Late...

We've got free workshops coming up across the state. Learn more and register here.  

If you are an elementary teacher, there's still time to apply to become a Teacher Leader in Montana History. 

There's also still time to nominate a great middle or high school teacher for the Centennial Bell Award (for excellence in teaching Montana history).  

Gilder-Lehrman is still recruiting nominations for National History Teacher of the Year. The award is open to anyone who teaches K-12 American history (including but not limited to state and local history.)   

 

 

 

Best High School Montana History, IEFA or Heritage Education Lessons

Last week I shared middle school teachers’ answers to the question “Describe (in brief) the best Montana history or IEFA lesson or project or resource your taught this year--the one you will make time for next year no matter what.” (Didn’t have time to do the survey but have a great lesson to share—one you love, regardless of who created it? Send it along and I’ll let folks know.)

Here are the answers submitted thus far from high school teachers.

Art of Storytelling  

Robin Gray, from Missoula, wrote: “Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspective! It was awesome.  We created ledger art drawings.”

Using Google Maps to Study Literature

Cory Snow (from Billings) “used Google Maps to track characters' journeys from the novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.”

Panning for Gold

“I taught a lesson on panning for gold.  I took the kids out of the classroom and had them try it for themselves. We used that experience to look at how hard it must have been for miners to do that day in and day out.  It gave my students an better understanding/appreciation of what those people went through.” If you want an easier gold panning exercise, you can find one on page 35 of the  the user guide for the "Gold, Silver and Coal" footlocker.

Inside Anna’s Classroom Study Guide and Article on Wounded Knee

“While I didn't directly teach any of the lessons, I forwarded them often to my consulting teachers.  I was especially impressed with the "Anna Study Guide" and source materials such as the New York Times article on Wounded Knee, which fit in well with the IEFA lessons my teachers in the Poplar, Montana school district were doing.”

fourdirectionsteachings.com 

“I utilized the website http://fourdirectionsteachings.com/ and shared with my students the information from the 5 nations listed.  They had an opportunity to compare the cultures presented and see that the connections to the past are a lot closer than we realize as long as we look.  I hope that this helps them make connections to their culture and customs on a more regular basis. I had one other lesson that I worked on that stands out, but it only truly connected with one student.  I asked my students to research the history of Wounded Knee, recognize 2 or 3 prominent members of the Sioux nation, the current land dispute, and if they had suggestions in resolving this situation.  (Is there a connection we can make to encourage the government to establish the land as a national landmark?)

Native Poetry using the Birthright: Born to Poetry

“The students had to create a poem that matched a Montana History occurrence and write it from the point of view of someone living in that time period.”  (Ed. note: Birthright: Born to Poetry, a Collection of Montana Indian Poetry is fabulous—and each poem comes with classroom ideas). There’s also a Birthright video with the authors reading their poems.

Boarding school/Birthright Lesson

“As an instructional coach, I didn't teach this. However, I developed it based on a workshop by Dottie Susag. The objective was to write a paragraph that  identified, with supporting details, the common theme of a boarding school video and two poems from the Birthright anthology.”

Sanborn Maps

Using the Sanborn maps  for Missoula, we re-constructed neighborhoods and created logs of the businesses and how they changed over time. [Find Sanborn maps for your community at http://sanborn.umi.com/ (email mkohl@mt.gov for username and password.)

Student Created Video about Perma Red

Anna Baldwin, from Arlee, wrote: “I used digital photography, digital audio recording, and a basic editing program to help students create an audiovisual representation of Debra Magpie Earling's novel Perma Red. This novel incorporates beautiful imagery and incredible descriptive detail about landscape, so I first had students select parts of the novel they found moving or descriptive and recorded them reading these selections. Then I took  students out one morning with digital cameras (and their smartphones) to photograph the area. While a pair edited the pictures to the audio track, others created intro and transition slides. Finally as a group they selected their music. It all came together as this video, hosted on youtube: Perma Red From Our Vision.

World War I and Sedition 

Kelley Edwards, Helena: “The Sedition Project- WWI Exploring the social, political, and economic impact that the sedition law had on Montanans.  Also explored if there should be limits to the First Amendment.  I am doing it again next year!“ (Learn more here.)

Place-Based Unit

Jeri Rittel (PAL, Helena): “I taught a thematic unit which included art, social studies and English. We visited Bannack, Fort Benton and Helena. We would like to do a river theme next year and include Fort Benton.”

Change on the Huntley Project/People involved in Positive Social Change 

Pam Roberts, from the Huntley Project, shared information on two research projects that had 9th and 10th grade English students conducting research using World Book Online – EbscoHost. Students investigating the Huntley Project also used resources digitized as part of Montana Memory Project; visited the Huntley Project museum, interviewed community elders, and created Prezis in which they compared Huntley Then and Now—with each student taking on a different topic, from fashion to raising chickens.

Homestead Fair

Mary-Kate Neinhuis, Harlowton: “The most fun and successful project was our ‘Homestead Fair.’ Each student created an ‘exhibit’ on a specialized subject that piqued their interest during our participation in ‘The Big Read’ (Harlowton participated in a Big Read of My Antonia. More on the Big Read here.) Students each created a board with information, primary sources, and an interactive element on a variety of topics such as homestead structures, transportation, fashion, courtship, and even prostitution during the homestead era in Montana. The students really enjoyed this more than anything else.”

IEFA Museum School Partnership Program

Chris Fisk (Butte) participated in a museum-school partnership program that focused on Indian Education for All. His students learned about area’s history before copper—including what the Salish called different sites around Butte and what traditional uses of those sites were. Among the highlights was a visit from Salish traditional technology expert Tim Ryan, who came down from the Flathead Reservation and taught the students how to build a fish trap.

Chronicling America 

One teacher gave a shout out to Chronicling America, the Historic American Newspaper Digitization Project.  “It brings history alive to read the articles that correspond to the events in history.  We used this source quite a bit while teaching Girl from the Gulches.” (Chronicling America is an AMAZING project that allows students and other researchers to read (a selection of) newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. See the Montana titles currently available here. Learn more about using Chronicling America in the classroom here.

Several teachers talked about the importance of integrating Montana History into other classes:

World War II Project

“Using Primary Sources to teach about Montana during WWII.  Students always find the First Special Service Force, 163rd Inf, Fort Missoula, Charlo and Oiye stories especially interesting. That local connection to the broader US History topics makes what students are learning engaging.”

American Indian Movement

Amy Collins, of Billings, wrote, “I think that the best IEFA lesson that I taught this year was the lesson that I did with my Junior US History class about AIM and the civil rights component for the American Indian. Along with the historical context, we did a component on mascots and place names, and the current movement within NCAA sports to change/replace names, which also had a Montana component.  So, all in all, it was a very timely ‘lesson’ for my students.” (Looking for more resources on mascots? We recently made this Montana The Magazine of Western History article available: “On Trial The Washington R*dskins’ Wily Mascot: Coach William ‘Lone Star’ Dietz.”)

Fort Peck Dam

“We study Montana during the Depression using the Montana: Stories of the Land text and look at the Fort Peck commemorative pamphlet.  This is followed with a visit to the Interpretive center, the Power House, and the Valley County Museum.  Ideally this could include Ivan Doig's novel, Bucking the Sun, to cross curricular areas.  Engineering feats (Technology), measuring (Math), the sky is the limit with this idea. I incorporate this into my Senior Government and US History classes.”

Literature and Social Studies

 Today at 4:00 p.m. we're meeting for our final PD on Literature and Social Studies. 

Mike Jetty will be there with a dad joke and some recommendations for good IEFA-related books. Teacher Leader in History April Wills (grade 7, Bainville) will be talking about lessons she's developed for Mandy Smoker's graphic novel Thunderous, and Teacher Leader in History Johanna Trout (grade 4, Billings) will share the unit she's created for Shota and the Star Quilt. Other folks have promised to share how they teach Hattie Big Sky and Counting Coups. 

I also plan to share a few resources to help teach Hattie Big Sky, a novel about a single woman homesteader near Wolf Point. The book touches on homesteading and World War I. Oddly, for its location, the book doesn't touch on allotment or Indian lands, but that doesn't mean you can't!

Here are a few resources to supplement a novel study of Hattie Big Sky: 

•  Montana and the Great War Story Map, Story Map Scavenger Hunt, and RAFT Writing assignment. These resources are a good way to explore themes relating to World War I, from propaganda, anti-German sentiment, and the flu pandemic to stories of bravery on the battlefield. 
• Hattie Inez Wright is the inspiration for Hattie Big Sky. In real life, she proved up her homestead and you can locate it using the BLM GLO Records.
• There's lots of good material about women homesteaders, including this short article, this 27-minute video about Esther Strasburger and her two sisters who near Simms, Montana in 1910, and this book. You can learn more about homesteading more generally from Chapter 13 of Montana: Stories of the Land. (Click on For Educator: Resources for lots more material.)
• I don't think you should talk about homesteading in northeastern Montana without talking about allotment, particularly of the Fort Peck Reservation. You can find background on allotment in both Chapter 13 and Chapter 11 of Montana: Stories of the Land. This famous "Indian Land for Sale" poster is a good conversation starter. Unit 4, Part 2, Lesson 2 of the Montana: A History of Our Home features a lesson on allotment that starts by sending kids to the playground to claim a small (undesirable) plot before telling them that they are no longer permitted to use the remainder of the playground.   

I'm sure I will get lots of other great ideas from this PD. I hope to see you there. Register before noon to receive a link.