Best of, Elementary Edition, 2019

Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history of IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Go here for the high school teachers' responses and here for the middle school teachers' responses. Read on for the responses from elementary school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets.

Mary Ellen Igo, K-2, Belgrade, wrote: "I read Brave Wolf and the Thunderbird [by Joe Medicine Crow] to my students. We discussed the story, and especially the artwork in the book. I reminded them of all the beautiful colors and detail in the illustrations, and how they might have made those colored paints from things found in nature.  Then they drew a picture and we made a class book.  I have class books from almost ten years now, and they are beautiful to look at!"

Many of you wrote in praise of our hands-on history footlockers. Some commented on the whole program: "I love how all of the trunk materials are available online, it helps me find applicable lesson plans even when I don't have the trunk." Others gave shout-outs to particular footlockers, for example, "Montana State Symbols."  Kimberly Winkowitsch, who teaches K-8 at Hidden Lake Elementary, wrote "I ordered two footlockers from the Montana Historical Society. One was on Lewis and Clark, and one was on Native Americans. I love these footlockers and will definitely do it again next year.

A K-12 art teacher wrote: "In art, we did a life-size paper mache grizzly bear. Next year we hope to make a life-size colt or bison calf in paper mache."

Ron Buck, who teaches 5-6 grades in Shelby, wrote: “My best IEFA lesson is the Art of Storytelling. ... It captivates my students and allows them to understand the importance of expressing themselves and their heritage through storytelling.”

One teacher does a Blackfeet Research Project: "students choose from a list of topics (Blackfeet Tribe) then find 12-18 facts about that topic and put it on a poster board, citing information and finding a picture to represent that topic. Then displayed.  The students love learning about about their surroundings and are intrigued by what they learn and the topics their peers have chosen." 

Another makes sure that all students can find Montana's 7 reservations on a map (and list the tribes associated with those reservations). [I think every fourth grader should be able to do this. Montanatribes.org has online activities to help students learn this.]

It's not too late! If you have a lesson you think other teachers should know about, for any grade, drop me a line!

Best of, Middle School Edition 2019

Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history of IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Go here for the high school teachers' responses. Stay tuned for elementary school teachers' responses. Read on for the responses from middle school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets.

Jennifer Graham, of Philipsburg, who teaches Montana history in 7th grade, wrote, "Mapping Montana, A-Z, THAT WAS THE BEST!  First time I did that this year and it was great.  The students loved it. " [Other teachers--who responded anonymously also listed this as their favorite lesson.] 

Teachers recommended Making an Atlatl [I was excited to see that someone not only used this new lesson of ours but that it was a favorite], Blood on the Marias: Understanding Different Points of View Related to the Baker Massacre of 1870 [one of my favorite lessons too], and Code Talker - A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two.

  

Another teacher shows Montana Mosaic episodes Chapter 6 on Federal Indian Policy, which focuses on the Relocation policy of the 1950s] and Chapter 4 Dislocation/Relocation, which focuses on the Boarding School experience. [Note each episode is less than 20 minutes. The accompanying user guides provide synopses, vocabulary definitions, and post-viewing questions. MHS donated the Montana Mosaic DVD to all public Montana school libraries. The episodes are also available on YouTube]] 

Playing for the World: The 1904 Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School Girls Basketball Team Model Teaching Unit [OPI donated the DVD that accompanies this teaching unit to all public Montana school libraries. The video is also available on YouTube]

Jennifer Hall, 7-8 Eureka, loves our Montana's Charlie Russell PowerPoints and lesson plans. 

Cindy Hatten, Colstrip, 6-8, wrote, "My favorite is the Governor’s Mansion footlocker [Original Governor’s Mansion: Home to the Stewart Family in Turbulent Times, 1913-1921]. I always use it around Christmas and involve the lives of the governors children and what they had done as far as games, presents and Christmas goodies." [Learn more about how to order this or other footlockers on our Hands-on History page.]  

April Wuelfing, Sheridan, 7 grade, wrote: "we used the [Montana: Stories of the Land] textbook's defensible space worksheet [the worksheet accompanies Chapter 12: Logging in the High Lonesome]. After that, I presented the class with more information (largely from California's legislation) on defensible space. This took an entire class period, to which the kids took some notes. The next day, I split the class in two and we had a friendly debate on whether or not home owners should be required to create defensible space around their homes. The kids loved it and did an excellent job presenting arguments for both!

Wendy Davis, Marion School, 6-8, wrote:  "Copper Kings--after learning about the 3 each student draws names of the 3 out of a hat and designs a wordle poster to display on the wall. Students have to go back to the biographies, textbook, handout, and notes to select specific details they want to stress.  We emphasize  descriptive adjectives and significant details in the displays. Not only do the students enjoy designing them, but they also remember the significant differences between the three men." [Wordle, "a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide" is so cool. I love the idea of incorporating it into a lesson.] 

Kathy Harvey, Vaughn School, grades 5-8, also taught about about the Copper Kings. [I hope she used material from Montana: Stories of the Land Chapter 10, "Politics and the Copper Kings," including the point of view worksheet we created with an excerpt from one of my favorite satirical pamphlets, "Helena's Social Supremacy," which is now available to download in its entirety from the Montana Memory Project!] 

Lauren McDonald, 6-8 Whitehall, wrote: "I use the 'Picturing the Past' lesson plan from Montana: Stories of the Land Chapter 11, 'The Early Reservation Years.' It's a great way for students to see the changes that occurred during the early reservation years. Students are so visual these days and movement always helps in a middle school setting.  I'm not sure it would be as effective if students weren't required to move around and observe different aspects.  I teach Montana History to 7th grade students and they're incredibly insightful with their observations as well as the following discussion.  I believe this is in part to the visual nature of this lesson as well as the guiding questions provided for students.  Many students struggle with how to perform a correct observation in this setting, but the lesson has provided a sheet of questions for the students to think about when observing each photograph." [The lesson, subtitled "Understanding Cultural Change and Continuity among Montana's Indians through Historic Photographs," can also be taught as a stand alone lesson--though I think it's even better to teach it in the context of the chapter.]  

Jim Martin, Missoula, 6-8, wrote:  "Not one particular lesson, but, connecting our American Indian culture and timeline as we work through the curriculum of ancient world history." I was curious to learn more so I contacted him for details. he explained that the "6th grade curriculum covers the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Greece, and Rome.  It is a tough subject for kids to connect to, and sometimes kids think it moves chronologically through time.  For example, they think that, when learning about Egypt, India hadn't been settled since we haven't covered it yet. ... So, I have a big timeline in the front of the classroom. It's made of yarn, and each civilization has its own line that runs parallel to the rest. This creates a visual to show that, 'while the pyramids are being built in Egypt ... meanwhile in India...' and shows kids that human development occurred simultaneously across the world achieving many of the same milestones; use of iron tools, developing complex religion, etc." The curriculum does not cover either North or South America and Jim wants to make sure that students understand that the people living here in ancient times had rich cultures of their own. He struggles with finding dates and details about what was going on before 1492. Although he recognizes that "each tribe is complex with its own history," his main goal is to make sure students understand the Americas as a whole was home to civilizations, so he includes events across the Americas on his timeline (rather than trying to be tribally specific.) "So, there are events from the Anasazi creating pottery, to Mississippian culture building mounds in the Ohio River valley, to petroglyphs being created in the Pryor Mountains, to the tribes settling the Mexico Valley.  The point is to show students that events and the efforts of human ingenuity occurred all over the globe, not just in these five pockets of the world."

It's not too late! If you have a lesson you think other teachers should know about, for any grade, drop me a line!

Learn In Person ... Or Online

The Montana History Conference is fast approaching, September 26-28, in Helena. If you are within an easy drive, I encourage you to register for the Thursday educator workshop or the entire three-day conference. The educator workshop will feature elementary resources in the morning, including our new resources for teaching Montana geography, one of the new Lewis and Clark lesson plans, and the Montana State Symbols footlocker. In the afternoon, we'll be learning how to find primary source resources on Montana Memory, the Digital Public Library of America, and Montana Newspapers. (These are all extraordinary sites, and training in how to search them will reduce your frustration and up your likelihood of success a thousand fold.) We'll also be sharing some new upper-grade Indian Education resources. Come join us!


The Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative is offering a new online moodle course, Current Events in Indian Country: An inquiry-based Approach, September 30, 2019-December 15, 2019. Participants will learn inquiry-based teaching and learning strategies to use in their classrooms. Each participant will apply these strategies to explore a contemporary American Indian issue as part of a class-wide inquiry, and an additional American Indian issue of his or her choosing for the free-inquiry portion. This course requires participants to be self-directed and highly motivated, a background in inquiry or American Indian issues is not necessary.

• Registration fee: $335
• Credit: 45 OPI Renewal Units or 3 Semester Credits pending for an additional fee of $155. 

They are also offering a self-paced online course, IEFA Special Topics, composed of five distinct units, each the equivalent of 1 University credit or 15 OPI renewal units. Upon registration, participants select which units/how many credits they wish to take. See website for pricing.
The five units included in Course One are:
1) Who Will Tell My Brother?: The Indian Mascot Controversy
2) Honoring Native Women’s Voices
3) American Indian Short Stories
4) American Indian Poetry
5) Biographies of Native Americans: Contemporary and Historic

Fourth Grade Units: One Ready to Go and One Ready to Test

Every year I hear from fourth grade teachers looking for a curriculum to teach Montana history. In the past, I've suggested road maps but I know that isn't enough, so we've slowly been working on a fourth grade Montana history curriculum.

Montana Today: A Geographical Study is the first unit in this curriculum. It was tested and improved by Libby teacher Bill Moe and is ready to implement! Designed for grades 4-6, it asks students to investigate how climate, geology, and geography affect the lives of Montanans. 

• In Part 1, they construct population maps and look for patterns. 
• In Part 2 they will about Montana’s three regions. 
• In Part 3 they learn about Montana’s reservations and tribal nations. 
• In Part 4, they plan a route across the state, learning about the places they choose to stop as they go while improving map-reading skills (an abbreviated take on our very popular Mapping Montana A-Z lesson plan). 
• In Part 5 they will tie what they learned together to answer the unit’s guiding questions. Total time is about 10-15 days.

We spent the summer creating the next unit, Unit 2, Montana's First Peoples. This 10-15 day unit combines math, science, reading, and social studies to explore what life was like in this region before the arrival of Euro-Americans: 12,000 years ago until about 1810. We need teachers to test this unit. 

• Part 1 asks students create a timeline starting 12,500 years ago in order to see that Euro-Americans have only been in this region a relatively brief period of time. They also read to find out what life was like before Europeans arrived on the continent.
• In Part 2 students make atlatls, according to the Making an Atlatl lesson plan master teacher Jim Schulz wrote up last year.
• Part 3 uses a map activity to introduce the tribes who lived in Montana around 1800.
• Part 4 offers students the opportunity to take a virtual tour of our exhibit Neither Empty Nor Unknown: Montana at the Time of Lewis and Clark to learn more about the lifeways of indigenous Montanans (particularly the Crow and the Blackfeet).
• Part 5 takes the lesson plan "Winter Count: Marking Time" from a larger unit we published some years back called "The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives." 

As you can tell from the descriptions, we've integrated lessons we'd already created into Unit 2 (as well as creating some new ones) but we still want to test it from start to finish. Email me if you are interested! 

   

Best of, High School Edition, 2019

Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history of IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Read on for the responses from high school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets.

Montana History Lesson lectures/videos, particularly the early history lessons. I don't have much background in paleontology and archaeology so those have really helped expand my knowledge. Its a great way to start the class.--anonymous [This teacher is referring to the lecture series we sponsored and recorded and made available online: "Montana History in 9 Easy Lessons" and "Montana History in 9 MORE Easy Lessons." I've always thought of these as professional development (and you can earn renewal credits for watching). It never occurred to me to use them as a way to bring in virtual guest speakers.] 

Am working on a lesson about the French Canadian nuns at the Catholic boarding school for my French 1 Class. Need to reread Lady Blackrobes (Lady Blackrobes: Missionaries in the Heart of Indian Country, by Irene Mahoney (2006) this summer and fine tune it for next year.--anonymous

I made a huge project that was very in depth about the Montana Landless Indians that I got from your emails. From the link you sent me I printed off the lesson plans but then turned it into a larger project for my students to go into more detail with and paired it with reading to them The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian (the edited version).--anonymous

Collaboratively with 10th Grade English--historic photos and newspapers--regarding Heart Mountain Internment Camp. --anonymous 

Betty Bennett, English teacher, Missoula, wrote, "Winter in the Blood, Blood on the Marias, the Treaty Era, and the Territorial Period."

I use Billings street names around West (Custer, Lewis, Clark, etc); challenge them to find street names that honor Native Americans. [Bruce Wendt gave a longer description of this project last year, which is well worth reading (and imitating!).]

I used the IEFA lesson plan for Two Old Women.  I really like the engaged activities that are included.--anonymous

Charlie Russell: Using Visual Thinking Strategies with the paintings.--anonymous 

Family and Consumer Science teacher Charlotte Johnson from Heart Butte created a class on pulse crops grown in Montana. 

Ceilon Aspensen, 6-12 art teacher, Shelby wrote, "I didn't teach it this year, but the "Creating Timelines and Timeline Based Lesson Plans" resource that you sent out in January was so interesting that I flagged it for planning next year. I am planning to teach my art appreciation lessons using the ideas presented in that resource."

Sense of Place unit: includes myths,  nonfiction (journal entries, essays), poetry, speeches from past chiefs, explorers, naturalists, historians as well as contemporary poets from the local area (Fort Peck, Fort Belknap, etc.). The focus is to read a variety of perspectives on how our immediate (the hi-line, Missouri river, NE MT, MT) landscape and people's experience with it shapes their understanding of place, identity, culture, etc. The students enjoyed reading "old stuff that describes where we live" and found it "cool to see how the area has changed or really not at all."--anonymous

I teach in a collaborative class. Our best lesson this year was a unit on local history research where we had students look at an archival photo of Bozeman. They had to then find the current location of the photo, recreate it, and write an essay on how things have changed between the photos. We used On the Road Again: Montana's Changing Landscape by Dr. Bill Wyckoff as a template for their writing.--anonymous

Walking history of Dillon.--anonymous [I'm not sure if this teacher had her students create a walking tour or take one--but you can find resources for studying your own town on the Educator Resources page for chapter 14 of Montana: Stories of the Land. Also, check out ExploreBig: Montana's Historic Places, a website and mobile app to help you discover Montana’s rich cultural resources.]

Stay tuned for the elementary and middle school teacher responses. And, of course, it's not too late. If you have a great resource you think other teachers could benefit from knowing about, email me!

Montana History in Middle School

Books Are Back in Stock

It you teach Montana history in middle school, I hope you are using Montana: Stories of the Land. Last year we reprinted the book, so if you need copies, please contact our Museum Store at 1-800-243-9900 or at mhsmuseumstore@mt.gov. Schools receive a 30% discount.

For Students with Learning Disabilities

Montana: Stories of the Land is available as an audio-book for students with learning disabilities through Learning Ally.

New This Year: Self-grading Tests!

Motivated in part by a move of some schools to do more online learning, we took the chapter tests we created back in 2008 and put them into self-grading google forms. You can still download the tests as a Word document, but if you have a Google account, you can also make copies of our online tests to modify and share with your students. Once your students take your personalized version of the test, their results will be under the “Responses” tab. (Note: You must make a copy of the test and share that link rather than sharing the MHS link. Otherwise, you will not be able to see their results.) Whether you are using the online tests or paper tests, I implore you to personalize them to cover the material you emphasized when you taught the chapter.

A side note here: I couldn't figure out how to allow you to make a copy without giving everyone who has the link to the tests editing privileges. If any of you master google teachers know how to do this, please help me! Meanwhile, although I truly believe you should personalize the tests, I don't want the Master Copies personalized. So--please copy the test to your own drive and then personalize it. And if you accidentally personalize the master copy, please let me know so I can restore the original.

Find them on the password-protected portion of the Montana: Stories of the Land Companion Website.

User Name and Password

The only material on the Montana: Stories of the Land Companion Website that is password protected are the tests and answer keys (to keep them out of the hands of students.) Email me for the user name and password.

Finding Resources

If you haven't taken the tour of all the Montana history resources we have available for you online, I highly recommend it. Complete both Part 1 and Part 2 and take a quiz to receive one OPI Renewal Unit. (If you don't have good internet connection, this tour may freeze on you. In that case, consider checking out our less detailed HUB course, Montana Historical Society Educator Resources (also one OPI renewal credit).

Curious what your peers are doing? Two years ago we surveyed teachers using the book Montana: Stories of the Land. Here’s a post about what we found, including helpful hints for teachers using the resource for the first time. And stay tuned for upcoming posts, which will feature your colleagues' favorite lessons and resources for teaching Montana history or Indian Education for All.

Provide Feedback on the Draft Social Studies Content Standards

I know--it's the beginning of a new school year and you are swamped! But it's been almost 20 years since Montana has revised its content standards for social studies, and OPI is accepting feedback on the draft standards created this summer only through September 30.

They will use your feedback to refine the preliminary drafts and prepare them for review by the Superintendent of Public instruction prior to review by a Negotiated Rulemaking Committee.

Feedback surveys for each of the 5 content areas (social studies, library media/information literacy, career and technical subjects, technology integration and computer science) are now open and available for responses.  The surveys are linked on the OPI Website on the K-12 Content Standards and Revision Page.


Of course, I'm most interested in Social Studies. Select this link to make your voice heard!