Nerd out with me?

Usually my emails have a theme, but not this week--or rather, the theme is "cool stuff I want to share."

Ancient Earth Globe is an online, interactive map that you can use to find out what any area of the world might have looked like at a given point in prehistoric times! Type in a town name to find the names of fossils that have been found nearby. Then click on the name for more information about that particular type of dinosaur. (I typed in Ryegate, because why not?) and followed the trail to this page on the Tatenectes. 

 In summer 2020, Montana The Magazine of Western History put together a digital issue called "African Americans in Montana and the West." It complements our larger web-based Montana's African American Heritage Resources project, which among its many resources includes three lesson plans. Because Black history matters. 

The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula created an online exhibit "Montana Votes! Voting and Suffrage in Montana." H/T Dylan Huisken (Bonner Schools) 

Studying the fur trade? Check out this lesson plan, and especially these videos from the Fort Union Trading Post:

• Fort Union Trading Post Historical Overview (8:42) 
• Trading at Fort Union Trading Post (2:43)*
• Buffalo Robes at Fort Union Trading Post NHS (2:37)
• Fort Union's Hunters Shack (2:37)
• Music in the Fur Trade (6:10)

*This is The Trade House video mentioned in the lesson plan (but the link to it is broken in the lesson plan document). 

Responding to the post "Indian Education Resources, mostly for middle and high school classes," which mentioned an article that Wyohistory.org published on tribal hunting rights, editor Tom Rea pointed out that there is lots more Native history on their site, some of which are aimed at classrooms. He particularly pointed to page "Indigenous People in Wyoming and the West".

Have you come across any material worth sharing? Drop me a line!

More Great ideas from Colleagues

Last week I shared some teacher recommendations--of IEFA books they've used and loved and an adaptation to one of our lesson plans, Montana Place Names, A-Z, for online learning. I'm pleased to say that post inspired more teachers to write in and share lesson plans that have worked for them.

Tracing the Old North Trail

Jim Martin, from Missoula Public Schools, wrote: "In response to teaching Montana Place Names, A-Z, I use Highway maps to trace the Old North Trail. Our 6th grade curriculum is teaching ancient civilizations (not Americas) so I built Migration to the Americas into our lessons. I have built a Google Earth presentation and as we travel the Old North Trail we find locations along the way, starting at Carway, Alberta, then hitting places like First Peoples Buffalo Jump by Ulm, Tower Rock by Craig, Madison Buffalo Jump, Obsidian Cliffs in Yellowstone plus rivers and other natural features that would provide resources or obstacles. We then exit the state through the Madison valley. We also notice how some of our modern highways follow the same route that’s been traveled for 10,000 years.

"The Walter McClintock story of a Blackfeet family traveling the route, presumably to Mexico, is fascinating to the kids, who are amazed at how interconnected First Nations were." [Jim shares parts of chapter 33]. 

Homesteading Lesson Plan

April Wills, who teaches in Bainville, created an online unit for her fifth graders on homesteading:

1. We started with viewing the Museum of the Rockies Homesteading in Montana virtual field trip. [If the MOR material isn't available, you might want to show part of the 27-minute video Sun River Homestead.]
2. Students then had to read the three articles from Montanakids.com on Homesteading.
3. After they read those articles and took notes, they had to do a retelling for each article in Seesaw- Basic understandings: (3 things you learned, your opinion of the article, the main idea of each article and three details that from the text that support the main idea).
4. They created a "storyboard" where they picked any person that they wanted to pretend to be from this era of living and made 5 sketches of what life would have been like. (So if they were a railroad worker, banker, blacksmith etc.) The images they sketched should make the viewer know what their job/ life was like. They also had to come up with a description of the photo.

Finally they used the Ditch That Textbook: Google Template to create a Instagram style story- where they could either find photos & videos from various online resources, or make their own and create an Instagram spread of life in the Homesteading era of Montana. They were encouraged to use dates, specific vocabulary and to be creative with their comments for each photo. These turned out AMAZING!

I've linked the resources below. I am not sure if MOR will release the recording of their conversations from Monday but they were really good too! 

• They Settled in Montana: Introduction [montanakids.com]
  
• They Settled in Montana: The Homesteading Act [montanakids.com]
  
• They Settled in Montana: The Homesteaders [montanakids.com]
• Ditch That Textbook Instagram Stories Template  

More Book Suggestions

Pat Bauerle, Bozeman, wrote in to say that "There, There is a title worthy of reading with older grade levels (content). The situational stories of multiple characters as they focus on getting to a certain pow-wow is revealing."

In the Teaching Montana History Facebook group, Kathi Hoyt, Billings middle school librarian, shared this list, created by the Billings Public Library, of Indigenous People Inclusive Literature. Lots of great looking picture books and chapter books too!

 

Primary Sources and Montana History

Last summer, I asked a few Montana history teachers what would make their teaching life easier (especially if they were presenting some or all of their lessons virtually.) They requested two things: 

1. Easier access to primary sources (especially images) relating to the textbook chapters. We responded by creating Annotated Resource Sets. What's an Annotated Resource Set? It's just an easy way to organize links to images, videos, maps, documents, and other resources. For each resource we include a title and/or brief description, where the resource is from (collection information) the file format (jpg, pdf, etc.), the URL at which you can download the resource, and a thumbnail image of the resource.

We've created  Annotated Resource Sets for Montana: Stories of the Land chapters 6-13 and 15-18: gold rush, treaty period/Indian wars, cattle frontier, railroads, War of the Copper Kings/statehood, reservation period, timber, homesteading, Progressive Era, WWI, Great Depression. But, obviously, you can use the primary sources in the resource sets without using the textbook.

2. Primary sources read aloud, accompanied by relevant images. The teachers liked and assigned our Learning from Historical Document Units, which feature excerpts from letters, diaries and other primary sources relating to the Montana: Stories of the Land chapter theme. But they said that some students struggled to read them and lobbied for narrated PowerPoints/video clips in which the documents were read aloud, accompanied by relevant historic photos. 

In response, we put together six narrated PowerPoints, which are now available as a playlist on our YouTube channel. Included in this playlist are Emily Meredith's letter from Bannack, 1863, Cornelius Hedge's letter from Helena, 1865, Alma Coffin's reminiscence, describing traveling by stage in 1878, Albert Ronne's letter about setting up a ranch in 1892, and two contrasting letters about the IWW timber strike in 1917. For good measure, we recorded two other narrated PowerPoints, both of which focus on WWII objects as primary sources: a comic strip about Marine Private Minnie Spotted Wolf of the Blackfeet Reservation, and the chalk and wood message from the Smith Mine Disaster in Bearcreek.

Let me know if these turn out to be useful and if you want us to make more (either of the Annotated Resource Sets or the narrated PowerPoints)--and if so, for what topics/chapters/documents.  I'm happy to try to fit this in as I have time, if I know the material will actually be used.  

Want to talk more about teaching with primary sources? There's still time to sign up for tomorrow's online October 20, 4:00-5:00 p.m., online professional development, "Primary Sources for Teaching Montana History," where we'll share our best ideas for finding and incorporating primary sources into your Montana history class. 

 

 

Teaching Montana History is written by Martha Kohl, Outreach and Interpretation Historian at the Montana Historical Society.

Suggestions from Fellow Teachers

IEFA and ELA

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on the classroom sets of books that OPI's Indian Education division has available to borrow. At the end of the post, I asked for your recommendations. 

Marla Unruh, an elementary librarian in Helena, also wrote in: "I love the Birchbark House - the whole series. Unfortunately, in library I don't have enough time to teach a novel. If I were back in the English classroom, I wouldn't hesitate." [If you are planning on teacher Birchbark House, check out the OPI Model Teaching Unit for grades 5-8.] 

April Wills, an elementary teacher in Bainville, had recommendations for books that weren't on the OPI list of books you can borrow--but they sounded so interesting I thought I'd share: "Our school bought the book Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard [Seminole], and Go Show the World: A Celebration of Indigenous Heroes, by Wab Kinew [Ojibwa]. I feel like they are both exceptional texts and allowed for great conversations." 

Dylan Huisken, Bonner Middle School, also wrote in: "Mike Jetty recommended Counting Coup to me and I use it to teach 8^th graders about postbellum indigenous life in Montana, focusing on themes like continuity and change and of course, the importance of indigenous voices when studying history (and not just focusing on deficit narratives of defeat and massacre).  It is such an accessible book with short chapters.  With advanced readers, it is a supplemental material that they can get through quickly, and for struggling readers, it is a book we can take a chapter at a time.  I highly recommend it. I know some teachers use Good Luck Cat, and our 4^th grade teacher turned literacy coach (she is AWESOME at teaching social studies) did Birchbark House with success. ... Last year our new English teacher did Code Talkers with 7^th graders and said it was a bit of a struggle."  

Dylan also forwarded me an email from the Bonner kindergarten teacher, Amy Paffhausen, with more details about how she teaches Good Luck Cat. On Day 1, she starts with a book walk and make predictions about the book. They also discuss words that rhyme with cat and the /at/ family. After they've read the story the look at their predictions and discuss if "Woogie" was a "good luck cat." Then she has students either illustrate one event from the story or having them draw/write about the beginning, middle, and end. On Day 2, she rereads the story, recall events, and then discuss Woogie's family and their own families. She focused on where Woogie lived, the members of his family, and the activities his family participated in, including powwows. They discuss powwows and watch a video of a powwow. Her students then wrote about a family tradition of their own. (Some years they write about a pet instead.) Finally, on Day 3, she they compare Good Luck Cat to another cat story (like Cat in the Hat) and talk about the difference between fantastic and more realistic stories. They also make a pinch pot cat! I'm including so much detail because Amy was nice enough to take the time to write it out, but also because I love this as an example of how to incorporate Indian Education for all in kindergarten.  

OPI has created a model teaching unit for Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond, by Joseph Medicine Crow, which is truly an excellent book. All the books Dylan mentioned are available to borrow from OPI as classroom sets.

 

Teaching Mapping Montana Online

Corvallis teacher Jenifer Powell is teaching online this year and so she's been adapting lesson plans for her the new format. I know that Mapping Montana, A-Z is one of our best-loved and most-used lesson plans, so I was delighted when she sent me links to the way she's adapted that lesson plan for online learning with a note that I can share her work. She commented, "there are definitely flaws, but I have given up being a perfectionist at this point." Good advice to all of us! And thanks, Jenifer, for this very useful material, which is sure to save your fellow teachers many hours of prep!

• Her presentation, Reading a Map, includes a series of short videos on, well--on how to read a map--but also an introduction to the assignment.
• She converted the worksheets that accompanied the lesson plan into Google Docs. 
• And she created a separate presentation on how to complete the worksheets. 

If you have converted other MHS assignments to make them more friendly for online teaching and are willing to share your work, send it along, or share it directly to the Teaching Montana History Facebook page. 

 

 

Teaching Montana History is written by Martha Kohl, Outreach and Interpretation Historian at the Montana Historical Society.

Indian Education Resources, mostly for middle and high school classes

Glenn Wiebe, my favorite social studies blogger, posted  resources for Indigenous People's Day (Columbus Day)--but since we don't confine the study of colonization and/or first peoples to one day a year, his links are ever-fresh.  

 

John Clayton wrote an article for Wyohistory.org (the Wyoming Historical Society's online encyclopedia) called "Who gets to hunt Wyoming's elk? Tribal Hunting Rights, U.S. Law and the Bannock 'War' of 1895." It provides the background for--and best explanation I've read of--the Herrera case, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 2019 and involved Crow hunters and their treaty rights to hunt in Wyoming. He followed it up with a short blog post, Racism and the Race Horse, which suggests questions for classes to wrestle with.

 

Thanks to Dylan Huisken, Bonner School, who shared the link on the Teaching Montana History Facebook Page, I engaged with the fascinating article/photo project called "Reservation Mathematics: Navigating Love in Native America," for which photojournalist Tailyr Irvine interviewed Indigenous residents in Missoula and on her Flathead Indian Reservation on the issue of blood quantum and how it affects their lives.  

 

In looking at primary sources to prepare for our October 20 discussion, I found a Digital Library of America Primary Source Set titled "Reservations, Resistance, and the Indian Reorganization Act, 1900-1940."  I was particularly interested in the five-minute film clip "Rebuilding Indian Country," which was created in 1933 by the Department of the Interior to explain the new Reorganization Act--even though the focus is on the Minnesota, rather than Montana. (Have you signed up to join the Oct. 20 discussion from 4-5? Renewal Credits available.)

 

And speaking of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, have you seen Vernon Finley's 7-minute interview about how it changed tribal leadership?  

 

I was happy to see these resources because it's hard to find material to teach about later federal Indian policy periods (per Essential Understanding #5). That's why I was also excited to discover The American Stranger, a 1958 NBC Kaleidoscope documentary on American Indians and the failure of federal Indian policy in the 1950s, available to watch on YouTube. 

 

Finally, if you teach grades 6-12, consider registering your classroom to attend the Big Sky Native Filmmaker Initiative's Film Club.

The Native Filmmaker Initiative Film Club is a virtual youth education outreach program that screens a curated selection of Indigenous-made documentary films in classrooms across the state of Montana. Following the screenings, filmmakers visit classrooms via Inspired Classroom's video conference technology for Q&A and discussion activities rooted in Montana's Indian Education for All Essential Understandings. Film Club discussions are led by the Big Sky Film Institute in collaboration with the Montana Office of Public Instruction’s Indian Education Specialist, Mike Jetty, as well as participating filmmakers to talk in-depth about the process of filmmaking. The next film in the series is "Blackfeet Boxing: Not Invisible," and will be shown on Thursday, November 19 at 1:00 p.m. 

 

Teaching Montana History is written by Martha Kohl, Outreach and Interpretation Historian at the Montana Historical Society.

October Is Archaeology Month

 

Webinar Series

The Yellowstone Gateway Museum is offering an eight-week online series on Montana's Native People: Perspectives on the Clovis Child. Each week, beginning Tuesday, October 13, at 1:30 p.m., a different webinar will explore the work of anthropologists, archaeologists, geneticists and other professionals who have helped us better understand the Anzick Site, where a the "Clovis child" was buried approximately 12,600 years ago. There will be an interactive online career discussion following each 30-45 minute presentation. The Yellowstone Gateway Museum will also be making the presentations available on YouTube.

 

A great resource to accompany these presentations (or to use independently) is Investigating the First Peoples: The Clovis Child Burial. 

 

Archaeology Day Resources from MHS

For years we've hosted an annual Archaeology Day for Helena-area fourth through sixth graders. That's not possible this year, so my colleague Deb Mitchell has pulled together resources you can use in your classroom (or online) to create your own archaeology day (or month) units.

 

On a Completely Different Note

I hope to see you virtually either at the MFPE Virtual Educators Conference, where I'll be giving the MCSS Keynote, "Who Is History," or at our upcoming October 20, 4:00-5:00 p.m., online professional development, "Primary Sources for Teaching Montana History." 

 

Upcoming Professional Development

Please mark your calendar--and register--for our October 20, professional development focused on Primary Sources for Teaching Montana History. I have some new resources I'm excited to tell you about, and look forward to answering questions you may have, but I'm most excited to learn learn through discussion about what's worked in the classroom. We'll meet from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. on Zoom. I'll send registrants a link a few days before the meeting. The meeting will not be recorded. Register here.  

I'm also looking forward to attending the MFPE Annual Educator Conference online. I'll giving the Montana Council on Social Studies keynote this year on October 15 from 3:00-3:50. The topic I chose is "Who Is History?" I'm working to make this as interactive as I possibly can as we explore big questions (what brings history alive and why history matters) as well as specific resources to help students understand their connection to our common past. 

Looking over the MFPE program, I am most excited about two Indian Education for All sessions that Mike Jetty and his OPI colleagues are offering: "Teaching about Contemporary American Indian Issues," (10/16, 2:00-2:50 p.m.) and "Understanding and Utilizing the IEFA Foundational Documents (10/16, 9:00-9:50 a.m.) as well as the presentations on improving remote/online teaching. Find more and register at the MFPE Conference webpage. Hope to "see" you there!

 

Books, Books, Books

 Did you know? The Office of Public Instruction Indian Education Division has class sets of the following books available for borrowing for use in your classroom. OPI has lesson plans on its IEFA website to go with these titles, which you can reserve for up to three months, by e-mailing Joan Franke.

• As Long as the Rivers Flow by Larry Loyie
• Beaver Steals Fire by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
• Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac
• Counting Coup by Joseph Medicine Crow
• Fools Crow by James Welch
• The Gift of the Bitterroot as told by Johnny Arlee and Antoine Sandoval
• The Good Luck Cat by Joy Harjo
• Jim Thorpe’s Bright Path by Joseph Bruchac
• Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Killing Custer by James Welch and Paul Stekler
• The Little Duck Sikihpsis by Beth Cuthand
• The Moccasins by Earl Einarson
• Red Parka Mary by Peter Eyvindson
• Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell
• Two Old Women by Velma Wallis
• The War Shirt by Bently Spang
• Where Did You Get Your Moccasins? By Bernelda Wheeler
• Wind from an Enemy Sky by D’Arcy McNickle

As always, I'm eager to hear from you. If you've taught some of these titles, are there any you'd particularly recommend?

New Resource for Community Study

I'm excited to introduce Historic Montana, a new resource for community use and study--and also to ask for your help!

We need PICTURES from towns across Montana of historic places listed in the National Register and interpreted with a National Register sign. This would be a great project for a photography class, Montana history class, or school club. Learn more in this guest post, written by my colleague Christine Brown:

Did you know that Montana Historical Society historians have written more than 1,700 National Register of Historic Places signs? You can read the signs one by one as you travel across the state, or you can learn about and see pictures of all these historic properties in one place on the Historic Montana website and companion app.

 The website and app, originally launched in 2017 as ExploreBig, started out with about 250 properties, and over the last three years, MHS historians have added over one thousand more historical narratives, thousands of “then and now” photos, and numerous new historic district and themed tours. Historic Montana users will learn about architecture; social, economic, and cultural life; and significant events and movements in Montana and national history as they relate to a specific Montana place. With so much information and a variety of historic and contemporary photographs, Historic Montana is a valuable resource for teachers and students working on place-based Montana history projects.

 Populating the website and app with a variety of photos is an ongoing project. Teachers and students are invited to help make Historic Montana better by submitting contemporary (or historic) photographs of the properties in your community that have a National Register sign posted. Participants will have their historic property photos published (with credit!) on Historic Montana. Email christine.brown@mt.gov or call 406-444-1687 for details.