Honor Great Teachers

 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is seeking nominations for the 2021 National History Teacher of the Year.

Each year they recognize first-rate K-12 teachers who find creative ways to bring history alive in their classrooms. Winners are selected from each state and US territory, and become finalists for the national award.

• State winners receive a $1,000 prize, an archive of classroom resources, and recognition at a ceremony in their state. 
• The national winner, chosen from among the state winners, receives a $10,000 prize presented at a ceremony in their honor.

The deadline for 2021 nominations is March 31, 2021.

 

Professional Development Opportunities

Native American Storytelling Series

Montana State University-Billings is pleased to offer a three-part webinar series that explores the importance of Native American storytelling. In this series participants will learn about oral traditions, winter counts, ledger art, and contemporary storytelling. Each week a Native American storyteller will talk about his/her her cultural traditions and share stories. Register here.  

Ruth Ferris and Kathi Hoyt will be the guides through this webinar series. Ruth and Kathi have been IEFA presenters for Region III for many years. Both are librarians in School District 2. Joining them will be storytellers from area tribal nations.

On January 26 the guest presenter will be Phillip Whiteman, Jr., a Northern Cheyenne Indian from Lame Deer. Whiteman is a national presenter, performer and traditional storyteller, Indian World Champion and PRCA Saddle Bronc Rider, and renowned horseman. He comes from a strong traditional and spiritual background. His father was a chief of the Northern Cheyenne Council; his mother was the late Florence Whiteman, a Cheyenne Warrior Woman of the Elk Scraper Society. Phillip Whiteman belongs to the Kit Fox Warrior and Omaha Dancing Societies. His personal and professional objective is to promote cultural integrity throughout Indian country and the world.

On February 2 Henry Real Bird will be the guest presenter. Henry Real Bird is a rancher and educator who raises bucking horses on Yellow Leggings Creek in the Wolf Teeth Mountains. Born and raised on the Crow Indian Reservation in the tradition of the Crow by his grandparents, Real Bird was educated in Montana and has a Master's degree in general education. He has punched cows, worked in rodeos, and taught school from kindergarten to college level. In 1969 he began writing poetry after an extended stay in the hospital. He still speaks Crow as his primary language and feels this has helped in writing his poetry. He served as Poet Laureate of Montana from 2009-2011 and was named 2011-2012 Academy of Artists Cowboy of the Year. In 2011 his collection of poems won the High Plains Book Award for poetry.

On February 9, the guest presenter will be Mardell Plainfeather. Mardell is an Apsáalooke from the Big Lodge clan and child of the Whistling Water clan. She was born in Billings and raised in the Crow Agency area until she left for college in Phoenix, Arizona. She returned home and graduated from Rocky Mountain College in Billings. She joined the National Park Service as a Park Range/Plains Indian Historian retiring in 2007. She is coeditor of the book The Woman Who Loved Mankind: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Crow Elder and was honored with the Montana Heritage Keepers Award by the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees in 2019.

Sessions will be held from 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on January 26, February 2, and February 9. Attendees will earn 6 OPI Renewal Units and the cost is free. Register here.  

 

Join SHEG for One of Two Institutes 

I love Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) and think their curriculum material will go a long way toward helping history teachers implement the new Montana social studies standards next year. That's why I was excited to see that SHEG was offering two institutes this semester: "Introduction to Reading like a Historian Curriculum and Beyond the Bubble Assessments" and "Designing and Adapting Reading Like a Historian Curriculum."

Both institutes feature three, two-hour, interactive sessions (plus four hours of homework). The "Introduction" session is designed for grades 5-12 educators who have not previously attended Stanford History Education Group professional development. "Designing and Adapting Reading Like a Historian Curriculum" is designed for grades 5-12 educators who are already familiar with the curriculum. Participants will receive a digital record of completion and will be eligible for 1 CEU issued by the Stanford Center for Professional Development. 

Registration will open January 28. Cost for each is $375, but there are a limited number of scholarships available. Deadline to apply for a scholarship is January 24. Learn more here.

  

Fourth Grade Curriculum Is Taking Shape

Longtime readers will know that we have slowly (too slowly!) been working to create a Montana history curriculum for upper elementary students.

I just posted Coming to Montana, so the first three units of our new fourth grade curriculum are now available to download from our site.

Unit One, Montana Today: A Geographical Study focuses on Montana geography and contemporary Montana, with activities that ask students to "identify and label the tribes in Montana ... and [their] current locations" and "investigate the physical, political, and cultural characteristics of places, regions, and people in Montana" (two of the new Montana Social Studies standards that go into effect July 1).

Unit 2, Montana's First Peoples starts 12,000 years ago and ends circa 1820. It includes activities to help students identify Montana tribes' indigenous territories and "understand tribes in Montana have their own unique histories" (also part of the new standards.) 

Coming to Montana looks at the pull factors that brought people to Montana in the nineteenth century:

• the fur trade
• the discoveries of gold, silver, and copper
• good grass for cattle (and open rangeland)
• timber and a market for that timber created by mining companies and railroads

It also looks at some of the consequences of settlement, from shrinking reservations to the environmental impacts of mining. As such it will help students be able to "explain how Montana has changed over time given its cultural diversity and how this history impacts the present" and to "identify events and policies that have impacted and been influenced by tribes in Montana"--again expectations set by the new social studies standards. 

Coming to Montana was made much better by the teachers who volunteered to test the material and provide feedback. Thank you all (and your students too)!  

Which brings me to my ask: I am still looking for teachers to test the fourth and final unit (for those of you who have already volunteered, thank you!) If you teach Montana history in fourth grade, consider helping us test Montana in the Twentieth Century, which includes lessons on 

• homesteading
• Indian boarding schools and allotment
• post-1920 immigration to Montana (with a focus on Latino, Hutterite, and Hmong communities)
• the 1972 Constitution
• the Seven Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians
• amazing Montanans (as a culminating lesson)

The lessons integrate ELA (from close reading and fluency practice to writing poetry) and aligned to the Essential Understandings regarding Montana Indians and the new Montana Social Studies Standards, particularly: 

• identifying events and policies that have impacted and been influenced by tribes in Montana;
• explaining how Montana has changed over time given its cultural diversity and how this history impacts the present; 
• describing how historical accounts are impacted by individual perspectives, and
• identifying key foundational documents in Montana's government.

Even though it is the fourth unit of the curriculum, the material stands alone, so you can test any or all of these lessons without having done the earlier units. If you are interested in testing Montana in the Twentieth Century, or even just a lesson or two in January or February, please email me!

 

Spirit Reading

Confederated Salish and Kootenai College education professor Tammy Elser recently introduced me to a reading strategy that she called Spirit Reading. (She credits Mary Jo Swartly, an extraordinary teacher and educational consultant, for introducing the technique to her, which she says has been published and used by many notable educators.) 

Spirit Reading has nothing to do with ghosts and everything to do with honing in on the spirit of a piece of writing. Here's how it works:

1. Give students a document about a page long. Have them read it to themselves silently.
2. Then, give them a focus question/something to look for and have them read it through a second time, highlighting three to four key words or phrases.
3. Arrange chairs in a circle, and have students take turns reading their phrases in random order. Students should just chime in whenever there's a space. It's okay if students have chosen the same words or phrases (the repetition is part of what gives this activity its spirit.)
4. After everyone has read all of his or her words and phrases, compliment your students: Tell them that what they created was like a poem, bringing out the essence of the piece.
5. Then have students write for two minutes about how the exercise changed their experience with, or understanding of, the document.
6. Finally, discuss the document, reflecting on new understandings you've gained about the piece of writing.

Tammy has done this with the Fort Laramie Treaty (the focus question was "What did the Indians get?") and Thurgood Marshall's decision in Brown v Board of Education, which overturned "separate but equal" in education. 

We talked about using the strategy with an excerpt of an Indian boarding school narrative, with "what are the author's emotions" as the focus question. We also talked about using it with this 1921 letter from Shelby attorney to Governor Joseph M. Dixon describing the plight of drought-stricken farmers in his community with the focus question being "what's the problem and what's the solution?" (Tammy suggested that students could be given two different color highlighters, one for words and phrases relating to the problem and the other for words and phrases relating to the solution and, during the read, the teacher could ask students to alternate reading words/phrases relating to the problem and words/phrases relating to the solution.) 

Tammy notes: the key piece of this technique "is repeated reading for unique purposes of a complex text and the social construction of knowledge created by hearing the impressions of others.  There are dozens of ways teachers can vary this activity."

If you try this in your class, especially with a text relating to Montana history, drop me a line. I'd love to hear how it went. 

P.S. I've summarized some of the other strategies Tammy introduced me to in Struggling Readers and Informational Text so there's more for those who want it.

P.P.S. I'm still looking for 4-6 grade teachers to test Montana and the Twentieth Century, which integrates ELA and uses several Tammy Elser-approved strategies to teach about homesteading, boarding schools, allotment, post-1920 immigration to Montana and the 1972 Montana State Constitution. Interested? Email me!

 

Two Great Opportunities

Online Professional Development

First, if you haven't registered for this month's professional development, it is not too late. The focus is integrating Montana history into U.S. history. We'll gather via Zoom on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 4:00 p.m. to share our best ideas and resources for Sign up for the session here. One OPI Renewal Unit will be available.  

Creative Writing Contest

The  Montana Memory Project is hosting a contest using its historical photos as prompts for creative writing projects. Using a photo from this image list, participants will write a short story (650 words or less) based on what you see.  Then submit it to the Montana Memory Project. Winners will be chosen from grades 3-6, grades 7-12, and adult. In addition to fabulous prizes, their stories will be published in Distinctly Montana. 

 Learn more about how to enter the contest on the Montana Memory Project home page (scroll down). Submission deadline is February 12, 2021, so get writing!

 

New Resources from Montana PBS

Nikki Vradenburg, the director of education at Montana PBS, sent me information about two new resources they are excited about. The first is an interactive lesson about Charlie Russell. These lessons are self-paced and can be assigned through Google Classroom or other Learning Management System. This one was written for 4th graders. 

The second resource was by Sarah Dahl, a teacher in Livingston, who collaborated with PBS national and the producers for the digital series, Unladylike, which presents digital stories about women in history (including Jeanette Rankin). Sarah created a digital gallery walk that gives students the opportunity to learn about indigenous women as they explore primary sources. It is a Google Slides activity that can be edited. 

And speaking of American History: 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, at 4:00 p.m. to share our best ideas and resources for integrating Montana history into U.S. history. Sign up for the session here. 

 

How Political Change Happens

A recent conversation with OPI Indian Education Specialist Mike Jetty reminded me of the incredibly rich and under-used collection of video clips at Montana Tribes Digital Archives.

It's a really big collection, and I haven't watched all the clips, but as I find ones particularly relevant to themes we discuss in Montana: Stories of the Land I'm slowly adding links on the Educator pages under Videos and DVDS.

So far my favorite of these videos are the clips of an interview with Earl Barlow about his efforts to write respect for Indian culture and heritage into the 1972 constitution:

•  "Learning of the Constitutional Convention," (2:41)
• "Putting Indian Voices into the 1972 Constitutional Convention," (5:28)
•  "Addressing the Convention" (5:14)
• "Putting Words into Action" (6:12).

At the time of the constitutional convention, Blackfeet tribal member Earl Barlow served as Director of Indian Education in the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. (You can learn more about the remarkable Mr. Barlow here.) 

Barlow's efforts, and the efforts of many other citizen activists--including many Indian student activists--resulted in the inclusion of Article X, Section 1.2 in the new state constitution: "The state recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity." Montana is the ONLY state to include this type of language in its constitution, and this constitutional mandate is the basis of Indian Education for All. 

I could imagine showing and discussing these video clips in a Montana history class (when studying the 1972 constitution), but I think they would be especially great for a government class because Barlow does such a good job of outlining the process--of lobbying and testifying--and how ordinary citizens came together to shape the fundamental law of our state. 

P.S. The legislature is now in session! Are you planning on incorporating state politics into your lessons? If so, let me know how, or any resources you think are worth sharing, and I'll share them in a future post. 

P.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, at 4:00 p.m. to share our best ideas and resources for integrating Montana history into U.S. history. Sign up for the session here.