Carrie Sorensen who teaches Montana history to middle school students in Fortine designed a really ingenious way for her students to communicate their understanding of the forces set loose during the War of the Copper kings and the fight for money, ideology, and power at the turn of the century. She asked her students to pick a character (The Company, a miner, a rancher, a populist, William Clark, Marcus Daly, Augustus Heinze, or William Hogan), decide whether their character was a hero or a villain, and create a comic book telling their story using their class notes and information they gleaned from the Montana: Stories of the Land textbook. Here's a copy of her instructions.
I love this assignment not only for its creativity, but because creating comic books forces students to summarize and synthesize--both important skills to learn.
Some time back, Jennifer Graham of Philipsburg told me that she had her students show what they knew through a War of the Copper Kings twitter fight, another great possibility for studying this combative era!
Do you have a great strategy or lesson that you'd like to share? Feel free to email me and/or join our November 10 online PD from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. on "Hooks!" during which we'll ask folks share their best strategies for engaging students. Find a link to register here: https://mhs.mt.gov/education/OnlineProDevelop.
Teaching Montana History is written by Martha Kohl, Outreach and Interpretation Historian at the Montana Historical Society.
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