Summer Reading List

 It's almost time for Teaching Montana History to go on summer hiatus. Before we go, I'd love to hear your suggestions for summer reading. I'll compile your responses as my very last post of the year. 

Changing Schools? 

If you are changing schools, please re-subscribe using your new address! We'd hate to lose touch. 

End of Year Survey

Don't forget to complete our annual survey and to share your favorite lesson. (Need more incentive? There are still two prizes waiting to be claimed.)  

Testing Supplemental Materials (Grades 8-10)

U.S. History Media Project is looking for Grade 8, 9, or 10 U.S. history teachers to participate in a study examining the impact of a supplemental digital history curriculum. The supplemental curriculum includes interactive online games focused on key moments in U.S. history along with learning activities. I know nothing about the study, the project, or these resources (so this is not an endorsement.) They will pay teachers $500 as a thank you for participating. If you are interested, click on the link above.

For those of you for whom school has ended, may you have a stress-fee and restorative summer. And for those of you still in the throes of the last days, I send my best wishes for ending strong.

 

Register Now for the Elk River Writing Project's October Workshop

 For those not going to MFPE's educator conference in Billings next October, I can't think of a more exciting opportunity than to attend the Elk River Writing Project's 2023 place-based institute in Gardiner. 

Designed for all content area teachers, this immersive institute focuses on indigenous history, science of the region, and place-based writing techniques that you can easily integrate into your classroom and content area.

Institute highlights will include:

• a full day in Yellowstone National Park with cultural expert Dr. Shane Doyle (Apsáalooke) discussing Indigenous peoples' histories in the park at significant cultural sites;
• conversations and outdoor exploration with National Park Service rangers to learn about Yellowstone's animals, plants, and geology, including the impacts of the 2022 historic flooding on the park;
• an afternoon to write with published poet and former Montana Poet Laureate Tami Haaland;
• opportunities throughout the institute for writing, connecting, and reflecting led by Elk River Writing Project teacher consultants.

The institute begins Wednesday evening, October 18, at 7:30 and ends Saturday at 3:00 p.m. October 21. Your $85 registration fee covers three nightsʹ lodging at Yellowstone Foreverʹs Overlook campus, entrance and transportation into Yellowstone National Park, three meals on Thursday, and breakfast and lunch both Friday and Saturday. Thirty‐two (32) OPI Renewal Units will be available.

Space is limited. For further information, contact Lorrie Henrie‐Koski, Elk River Writing Project co‐director, at elkriverwriting@gmail.com.

 

National History Day is Back!

 For those of you who are struggling through the last days or weeks of schools, save this post. You'll want to reread it when you have a moment to think about your curriculum for next year, because I really think you are going to want to carve out some time for National History Day.

If you've had your kids involved in the program in past years, you'll join me in celebrating the fact that after a few years on hiatus, National History Day (NHD) has a new home at Montana State University--Bozeman, a new website under construction, and new co-coordinators: Hailey Hancock, Assistant Teaching Professor at MSU-Bozeman (and former Middle School Social Studies teacher) and Melissa Hibbard, High School Social Studies teacher at Butte Central.

If you've never been involved in NHD, you are probably wondering why I'm making such a fuss. Here's a little background. According to the National NHD Office: 

NHD reaches more than half a million students and tens of thousands of teachers each year via its international student history contest and its wide range of teacher professional development programs, curriculum tools, and other educational activities.

NHD’s core program is its competition in which students in grades 6–12 choose a topic and dive deeply into the past by conducting extensive research in libraries, archives, and museums. They then present their conclusions and evidence through papers, exhibits, performances, documentaries, or websites, moving through a series of contest levels where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators. 

Through this process, students develop skills in communication, project management, and historical thinking. Their teachers do as well.

Here are the main reasons I love NHD:

• It gives students a chance to think, research, and write as historians rather than simply to consume history content. NHD aligns closely with Montana's Social Studies Content Standards (especially the skills section) and with ELA standards as well. 
• NHD offers LOTS of support to teachers and students, and since there's so much support, it's a good way to teach your students how to conduct independent research projects. 
• Students enjoy the process (except, to be fair, creating their annotated bibliographies. But many are willing to work on creating a good bibliography page because they want to do well in the contest.) And they learn a ton. 
• It's not just for gifted students. The program lends itself to differentiation and some of the greatest success stories are those of "average" or typically low-performing students. Students can work individually or in teams and there are a range of potential projects: papers, performances, exhibits, websites, or documentary. (Of course, as a teacher, you can set your own limits.)
• You can use the NHD curriculum without having students participate in the NHD contests--but for many students the contest motivates them to do their best work. (See above re annotated bibliographies.)
• The program encourages revision. Students create projects for their teachers. They get feedback. For some students, that's where it ends. But others, who want to compete, can take that feedback to revise their projects. Then they present them at a regional contest (information on regionals is forthcoming.) At the regional, they get feedback. They have the opportunity to revise their project before going to state (April 6, 2024, in Bozeman), where they get more feedback. If they place well at state, they can take that feedback and revise before going to DC to compete in nationals (every year in June). Revision is what makes for good writing and good history--and discovering that early can be life changing.

Intrigued? Email Melissa and Hailey to learn more. 

 

Seeking Mentors

MentorMT offers grade-level and subject-area mentoring for new and underprepared rural teachers, helping them build effective pedagogy and content knowledge in their grade level and discipline. Up to 50 K-12 teachers will be partnered with mentors next year. They are seeking experienced Montana educators, including social studies teachers, to become mentors. Mentors are paid $500 for training and up to $2,000 for mentoring. If you have over three years of full-time classroom teaching experience, demonstrated expertise in content and pedagogy within a grade band, and experience with and empathy toward rural education issues, this opportunity might be for you.

Learn more about the program and find an application link here. Applications are due May 24, 2023. Questions? Contact Jennifer Luebeck, Montana State University: jennifer.luebeck@montana.edu or (406) 994-5341.

On an entirely different note, a teacher also sent me information about an educator workshop, Through Our Eyes: People of Japanese Ancestry from Mass Incarceration to Segregation in 1940s America. The one-day workshop is being held in Seattle, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Washington, DC (online). Attendees earn a $300 stipend.  Find dates, additional information, and registration information here. 

Finally, it's not too late to complete our end-of-the-year survey and enter your name for a prize!

Place-Based Projects

 In my post about the Buffalo Unity Project a few weeks ago, I asked folks to send me information about the place-based projects they were doing with their students. Bainville fifth-grade teacher April Wills responded: 

This year we will be doing a 4 week unit on the effects of the Yellowstone River on Eastern MT. We will make ties to YNP, learn about the diverse ecosystems, homesteading efforts and conservation through time. We will partner up with our HS CTE teacher and 5th grade students will work alongside HS students to learn about surveying, planting crops, irrigating land and using native species to enhance the production of crops in the area. We will wrap up with creating model homestead sites that will be made to scale, create a historical narrative about what the family faced and overcame, and finally get the Montana Historical Society trunk on homesteading to lead us to our last week of school, when we will go to the confluence, do some rock hounding for agates, and learn about fish species in the river. So all in all it isn't just a social studies project, but it will encompass many content areas. I am working out the lesson plan for this and would be happy to share that once it's complete. 

If you want access to April's lesson plan, contact me and I'll put you in touch.

If you have a great lesson to share, I hope you'll complete our end-of-year survey. Among other questions, I always ask folks to share a resource, lesson, or strategy that they plan to do next year no matter what. I collate them into a series of grade-level posts that I send out every fall at the start of school. These posts are everyone's favorites, including mine; by sharing tested ideas and materials, they make social studies better across the state. Need more incentive? I always give prizes: this year to the eleventh, eighteenth, twenty-eighth, thirty-eighth, and forty-eighth person to complete the survey.

 

K-12 IEFA Cultural Exchange Grants for 2023-2024

 I'm probably late to the party, but I just learned that School Services of Montana and OPI will be offering K-12 Cultural Exchange Grants for 2023-2024.

My understanding is that these grants will provide funds so students on-reservation can travel to visit an off-reservation partner school and students off-reservation can travel to visit an on-reservation partner school. 

I learned about this program too late to promote the first networking and information gathering, but there's another, on Zoom, 3:45-4:30, Tuesday, May 16, 2023.

Attend to

• Meet other teachers on and off reservations who are interested in
  exchanges.
• Begin new friendships and collaborations..
• Find out how to start planning.
• Get extra points towards grant approval.

Interested? The first step is to complete this interest survey. Step two is to attend the May 16 networking and informational gathering.