Literature and Social Studies

 Today at 4:00 p.m. we're meeting for our final PD on Literature and Social Studies. 

Mike Jetty will be there with a dad joke and some recommendations for good IEFA-related books. Teacher Leader in History April Wills (grade 7, Bainville) will be talking about lessons she's developed for Mandy Smoker's graphic novel Thunderous, and Teacher Leader in History Johanna Trout (grade 4, Billings) will share the unit she's created for Shota and the Star Quilt. Other folks have promised to share how they teach Hattie Big Sky and Counting Coups. 

I also plan to share a few resources to help teach Hattie Big Sky, a novel about a single woman homesteader near Wolf Point. The book touches on homesteading and World War I. Oddly, for its location, the book doesn't touch on allotment or Indian lands, but that doesn't mean you can't!

Here are a few resources to supplement a novel study of Hattie Big Sky: 

•  Montana and the Great War Story Map, Story Map Scavenger Hunt, and RAFT Writing assignment. These resources are a good way to explore themes relating to World War I, from propaganda, anti-German sentiment, and the flu pandemic to stories of bravery on the battlefield. 
• Hattie Inez Wright is the inspiration for Hattie Big Sky. In real life, she proved up her homestead and you can locate it using the BLM GLO Records.
• There's lots of good material about women homesteaders, including this short article, this 27-minute video about Esther Strasburger and her two sisters who near Simms, Montana in 1910, and this book. You can learn more about homesteading more generally from Chapter 13 of Montana: Stories of the Land. (Click on For Educator: Resources for lots more material.)
• I don't think you should talk about homesteading in northeastern Montana without talking about allotment, particularly of the Fort Peck Reservation. You can find background on allotment in both Chapter 13 and Chapter 11 of Montana: Stories of the Land. This famous "Indian Land for Sale" poster is a good conversation starter. Unit 4, Part 2, Lesson 2 of the Montana: A History of Our Home features a lesson on allotment that starts by sending kids to the playground to claim a small (undesirable) plot before telling them that they are no longer permitted to use the remainder of the playground.   

I'm sure I will get lots of other great ideas from this PD. I hope to see you there. Register before noon to receive a link.