Teaching with Cemeteries

Last week we hosted our final Social Studies Third Tuesday for the year. Three MTHS Teacher Leaders in History--Jodi Delaney (Helena, grades 4-5), April Wills (Culbertson, middle school), and Cynthia Wilondek (Bigfork, high school)--talked about cemetery projects they conduct with their students. It was fascinating and inspiring!

You can watch the recording here. (Please forgive the fact that I kept opening up different files during their presentation. I was trying to gather links to resources to share with participants in a follow up email and thought I could do it without disrupting the proceedings. I was wrong!)  

You can also view their slides, which starts with an overview of cemetery history, includes the importance of teaching students how to be in cemeteries respectfully, and ends with links to resources and sample assignments, including some that can be used for any topic, like this handy PERSIA activity that asks students to look at a topic from multiple contexts (Political, Economic, Religious, Social, Cultural, and Intellectual/Arts.) Cynthia also made a handy Google Slide deck for students to use to break down their PERSIA analysis.

Here are some resources their presentation made me think of, most of which aren't in their slide deck. (And this list is the reason the recording is messed up!)

• Find a Grave. This actually is in Cynthia’s links, but I think it is important share it here anyway! For older students, adding information to this site (which could be as simple as pictures of headstones and inscriptions, but could also include obituaries and other information), would make a great project—and would be a genuine service to genealogists the world over.
• Digitized Newspapers. Both Jodi and Cynthia talked about using Chronicling America to research individuals, which is a fabulous source. Another great source are the many Montana newspapers digitized outside of Chronicling America project that you can access through this link.
• Jodi mentioned Chinese Tomb Sweeping ceremonies.
• There is information about the Tomb Sweeping festival in Lesson 7: Chinese Temples in Montana of the hands-on history footlocker “The Chinese Experience in Montana”.
• Mark Johnson also has middle and high school lessons on “Burial Customs and Cultural Practices of Chinese in America”.
• Mark also has a map of Chinese cemeteries in Montana and links to information about specific cemeteries in Bozeman, Butte, Helena, Kalispell, Missoula on his website, Big Sky Chinese.
• Cynthia talked about Sanborn Maps. You can find many of them on the Library of Congress website.
• If your library (or classroom) doesn’t have a copy of Montana Chillers, by Ellen Baumler, you should order one!
• Wibaux middle school teacher Laura Dukart also has a cemetery project, "In Memoriam. A Study of Our Local Cemetery." Here's a presentation she created for teachers interested in creating a similar project in their own communities.

One of the teachers attending this PD wrote afterwards, "I've never thought of a fieldtrip to a cemetery and now I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of it!" I hope more of you will consider a field trip to your local cemetery this spring.