Best of, Middle School

 Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history or IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Read on for the responses from middle school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets. Stay tuned for high school teacher's responses. Click here to read recommendations from elementary teachers. 

Ron Buck, who teaches 6-8 in Shelby, wrote: "I love teaching placed based education, and the best thing I teach involves attending a place. For instance, I teach about the Marias Massacre. I invite speakers from the Blackfeet tribe to join us and share their story. I take my students to the place of the event (which is in my county), and we walk the grounds. We look at teepee rings, the river, the hills surrounding it, and the cut banks of the river. We discuss the conditions and the setting and how this place has meaning to our history. Students engage more if they can be in the place." [If you want ideas for how to incorporate more place-based education in your Montana history class, Ron is a great resource! Feel free to email him.)   

Jennifer Hall from Eureka wrote: "My students always love the Finger Weaving activity when learning about the Métis culture. The lesson is buried in the "Discover Lewis & Clark" footlocker materials. The footlocker contains a Métis sash, music CD and a book, The Flower Beadwork People. I use these resources to introduce the culture. However, you don't need to order the footlocker to teach this lesson. I bought a copy of the book and just ask for donations of yarn from parents. On day 1, I read the book aloud to the students. There is an educator's guide to the book provided in the lesson. On day 2, we begin to finger weave. There are several You Tube videos to help students. Because it's such a big hit, we will finger weave again on Day 3. During this day, the students are more comfortable with weaving and I play the Métis music in the background. It's one of their favorite lessons of the year. I find that many students will continue finger weaving at home and during their free time.

Jennifer also recommends Montana Women at Work Lesson Plan: Clothesline Timeline. She writes: "I love this lesson for having students analyze photos. It can be used in various ways with multiple topics. Students analyze the photos and then take time to discuss the decade in which the photos were taken. Last, the students sort the photos on a clothesline timeline. As a wrap-up, the class takes a few minutes to discuss their sorting. The students get excited when they walk in the room and see the clothesline hanging across the classroom! This is a great, hands-on activity with lots of time for analyzing and discussion while viewing primary sources." Another anonymous teacher also likes this lesson. She wrote: "It really challenged my students' perceptions of Montana history in terms of both time and gender roles, and it was interesting to both watch them learn and observe their previously held notions as we looked at those together." 

Dylan Huisken, who teaches in Bonner wrote: "Something new I tried was ledger art. The Art of Storytelling materials are great, accessible, easy to use, and engaging." He also recommends the Written Document Analysis worksheets we've included with selected primary sources for every chapter of Montana: Stories of the Land as part of our Learning from Historical Document units. 

Kristopher Schreiner from Kalispell wrote to champion "hands-on history activities tied to MT history content including- atlatl training, bow and arrow practice, flintknapping, fire-making using flint and steel and friction methods, hide tanning, reverse wrap cordage from sinew, hide painting, gold panning, log cabin construction, wheat grinding, butter churning, and homestead-style cast iron cooking." [Here's a link to a lesson on Making an Atlatl.You can find a gold panning activity in the Gold, Silver, and Coal footlocker User Guide, Lesson 3.]  

Jacob Delight from Polson recommends Fire on the Land. This lesson explores traditional and contemporary uses of fire by the Salish and Pend d' Oreille tribes. His students "created posters about fire management on our reservation, the website is great and posters turned out great, worked very well in our culture/environment unit." He also recommends teaching students to take two column notes.

One anonymous teacher loved the Montana Meme Contest that the Montana History Portal puts on every year.

Another wrote: "Using the Digital Inquiry Group resources is helpful in getting students to consider perspectives in primary sources." [I second this! Everyone should at least teach the lunchroom fight, which is part of their Reading Like a Historian History Lessons. And their Civic Online Reasoning material is also dynamite. You need to register to use their materials, but it's free.] 

And another said: "National History Day!" [Learn more about National History Day in Montana here! And make sure to sign up for Melissa's online PDs. She's the bomb diggity, and you'll learn a ton whether or not you are teaching NHD.]

Oldies But Goodies

 We are in the process of reviewing all of our PowerPoints and PDFs to make sure they are ADA compliant, which means a couple of things: 

1. You may encounter links we've broken inadvertently (particularly to PowerPoints). If you do come across a broken link, please let me know ASAP and I'll get you the information and get it fixed. We are trying to be vigilant, but I could use your help catching things.
2. As I look over our many offerings, I have rediscovered some old favorites I think are worth sharing, particularly as we come to the end of the year. 

For Montana History Classes

• “What Don’t You See? The Historical Accuracy of Charles M. Russell Paintings” (grades 7–12) asks students to evaluate Russell’s artwork to decide how accurately it depicts Montana history. After examining what they do see, students will look at what elements Russell left out and discuss ways in which Russell’s depictions of the “Old West” have shaped our view of Montana history.

Why I like it: It provides a review of Montana history from the early contact period through the 1910s while asking students to think critically about sources and perspective.

• Women at Work Lesson Plan: Clothesline Timeline. This primary-source based lesson asks students to analyze historic photographs to draw conclusions about women and work from the 1870s through the 2010s. Students will discover that Montana women have always worked, but that discrimination, cultural expectations, and changing technology have influenced the types of work women undertook. (Designed for 4-12)

Why I like it: This lesson is shorter and less in depth than the lesson on Charlie Russell, so it should be easier to fit into your schedule. Like the Charlie Russell lesson, it looks at a wide swath of time (from the 1870s through the 2010s) but does it through the lens of women's opportunities. Also, it's just a load of fun. 

For American History Classes

• Reader's Theater: Letters Home from Montanans at War (Designed for 7th-12th). This three-to-five period unit asks students to work in groups to read and interpret letters written by soldiers at war, from the Civil War to the Operation Iraqi Freedom. After engaging in close reading and conducting research to interpret the letters, they will perform the letters as reader’s theater.

Why I like it: I like this for an end of year project because it surveys a large period of time, but it looks at it from the angle of the ordinary people who were caught up in world events. It emphasizes the fact that every one of us is shaping history every day.

For Government Classes

• Resources for Teaching about the Montana Constitution. For the fiftieth anniversary of Montana’s 1972 constitution, we put together a list of resources for teaching about this foundational document. These include videos, lesson plans, readings, and a link to the document itself.

Why I like it: Every Montana student should understand our state constitution. Through the link above you can access everything from a multi-day lesson to a 23-minute video. Re that multi-day lesson, The Montana 1972 Constitutional Convention: Even if you don't have time to do the entire thing, you should have your students do Part 2: Analyzing the Preambles, a 50-100 minute exercise comparing the preambles of the 1889 and 1972 constitutions. 

• Montana Women's Legal History Lesson Plan. (Designed for grades 11-12). In this 1-2 period activity, students will examine sample Montana legislation from 1871 to 1991 that particularly affected women's lives to explore the impact laws have on the lives of ordinary people and why laws change.

Why I like it: This is lesson requires students to contextualize legislation while exploring how laws impact the lives of ordinary people. I'd like every graduating senior to understand that government affects their lives and that they can influence government.

• Women and Sports: Tracking Change Over Time (Designed for grades 4-8) In this lesson, students learn about how Title IX (a federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in education) changed girls’ opportunities to participate in school sports by collecting and analyzing the data to look at change in women’s sports participation over time.

Why I like it: It drives home the fact that legislation affects every one of us. Yes--we designed this for grades 4-8 but it would be easily adaptable to high school.

Stand-alone Projects (for ELA or Social Studies)

• Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things! Connecting Biography to Larger Social Themes Lesson Plan (Designed for grades 8-12) This lesson uses essays published on the Montana Women’s History website to help students explore how ordinary people’s lives intersect with larger historical events and trends and to investigate how people’s choices impact their communities. After analyzing two profiles of American Indian women, students are asked to conduct interviews with people in their own community to learn about how that person has chosen to shape the world around him or her.

Why I like it: This lesson focuses on agency, and conveys the idea that, no matter the larger circumstances, we all have agency. Don't have time for an interview project? Simply stop after Part 1.

P.S. We are holding our last Third Tuesday PD on April 21 at 4:30 p.m. It is on teaching with cemeteries, which is another great end of year project. If you are interested in exploring how to harness your local cemetery to engage your students in community study, you can use this link to register for this session.

 

 

Women's History Month Is Just around the Corner:

Webinar on Indigenous Women

Attend the OPI IEFA webinar on March 3^rd at 4:00 p.m. where we will be sharing IEFA resources to support instruction about Indigenous women. Educators can receive one renewal unit for attending the webinar. 

Zoom link:  https://mt-gov.zoom.us/j/88561388687?pwd=pyP4AX3RQlPiY1y1v3257utTIkbLS2.1 

Resources from MTHS

MTHS has several lesson plans and other resources on focused on women's history.

Here are a few of my favorites: 

• Montana Women at Work: Clothesline Timeline Lesson Plan (Designed for grades 4-12) This primary-source based lesson asks students to analyze historic photographs to draw conclusions about women and work from the 1870s through the 2010s. Students will discover that Montana women have always worked, but that discrimination, cultural expectations, and changing technology have influenced the types of work women undertook. 
• Women and Sports: Tracking Change Over Time (Designed for grades 4-8) In this lesson aligned to both Common Core ELA and Math standards, students learn about how Title IX (a federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in education) changed girls’ opportunities to participate in school sports by collecting and analyzing the data to look at change in women’s sports participation over time.
• Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things! Connecting Biography to Larger Social Themes Lesson Plan (Designed for grades 8-12) This lesson uses essays published on the Montana Women’s History website to help students explore how ordinary people’s lives intersect with larger historical events and trends and to investigate how people’s choices impact their communities. After analyzing two essays on American Indian women from the Montana Women’s History website, students are asked to conduct interviews with people in their own community to learn about how that person has chosen to shape the world around him or her.
• Girl from the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan Study Guide (Designed for students 6-10). This study guide includes everything you need to teach Girl from the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan. Set in the second half of the nineteenth century, this highly readable 222-page memoir details Mary Sheehan Ronan’s journey across the Great Plains, her childhood on the Colorado and Montana mining frontiers, her ascent to young womanhood in Southern California, her return to Montana as a young bride, and her life on the Flathead Indian Reservation as the wife of an Indian agent. Book One, which provides a child’s-eye view of the mining frontier, is available to download as a PDF (Lexile Level 1180L). Classroom sets of Girl from the Gulches can be purchased from the Montana Historical Society Store by calling (406)-444-2890.

And of course, check out Montana Women's History Website for short essays, PDFs of journal articles and other materials.

P.S. Space is still available for those who want to attend the March 16-17 in-person PD in Dickinson, North Dakota, on Evaluating Student Argumentation in Historical Research. Travel stipends and renewal units provided. Learn more and find link to apply.  

Under-told Stories and Simulations and Role Plays

Under-Told Stories

Our January Third Tuesday Professional Development session focused on resources to incorporate under-told stories into your classroom, particularly the histories of African Americans, women, and Chinese immigrants.

We captured the links mentioned in this Google Doc, but here are a few highlights.

African American History 

PBS Learning Media has taken the hour-long documentary, Hidden Stories: Montana's Black Past (PBS link) and broken it into shorter segments with discussion questions and a graphic organizer. Here are links to the excerpts and here are links to teaching resources. 

Montana in the Green Book Story Map is a hidden gem for anyone teaching about pre-Civil Rights US history. Between 1936 and 1967, Victor H. Green & Company published The Negro Motorist Green Book, which offered listings of lodgings, restaurants, service stations, and recreation opportunities for African American travelers. Many students may think that it was only African American travelers in the southern states who needed such a resource, but Montana had entries too! This was in part because Montana also had restaurants, bars and hotels that refused to serve African American customers (including the beloved Parrot Confectionery in Helena).  You can read more about the fight to pass a public accommodations law in Montana in the 1950s here. 

Chinese Immigration History

The Chinese Experience in Montana Hands-on History Footlocker is a great new addition to our traveling trunk program! (Learn more about that program and how to order a footlocker here.) Like many of our footlockers, The Chinese Experience in Montana includes many lessons that can be done without ordering the trunk. For an easy entry, fourth-fifth grade teacher Jodi Delaney recommends teaching the first lesson in the user guide, "Far From Home," which asks students to analyze letters that families in China wrote to men working in Montana. She said that she used the letters with struggling readers in a reading intervention group and the kids were enthralled. 

High school teacher Vicky Nytes had high praise for lessons about Chinese exclusion and the Chinese experience from the Digital Inquiry Group. You can find them by searching "Chinese" on their Sitewide Search | Digital Inquiry Group but you'll need to register to access DIG's free resources.

Jodi and Vicky also noted that Mark Johnson (who wrote the Chinese Experience in Montana footlocker) has middle and high school lessons about Montana Chinese history on his website: The Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky. 

Women's History

Jodi drew attention to one of her favorite lessons: Montana Women at Work: Clothesline Timeline Lesson Plan. This lesson plan uses historical photographs to teach students about women’s changing occupations and opportunities between the 1880s and the beginning of the 21st century.

Vicky recommended that American history and government teachers look at Montana Legal History Lesson Plan. (She doesn't teach it as written, but she likes the resources.) 

I showed everyone the resources on Montana Women's History and particularly how you can filter by topic and/or search the 100+ short essays that are on the site. Vicky said it's a very useful resource for students looking for research topics.

Thanks to MTHS Historian Kate Hampton for joining us and to Superior teacher Vicky Nytes, and Helena teacher Jodi Delaney for leading this informative session! 

Tuesday, February 17, 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m.: Simulation and Role Plays

Join us in February for another Social Studies Tuesday PD to learn how to bring your social studies classroom alive with simulations and role plays that develop historical empathy and help students imagine themselves in the past. Register for this session.

Best of, High School Edition

 In earlier posts, I sent information about your colleagues' favorite elementary and middle school lessons. Here are your high school colleagues' answers (with notes from me in brackets) to the same prompt:

• "Describe the best Montana history or IEFA lesson or project or resource you taught this year--the one you will make time for next year no matter what" and
• "Describe a great teaching strategy that you'll be incorporating into next year's classes."

Mary Zuchowski from Frazer recommends material from the Digital Inquiry Group. [I concur! They have great lessons that engage students in historical inquiry and others that teach students how to evaluate online information. They have posters you can download for your classroom on sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization and an area of their site devoted to assessments that gauge students' ability to interpret historical evidence. And it’s free if you register.]

Sage Schuett from Yellowstone County wrote: "I liked using this OPI lesson [Comparing Use of Land by Different Groups] when introducing how different peoples settled in different regions in world history this year." She also said that she opens each class with a "daily question, sometimes a riddle, most times a recollection question from a lesson in the unit to help with recall and understanding big ideas. Students answer on the same paper for 2 weeks then turn it in. It is extra credit that makes it easy for them to get some small points across the semester that add up. And students that don’t write down the questions and answers are still part of the discussion when students share their answers!"

Vicky Nytes from Superior taught parts of the Montana Women's Legal History Lesson Plan: "I adapted the lesson and mainly focused on creating a timeline. While we didn't spend as much time on this as intended it led to great conversations and my students were quite surprised about some of the answers. It was a great review for my Dual Enrollment 11th graders."

She also recommends Silent Conversations for less talkative classes. "Students create a question or talking point on a piece of paper based on an assigned source. They pass them around the room. Students have to respond to the question/comment in front of them and add their own. This continues for a certain length of time or until everyone has responded to all comments. It allows students who don't typically like to share an opportunity to share their thoughts on the assigned materials."

Michelle Meyer from Victor provided a link to a lesson that she created as part of an "Educating for American Democracy" seminar: "Hellgate Treaty of 1855: Introduction to the Removal of the Salish from the Bitterroot Valley."

Lea Whitford, an Instructional Coach in Browning, wrote: "I enjoyed sharing the Women's History Month resources provided. It inspired me to create a similar resource specific to our area and Tribe. As I shared this out it was interesting to see how the classroom teachers added to and adjusted it even more for their classrooms." [I'm pretty sure she shared Resilience: Stories of Montana Indian Women. This booklet collects essays originally written for the Montana Women's History website. It is a useful companion to the lesson Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things. You can find all MTHS women's history lessons here.] 

Anonymous answers included: 

The PBS documentary on the late Malia Kipp [Native Ball: The Legacy of a Trailblazer] has teacher resources that helped open up discussion about contemporary indigenous issues. Will definitely show the doc again!

I highly recommend making the time for the Native Filmmaker Initiative Film Club offered by Big Sky Documentary. This is a powerful engaging resource for all students at all grade levels.

Social Studies Second Tuesday and the Teacher Leader Program

 

Social Studies Second Tuesday: Teaching Thematically

Textbooks are generally organized chronologically, but is that the best way to organize your class? Join MTHS Teacher Leaders in History Cynthia Wilondek (9th-12th grade, Big Fork) for our last Tuesday Professional Development session, April 8 from 4:30-5:30 p.m., during which Cynthia will lead a discussion on the benefits and share tips on strategies for teaching social studies with themes rather than following a timeline. Register here. 

 

Become an MTHS Teacher Leader in History

The deadline to apply to join the Teacher Leader in History program is April 7. Read more about the program and consider applying. I've been shocked to hear some great teachers say, "I don't think I'm good enough." If you have five years of classroom experience, love Montana history, and care about improving social studies education in your district and across the state, I hope that niggling voice in the back of your head isn't stopping you from applying! Learn more about the program and find a link to apply here. 

 

Social Studies Second Tuesdays

 

Social Studies Second Tuesdays 

Join us for online PDs on the Second Tuesdays of the month from 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. These mostly teacher-led sessions will provide practical strategies and resources to help your social studies lessons shine. Earn one OPI Renewal Unit per session. The first two in the series (October 8, "Teaching Current Events," and November 12, "Teaching with Maps") were fabulous.  Although we don't usually do this, we did record them and so let me know if you want the link. Here are our winter/spring offerings: 

 

January 14: Teaching Montana's Chinese History, with Mark Johnson

Author of Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky and Associate Clinical Professor at Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education Mark Johnson will explain why it's important to include the history of Chinese immigration in your curriculum and introduce new lessons for teaching about the Chinese in Montana. Register.

 

February 11: Teaching with Historic Places, with Ron Buck and Jennifer Hall

MTHS Teacher Leaders in History Ron Buck (7th-12th grade, Shelby) and Jennifer Hall (7th-8th grade, Eureka) will talk about how to make field trips meaningful and why to incorporate place-based education into your school year. Register.

 

March 11: Engaging with Your Local Museum, with April Wills

Museums are great for field trips, but they can be so much more for your students. Join MTHS Teacher Leaders in History and Montana Heritage Project alum April Wills (4th grade, Culbertson) to learn about ways museum-school partnerships can enrich your students' learning, from providing opportunities to conduct local history research to offering authentic audiences for student work. Register.

 

April 8: Teaching Thematically, with Cynthia Wilondek

Textbooks are generally organized chronologically, but is that the best way to organize your class? MTHS Teacher Leaders in History Cynthia Wilondek (9th-12th grade, Big Fork) will discuss the benefits and strategies of teaching social studies with themes rather than following a timeline. Register.

See you at MFPE

 Are you coming to Bozeman to MFPE? If so, make sure to stop by the Montana Historical Society booth and say hi!

There are an abundance of great-looking sessions this year. Check them out!

Special Events

If you get into town on Wednesday, head over to the Gallatin History Museum, 317 W Main, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. for light appetizers, a tour of the museum at 5:30, and a talk by The Extreme History Project founder Crystal Alegria at 6:30. (Earn two renewal units). If you are attending, Sandra would appreciate an RSVP so she knows how much food to order: sandra.oldendorf@montana.edu.  

Montana Council on Social Studies Featured Speakers 

Thursday

• 11-12 p.m. Mark Johnson, Montana's Historic Chinese Communities (room A377)
• 12-1 p.m. Issues in Social Studies and MCSS Business Meeting: join for lunch (rooms A330-31)
• Bring your own lunch or enjoy pizza/salad and drinks from MCSS
• 1-2 p.m. Dr. Dale Martin, The Monstrous Anger of Guns, (room A382)

Friday

• 10-11 a.m. Dr. Walter Fleming, The Seven Most Important Indian Battles in Montana History: (room A377)
• 11-12 p.m. Megan Torgerson, Changing Perspectives on Rural (room A377)

Montana Historical Society Staff and Teacher Leader-led Sessions

Thursday

• 8-9 a.m. Centering Indigenous Voices in Historical Narratives, Dylan Huisken
• 8-10 a.m. Exploring Indian Education for All through Primary Sources from the Library of Congress, Melissa Hibbard
• 1-2 p.m. Western Displacement "Done Wrong by 'The Man'?" Gallery Walk, Mary Zuchowski

Friday

• 9-10 a.m. MTHS Resources Scavenger Hunt, Laurie Enebo
• 10-12 p.m. National History Day 101, Melissa Hibbard
• 1-2 p.m. Montana History Projects Make-It-And-Take It, Laurie Enebo

Other Sessions of Interest

Thursday

• 9-10 a.m. Tsistsistas & Suhtaio: Expressions of the Northern Cheyenne People, Ancient Times - 1875, Heather Torrence
• 9-10 a.m. 1972 Montana Constitution - History & Threats, Mae Nan Ellingson and Evan Barrett
• 10-11 a.m. 1776-2026: A Semiquincentennial Roundtable, Senator Shannon O'Brien and Marietta Croft
• 10-11 a.m. Art & Adaptation: Transforming Art among the Apsáalooke (Crow Nation), Heather Torrence
• 11-12 a.m. To Bleed or Not to Bleed (about Lewis and Clark medicine), Cortney Reedy
• 12-1 p.m. Educator Resources from the Western Heritage Center, Heather Torrence
• 1-2 p.m. Forts and Trading Posts, Matthew Schertz
• 1-2 p.m. Mann Gulch Curriculum, Mari Carroll
• 2-3 p.m. Montanan PBS Presents: The American Buffalo, Nikki Vradenburg
• 2-3 p.m. MT STOY Keynote: Kevin KickingWoman
• 2-5 p.m. Teaching Federal Indian Policy Periods, Jacie Jeffers
• 2-4 p.m. Women in the Heart of Battle - Female Participation at the Little Bighorn, Cheyenne Aldrich
• 3-4 p.m. Montana League of Women Voters Suffrage Timeline and Nitty Gritty of Voting Presentations, Rebecca Johnson
• 3-4 p.m. Beadwork in the Classroom, Sunny Gardner
• 4-5 p.m. Indian Education for All resources for Music, Mike Jetty

Friday

• 8 a.m-5 p.m. Butte's Superfund: Place-Based Scientific Literacy, Chris Pavlovich, Rayelynn Brandl et al
• 9-10 a.m. Speakers in the Schools (A free program from Humanities Montana), John Knight
• 9-10 a.m. Introducing Native Art: Winter Count Workshop, Jennifer Woodcock Medicine-horse and Autumn Elliot
• 10-11 a.m. Introducing Native Art: Winter Count Workshop II, Jennifer Woodcock Medicine-horse and Autumn Elliot  
• 11-12 p.m. Game On: Montana Athletes Who Changed History, Heather Torrence
• 9-10 a.m. Traditional Games and Fire Starting, Cortney Reedy and Dusty Rixford
• 1-2 p.m. Indian Education for All Resources for ELA and Social Studies, Mike Jetty
• 2-3 p.m. Pandemonium on the Prairie: Crime and Conflict on the Montana Plains, 1831 - 1899, Heather Torrence
• 2-3 p.m. The State of Social Studies in 2024, Lawrence Paska
• 2-5 p.m. “It Opened my Mind and my Heart”: Applying the Rs Framework to Indigenize Professional Development, Christine Stanton, Jordann Lankford et al

Ending the Year Strong

As we head toward the end of the school year, I'm curious: How do you keep your students engaged and learning through the very last day of school? (This is a real question, not a rhetorical one, so email me and I'll share out.)

I did a little online sleuthing and came up with the following blogs that you might like if you are looking for inspiration.

My first stop, as it often is, was Glenn Wiebe, who came through with "7 Resources for the End of School" and "3 Things You Need to Do Before the End of the School Year". (The latter encourages teachers to reflect on what worked and what didn't last year, collecting student feedback in addition to end of year projects.  

Alyssa Teaches had published this list of End of Year Social Studies Activities for Upper Elementary Students.

Two common threads across multiple blogs were that the end of year is

1. a great time for doing activities and projects you couldn't get to earlier and
2. a good time to allow students to show off what they've learned. 

With that in mind, here are some Montana history lesson plans that might fit well into your end of year plans.

• These lesson plans cross multiple time periods, so might be best for the end of the year. Plus--do you really think you've incorporated enough women's history into your class thus far? 
  • Montana Women at Work: Clothesline Timeline Lesson Plan (Designed for grades 4-12) This primary-source based lesson asks students to analyze historic photographs to draw conclusions about women and work from the 1870s through the 2010s. Students will discover that Montana women have always worked, but that discrimination, cultural expectations, and changing technology have influenced the types of work women undertook.
  • Montana Women's Legal History Lesson Plan. (Designed for grades 11-12). In this 1-2 period activity, students will examine sample Montana legislation from 1871 to 1991 that particularly affected women's lives to explore the impact laws have on the lives of ordinary people and why laws change.
• Here's another lesson plan that crosses multiple time periods. And it's fabulous. Reader's Theater: Letters Home from Montanans at War (Designed for 7th-12th). This three-to-five period unit asks students to work in groups to read and interpret letters written by soldiers at war, from the Civil War to the Operation Iraqi Freedom. After engaging in close reading and conducting research to interpret the letters, they will perform the letters as reader’s theater. Preview this lesson by watching Rob Hoffman perform one of the letters, a 2005 email from Helenan Cory Swanson, who was serving in Iraq.
• Have your students use Digitized Montana Newspapers to create an exhibit about how life in Montana has (and has not) changed over the last 150 years. Divide up the decades and ask students to use newspaper advertisements and articles to find something people were doing for fun each decade. Complicate it by having them also use the newspaper ads to feature some aspect of available technology and/or inventions. 
• Create a living statue museum or have students write biographical poems about a notable Montanan using these biographies. (The lesson plan focuses on Montana women, but you can easily adapt it to both men and women if you'd like.)
• Integrate Art! If you haven't already taught The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives (K-12), now's the time. I can imagine adapting the ledger art assignment to ask students to look back at the last year and draw something they are proud of. 
• Explore the history and architecture of your town, asking "how does our community fit into the larger trends of Montana history, by using resources listed as part of Chapter 14 of Montana: Stories of the Land--"Towns Have Lives, Too", including
  • reading and discussing the chapter itself,
  • having students analyze a building using this Building Analysis Worksheet,
  • taking a walking tour using the Historic Montana App or a walking tour brochure.
• Have your students choose the top ten (or top five) most significant events in Montana history. Consider making a March Madness style competition out of it. (See the results from back when we did this with adults in 2012.) You could also do this with the most significant (or awesome) person in Montana history.

How do you end your year strong? 

P.S. Don't forget: MTHS is offering three teacher workshops this summer (in Great Falls, Missoula, and Helena.) Learn more here. 

 

Contemporary Montana in Context

 Do you subscribe to the Montana Free Press? If I taught government, current events, or Montana history in high school or even middle school, I'd have students to take turns finding and presenting articles from the site. It's hands-down the best news reporting in the state.

Catching up on my reading, I noticed several Montana Free Press articles that tie nicely with Montana history topics. I think they would lend themselves to interesting discussions, possibly using Project Zero's Circle of Viewpoints Thinking Routine:

• Mill closures ‘shock’ industry, but officials say demand for wood remains. Pair this with:    
  • Montana Mosaic video, "Chapter 7: Montana's Resource Driven Economy, 1940s-1960s"
    • Video
    • User Guide
• Montana to Congress: Berkeley Pit ‘a unique opportunity’ for rare earth elements. Pair this with:   
  • Resources from PitWatch, the online home of the Berkeley Pit Public Education Committee.
  • "The Berkeley Pit," Clark Fork Watershed Education Program
  • "Remaking the Wide-Open Town: Butte at the End of the Twentieth Century," by Brian Shovers, Montana The Magazine of Western History, Autumn 1998.
  • Montana Mosaic video, Chapter 10: The Anaconda Copper Mining Company
    • Video
    • User Guide
• BLM adopts rule described as a ‘generation-defining’ shift for America’s largest land manager 
  • Pair this with a discussion of this timeline, which outlines different laws affecting use of public lands.

Women's History Lesson Plans

 Longtime readers know I'm ambivalent about designated months--Black History Month, Native American Heritage Month, Women's History Month--because I believe that we should incorporate these histories into our classrooms EVERY month. At the same time, it's not bad to use the opportunity of a designated month to reflect on how we're doing integrating everyone's history and shining a spotlight where we've come up short.

This is all to say that it wasn't until March was almost over that I realized it was Women's History Month, but I still think it's worthwhile sharing some of my favorite women's history lesson plans with you!

• Looking for a short (max two-class period) lesson to get students thinking about how career opportunities have changed over time? Designed for grades 4-12, Montana Women at Work: Clothesline Timeline Lesson Plan is a primary-source based lesson that asks students to analyze historic photographs to draw conclusions about women and work from the 1870s through the 2010s. Students will discover that Montana women have always worked, but that discrimination, cultural expectations, and changing technology have influenced the types of work women undertook.
• Want to help your upper elementary and middle school students understand that the laws Congress or the state legislature pass affect their lives? Women and Sports: Tracking Change Over Time introduces students to Title IX (a federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in education) and asks them to collect and analyze data to see how this law changed girls’ opportunities to participate in school sports.
• Want to share a Montana connection to the national suffrage movement with your American history students? Hazel Hunkins, Billings Suffragist: A Primary Source Investigation asks students to become historians as they analyze photos, letters, newspaper articles, and other sources to learn more about the suffrage movement as experienced by Billings, Montana, native and National Woman's Party activist Hazel Hunkins. 
• Want to introduce your high school students to some remarkable American Indian women while encouraging them to think about how ordinary people's lives intersect with larger historical events? Part I of Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things! Connecting Biography to Larger Social Themes asks students to analyze two essays on American Indian women from the Montana Women’s History website. Part II of the lesson asks students to interview someone in their own community to learn about how that person has chosen to shape the world around him or her.
• Do you teach high school Montana government? Montana Women's Legal History Lesson Plan is a 1-2 period activity that asks students to examine sample Montana legislation from 1871 to 1991 that particularly affected women's lives to explore the impact laws have on the lives of ordinary people and why laws change.

You can find links to all of our women's history lessons and resources here and if you are on Facebook, consider following the Montana Women's History Facebook page for stories about Montana women all year round. 

 

National History Day Is Back!

 National History Day is back in Montana with more institutional support than ever before.

Many thanks to National History Day in Montana's new co-coordinators Dr. Hailey Hancock (Montana State University) and Dr. Melissa Hibbard (Montana Historical Society) for their tireless efforts to reintroduce the program. 

Long time readers know I'm a big fan of NHD, so I'm delighted to turn the rest of this post over to Melissa, who wrote up a quick primer on the program.

WHAT IS HISTORY DAY?

National History Day in Montana is a co-curricular academic program that fosters in-depth research and critical analysis skills for students in grades 6-12. In short, students choose topics that relate to an annual theme. This year’s theme is Turning Points in History. They research and share their findings in one of five presentation categories: 

• Research Paper: Traditional academic paper, complete with citations
• Exhibit: Museum-style exhibit using images, text, and supporting resources
• Documentary: 10-minute video combining images and analytical narration
• Performance: 10-minute live performance using actual or composite characters
• Website: Web-based collection of interactive pages

Students may choose to enter their projects into History Day competitions at school, regional, state, and national levels. Students compete in either the junior (grades 6-8) or senior (grades 9-12) division. (We have some funding available to support travel to the state competition in Bozeman.)

Projects are evaluated against three standards:

1. Historical quality
2. Relation to the theme
3. Clarity of presentation

All students must provide an annotated bibliography documenting their original research. 

WHY PARTICIPATE?

History Day helps teachers meet a variety of standards. The skills that your students learn will continue to benefit them long after they leave your classroom. 

Student Outcomes:

• Increased engagement with history
• Enhanced research skills
• Improved literacy

“I found that even though it was a competition, there was no pressure to be perfect, but it instead encouraged us to learn. . .My teacher often had us explain why one should care about our topic. I found this has influenced both my NHD projects and how I view history in general because she taught me to draw a conclusion from sources.”-History Day Student

"The opportunity for my daughter to participate in History Day was one of those experiences that I think she will some day in the future look back upon as a turning point. She’s always been interested in history, but this process introduced her to high-level research and analytic skills that she will carry with her in school and in life."-History Day Parent

HOW DO I “DO” HISTORY DAY?

History Day is most successful when incorporated into the school curriculum. See a sample timeline here. If you plan to have students compete, review the Contest Rule Book. 

NHD-MT is building a support system to assist classroom teachers in ways that include:

• A variety of in-person and online workshops (free renewal units!)
• Curricular offerings
• Online resources for students and teachers.

Remember, History Day is first and foremost an educational program. As a teacher, you get to decide what works best for your students. Competition is one facet of the program, but “doing” History Day does not obligate your students to compete.

HOW DO I LEARN MORE?

• Attend an upcoming PD session:
  • (Online) Tuesday, October 3, 2023, Introduction to National History Day & Humanities Montana Programs, 4:30-5:30 pm. Register Here. (1 Renewal Unit)
  • (Online) Monday, October 9, 2023, Introduction to National History Day in Montana, 4:00-5:00 pm. Register Here. (1 Renewal Unit)
  • (In-Person at MFPE) Thursday, October 19, Introduction to National History Day in Montana, 3:00-4:50 pm. Register for the 2023 MFPE Educator Conference here. (2 Renewal Units)
  • (In-Person at MFPE) Friday, October 20, Introduction to National History Day in Montana, 9:00-10:50 am. Register for the 2023 MFPE Educator Conference here. (2 Renewal Units)
  • (Online) Tuesday, November 7, 2023 Exploring NHD Topics, Theme & Research, 4:30-5:30 pm. Register Here. (1 Renewal Unit)

• Fill out an interest form to let us know who you are.
• Sign up to judge at either the regional or state competitions. (We have some funding available to support teachers who want to travel to Bozeman to judge.
• Check out our website.
• Email Hailey and Melissa and set up a time to chat: nationalhistorydaymt@gmail.com.

We’re excited to work with you and your students and are happy to help you get started! 

Montana's Poet Laureate Chris La Tray (and resources for teaching about the Métis/Little Shell)

 Chris LaTray (Little Shell/Métis) is Montana's newest poet laureate. His book, One-Sentence Journal was recognized with the 2018 Montana Book Award, the 2019 High Plains Book Award (Best First Book), and as a finalist for the 2019 High Plains Book Award (Best Book by Indigenous Writer). 

Thanks to retired elementary librarian Ruth Ferris for gathering information about Chris and about the Little Shell and Métis in an album she created for the Teaching with Primary Sources Teachers Network (TPS). The album includes links to video interviews and presentations, newspaper articles, and a sample of Métis music. 

A side note about TPS: "The TPS Teachers Network is a password-protected, peer-to-peer platform designed to support teachers, librarians, and other educators in the use of Library of Congress primary sources to improve student learning." Membership to the network is free and open to everyone. And because Ruth is a TPS Mentor Teacher, there's even a subgroup: TPS Montana, that includes albums on 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps, and Contemporary Native American Artists, among other topics.

In addition to the material Ruth gathered, I invite you to explore MTHS's resources on the Little Shell and Métis: 

• "Who Are the Metis?"(Designed for grades 3-6) This PowerPoint lesson plan introduces the Métis, an important Montana cultural group with roots in the fur trade.
• Recognized at Last: The Little Shell Chippewa (Designed for grades 5-12) This 30-50 minute PowerPoint lesson provides a brief introduction to the Little Shell Chippewa and their fight for tribal recognition.
• "Sun Dance in Silver Bow: Urban Indian Poverty in the Shadow of the Richest Hill on Earth" is a PowerPoint-based lesson plan that explores the complexity underpinning the change-over (or reconfiguration) of the West (and particularly Montana) from Aboriginal lands into Euro-American hands at the end of the nineteenth century. (I highly recommend mining this PPT for materials and primary sources, rather than simply presenting it. There is really great stuff in here.) 
• "Montana's Landless Indians and the Assimilation Era of Federal Indian Policy: A Case of Contradiction" is a week-long primary-source based unit designed for grades 11-12 (and college) to introduce students to the history of the landless Métis, Cree, and Chippewa Indians in Montana between 1889 and 1916, while giving them an opportunity to do their own guided analysis of historical and primary source materials.

OPI also has some materials:

• Chris LaTray - Metis cultural historian interview (video)
• Little Shell Tribal History Project-Study Guide and Timeline
• Indian Nations: Little Shell Chippewa (video)
• Metis Music and Culture (video)
• Jamie Fox-Metis Fiddler (video)

P.S. In our "Best of, Middle School" post, Jennifer Hall said her students loved The Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture's lesson on finger weaving, which she had them do after reading the book The Flower Beadwork People.

Best of, Middle School Edition

 Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history or IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Here are the responses from middle school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets. You can find the elementary school teachers' responses here.

Chris Clairmont, who teaches in Superior, wrote: "Making atlatls and arrows to throw at a mammoth. Kids loved it and gained an understanding of how difficult this was.' [Check out our step-by-step instructions for making atlatls.]

Jennifer Hall, Eureka Middle School, highly recommends Métis finger weaving. She wrote: "I found the lesson in the Discovering Lewis and Clark footlocker resources (from the Hands-On History Footlockers provided by MTHS). The lesson begins by reading the picture book, The Flower Beadwork People, and letting students explore the beautiful Métis sash provided in the trunk. After reading the book, students watch a video tutorial on how to finger weave like the Métis people. Although it was a bit slow and chaotic to start, all of my 135 students enjoyed this hands-on activity. They begged me to let them do it again the next day. My classroom floor was covered in yarn bits and I was exhausted by the end of my sixth class, but it was so worth it. I will definitely teach this lesson every year from now on."

Michelle Moccasin, who teaches Crow language and culture in Lodge Grass, recommends Bird Country, "a crow story about where the birds journey back to their homelands."

Sheryl Kohl, who teaches at Poplar Middle School in its alternative education program, recommends the footlocker Gold, Silver, and Coal: Oh, My! She wrote: "I expanded upon the "Motherlode" activity and the students were each a miner in the field, some days finding a few nuggets, and some days gambling away their profits!  Some days the weather would cooperate and some days the animals would get into their food.  The students had a great time." [Learn how to order a hands-on history footlocker here.]

Jim Martin, who teaches at C. S. Porter Middle School in Missoula, shared his approach to teaching about Indian boarding schools: "Students are faced with the guiding question: 'How have Native Americans been able to preserve their culture in the modern United States?' 

We then read Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell, a historical fiction book that describes the Native American boarding school experience. Throughout the unit we read various articles regarding Native Americans. Articles are found at Newsela and need of a subscription, but they discuss having better depictions of Native's in comic books, more Congressional representation, Charles Curtis, first BIPOC Vice President of the United States, the Dawes Act (1887) and Indian Removal Act (1830). We look at maps of Southeast United States and see how many tribes were relocated to other states and placed on reservations. We also look at Montana: Stories of the Land Chapter 13 p. 255, in which the two graphics illustrate homesteading into the Flathead Reservation.

While reading about the Indian Removal Act, we look at another article at Newsela that discusses how Native food seeds are being reunited with tribes. The Indian Removal Act conversation comes up again as we talk about, for example, foods in Florida not having the same climate as Oklahoma and Kansas. Students finish the unit with an essay answering the guiding question, "How have Native Americans been able to preserve their culture in the modern United States?"  

Dylan Huisken, who teaches in Bonner, wrote: "This year I designed modules using the Montana: Stories of the Land textbook, MHS recommended primary sources and links, and the Primary Source Analysis worksheet. Students responded well to the worksheets and did an amazing job. I then added other links, games, and activities for them to work on when done with their reading/notetaking/research. I gave students a week to complete their module and they could work with others. This was for 8th grade and was meant to act like an "independent study" that mimicked block scheduling and high school-level notetaking skills. This allowed for deep engagement with a topic of their choice, allowed us to share and cover a lot of ground, and worked as a natural segue for me to do a Charlie Russell lesson. Students completed the module using Google Classroom, which is the perfect template for offering up a variety of links, videos, and primary sources in addition to them doing pencil/paper notes and reading from the physical book. This was a rigorous way for us to cover the many topics of so-called Manifest Destiny in a place-based, IEFA-informed way without relying on the national timeline of Texas Independence, Polk, Trails, California Gold Rush, Railroads." 

Robin Miller, who teaches in Hot Springs, does a lesson on disasters that focuses on "The Three Disasters of Montana (Glacier Lake Missoula, Quake Lake, and the Yellowstone Caldera)." 

Glacial Lake Missoula is the first major disaster that occurred in Montana.  We read about it in our textbooks, watch a power-point and then watch the video "Mystery of the Mega Flood".  Then we create a list of the highlights of the disaster and put it on the whiteboard.  The students then take the list and divide it into categories and give them headings. (We save this list.)

Then we move on to the most recent disaster: Quake Lake. We read about it in the textbook, we watch a PowerPoint, then we read excerpts from primary resources that were published in the newspaper the next year. Then we once again create a list of the highlights of the disaster and put it on the whiteboard. The students then take the list and divide it into categories and give them headings.  (We save this list as well.)

Then we move to the disaster that hasn't happened yet: the Yellowstone Caldera. We read about it in the textbook, then we have a worksheet that covers some of the scientific aspects of this disaster, and finally we watch the video "SuperVolcano" that was produced by the Discovery Channel.  We again make a list of highlights of the disaster and create categories. 

The final activity varies depending on the year. Sometimes the students will debate which disaster is the most interesting, catastrophic, or horrific.  Other years the students write an essay that answer the same question in a writing prompt. Or students create posters of their favorite disaster, write a speech to support their choice, and then present their nominee for most interesting disaster. When all the speeches are finished, the students vote for the best disaster. Each student gets 2 votes so that they can vote for themselves and one other disaster.  

Other teachers answered anonymously: 

I used Montana Stories of the Land resource in my ELA classes as an extension activity. We were reading the novel Lyddie, which explores factory conditions in the 1800s. Students were able to explore the different industries in Montana through the Stories of the Land resource. [My guess is that she focuses on Chapter 15 and Chapter 16.] I followed up this exploration with a deeper investigation into the North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917.

Native poetry, boarding schools [I'm guessing she uses Birthright: Born to Poetry]

Charles Russell Biography through the PowerPoint presentation to 8th graders

Stay tuned for high school teachers' recommendations.

 

Montana's Labor History

 This is a less practical post than most, but since it's Labor Day, I thought I'd share some resources relating to Montana's labor history. 

First up is this tour in Historic Montana, which features (in brief) a few of Montana labor temples, union halls, and other union-related sites, from Missoula's Free Speech Corner in Missoula to Forsyth's Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Hall. Note: There are MANY sites that are not included in this list. Not every town in Montana had (or has) a significant union presence, but every railroad division and subdivision point, logging, or mining town did. Where did working people (primarily workingmen) gather in your community?

My colleague, Rich Aarstad, created an intriguing timeline of Montana labor history. Reading it over, several things surprised me, including the first workers to organize a union in Montana in 1866. It's not who you think.

Butte was known as the Gibraltar of Labor, so it's not surprising that there is a lot of material connected to the city.

• The second half of "When Copper Was King," one of the twelve short films that make up Montana Mosaic, focuses on the growth of unions in early twentieth century Butte. (See the user guide for a brief synopsis; find the video.)
• "When Toil Meant Trouble" is a good, brief roundup of Butte's labor history, written by George Everrett. 
• "Death in the West" is an award-winning podcast focused on the murder of Frank Little. The creators also created a tour of Butte sites relating to Frank Little.  
• Anna East created a series of lesson plans to teach material from the book Mining Childhood: Growing Up in Butte, Montana, 1900-1960 (including two of them about unions), and we digitized excerpts from the book to go along with them. 
• For a particularly unsavory moment in Montana's labor history, see this National Archives Lesson Plan on the Silver Bow Trades and Labor Assembly and Butte Miners' Union boycott of Chinese and Japanese businesses. Learn about Hum Fay's lawsuit to end the boycott and read excerpts from his testimony.
• The Clark Chateau worked with a number of contemporary musicians to write new tunes for union songs published in Songs for the Butte Mining Camp, a booklet published by the IWW circa 1918 during the general strike that started after the Speculator-Granite Mountain Mine disaster and now preserved in the Butte-Silver Bow Archives.
• Speaking Speculator-Granite Mountain Mine disaster, here are some of the letters written by J.D. Moore, who died in the mine, some telegrams sent by families to the Anaconda Company, asking if their relatives survived, and here's an article about the disaster.

Most of Montana's unions were exclusively male, but not all of them. Here's a short article about Butte's Women’s Protective Union. Before Montana passed legislation guaranteeing women equal pay for equal work in 1919* (forty-four years before the 1963 federal Equal Pay Act!), women hired to work for the Northern Pacific Railroad in Livingston during World War I received the same wages as their male counterparts because of the union. 

The Montana Historical Society has digitized over 600 oral histories with Montana workers Voices of Labor. I'm honestly not sure how--or whether--teachers can use these. I'd love your ideas. I do know that before looking at any of these oral histories, you, or your students, will want to look at the index, which lists topics covered in the interviews. (Links to the indexes are at the top of the page.) University of Montana has also digitized its Unions and Labor Oral History Collection. 

Happy Labor Day.

*I learned this from Rich's Montana Labor History Timeline, too!

 

P.S. Don't miss the first of our monthly Monday Meetups, September 11, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. where I'll be sharing an Introduction to Montana Historical Society Resources. Register to earn one Renewal Unit. 

Looking for an introduction to the Little Shell Tribe?

 We were delighted in December 2019, when the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians finally received federal recognition and we're delighted now to provide this 30-50-minute PPT lesson that provides a brief history of the tribe. Designed for grades 5-12, Recognized at Last: The Little Shell Chippewa is our most recent IEFA lesson plan that touches on Little Shell history. We consciously kept it brief, so it would be easy to fit into your current curriculum.

A longer lesson, created before the Little Shell received federal recognition, is "Montana's Landless Indians and the Assimilation Era of Federal Indian Policy: A Case of Contradiction." This week-long primary-source based unit for grades 10-12 is designed to introduce students to the history of the landless Métis, Cree, and Chippewa Indians in Montana between 1889 and 1916, while giving students an opportunity to do their own guided analysis of historical and primary source materials. 

Many Little Shell also identify as Métis. Others identify strictly as Chippewa. To understand the Little Shell's connection to the Métis, see the tribe's official website, Nicholas Vrooman's article, "The Persistence of the Little Shell People," in Distinctly Montana, and his longer and more detailed explanation in the Study Guide and Timeline OPI published to accompany his book, 'The Whole County Was ... One Robe': The Little Shell Tribe's America. 

For a introduction to Métis history for younger grades (grades 3-6), check out our 30-50 minute PPT lesson "Who Are the Métis?" 

P.S. Don't forget to register for our last online PD for the schoolyear, which will be held on April 20, 4 p.m.-5 p.m. The topic will be "The New Montana Content Standards for Social Studies." (Register here.)

 

Every Month Should Be Black History Month

If you incorporate African American history into your classrooms (and I certainly hope you do), how do you relate it to Montana? And what resources do you need to do a better job teaching your students about Montana's African American history? These are not rhetorical questions! We  really want to know, so I created this simple survey--take a few moments to help us out and have your name entered into our prize drawing. Act now to shape future resources from MHS and for a chance to win. I'd appreciate it!

Meanwhile, if you are looking to incorporate more Montana African American history in your classroom, check out these resources:   

• the Montana The Magazine of Western History digital issue, "African Americans in Montana and the West"(good for high school) and 
• the extensive web-based project Montana's African American Heritage Resources project. This project has
  • a timeline and essays on topics ranging from African American women to political life;
  • oral histories and census information
  • StoryMaps, including Montana in the Green Book  
  • and teaching material: Overcoming Prejudice, a Model Lesson Plan for fourth through sixth grade; 

    Creation of a Community, a Model Lesson Plan for seventh through ninth grade; and Profiles of African American Montanans (.pdf) is a lesson plan and PowerPoint presentation to introduce students to some of the African Americans who contributed to Montana history.

P.S. Don't forget to register for our upcoming PD, "Montana's First Peoples: Essential Understandings. It will be held February 16, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Register here.  

 

Best of, Middle School Edition

Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history of IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Read on for the responses from middles school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets. You can find elementary teachers' responses here. 

 Sue Reynolds, founder of Everyday Native, recommends Patricia’s Story. Everyday Native--a site created to help bridge the gap of understanding that is held about Native Americans by non-Indians by emphasizing the everyday life of contemporary Native Americans as opposed to popular stereotypes created by movies, TV, books and news media, is free to use but requires registration. 

Jenifer Powell, Corvallis Middle School: had her kids participate in the Montana Memory Project's meme contest last spring. It was one of her favorite lessons (and she's shared the link so you can recreate it in your classroom.) It's GREAT for distance learning. 

Dylan Huisken, Bonner Middle School, does a lesson on the the Hellgate Treaty of 1855. He introduces it by having students playing a game to illustrate the problems of translation (A priest who observed the 1855 Hellgate Treaty negotiation with the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille said that the translations were so poor that “not a tenth of it was actually understood by either party.”). Here's the game in the nutshell: Student 1 writes a phrase or sentence. Student 2 draws a picture to represent that sentence. Student 3 writes a new sentence from the picture. Student 4 draws a new picture from Student 3's sentence. Student 5 writes a new sentence based on Student 4's picture. Then the students compare the first and last sentences. 

Jessica Gray (Holy Spirit, Great Falls), teaches a lesson on the vigilantes that she’s adapted to distance learning and allowed us to share (Students explored the Vigilantes using Montana Stories of the Land, the primary source from Montana Memory Vigilantes Record and the story behind 3-7-77 at the Montana Troopers Association Website. Then they wrote their opinion if they believe vigilantes were a good thing or not.)

 Lynn White, 6 grade Montana history, Bridger, wrote "I have two actually that I love. WW1: the students made ration recipes for us to try, we did a "chopped History" lesson and watched War Horse. Next year I am going to try to trade the movie 1917 for War Horse. [Looking for authentic recipes? Check out the Red Cross Cookbook from Hot Springs. 

"The other is the building an atlatl lesson that I have improved year after year and that is a student favorite. Coupled with a trip to the Pictograph Caves in Billings, this was a great IEFA lesson." [I don't know if Lynn has her own atlatl lesson, or if she's using this one, which Jim Schulz created for us sometime back.]

 Laura Dukart, 7-8 Wibaux, wrote that "My best lesson/activity is In Memoriam. It's a lesson I do with my MT history students that involves a trip to our local cemetery." 

Middle School librarian Kathi Hoyt Found primary sources from Montana Memory Project and used it with a self-paced Pear Deck. [New to the MMP? Save yourself a lot of frustration and watch this video on how to search the site.]

Susi Byrne, 6-8, Cayuse Prairie: “One of my many but by far my favorite IEFA projects is my lesson/project on Native American Cultural regions. This project included a research component, a writing component and a hands on crafting component. My students research various cultural regions, they pick one and follow several writing prompts such as what type of Native American lodging was typical for your region, natural resources found in your region, what Native American tribes lived in your region, animals, describe the environment.... According to their findings my students are asked to craft a shoe box diorama depicting their region with an example of the dwelling, animals, resources..... All of this work is done in class. At the end of the project I invite parent judges to the classroom. My students are required to present their dioramas with the help of a guided rubric to the judges.”

Chad Williams Montana history grade 7, Hamilton Middle School: “I teach a lesson on the fur trade in which I bring in a reenactor of the fur trade who has an incredible amount of authentic and recreated artifacts from the fur trade era, including a apothecary display and early surgical tools used during Rendezvous. The kids enjoy the hands on learning and are assessed with a subjective essay and research project of the lesson.”

Wendy Davis, 6-8, Marion School: "We only had a semester this year due to Covid. So this year my favorite lesson was my first lesson as an introduction to Montana history. Small groups put together puzzles of Montana and answered trivia questions about abstract events and places in Montana (the answers are located on the puzzle pieces). The students love putting the puzzles together and they get to take a very close look at places in the state as they put it together."

Kathy Harvey, 3-8, Vaughn: Montana ghost towns

Craig Claver, 6-8 Stanford: The Bozeman Trail and its influence on settling Montana's interior.

 

Other teachers answered anonymously, recommending the following lessons: 

Mapping Montana, A-Z: "It is such a great lesson that allows students to explore our state. If we are distance learning next year it would be an easy adaptable lesson with Google Earth and pindrops which would allow it to be a great cross-curricular with science while also allowing it to be taught via technology." [This is a perennial favorite--more than one person recommended it.]

View from the Shore [This video shares Native American perspectives on their discovery of Lewis and Clark.] 

A lesson that I make time for each year in Montana History is Ledger Art. I purchase ledger paper and have students create their own Ledger Art. [I don't know if this teacher is using our ledger art lesson plans, PowerPoint and resources, but you can find them here.]

Montana's three great disasters: the Supervolcano, Glacial Lake Missoula, and Quake Lake. We cover all three and then the students write an essay about the one that they thought was the most interesting.

The Montana Historical Society's PowerPoint Lesson Plans. I love those! We need MORE!!! :)

One teacher had her seventh grade students use images from Montana Memory Project and material from the digitized newspapers to create a class timeline of Montana history. [This sounds so cool! I'd love to see samples.]

"I taught about the homesteading movement through a Dungeons & Dragons-style table-top RPG, with students securing lots of land with specific resources, choosing which crops/animals to raise on those lots, and dice rolls determining if they had a strong or weak year. They still had agency determining how to manage their homesteads, but the random elements helped teach them how little was truly in their control on the farm/ranch. My kids got really into it, even being competitive to see who would make the most money."

"I teach PE. I taught double ball and had the students do research on other games with Native American Origins. They loved it!"

Indian Boarding Schools. Student read the chapter, then watch the Montana Mosaic episode and have a form to answer after. Then, they create a Google Slides presentation on a boarding school of their choice covering 4 or more topics revealing the structure and purpose of the school. [You can also find a user guide for the video here.] 

3 Regions of Montana - the uniqueness of the western, central, and eastern regions of Montana; identifying major rivers, mountains, cities; Compare and Contrast the regions to one another in terms of wildlife, species of fish and birds, climate, precipitation, population etc. [Find some resources for this in Chapter 1 of Montana: Stories of the Land.]

Finally, I asked teachers about how they adapted material to distance learning. 

Laura Dukart said that for distance learning, she used the user guide for the Oral History in the Classroom footlocker to set up an interview project.

Susi Byrne required her students to follow journal entries in the style of Lewis and Clark using the inspiration of their own yards and surrounding.

One teacher laid out her process in detail (including her use of Google slides: 

1. Reading component - Turned one chapter into a power-point (cut and pasted the pages from the online textbook, did a voice over of the text) because I have quite a few students who struggle with reading.

2. Debate - Used class google slide as debate platforms. I posed a question on the first slide on materials we had covered and had one slide for arguments in favor and another slide for arguments opposed.

3. Geography - Figured out how to make a google slides project with a map of Montana's rivers that was the slide background, and then I added text boxes with the names of the rivers. Students then dragged the names of the rivers to the appropriate river.

4. Speech - Created a class google slides project in which students each researched a Mountain Man and created a slide about the mountain man with a voice-over.

5. Primary documents - Created a google slide presentation with 2 primary documents on hunting buffalo (with voice over of me reading the documents for my struggling readers). Then students had to compare the information in the documents with a painting called "Indian Hunting Buffalo" by Troy Denton, and a video clip from Dances With Wolves. The student created a thesis statement that answered the writing prompt of "After reading the 2 primary documents, how accurate do you think this painting/video clip is? Support your thesis with 3 facts from the documents.

6. Reading Comprehension - Made reading comprehension worksheets to accompany sections of the history book for students to complete as they read.

 

Want more? Stay tuned for the High School Edition in next week.

 

 

 

Teaching Montana History is written by Martha Kohl, Outreach and Interpretation Historian at the Montana Historical Society.