Welcome Back!

Welcome back! Or if you are new to Teaching Montana History, welcome. I hope everyone had a good summer. The first post of the school year is always business, so let's get started. 

Montana History Conference Scholarships

Don’t forget: We have travel scholarships available to teachers wishing to attend the 42th Annual Montana History Conference (held this year in Bozeman) September 24-26. Scholarship applications are due 11:59 p.m. September 9, 2015.  

• Learn more about how to apply for a scholarship.
• View the conference program (up to 19 OPI Renewal Units).

If you can't attend the entire conference, consider just joining us for the Thursday educator workshop ($25, lunch included, 6 OPI Renewal Units.)

Montana: Stories of the Land Companion Website and the MHS Educator Resources Page

I hope most of you are using the Montana history and Indian Education for All resources posted on our sites. If so, would you help us out? Please email mkohl@mt.gov if you find any broken links or other problems. We can usually fix things quickly--but only if we know about them.

If you haven't checked out the lesson plans on these sites, I hope you will do that now. We reorganized our website and added several new plans over the summer. And don't forget about our online professional development opportunities--for which you can earn OPI Renewal units.  

Teaching Montana History

New to the blog? Posts are both key word searchable and tagged by subject—so if you are trying to find that information you received several weeks ago on, say, teaching with historic photographs, one easy solution would be to search by key word. 

There are six years’ worth of posts on this blog. While some of them are out of date (e.g., information about workshops), many of them have stood the test of time. By the numbers, here are a few of the readers’ favorites.

• Top Ten Most Important Events in Montana History, Dec 6, 2012
• Teaching Montana History in Fourth Grade, Apr 28, 2014
• National History Day Theme for 2015: Exploration, May 18, 2015
• Women's History Matters, Jan 9, 2014
• Poetry and Prose for Native American Heritage Month, Nov 7, 2013
• Teaching with Primary Sources, Mar 5, 2012

Finally, if you have colleagues you think would enjoy this blog, please let them know about it. If they would rather subscribe to a listserv than read a blog, they can do that by emailing mkohl@mt.gov, subject line: subscribe. (the information on the blog and the listserv are the same--just two different mechanisms of delivery). 

Two more summer professional development opportunities

Tammy Elser (an amazing thinker from whom I have learned a lot) just sent me information about some trainings she’s offering this summer. They look amazing. I know I said this list was on hiatus for the summer, but rules are made to be broken, right?

From Tammy:

For those currently using or soon to transition to block scheduling, the power and potential of the extra time block allows is huge in implementation of literacy practices, including investigations and research in SS under the MCCS and 3C standards. I am doing a 15 hour special training called Inspire Literacy Leadership with MBI that will demonstrate many, many practices you could take straight into the classroom. We are even offering a modest honoraria of $200 to participants. Info is in the link following. I would love a contingent of history teachers as almost all my demonstrations are history and IEFA integration ... Using  lots of primary source material.  Go to https://goo.gl/ziZ1H5.

Also, we will be conducting a Writing To Learn session on August 21st, focused again on the literacy standards 5-12, including emphasis on history and science standards. It is free and in Lewistown.  https://goo.gl/SmU5ul 

Summer Break and End of Year Survey

This blog is going on hiatus for summer break.

I hope to see some of you over the summer at the Montana Charlie Russell Symposium in Helena, June 18-20, or at the Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative August Institute in Missoula, August 12-14 (Course 5052) or at the Montana Historical Society. If your travels bring you to Helena this summer, please stop in and say "hello." And of course, don't hesitate to contact me if I can help you as you prepare for your classes next fall: mkohl@mt.gov.

P.S. There's still time to complete our annual survey and to share your favorite lesson. At this moment, we have received 38 responses--so you still have a chance to WIN (prizes are going to the fifth, fifteenth, thirty-first and FORTY-SEVENTH person to take the survey).

Recognizing Great Teaching

The winners of the Montana Statehood Centennial Bell Award for best teacher of Montana history and the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of Montana History Teacher of the Year were both announced recently.

Tonja Brewer, a fourth grade teacher from Roundup Central Elementary School, is the winner of the 2015 Montana Statehood Centennial Bell Award. This award recognizes Montana history teachers who engage their students in active learning, convey a passion for teaching Montana history and recognize our state's cultural diversity in their Montana history class. Tonja and her fourth graders will travel to Helena for a November 6 ceremony in the state capitol. 

Billings elementary school librarian Ruth Ferris was chosen by Gilder-Lehrman for their Montana History Teacher of the Year Award. They were looking for someone who "teaches thoughtful and creative United States history" (including "state and local history") and "effectively uses primary sources to engage students in American history." Ruth fits that description to to a T and has taught me a lot about how kids learn. We've tapped into her expertise for several Montana Historical Society lesson plans. She's the author of

• Montana’s State Flower: A Lesson in Civic Engagement (Designed for 4th-7th). This seven-period unit introduces students to the electoral process while providing an opportunity to develop research skills and to explore historical newspapers. By organizing an election for class flower, students will learn about the electoral process and experience civic engagement first hand while practicing such Common Core skills as close reading of complex texts and persuasive writing;
• Thinking Like a Historian: Using Digital Newspapers in the Classroom (Designed for 4th-8th). Have students exercise their historical imaginations as while introducing them to the research, the richness of historic newspapers, and the social history of gold-rush era Montana;
•  The mapping and Chronicling America lesson plans for Girl from the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan Study Guide (Designed for students 6-10). This study guide includes lesson plans, vocabulary, chapter summaries and questions, alignment to the Common Core, and other information to facilitate classroom use of Girl from the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan, as told to Margaret Ronan, edited by Ellen Baumler. 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. 

Ruth is currently working on a primary-source-based lesson plan about Billings suffragist Hazel Hunkins and the fight for national women's suffrage. We hope it will be ready this fall and it promise to be fabulous, so stay tuned.

Congratulations to these dedicated teachers!

Teaching Montana's Charlie Russell: Room Available in the Wednesday, June 17 Workshop

We've had such strong interest in our Thursday, June 18, workshop, "Teaching Montana's Charlie Russell," that we decided to host it twice.

Spots are available for the Wednesday, June 17, workshop, which will feature an introduction to Visual Thinking Strategies, and the unveiling of the lesson plans in our new Charles M. Russell packet,

The FREE workshop will run from 10:00-4:00 at the Montana Historical Society. Attendees will leave with their very own copy of the packet, which includes prints, PowerPoints, and Common Core aligned, grade-specific art, ELA, and social studies themed lesson plans.

Educators are also invited to join us for the rest of the Montana's Charlie Russell Symposium, which begins Thursday evening with a gallery viewing and reception, and continues on Friday and Saturday with a star-studded line-up of Russell scholars.

Find out more about the workshop and symposium and then register for whichever parts you wish to attend.

Workshop attendees will earn 5 OPI Renewal Credits. Those attending both the Educator Workshop and the Symposium can earn up to 18 Renewal Units.

National History Day Theme for 2015: Exploration, Encounter, Exchange

Thinking about trying to implement National History Day in your classroom next year? 

I hope so. National History Day projects are a great way to better align your history curriculum to the Common Core. (More on that here).

Michael Herdina is now the state coordinator for NHD. He's also a classroom teacher who told me he initially got his students involved in NHD as a way to meet the requirements of Common Core. He's become a tremendous advocate for the program because of its impact on his students' learning. Michael would be delighted to visit with you this summer about NHD--including the nuts and bolts of making it work in the classroom. Contact him at mtnhdcoordinator@gmail.com. He'll also be presenting on NHD next October at the MEA-MFT conference in Billings.

The 2015 theme is Exploration, Encounter, Exchange, which makes it perfect for Montana topics from the obvious (Lewis and Clark, Indian boarding schools, or the Jesuits and the founding of St. Mary's Mission) to the less obvious: Rocky Mountain Labs and the search for a Spotted Mountain fever vaccine (exploration), Metis cultural expressions, or the anti-Chinese boycott. We'll be updating our Montana topic bibliographies over the summer, so stay tuned.

Prestigious Award Available for Montana Teachers

This in from Ken Egan at Humanities Montana:

Are you a K-12 educator who teaches Western American literature with exceptional skill and commitment? Apply for the inaugural Western Literature Association Educator Award! You can find  application requirements here. The deadline is July 1. Montana teachers rock—let’s share that excellence with the Western Literature Association.

More about the award below, copied from the Western Literature Association Website:

The Western Literature Association and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies are sponsoring three K-12 Teaching Awards that will provide teachers with the opportunity to attend and present at the Western Literature Association Annual Meeting in Reno, Nevada, October 14-17, 2015. Selected teachers will share their lesson plans and teaching strategies at the conference on a K-12 Teaching Panel.

The award will include conference registration, award banquet ticket, and $500 toward conference related costs such as hotel and airfare. Continuing Education credit may be available. Please check with your district’s professional development office.

Required application materials
•  Resume
•  Instructional Plan (K-12, any level)
•  Teaching Statement (how the Instructional Plan contributes to your teaching goals)
•  One letter of support (from principal, administrator, or colleague)

Instructional plans may focus on any author or theme related to the literature of the American West, broadly defined. The following topics and approaches are encouraged:
•  Women writers of the American West
•  American Indian authors
•  Latina/o authors
•  Environmental writing
•  Creative approaches to teaching the “canonical” authors of the American West
•  Interdisciplinary approaches and approaches that integrate visual culture

You'll need to use this instructional plan format and instructional plan rubric when preparing your application materials.

Deadline for submission: July 1, 2015

Please direct all questions and applications to Randi Tanglen.