Safety Patrol Schedule
“Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad.
From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”
—Chief Joseph, surrender at Bear Paw, 1877
What does it mean to belong to a culture? How do a culture’s beliefs and values guide the actions of its people, both as individuals and collectively? What happens when cultures with very different beliefs and values come into conflict?
Students are coming of age in a world made up of increasingly diverse and conflicting cultures. They will repeatedly return to these questions as they navigate their own place among others in our complex cultural landscape. This module gives fifth-grade students the opportunity to ask these universal questions in the context of one of America’s most heartbreaking and tumultuous eras as they explore the devastating impact of U.S. territorial growth through the eyes of one Native American tribe, the Nez Perce.
The module begins with a close study of informational texts designed to build foundational knowledge about U.S. westward expansion: the impact it had on the vibrant, well-ordered Native American societies that existed in the western United States for millennia before European Americans arrived and the idea that many Americans considered westward expansion their “manifest destiny.” Students begin their study of one culture, the Nez Perce, at its heart: with the traditional stories—including an animated oral retelling—that root the Nez Perce people firmly in their homeland and trace their origin to the “heart of the monster.” Research into different aspects of traditional Nez Perce culture deepens students’ understanding of the profound significance of the Nez Perce’s homeland and environment—and how it shaped and sustained traditional culture and ways of life. It is with this understanding that students can begin to fathom the profound losses that native cultures, like the Nez Perce, suffered at the hands of the U.S. government.
The historical novel Thunder Rolling in the Mountains by Newbery medalist Scott O’Dell and Elizabeth Hall spotlights the conflict between the U.S. government and the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce after the tribe resisted forced removal from their ancestral lands. The tribe’s fate is recounted through the poignant voice of Sound of Running Feet, daughter of Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph. This perspective illuminates facets of everyday Nez Perce culture and allows readers to witness this pivotal historical moment through the eyes of a young character whose life is significantly different from their own. Perhaps most important, the novel’s unique perspective allows readers to understand Chief Joseph as a respected father, a man of deep values, and a leader who faced impossible decisions about his tribe’s fate. Thorough research—including eyewitness accounts, recollections from Nez Perce survivors, and the authors’ own travels of the trail—lends authenticity to this tragic, moving story.
Anchoring the module is Chief Joseph’s iconic “Lincoln Hall Speech” to members of Congress in 1879, in which he makes his case for his people to return to their homeland in the Wallowa Valley. In eloquent, straightforward language enhanced by repetition and metaphor, Chief Joseph constructs his plea for justice and equality for the Nez Perce people. His feelings of loss, confusion, and anger over the deliberate destruction of his people and their ways of life are palpable in his words. Chief Joseph’s speech leaves a deep and lasting impression, reminding audiences of the immeasurable losses suffered by Native American cultures in the name of American expansion.
Throughout the module—as students build knowledge of American westward expansion, learn about Nez Perce culture, and study the conflict between the Nez Perce and the U.S. government—they return over and over to the Module’s Essential Question, “How do cultural beliefs and values guide people?” For their End-of-Module (EOM) Task, students apply this question to Chief Joseph’s “Lincoln Hall Speech” to write an informative essay explaining how Chief Joseph conveys core Nez Perce beliefs and values in his “Lincoln Hall Speech.”
2023-2024