Today’s students more than ever before need a comprehensive understanding of the world, and of many cultures that have developed ideas, institutions, and ways of life. Students can gain appreciation both of he world’s many cultures and their shared humanity and common problems.
Unit Guide with Primary Resources
Bering Strait/Origin Stories
When teaching about how people came to North America, address multiple perspectives by including tribally specific origin stories. The PDF file below is a compilation of authentic texts, including Crow, Blackfeet and Salish explanations of how they came to be here.
In school libraries, you can find the DVDs pictured below with Crow and Northern Cheyenne elders telling their creation and origin stories.
origin_stories.pdf
Iroquois Contributions
iroquois_influence_on_american_democracy.docxInclude a "what if scenario" during the constitutional convention to include the Iroquois Confederacy. This link will take you to the OPI LESSON ON IROQUOIS CONTRIBUTIONS, and below is a student worksheet you could use.
To the right is a worksheet that you might find helpful.
Include information about how the civil war impacted rations to American Indians on reservations. Discuss and explore the Sioux uprising in Minnesota and the pardoning by President Lincoln.
Have the students build an illustrated timeline for each tribe in Montana and post it on your wall. Then add major Indian Policies and historical events as they fit into this tiered timeline i.e., Indian Removal Act, Treaties, Trail of Tears. See Montana Tribal History Timelines for each tribe and more information on this activity.
Break apart a treaty as a way to teach students to look at and interpret primary source documents. See Montana Tribal Histories: Educator Resource Guide for an example of the Hellgate Treaty breakdown and a template for evaluating these types of documents.