American Studies

Week 7

Dear Families,

Today in class, after reviewing our favorite parts from the book on Champlain and the saints of last week, we used St. Kateri as a starting point to study two of the largest Indian nations in the New World. St. Kateri's mother was an Algonquin and her father was a Mohawk (an Iroquois). The Algonquins were nomadic, they were hunters who traveled in small groups. They had a huge territory by right of hunting, but they were very spread out. They did not have any really unity outside of the small groups that traveled together. They tried establishing any sort of government or attempted to settle down in larger communities and learn farming. They believed in "a High God",  but they had no rule of life and used their trust in the "High God" to be lazy in a certain respect. Their world view was not a very joyous or hopeful one. The Algonquins were known for their impassivity and stoic-ness. Furthermore as time went on, the religion of the Algonquins was corrupted by their "medicine men."    

On the other hand, the Iroquois were a agricultural nation. They were known as the 5 tribes nation. Because they were farmers they had less territory, but their population was much denser. Their empire was much more unified. They had a capital city and would hold a council of the nations each year. Everything had to be agreed upon by the different tribes unanimously. Interestingly, the Iroquois were also matri-linear. They received their honor and name through the women.  When a man got married, he would leave his family and go live with his wife's. This was partially because the Iroquois held agriculture in great esteem and the women were generally the ones who tended to the care of the land, while the men hunted and defended the land. The Iroquois were also great orators, they were known for their wonderful speeches and powers of persuasion. They were, however, known as one of the cruelest Indian nations and after a time they became extremely warlike. As they became successful warriors, however, their society and empire declined swiftly. 

After discussing these two Indian tribes, we identified the great lakes and highlighted them on a map along with the provinces of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador.

For homework this week, the students should assemble the research they did last week, make a poster, and write a paragraph for their presentation. I have attached a worksheet here that has all the details. I would also like for the students to label and memorize on the attached map the location of the five great lakes, Quebec (the province), Ontario, Newfoundland, Labrador, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence river.  (We will have a little quiz on these in a couple weeks--I will use the same numbering as on the map.) Those who wish to can also read pages 36-40 of the supplement and color pages 4, 5, and 15 in the Indian Tribes coloring book. 

God Bless,

Miss Russell

Week 6

Dear Families,

Apologies for the tardiness of this post! On Wednesday, Miss Korkes subbed for me. She explored the missionary heroes and saints of New France. The class learned about the Jesuits and their work with the Indians. Parts of St. Jean de Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues' lives in New France among the Indians were recounted highlighting the fact that the bravery of these priests in their martyrdom was the impetuous for the conversion of some of the savage Mohawks. The blood of the martyrs is indeed the seed of the faith! 10 years after St. Isaac's death, in the village he was killed in an Indian girl was born. Her name was Kateri!

In Quebec another sort of missionary work was going on. Champlain has persuaded Cardinal Richelieu that he should support the colonies. So he offered rewards to those who would go and settle in the colonies of New France. Girls from poor families were offered dowries to go and marry the colonists. Those who had large families in the colonies were also given monetary rewards. Mere Marie, now known as St. Marie of the Incarnation, an Ursuline nun sailed to Quebec with two companions in 1639. Her original task was to help care for and educate the "king's girls"--the girls who accepted dowries and sailed to the colonies to marry. She ended up caring for the sick and founding a school for girls in Quebec as well as Indian girls. She was so well loved and respected that even some of the Mohawk Indians sent their daughters to her school. 

In 1659, 20 years after Mere Marie arrived(!), the 1st bishop of New France arrived. It was St. Francis Xavier Laval. He was known for his simple and austere way of life, his charity, and his love for his flock. He would get up and say the 4:30 am Mass every morning. He gave away the majority of his salary to the poor. He only ate two frugal meals a day and did the most menial tasks for others. He also worked with the governor of Quebec to ensure that the laws of the colony reflected the laws of God. During his time as bishop he founded a seminary, a highschool, a technical school, and an agricultural school!

During the geography portion of class we talked about the fur trade in Canada as well as the Indians view of nature. We noted that the Indians had a great respect for nature and viewed animals as great spirits, equal to men. Thus they would ask for an animal's permission before killing it and would burn its bones out of respect etc. We contrasted this with the Christian idea that man has dominion over nature, but that he is also supposed to be a good steward of it.

Over the next two weeks, I am going to have the students do some research and then present it to the class. Attached is a sheet outlining the project. There are suggested areas of research, but students are also welcome to think of another topic and ask me about presenting on that instead. This week please determine which topic you would like to research and go to the library to pull out a book or two on that topic. 

For homework please also read pages 31-35 of the supplement and color page 26 of Colonial life. The Sea to Shining Sea reading for those who are interested is page 75-81. The students can also either start the book on George Washington or one of the optional recommended books. Those who are confident readers may enjoy Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather. 

God Bless,

Miss Russell

Research Project Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PF792wp2ySDYg6adf45LC0_Hwvsjfw3m/view?usp=sharing 

Week 5

Dear Families,

Yesterday, we moved into France's role in the New World. The image for the French was explorers in a canoe. We compared this to the Spanish image of the soldier on the horse and noted that the French were peacemakers, while the Spanish were warriors in the New World. The motives of the King of France, however, were not as noble as those of the Spanish Kings and Queens. The French King, at first anyway, was solely interested in material gain, he did not care about the spreading of the Catholic Faith and the souls of the Indians. Luckily the first explorers who came to "New France" were godly men who loved their faith. 

The first explorer sent by the King of France was Verrazzano, an Italian. The king wished for him to find a Northwest passage to the Indies. Verrazzano sailed from North Carolina to Newfoundland along the coast and then had to turn back for the winter. He made lots of helpful maps that would be useful to further explorers, but otherwise nothing much came of those voyage as the king had been taken captive in war during his absence. 

A few years later, however, as the king was making a pilgrimage to Mont St. Micheal, in gratitude for his release, he ran into a man named Jacques Cartier. Cartier begged that the king would send him to the New World to explore and continue looking for a Northwest passage. The abbot of the monastery highly recommended Cartier to the king and so he agreed. Cartier made three voyages and his explorations allowed France to lay claim to Canada. During his 1st voyage he discovered a large gulf on the feast of St. Lawrence, he accordingly named it after the saint. On his next voyage he sailed up the broad river that emptied into the Gulf if St. Lawrence, the St. Lawrence river. While sailing up the river he passed a cliff which would become the citadel of Quebec and further up he passed a large hill, which he called "Mount Royal," now Montreal. On his third voyage Cartier tried to establish a settlement, but over half of those who came along (convicts given the choice between settlement or death) died during the harsh winter and the survivors refused to stay the following spring. Cartier was unsuccessful in finding a passage and establishing a settlement, but he had paved the way for Samuel Champlain who would start the first permanent settlement at Quebec 75 years later. Cartier also modeled a peaceful and loving way of dealing with the Indians that those after him would follow. He was very friendly with the majority of the Indian tribes, who actually asked him to pray over their sick. 

Champlain, who is known as the Father of New France made 22 voyages in his lifetime back and forth between the New World and France. He first set sail in 1603. The King had named him the "royal geographer" and he traveled up and down the St. Lawrence river and many others establishing trade with the Indians, looking for good places to establish settlements, writing descriptions of the country and its inhabitants and drawing maps to send back to France and the king. Champlain was the 1st man to explore and map the great lakes! As mentioned Champlain also help found the first permanent settlements in New France, the chiefest of which was Quebec. Champlain like Cartier was very friendly with the Indians and treated them with great respect. The only tribes he had trouble with were the Iroquois, who would become mortal enemies to the French.    

During our geography portion of class we reviewed places we had discussed in past weeks and learned new definitions for River and Gulf. We also talked about the importance of rivers and lakes in the voyages of the French explorers as well as the Canoe. 

We ended class with a review game that went quite well. Team 2 came out as the winners, but I was very pleased with how much everyone remembered. Pizzaro and De Soto are the two conquistadors who could use some flash card review. ;) Also Balboa...

Homework for next class is to complete the worksheet I handed out in class. It is also attached here. The students should also finish off the Champlain book for our class after break and their week 5 grammar pages. If there is time read French Explorers, Trees, and Canadian Pioneers in the American Supplement and color Page 27 of Exploration of North America. Optional reading in From Sea to Shining Sea is pages 69 to 75. I have also​​ attached a short video on the importance of the canoe below for those who are interested.  The Birchbark Canoe.mp4

For extra credit students can make an origami canoe (other mediums also welcome) and bring it into class on October 29th. I will be away on October 22nd so there will be a substitute teacher that Wednesday.

Have a lovely Break!

God Bless,

Miss Russell

Week 4

Dear Families,

Yesterday, a few of the guys read their narrative paragraphs aloud for us, which was lots of fun! I look forward to being able to read them all. If you didn't have your paragraph with you yesterday, you can turn it in next Wednesday.

In class, we covered Saints of South America. St. Jose de Anchieta is known as “the apostle of Brazil.” He was a Jesuit priest who was sent to Brazil after an accident caused his back to dislocate and become an “s” as the doctors thought the climate would be good for his health. Despite this terrible injury St. Jose spent 44 years teaching the Indians, establishing peace, founding communities (he was involved with the founding of both Sao Paulo and Rio de Janero), writing plays and literature, walking everywhere and working tirelessly to bring all to Christ. He wrote so extensively that he is known as the father of Brazilian literature.

In Peru there were 4 great saints who combated the seeds of evil and distrust that had been sown by Pizarro’s greed. St. Rose of Lima and St. Martin de Porres offered their lives in sacrifice to bring unity to the peoples living together in Lima. Thanks to their prayers and penances the relations between the Indians, Spaniards, and Africans (who were brought as slaves) were eased. St. Turibius the bishop of Lima also worked tirelessly to bring peace and the love of Christ to all within his diocese of Peru. His diocese was over 170.000 square miles and he is said to have traversed it three times caring for his flock! It is also estimated that he baptized half a million people—an average of 55 a day!

St. Francis Solano also was a missionary in Peru, but he wished to convert the most barbaric of the Indian tribes. They were so fierce that no European had made it out of their territory alive. St. Francis marched in with his violin, however, and won the Indians over. (Ask your students the story of the violin :)

We didn't have time to cover St Peter Claver’s work in Colombia, but he is another very neat saint to know about from this period.

During the 17th and 18th century the Jesuits started “Reductions” in Brazil and Paraguay (which included at this time Uruguay and Argentina). These were communities that were similar to the Franciscan Missions. They tended, however, to be just for the Indians. One of the goals was to separate the Indians from the Europeans to shield them from the bad morals they had fallen into without civilization and to protect the Indians from being enslaved. The Indians were taught the faith and special skills at the Reductions just as at the Missions.

Homework:

I gave the students a handout in class which they should complete at home this week along with their grammar. They were also given a map of South America, a couple weeks ago, on which they should identify and then memorize the countries in South America we covered yesterday (Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina) The students also need to really get under way with reading the Champlain book as we will be discussing it the week after break.

Student are welcome to color Pages 6-7, 16-17, 18 in Exploration of North America and Page 4,40 in Life in Colonial America.

From Sea to Shining Sea does not cover these South American saints, but students can read pages 24-26 of the American Studies Supplement.  And I would certainly encourage them to look up their lives in a “stories of the saints” book.

God Bless,

Miss Russell

Week 3

Dear Families,

Today, we started to cover the conquest of Faith in the New World. Last week we had discussed Cortes and Pizarro conquering the Aztec and Inca Empires. In today's class we covered Our Lady's role as "La Conquistadora" of the Catholic Faith. While Cortes was intensely concerned with bringing the Faith to the Aztecs and sent for Franciscan missionaries as soon as he conquered Mexico City, the success of the Franciscans was only moderate. Because not all of the Spanish treated the Aztecs well, but some instead took advantage of them, many of the Aztecs were distrustful of the Spanish religion and thought they were unloved by the "God" of the Spaniards. That all changed with the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531. After Our Lady appeared as an Aztec Princess, 9 million Aztecs entered the church in 8 years!

Having gone through the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her influence, we learned about Fr. Juan de Padilla who was the first Franciscan martyr. He traveled with Coronado through the southwest of the US. When Coronado returned he stayed behind to minister to the Indians with whom he had success. After awhile he decided to travel into Kansas to convert the Indians there and was killed by these Indians who were unfriendly to the tribes Fr. Juan had been working with.

I had wanted to cover St. Junipero Serra, but we didn't have the time so we will pick up with him next class. (There was art and architecture today. Dr. Russell talked about Baroque art and architecture and the ways it differed from Renaissance art.)

As we went through class, I had the students make flashcards with the main fact about (some of this was review): Hernan Cortes, Vasco de Balboa, Ponce de Leon, Francisco Pizzaro, Francisco Coronado and 1531--appearance of Our Lady.

We also discussed the narrative paragraph and what the students have come up with so far. I asked them this week to circle all their verbs in the paragraph and to try and make sure they are using strong verbs. (We used "run" as an example of a weaker verb instead use "sprint" or "jog." Instead of talking about walking up a mountain, say "hike" or "climb") The second thing I asked them to focus on was capitalization. If anyone needs more ideas for content, I have pasted a list of questions below that may help. 

For homework, the students should write a final draft of their paragraph and complete week 3 of grammar. They should also fill out this handout by coloring in the states that De Soto and Coronado visited and tracing their routes as seen on the example map. (I'm sorry I forgot to print the handout so the students do not have hardcopies of it.) Please also read "Soldiers and Saints" which is found on pages 10-12 of the American Studies Supplement. Families who wish to go into further detail may also find it helpful to read pages 49-67 in From Sea to Shining Sea.    

God Bless,

Miss Russell

Possible Questions for Narrative:

Who are you?

What do you think of your general?

Why are you on this expedition?

What happens to you and your fellow soldiers?

Where did you land?

Where do you go to?

Week 2

Dear Families,

We had another excellent class yesterday! I was very pleased with how much the students had retained from last week and how excited they are were to participate. 

The focus of today's class was Spanish expansion in New Spain with particular emphasis on Cortes and the conquest of the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs and "American Indians" were briefly contrasted and the Aztec society and its bloodthirsty gods were discussed before we moved into an account of Cortes campaign. Cortes' great faith was discussed and compared with Columbus'. Both men had a great devotion to Mary (Cortes' banner was an image of Mary) and a desire to spread the faith. Cortes' task was more difficult in a sense though as he had to overcome the religion of the demon gods of the Aztecs before he was able to spread the faith. 

Francisco Pizarro and his conquest of the Inca empire was also covered. We noted that Pizarro was unfortunately a greedy man whose sole motive seems to have been material gain. This resulted in bad treatment of the Incas and consequently a bad relationship for at least a time between the Incas and the Spanish. It was noted that throughout New Spain that there was a mixture of good men such as Cortes and Columbus who truly cared about the faith and the natives and men who were only out for personal gain or glory who tended to see the natives as useful only as a means of gain.  

The explorations of Ponce de Leon--Florida-- and Vasco de Balboa--1st European to see Pacific-- were also briefly touched upon. (We didn’t get to Ferdinand de Soto, and Francisco Coronado so we will touch on them next class)  As we were going through these Conquistadors, we sketched an approximation of their advances on a blank map in order to see just how much of North and South America the Spanish controlled at one time. Around this time period they controlled almost all of South America, Central America, and about half of what is now the United States!

At the end of class, we talked briefly about the students assignment for next class which is to write a rough draft of a narrative paragraph from the perspective of one of Cortes' soldiers. The narrative could describe the shock of the soldier at the differences between the Aztecs and the Spanish. Or it could focus more on the battle for Mexico city etc. It should be a paragraph long. The most important part of this week’s assignment is to brainstorm ideas for your paragraph—try and identify a few concrete details to base the paragraph on. Even if you just have the details to hand in rather than an entire rough draft of the paragraph that is great.  

Homework:

Write Rough Draft of Narrative Paragraph

Read pages 16-23 in the American Studies Supplement

Complete the week 2 grammar

Color in page 9 from The Exploration of North America coloring book.

Challenge: read pages 25-36 of From Sea to Shining Sea.  

God Bless,

Miss Russell

P.S. Next class could you please send your students with some flashcards? Rather than simply having the students write notes, I'd like to have them write them down on flashcards that can be used for studying. 

Week 1

Dear Families,

It was an absolute delight to be back and have your children today! I am very much looking forward to teaching them all this year. 

We started class by identifying what we generally think of as American History and then talked about how there are actually three nations who play a pivotal role in the history of America. From there we dove straight into the first nation, Spain, and how she became involved through Christopher Columbus and his quest for an easier route to the Indies. We discussed Columbus' faith and great devotion to Mary and his motivations for trying to find another way to the Indies. 

Towards the end of class we learned about the navigational advances of the time that made Columbus' voyage possible, the excitement and drive of the age to sail further away making new discoveries, and the different reasons that inspired these navigators. We discussed in particular Portugal's efforts to sail around Africa to get to the Indies. 

For homework this week the students should complete the worksheet given and read the poems linked here. (These poems can also be found on pages 13 and 27 of the American Studies Supplement.) They can also complete the geography sheet/word-search I handed out in class as challenge work. (Completing challenge work is optional)  Students may also benefit from reading pages 13-21 in From Sea to Shining Sea. For grammar, students can complete the suggested week one assignment which is outlined on the grammar syllabus posted above.

God Bless,

Miss Russell

P.S. I also handed out the Salve Regina which we will be singing as our opening prayer so I am attaching a video for reference. We will be learning this piece over the next couple weeks.