An effective way to show students the relevance and
connection to a fictional work, is to have them research places & events
that show up in the text. It may be more manageable for both the teacher and
students to do a first projects like this in groups. If you are looking into
subjects of local relevance, students won’t be able to rely on a quick internet
search, or find someone else’s writing on the same subject to turn in. (But if
you continue the work for a few years and make it available to other
researchers, students may soon discover that the “experts” on their topics, and
those who have written, researched, and published the most are the students a
few years older than themselves!)
Doing local research gives you the opportunity to show
students how to visit a site and take field notes or use primary sources like
newspaper archives, library archives, or possibly even interview transcripts
from earlier classes. Much of the most important knowledge a local community possesses
has not yet been recorded anywhere. If you have students conduct an interview
while they are doing their research they will not only learn to utilize the
historical record, they will become a part of creating it.
If students do this original resource around a Native
American text and then share their work with each other, you can easily address
all of the state’s essential understandings of
Example
research options for Wind From an Enemy
Sky
·
Dawes Act/ allotment & the effects on
Flathead Reservation
·
·
Construction of Kerr Dam
·
Homesteading and/or the opening of Flathead
Reservation in 1910
·
Development/Evolution of BIA on the
reservation
·
Tribal Law—jurisdiction
*many of these sites would be good for possible learning
expeditions/ field work as well (Kerr Dam, St. Ignatius Mission -- the site of
Ursuline Boarding school--, tribal complex -- many options depending on
research focus, Salish Kootenai College library in Pablo)