Education Standards
Activity 4: Analyzing Attitudes Toward Native Americans in Historic Newspapers
Activity 5 Writing Rubric
Answer Key-Activity 4
Before and After Photo Information Cards
Book Recommendations
Native-American-Literature-in-Your-Classroom-Worksheet
Quotes from Boarding School Survivors
Using Primary Sources to Determine the Effects of Native American Boarding Schools
Overview
This unit of study consisits of 5 activities to investigate the effects of Native American Boarding Schools on the individual, the family, and the community. Students will analyze before and after pictures of indigenous students, primary source comments given by boarding school survivors, and historic newspapers to asertain attitudes towards Native Americans during this time period. Middle school students will conclude with a short writing assignment. Secondary students will prepare an essay that relates the attitudes of the time to the practices in Native American Boarding Schools. This is an emotionally difficult subject and special care should be taken if you have Native students in your classrooms, as this topic is traumatic for families who have survived this experience. See Multicultural Considerations before beginning.
Using Primary Sources to Determine the Effects of Native American Boarding Schools
Assessment of Student Learning Learning will be assessed by both formal and informal strategies including: teacher observation of small group and whole class work, reviewing group results of the photo analyses, oral reporting on attitudes expressed in newspaper articles, an exit ticket, and a written essay. |
Student Learning Accommodations & Modifications In addition to modifying the amount of material to be included in the written essay, you might provide more scaffolding to students who need additional help by being more explicit in what you ask them to report and giving examples, by modeling each of the expectations, including how to do the activators (the Wave, and the Gallery Walk) or using any of the short videos recommended. For advanced students you may wish to extend the topic by adding an examination of the loss of Indian lands through several of the key policies (Indian Removal Act, Indian Appropriation Acts, the establishment of reservations, the Dawes Act, etc.) as well as informal dishonest practices that resulted in land loss for Native Americans. Lessons related to this topic can be found here: American Indian Removal: What Does it Mean to Remove a People?, Removing Native Americans from their Land, or The Impact of Westward Expansion on Native American Communities. |
Multicultural Considerations If you have indigenous students in your classroom, you need to be sensitive to their feelings, as they may have had grandparents who were in residential schools and have experienced the resulting trauma in their family or community. In fact, it might be wise to seek parental permission with Native families before Activity 4. It is especially important not to put any Native American students on the spot by asking them direct questions or expecting them to “represent” all indigenous people. |
Entry Activity 1: Whole Group Discussion Tell students you have a mystery for them to solve. Project the image of the group of people (Link 1 above) so the entire class can see it. Ask students to respond aloud to the questions given below. You might try the popcorn technique in which students call out their responses. If two or more begin talking at once, they need to look at each other and determine who should speak. This is done silently. Record their answers on a large sheet of paper, whiteboard, or blackboard or you can ask a student to record for you. 1. Who are these people? 2. When do you think this picture was taken? Why do you think that? (students may mention, clothes, hairstyles, etc. 3. Why do you think the picture was taken? |
Activity 2: Small Group Photo Analysis
Go to link 2 above to download and then print the sets of before and after photos for:
Tom Torlino, Navajo (1882, 1885)
Four Pueblo Children, Zuni (1880)
Navajo Students, Navajo (1882, 1882)
White Buffalo, Cheyenne (1881, 1882)
Three Children, (Wounded Yellow Robe, Timber Yellow Robe, Henry Standing Bear), Sioux (1883)
Chicarilla Apache Students, Apache (1886, 1887)
Rose White Thunder, Sioux (1883, 1885)* Second Link
(Please note that Rose White Thunder’s photos are at a different source)
Assemble enough packets for the small groups containing:
a set of matched photos
two photo analysis sheets (link 6)
a Venn diagram template (access for free online or you may have student groups draw their own)
Each photo should have an analysis sheet paperclipped on top so the photos can’t be seen. Assemble in this order: analysis sheet, photo 1, paperclipped together; analysis sheet 2, photo 2, also paper clipped together; Venn diagram, loose. Place each set in a file folder or manila envelope and number them. Keep a list for yourself of the numbers and corresponding individual(s) name.
Divide students into small groups of 4-5 and give each group one packet. Instruct students to only remove one photo and analysis sheet and not to look at the other materials. Students should talk quietly as they complete the analysis sheet, and not share their responses with the whole class (because they don’t want their classmates to solve the mystery before they do.) When they have completed the first photo, have them set it aside and remove the 2nd photo. Repeat the same process.
Finally, have them lay the two photos side by side to compare and contrast. Make sure they understand how to use the Venn diagram with observations specific to one photo in one of the circles and the other photo in the second circle. Commonalities between the two photos are written in the intersection of the two circles. Some students may figure out that the photos are of the same person.
You might ask them to consider the following questions:
What are the similarities?
What are the differences?
Is there any relationship between the photographs? What evidence do you have?
What do these photos suggest to you?
After they have completed both sets of photos, ask one member from each group to return the packet of photos, completed analysis sheets and Venn diagram to you and give them the corresponding information card found in the Teacher’s Guide containing the name and date the picture was taken. Engage students in class discussion about the results of their analyses. Did they figure out that they were the same person? If so, at what point? Ask them to speculate about why they think these pictures were taken. NOTE: There still has not been any mention of boarding schools.
Students should write their ideas on an exit slip about who these people are and why these photos were taken.
| Activity 4: Small Group Primary Source Newspaper Analysis (This lesson may take two class periods) Tape 5 large sheets of paper in various places in your classroom. Divide the class into 5 small groups by having the students count off 1-5, and then repeat the process until everyone has a number. Instruct each group where to sit. Also make sure that you have numbered each of the large pieces of paper 1-5 that you have taped around the room. Each group will need a computer to view the newspaper articles online so they can enlarge the text. Each group should appoint a recorder, a reader, and a reporter. The reader will find the newspapers at the Library of Congress (LOC) website, using Link 3 above. The Indian Helper newsletter is at a different location (Link 4). The reader will quietly read the newspaper article to the group. As the article is being read aloud, all members of the group should listen for attitudes expressed about Native Americans. Using the newspaper analysis sheet, the recorder will write down responses of group members. First they will find text that expresses the writer’s attitudes at that time towards Native Americans. Then they will use a word or very short phrase to summarize the attitude expressed in each text segment. Finally, they will decide whether the attitude is positive, neutral or negative and check the column that represents the group’s opinion. For example, in the title, “Uncle Sam’s Indian Wards,” the word ‘wards’ might be summarized as “helpless” or “dependent,” which is a negative attitude. Possible responses for each newspaper are included in the Teacher’s Guide. Some of the excerpts may express more than one attitude. Uncle Sam’s Indian Wards (1916)
As students complete the activity, the reporter will write on the large sheet of paper actual words from the article used to describe Native Americans. When everyone is done, use a gallery walk so students can see the results from each newspaper. Instruct them to take notes as they view each group’s results. Then lead a class discussion: What did you notice?
To conclude this part of the activity you might like to show one of the short video clips below: Zitkala-Sa, Advocate for the Rights of Native People American Indians: loss of land to the United States Leave the large sheets posted so students may refer to them when they are pre-planning their essay described in the next section. To extend this topic, see Native Cultures Were Highly Advanced Before European Contact in The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian (#9), Deconstructing Stereotypes: Top Ten Truths. |
| Conclusion Activity 5: Essay Students will write an individual essay summarizing knowledge they have gained from these activities. Middle school students, who probably haven’t done as much writing as older students, can write a paragraph summarizing one of the three topics: 1) Leaving Home and First Experiences, 2) Discipline at the Schools, and (3) Impacts in Later Life from Boarding School. Make sure to provide written feedback and give students time to revise their essay based on your feedback before submitting their final copy. Provide any guidelines you wish the students to use in their writing (eg., a topic sentence, at least three examples, perhaps a student response to the examples and a summary sentence). For students with more writing experience, you might have them write a paragraph about all three of these topics, adding the use of a sentence to connect each topic to the next one. Older students (grades 9-12) can analyze the relationship between the newspaper articles and the boarding school experiences. The attitudes expressed in the news articles taken together provide a picture of how negatively Native Americans were viewed in relation to white European standards of living. Using this information, students will connect these attitudes to what occurred in the Boarding Schools. A Pre-Writing Worksheet is provided for students to help plan their essays. In addition to the large sheets posted about each newspaper article, you might want to post all of the boarding school quotes or have several copies in the classroom for students to refer to. Although they were asked to take notes, the notes may not be sufficient to write the essay. Ensure that the students have a copy of the rubric you will be using to score their essays; a sample rubric is included in the Teachers’ Guide. |
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