Friday, July 25, 2008

BLOG ASSIGNMENT # 1

Choose a topic/session/experience at the summer institute that struck you as something you can use in the classroom and why.

Please post your topic (just one or two lines) by August 15.

People may share ideas/responses with one another on line.

By September 15 you must post a more detailed reflection (0ne or two paragraphs). Again, people are encouraged to give one another feedback/ideas online.

Be prepared to discuss your ideas in the form of a “teach back” when we get together in October.

You don't need to present a formal lesson plan, but you must be prepared to give a good 5-8 minute overview of how you would construct your lesson and what materials/sources you would use, where you would get them, etc.

5 comments:

  1. I'm planning to work on questions of "identity"--who people say they are, who others say they are, and how identity changes over time.

    John Daly

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  2. I plan to focus on how native americans and african americans interacted and intermarried and the impact that had on the indian identity and land rights.

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  3. I would like to look at how different groups experiences differ based on geography, specifically Martha's Vineyard natives.

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  4. I would like to explore the differing views that settlers had of Native Americans in the New England area. I want to tie this in with a novel study of "The Courage of Sara Noble" with my 4th grade students.

    Nora Werme

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  5. Because I am nearly transfixed by the thought provoking lectures and the rich content, it will take at least one more course of this type before I feel remotely competent to synthesize my thinking (wrap my head around it).
    It is puzzling for me to reflect and apply rational, logical, reasonable, or sympathetic conclusions to this part of American history, the inane human ability to manipulate and dispossess other human beings for the despondent desire for power and control over other human beings.
    But I would like to begin considering an analogy that others have made. Which is applicable to the frameworks of a lesson that recognizes the achievements of Native Americans, and that is the similarity between the social-political organization of Native American Confederations and the social-political organization of American States (USA)., A primary source material example could be the Samuel Occum and Brotherton Indians (8/17/08 session), establishment of a reservation to provide a secure place for nurturing, maintaining and preserving cultural identity. The example of the Iroquois League, http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CULAMRCA/IRLEAGUE.HTM, supports this point of view,
    “Many Native American tribes or nations formed loose defensive confederations which held together briefly or for a long time. The Iroquois, a confederation of first five and then six Native American nations in the northeastern United States, however, formed what was an anomalous confederation that would form much of the basis for the American invention of government. This was a powerful confederation of sovereign nations held together by a constitution that based itself on the structure of the confederation and its decision-making apparatus rather than on the charisma or power of individuals. This would then become the model that the framers of the Consitution would turn to in designing a nation that was, in theory, a set of sovereign nations: the United States.”

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