We talked about Native American experience today in class. This is a photo of Monument Valley, which is a part of the Navajo Nation on the border between Arizona and Utah. Photo taken in 2007.
Hi everyone,
I always love the start of a new unit, and especially one that I am so excited to teach. Today, we began our look at Native Americans in the United States - present issues as well as historical context. Here's what we did today in class:
Learning Targets Addressed:
Behavior LT 3: I can communicate and work effectively within a team or group.
Critical Thinking LT 5: I can justify and support arguments or interpretation with appropriate evidence.
Soundtrack: "Into the Ocean" by Blue October. Selected for today because it is the start of our October together! Lyrics here.
Critical Thinking LT 5: I can justify and support arguments or interpretation with appropriate evidence.
Soundtrack: "Into the Ocean" by Blue October. Selected for today because it is the start of our October together! Lyrics here.
AGENDA 10/7/19:
News Brief - Kadison
Native Oregonians
Cultural Appropriation
Current Issues
We also checked in about the weekend to see if anyone was up to anything interesting or fun outside of class.
Sam was selected to do the next news brief.
As part of the news brief, we also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):
Native Oregonians: To start our work with understanding contemporary Native American issues, I asked students to think of all the casinos they could name in Oregon. Then, I asked students to name all the Native American nations and/or tribes that are from Oregon. The reason I wanted to do this was to try and see what students knew already, and to have students pause to think about this. Next, we went through this PowerPoint together as a class:
Part of this was showing this map of the general areas of native inhabitants of Oregon:
To practice with this, I introduced the class to this online game (which we played last year a lot with countries of the world): Sporcle.com - States Quiz. Please remember that you will need to know where the state is, as well as how to spell the name of the state, for the quiz on Thursday!
To help with this, I passed out a copy of the class roster with names, nicknames, and pictures in a random order. On the quiz on Monday, I will use pictures of students that I took in class - these pictures (and the class roster itself) will not be posted online to protect student confidentiality. If you missed class, you need to pick up a copy of the class roster in person to begin studying. See you next class!
Part of this was showing this map of the general areas of native inhabitants of Oregon:
There are dozens of Native American tribes (60+) in Oregon - this is just a look at some of the major linguistic families.
Cultural Appropriation: As the PowerPoint link indicates, we then talked about the impact of race on Native Americans, as well what the term "cultural appropriation" is and watched a segment that The Daily Show did on the Washington Redskins football team. After this, I had students group up and try to find examples of cultural appropriation of Native Americans in various different categories. This was a lesson that we did last year in the Diversity and Social Justice class that I co-taught, so I was interested in seeing it with this class, too.
This is the worksheet I passed out in class:
Current Issues: Finally, to end class, we watched the first part of the episode of the TV documentary series "30 Days" that was titled "30 Days on an Indian Reservation" and noted (as linked to above) current issues that were brought up that Native Americans are facing in the episode, as well as evidence. We will finish this and talk more about this next class!
Please remember that your states and names quiz is next class, on Thursday! Here is a map to practice with, if you want:
To practice with this, I introduced the class to this online game (which we played last year a lot with countries of the world): Sporcle.com - States Quiz. Please remember that you will need to know where the state is, as well as how to spell the name of the state, for the quiz on Thursday!
To help with this, I passed out a copy of the class roster with names, nicknames, and pictures in a random order. On the quiz on Monday, I will use pictures of students that I took in class - these pictures (and the class roster itself) will not be posted online to protect student confidentiality. If you missed class, you need to pick up a copy of the class roster in person to begin studying. See you next class!
