|
Paintings and Drawings by Karl Bodmer,
Holiday House, 1992
Summary: Place an observant German prince and a talented Swiss artist among the Mandan Indians of North Dakota during the winter of 1833. Give the resultant eyewitness accounts and paintings to an author skilled in balancing authentic visuals with historical text. The result -a factual, sensitive, human account of a lost culture that is part of our heritage. [An added appeal - the original materials had been lost to the world - but rediscovered in Germany after the second World War.]
Level: RL: 6 IL: 6 - adult
Themes :
North American Indian culture - Mandan and Hidatsa
Primary research resources
* = "Time to check with your teacher or librarian"
Activities:
1. Read the condensed version of a Hidatsa romance on page 44. Rewrite and expand this story, enriching it with suitable information on the following topics.* [Be able to identify where in Indian Winter or elsewhere this information was found.] Now add your story to the Hidatsa Romance Collection in the library. Choose another student-written story from the collection and write a comparison with your story. What could you two authors learn from each other?*
2. Describe in writing what you can find out about the tame bears or about dogs in Indian Winter. Now follow the steps in Appendix 1 -Hypercard Assessment Tool - to design a focused inquiry, production, and presentation of a hypercard or Hyperstudio stack. Begin with a web. Use the right hand side of the assessment tool to keep track of your progress. Your supervising teacher will periodically scan your tracking sheet and/or conference with you about your accomplishments. Be sure you use two columns: one for parts that you have finished and feel you have done well, one for comments about work in progress.
3. With a group design a pamphlet, a Self-Guided Tour of the Mandan Village at Fort Clark. Include in it, among other topics of your choice, "Seasonal Activities of the Mandans", an earthlodge design and description, and a map.
4. Write, in the first person, a day in the life of a Mandan or Hidatsa boy or girl. Include how you would be dressed, your home and your food, your work and your play. Include in your writing some of your character's memories, one that is pleasant and one that is sad. Also include some of your character's thoughts about his/her future. Verify the facts in your story by placing page numbers from An Indian Winter after the facts in (parentheses). Conference with your librarian or teacher and then add your work to the story collection Lives of Hidatsa and Mandan Children. [This project could also be produced as a Hypercard Stack.]
5. In a group, analyze a few Eyewitness books by Knopf publishers to discover how they are structured. Look at single pages to see how the designers relate each part of a page to the rest of the page, and how they relate pictures to text. Note how simple or complex the text is. Write a how-to for creating an Eyewitness page.* Now ask for your school's Mandan Eyewitness Book and choose a topic not covered already and plan a doublespread page as well as a title for the table of contents.* Complete your page and assemble within the school book. Write a group evaluation of your research and the creation of your product. What was hard, what was easy? In which skills was your group strong? Weak? How did you decide to divide your work? What suggestions would you give yourselves to improve your work if you had a similar assignment?*
6. Before you read the book, write to the five addresses listed in "Places to Visit" on pages 82 and 83, requesting supplementary material. [If your library already has these materials on hand, skip this step.] After you have read Indian Winter, compare the supplementary materials with the book. Cite three items of information about the Mandans or Hidatsas that are not covered in the book. How important are they? Where would they fit if Freedman had included them in his book? Conference with your teacher or librarian. (Be sure you can justify the "where.")
7. Before you read An Indian Winter, examine the cover and write five questions about the book based on the cover. Keep those questions nearby as you read the book, and fill in information that provides answers as you discover it. One question could be, "Why are these Indians traveling in such hostile weather?" At the end of your reading, write a compilation of the information you gathered because of the cover. Examine the cover again in light of any questions that weren't answered in the book. Do you think this turned out to be a good cover for the book? Why? Design an alternative cover for the book based on your own experience with the text. Create an overhead transparency using your cover, a copy machine, and a transparency sheet. Present your cover to the class and ask them to write five questions based on your cover. Collect and analyze the questions in relation to your cover and in relation to the book's content. Present your findings to the class using the orginal overhead of your cover and others representing statistics from your analysis. 35 points of 100 possible points of your final grade can be guaranteed by having your librarian sign each line of the following chart. [The remaining 65 points of your score will be assessed for aspects of English, Math, Social Studies, Art, and Presentation.]
8. Sign up for a library demonstration about primary and secondary resources. Now write one paragraph describing your understanding of what primary and secondary resources are. After the demonstration, write another paragraph describing how your ideas have been clarified.
a. Read several chapters of Letters from Rifka, taking notes on how information is ensconced in fictional content. [Do not be deceived by the letter format - these are not actual letters but were created to lend a sense of intimacy and reality to a historical novel.] Do the same for Indian Winter noting how primary resource material is identified and used. Compare the two techniques. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each technique as you perceive them in these two books? Are there certain kinds of books that lend themselves more to the presentation of primary resources? - to using secondary resources? Join a panel whose members have completed the same assignment and present your findings to a larger group.
or
b. List up to five primary resources you have used as learning tools. List up to five secondary resources you have used as learning tools. Add what you used them FOR. Pool your lists with others in a group. Categorize the results in a number of ways. Plan and create a group booklet, a hypercard or Hyperstudio stack, or a video that will show other students the different kinds of primary and secondary materials they can use as resources, and what they can use them FOR. Present your product to a pre-selected audience and arrange for your librarian to add a copy to your school library holdings, and, if appropriate, to other public and school libraries. [See Appendix 1 for Hypercard Assessment Tool]
or
c. Collect a number of Russell Freedman's visual essay books for your group, such as Lincoln, a Photobiography, The Wright Brothers, Indian Chiefs, Buffalo Hunt, and JFK. Design a chart to compare their similarities and differences* and fill it out. Prepare a written description of how your group thinks Mr. Freedman researches and constructs his works.* Choose a local topic or person to research.* Plan the research and the construction of a visual essay. [Break down Russell Freedman's approach into specific tasks and assign them to members of your group.]* With your teacher or librarian, design a timeline for the group project; each specific task should also have its own individual process timeline.* 30 points of your potential 100 points can be achieved by following the timelines and having each component checked off by your librarian. See the following Assessment Sheet. The other 70 points will be measured by the content and standards for your specific tasks. See your classroom teacher.
Prepared by Audrey Conant - MEMA
|
|
