Hello,
I know it is getting to be a bit busy. It looks like you enjoyed the last book. I will be switching the order for next years. It really is a learning experience. I believe the last two books and handouts have a lot to offer educators interested in teaching real history. Thank you for your thoughts and comments.
This week we will read or last book for the club and read the last handouts that cover lesson ideas. Please read Rethinking Columbus.
Questions:
What "ah ha's" did you have after reading the book?
How could a new perspective on the holiday bring about a service learning project for your classroom or a classroom in general?
Any last thoughts.
Thanks again everyone for your hard work! We will meet in the library on Monday the 22nd after school. See you there!
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I found the book, “1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving,” to be a very enjoyable and easy to read book. It would be a great selection for students to read at all levels or use as a resource for a larger project. Although, I agree with Vicki that this title is a great introduction for the first book that we read.
ReplyDeleteI liked how this book could be read as a whole group for older grade levels, yet it could also be read to younger, primary students. There are several ways I can think of to utilize this book in any classroom. I might begin a lesson with a book walk or preview to get students excited and interested. The photography is not only beautiful and visually appealing, but also informative. I believe that I would also begin a KWL and/or a compare & contrast chart with the students before and throughout the reading this book.
My ah-ah for this selection surrounds the enormously powerful outcome of the October 2000 reenactment at the Plimouth Plantation museum. It is inspiring how all of these people came together to not only recreate the 1621 harvest gathering, but to work side by side discovering the true events of the past. I would definitely like to visit the museum and experience the past first hand.
To be honest, I did more skimming in this book than others but I was intrigued with the article about sugarcane being brought into the islands of the Caribbean. I should have realized this was the start of slavery in the New World. After overworking the Native Americans, blacks were brought in from Africa. I thought the article was very interesting and could be brought in at any time in history. I enjoyed the poetry of various Native American poets as well as reviews of books. I think this book could be a whole book club by itself. There were some very good lesson plans in the book for both secondary and elementary students. I especially like the one where students are asked to explore books about Columbus. It would be very interesting to compare older books about Columbus to ones written more recently.I look forward to a face to face discussion about the books.
ReplyDeleteReading Rethinking Columbus was hard for me and a bit troublesome. It was an “in your face” slap at what America’s Thanksgiving Tradition has been and continues to be for many “Americans” and for good reason. The truth is often hard to see for many and those individuals may not be ready to face it. I would like to thank the authors for “slapping” me, for I was unaware of many other facts surrounding Thanksgiving before I read it.
ReplyDeleteThere were many ah ha moments for me in this book, I will share just a few. Realizing this book was full of lessons for schoolchildren was great, it is dedicated to the children of the Americas. How the buffalo taught Native American people to live in balance with nature and how the buffalo’s sophisticated social system was adopted by Natives shed light on how their family structure operates for me. “Tiospaye” is where all actively contribute to the well-being of the young. It takes a village to raise a child and a herd to raise a good buffalo calf was very cool. Environmental issues, Secondary school issues, Beginnings, and really all areas of the book were good and I find myself rereading many parts and seeing different things each time. The “Teaching Ideas” and “Handout” pages were appreciated and are useful items where I can start with lessons.
A service learning project could be inspired by the new perspectives students would obtain through this reading. It might be a great opportunity to let students decide how and what could be presented and in which medium. I like the idea of an exhibition to be displayed in a school hall or community business/building where people could interact in their own personal way with the many mediums students come up with.
Rethinking Columbus is provocative. Why many, or at least a few, Native American perspectives are not traditionally taught in public schools, is frightening. Maybe a class service learning project might be a good start.
Last thoughts are thanks Kim for sharing!
I appreciate the direct approach that the book, "Rethinking Columbus," gives the reader. The book is filled with a myriad of lessons and activities for students of all ages. I especially liked the section on teaching children to critique a variety of books and determine whether they are historically accurate or biased by one side or the other. I also enjoyed the poetry and stories.
ReplyDeleteColumbus Day to me is definitely a non-holiday. I ceased paying attention years ago. I was certain I knew everything I needed to know about Columbus and am really embarrassed that I had never heard of the enslavement of the Tainos, or that they were coerced to produce gold or suffer dismemberment. I know Columbus is a product of his European upbringing, surroundings and certainly his era, but from here on out he is right up there with Biggest Jerks in History. When I was in college I spent a summer with my mother in Kodiak AK. We visited Alexander Baranof's house. (Most things in the SW region are named after this exploiter, I mean, explorer, seafarer and trader of the late 1700's) We sat and drank Russian Tea, while a guy strummed the balalaika. Beautiful! We looked at Russian artifacts and nowhere was there any mention that the region's "founder" had cut off the hands of native fishermen who failed to bring in their quota of fish. They had cunning watercraft; prototypical kayaks which were light and waterproof, up to a point, until they were not, due to the utilization of animal hides and stomache linings for raingear and boat coverings. They required a drying off period. All Baranof cared about was his quota of fish. Sound familiar?
ReplyDeleteI devoured this book and although I think the flow tells an overarching story, I sort of wish it were organized in elementary, middle school and high school clusters. I did like the mixing in of poetry and song (Buffy Saint Marie still rocks)---affective bursts of emotion which helped to bind the themes together effectively. I admire the teachers who shared their lessons, promoting fresh ways to broach this subject. I would like to know more about Theodore de Bry, whose illustrations were used when telling the Taino/Columbus story. (I recently started to watch the Ridley Scott movie 1492 and the titles were de Bry illustrations saturated in red. Columbus is so far depicted as a brave explorer and his interactions with the Native people blameless. So far, it's just business--he argues for his 10% because he takes all the risk. I need to finish the movie, however...
My memory of being taught about Columbus in grade school coincided with a pro space exploration--discover-the-universe thrust. We were all crazy about Tang and those awful food sticks the astronauts ate. I thought I could relate to Columbus because I wanted to be brave enough to go off into unknown waters, too. Everything else is glossed over; contact, slavery, the starting of plantations and all the decades of subsequent pain and suffering attributed to crop production in the West Indies.
I am glad I got the chance to do this unit, and it has been the source of much rethinking and consideration over the recent holiday. I confess, I need to read a bit more, I am up to Rigoberta Menchu in the next 500 years book. The book strikes a good balance between outright exasperation, source variety of basic facts and optimism.
I enjoyed reading both the handout and the books- 1621 Thanksgiving was a great, simple look at what a "real" thanksgiving would have looked like, and goes well with a number of things I've used in my Social Studies classes in the past. When teaching US History, we talk a lot about what condistions were like for the early Colonists, in all of the Colonies, and things weren't nearly as rosy as the picturtes often painted by textbooks and American History in general.
ReplyDeleteKing Philip's War (Metacom) is a goodreminder of how the Colonists settled in and then turned on their former saviors and allies. The idea that a number of people, from various tribes, joined Metacom in fighting the English, serves as a reminder of how even early Natives realized what was happening to their land and values.
An interesting parallel would be to look at the rise of the "Captive Narratives" which also held huge sway with settlers and continued into the 1800's. So many attempts to paint the Native Americans as savage and ignoble became a part of traditional American culture for hundreds of years.
The myths of Thanksgiving, typified in art, texts, and legend still hold tremendous sway over the adults of today. How many parents, and kids, have asked about Pilgrim and Indian art for the holiday? Or repeated the same worn, cliche' stories that we now know aren't true.
The Columbus book had a number of great ideas, for various grade levels, that address the disparity of History's treatment of, and hero-worship of Columbus.
IU have taken a number of classes as an adult, some in the social studies, and some Native American studies classes that address the "Real" Columbus. His enslavement of the Taino was a carefully guarded secret apparently, as I was in my 20's before I'd ever heard of anything about life after his discovery.
Columbus' multiple trips, his capture of Taino to sell for slaves, and taking some back at the end of his first voyage, were all things that surprised me greatly when I first learned of them.
Learning in a more specific way about the Spanish conquests in South and Central America, and the protests of priest like De Las Casas, even the eventual abolition of slavery by Spain, long before the US did so, were more eye-openers for me.
Another great book, with broad implications for teachers, is "Lies My Teacher Taught Me" by James W. Loewen. I've used this, and it's broad attempts to address disparity and bias in Social Studies texts, since it first came out in 1995. It would go hand in hand with these books with very concrete reasons why we need to teach outside traditional texts.
I believe this is slated for a book group later this year.
I'm really looking forward to chatting with others about htese great reads, and some ideas for integrating it into the classroom.
Thanks Kim for organizing this.