Red White Blue & Brimstone: New World Literature and the American Millennium

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An exhibit of 101 images with a 10,000-word essay that tracks the influence of the Book of Revelations' apocalyptic vision of history in shaping conceptions of America and its destiny for religious zealots and others from the colonial era to the present. With images primarily from published texts—covers, title pages, illustrations, and relevant pages of writing—the exhibit is divided into 14 chronological sections, each opening with a quote from Revelations and detailing its relevance in successive historical periods. The exhibit begins with the period of the English Reformation, when John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, exported to America, related contemporary political events to scripture and established a timeline that proved influential over the next 250 years. The site covers beliefs that American Indians were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel; Cotton Mather's sermons as the culmination of a century of speculation about America's place in the apocalyptic scheme; early nationalist ambitions as fulfilling prophecy; and the influence of Revelations on Thomas Jefferson. The site also looks at William Miller's numerologically-based predictions of the end of the world in 1843; millennial movements in the antebellum era; urban exposÎs that conceived of American cities as present-day incarnations of Babylon; and 20th-century anti-Semitic thought. Well organized, the exhibit provides a useful introduction to students of American religion and culture of the persistence of the power of the Book of Revelations, but exaggerates its importance with the odd claim that no other book has "produced a more profound vision of America's hopes, duties, dreams, and destiny."

Historical Agency in History Book Sets (HBS)

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What Is It?

A strategy that combines fiction and nonfiction texts to guide students in analyzing historical agency.

Rationale

Authors of historical fiction for children and adolescents often anchor their narratives in powerful stories about individuals. Emphasis on single actors, however, can frustrate students’ attempts to understand how collective and institutional agency affects opportunities to change various historical conditions. History Book Sets (HBS) that focus on experiences of separation or segregation take advantage of the power of narratives of individual agency to motivate inquiry into how collective and institutional agency supported or constrained individuals’ power to act.

Description

History Book Sets combine a central piece of historical fiction with related non-fiction. By framing a historical issue or controversy in a compelling narrative, historical fiction generates discussion regarding the courses of action open not only to book characters, but to real historical actors. Carefully chosen non-fictional narratives contextualize the possibilities and constraints for individual action by calling attention to collective and institutional conditions and actions.

Teacher Preparation
  1. Select a piece of well-crafted historical fiction that focuses on a historical experience of separation or segregation (NCSS Notable Books is a good    place to start). The example focuses on Cynthia Kadohata’s (2006)  Weedflower—a story that contrasts a young Japanese-American internee’s    relocation experience with a young Mohave Indian’s reservation experience.
  2. Select two pieces of related non-fiction that provide context for the historical fiction. Non-fiction should include courses of action taken by    groups and institutions, as well as individuals. This example uses Joanne Oppenheim’s (2007) “Dear Miss Breed”: True Stories of the Japanese    American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference and Herman Viola’s (1990) After Columbus.
  3. Select photographs that visually locate the events in the literature. Duplicate two contrasting sets of photographs.
  4. Reproduce templates for poem (Template A) and recognizing agency chart (Template B). The recognizing agency chart works best if students begin    with an 8½x11 chart and then transfer their work to larger chart paper.
  5. The time you need will depend on whether you assign the historical fiction for students to read or use it as a read-aloud. Reading a book aloud    generates conversation, ensures that everyone has this experience in common, and lessens concerns about readability. If students read the    book independently, plan on three class periods.
In the Classroom
  1. Recognizing Changing Perspectives. In making sense of historical agency, it helps if students recognize that different people experience historical    events differently. For instance, the main fictional characters in the example have quite distinct views of relocation camps. The packets of    photographs help children interpret changing perspectives, and the biographical poem provides a literary structure for expressing their    interpretations.
      • Organize the students in pairs. Give half the pairs Packet A (Japanese Experiences); half Packet B (Indian Experiences). Students write captions for the pictures explaining how the experiences pictured influence characters’ view of the relocation camp.
      • Drawing on their discussion and readings, each pair of students writes a biographical poem (see Template A) representing how their character’s ideas and attitudes change over the course of the story.
      • Display captioned pictures and poems where students can refer to them during the next activity.
  2. Recognizing Agency: What Can be Done?
      • Distribute Recognizing Agency chart (Template B). Work through the chart using a secondary character in the historical fiction as an example.
      • Assign pairs of students to a fictional or historical participant. For example, students might investigate the fictional main character or a family member or friend or students could investigate a historical participant.
      • Display charts. Discuss:
        1. Why do some people, groups and institutions seem to have more power than others?
        2. How can people work most effectively for change?
        3. Can you identify strategies used to alter other historical experiences of separation or segregation?
  3. Agency Today. After considering the kinds of agency expressed by people    during the past, students might write an argument for or against    contemporary issues that surround the topic. For instance in the example,    students investigate efforts to restore the relocation camp.
Common Pitfalls
Example
  1. Book selection presents the most common pitfall in developing and using    an HBS. Historical fiction presents a two-pronged challenge: If the    narrative in the historical fiction does not hold up, good historical    information can’t save it. On the other hand, a powerful narrative can    convince students of the “rightness” of very bad history. Never use books    you have not read! With that in mind:
      • Make sure you check out reviews of historical fiction and non-fiction (i.e.    Hornbook, Booklinks, Notable Books) or more topic-specific reviews such    as those provided by Oyate, an organization interested in accurate    portrayals of American Indian histories.
      • Choose non-fiction emphasizing collective and institutional agency that    contextualizes actions in the novel.
  2. Because students’ identification with literary characters can be quite    powerful, use caution in identifying one historical group or another as    “we.” Implying connections between historical actors and students    positions students to react defensively rather than analytically. None of    your students, for instance, placed people in relocation camps or on    reservations, but referring to past actions by the U.S. government as    something “we” did can confuse the issue. Students are not responsible    for the past, but as its legatees they are responsible for understanding    what happened well enough to engage in informed deliberation about the    consequences of past actions.
  3. Historical Book Sets are designed to work against tendencies to    overgeneralize about group behavior (i.e. assuming all European    Americans supported internment). In response to overgeneralization, ask    for (or point out if necessary) counter-examples from the book set.    Occasional prompting encourages students to test their generalizations    against available evidence and to think about within-group as well as    between-group differences.
  4. Historical Agency: Internment and Reservation at Poston. Background for the teacher: Groups and individuals exercise power differently, depending on the social, cultural, economic, and political forces shaping the world in which they are acting. In the case of the internment and reservation systems, for example, the power of Japanese-Americans to resist internment was quite different from the power of the War Relocation Authority to enforce relocation. Or, consider that the options available to Japanese men were quite different from those available to women or to the Native American residents of the Poston reservation. Introducing the concept of historical agency—what action was possible given the historical moment—can be a powerful tool for making sense of past behaviors. Power is a familiar concept to students who, with relatively little prompting, understand not only that larger forces may limit or expand opportunities for action, but that individuals may not all respond in the same way to those opportunities. Beginning by recognizing different perspectives on an event prepares students to consider why people might take different action, and comparing responses to action prepares students to consider available options for expressing agency. This, in turn, reinforces an important historical understanding: nothing happens in a vacuum. By placing so much attention on individual agency (often some hero or heroine), history instruction too often ignores persistent patterns of collective and institutional agency. This is not to dismiss narratives of individual agency. This HBS begins with Sumiko’s and Frank’s story because individual agency captures students’ interest and engenders a level of care that motivates further investigation of the differential agency expressed by the individuals, groups, and institutions that framed Sumiko’s and Frank’s historical choices. * Agency refers to the power of individuals, groups, and institutions to resist, blunt, or alter historical conditions. Differential agency refers to differences in potential for and expression of power within and between individuals, groups, and institutions.
Bibliography

Bamford, Rosemary A. and Janice V. Kristos, eds. Making Facts Come Alive: Choosing Quality Nonfiction Literature K-8, 2nd ed. City: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, 2003.

Levstik, Linda S. and Keith C. Barton. Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools. London: Routledge (2005).

Three Perspectives on Native American Removal and Westward Expansion

Teaser

Check out this lesson on arguments surrounding the 1830 forced removal of the Cherokee peoples from their homeland.

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Description

In small groups students study the arguments for and against the forced removal of the Cherokee peoples from their homeland in the 1830s.

Article Body

The two features that we like best about this lesson are the interesting primary source materials and the framework that is provided for group work related to the texts. The readings are presented as a packet of letters, documents, stories, and speeches that have been edited to make them easier for students to read. The group guidelines establish clearly defined roles within the groups. These roles compel students to look at specific features of the texts like source, context, and audience. Thus the group-work guidelines make it easier for students to see what they need to pay attention to when looking at primary sources.

The focus questions for each document which are provided at the end of the document package are also helpful. These questions help to ensure that students understand the documents, but teachers will likely want to add additional questions to meet their specific learning objectives.

The two lessons in this unit use the same basic packet of 10 readings, but neither lesson provides detailed instructions about how the materials should be used. Teachers are encouraged to select readings and questions to meet the needs of their students. Finally while neither lesson requires writing, there are a variety of opportunities to insert meaningful writing tasks into the lessons, particularly in the final assessment of the second lesson.

Topic
Native American Removal; Manifest Destiny; Antebellum South
Time Estimate
1-2 class sessions
flexibility_scale
2
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

No Background information is provided for teachers but not for students.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

No The lesson requires close reading of documents, but little to no writing. We recommend that teachers use the guiding and focus questions to create their own writing assignments.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes The Audience, Connector, and Time Researcher roles in the group task require students to search documents for evidence and interpret the significance of what they read.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes Only limited information about where resources come from can be found in the edited documents. Fuller information about the sources can be found in the Resources section of the unit.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes The lesson is flexible to meet the needs of a wide range of students.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes Tasks within the group-work structure are arranged in order of difficulty—teachers can select the appropriate level of challenge for their students. No support is provided to structure student note-taking on group presentations, however.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

Yes We recommend the suggested assessment activity where students respond in writing to one or both of the initial guiding questions. No explicit assessment criteria are provided.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

No Very few directions are provided. Teachers need to select among the materials to meet the needs of their own students and classrooms.

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes The learning objectives are clearly stated, but teachers will likely want to focus on just one or two of the four objectives.

Lewis and Clark: Same Place, Different Perspectives

Teaser

How geography influenced interactions among Lewis, Clark, & Native Americans.

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Description

In small groups, students analyze short excerpts from primary sources and secondary information that describe an encounter between the Lewis and Clark expedition and a Native American tribe. They share their analysis with the class and consider how varied locations influenced the ways in which the explorers and the various Native tribes interacted.

Article Body

Encouraging students to work collaboratively in groups, this lesson asks students to think and write about history from multiple viewpoints. The primary source excerpts, primarily from the expedition members’ journals, are a bit challenging, but they are brief and informative. Short expository passages describe different Native American groups and their encounter with the expedition. The absence of primary documents from the Native American perspective provides an opportunity to discuss what sources of information make up the historical record.

Additionally, and maybe more importantly, the lesson engages students in geographic analysis. Using geographic indicators, students must locate each encounter at a specific site on expedition maps. Students consider the varied physical environments that Lewis and Clark encountered and how these connect to cultural variations between the Native American tribes whom they met. This lesson pays special attention to the differences between Native American cultures, countering a common student belief that all Indians lived alike.

We like the closing activity where each group reports back to the whole class before a large group discussion on the similarities and differences between the encounters. The suggested assessment asks students to write about one of the encounters from the perspective of Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark’s Native American guide, or York, a slave on the expedition. Unless this lesson is taught in conjunction with the film or other rich resources providing additional background information, this assessment seems ill-suited as students likely need more background to complete these essays successfully.

Topic
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Time Estimate
1 class period
flexibility_scale
4
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes Uses primary sources from the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background
No We recommend that teachers include additional background information.
Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes Students read about environments, resources, and daily life in different places and write about how and why people from different groups perceived events differently.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes Students' historical and geographic analysis skills are fostered through interpretation of primary and informational texts and maps.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes Students must read documents and maps closely in order to compare different perspectives.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes Some of the document prose is challenging, but grouping students by mixed ability can help address comprehension issues.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

No Teachers may need to create scaffolding questions to guide their students during group work.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

No Assessment is vague. Teachers may wish to design their own assessments that involve students in viewing the expedition from multiple viewpoints or considering how location influences cultural variation.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes The directions are clear and all of the materials available on the web are easily reproducible for classroom use

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes Activities require students to examine an event from multiple viewpoints. Students also have the opportunity to see how geography influenced both Native American groups and the expedition members .

National Register of Historic Places Travel Itineraries

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San Francisco during World War II, Mississippi's Indian Mounds, and Cumberland, Maryland, are just three of the more than 50 cities, towns, and rivers across the U.S. to which this website provides virtual access. In Baltimore, Maryland, a clickable map allows users to wander from the USCGC Taney (the last surviving warship present at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941) docked at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, to the house where Edgar Allen Poe lived in the mid-1830s, to the Union Square-Hollins Market Historic District to learn about Baltimore's oldest public market still in operation, and on to 40 more sites around the city. Each landmark is introduced with photographs, brief essays providing historical context, and tourist information.

Some travel itineraries are grouped by theme. For example, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement presents information on Arkansas's Little Rock Central High School, Virginia's Robert Moton High School, and the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Many of these sites includes links to lesson plans in NPS's Teaching With Historic Places. Updated regularly, this website is useful for teachers, students, and tourists alike.

Native American Documents Project

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These four collections of data and documents address Federal Indian policy in the late 19th century. The first set includes eight annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs from the 1870s, along with appendices and a map. The second set, Allotment Data, traces the Federal "reform" policy of dividing Indian lands into small tracts for individuals—a significant amount of which went to whites—from the 1870s to the 1910s. This set includes transcriptions of five acts of Congress, tables, and an essay analyzing the data.

The third set includes 111 documents on the little-known Rogue River War of 1855 in Oregon, the reservations set up for Indian survivors, and the allotment of one of these reservations, the Siletz, in 1894. The fourth set provides the California section of an ethnographic compilation from 1952.

American Radicalism Collection

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This website contains 129 pamphlets, documents, and newsletters produced by or relevant to radical movements. Groups represented by one to 30 documents include the American Indian Movement; Asian Americans; the Black Panthers; the Hollywood Ten; the Ku Klux Klan, the IWW, and the Students for a Democratic Society. Additional situations covered include the Rosenberg case, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Scottsboro Boys. Additional topics include birth control and the events at Wounded Knee. This is a small but useful resource on radicalism, political movements, and rhetoric.

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project

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The long history of struggle for equal rights by various ethnic groups in Seattle, including Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Native Americans; Jews; and Latinos is documented on this website. Primary and secondary sources integrate labor rights movements with struggles for political rights, as is evident in the "special sections," that highlight the Chicano/a movement, the Black Panther Party, Filipino Cannery Unionism, the United Construction Workers Association, Communism, and the United Farm Workers. Each section brings together oral histories, documents, newspapers, and photographs that are accompanied by written and video commentary to provide historical context. The collection of more than 70 oral histories of activists is especially useful for understanding the lived experience of racism and its especially subtle workings in the Pacific Northwest. Together, these resources provide important national context for the civil rights struggle, too often understood as a solely southern phenomenon.

Touring Turn-of-the-Century America

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The Detroit Publishing Company mass produced photographic images—especially color postcards, prints, and albums—for the American market from the late 1890s to 1924. This collection offers more than 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies and about 300 color photolithographs from this company. It also includes images taken prior to the company's formation by landscape photographer William Henry Jackson, who became the company's president in 1898. Jackson's work documenting western sites influenced the conservation movement. Although many images were taken in eastern locations, other areas of the U.S., the Americas, and Europe are represented. The collection specializes in views of buildings, streets, colleges, universities, natural landmarks, and resorts, as well as copies of paintings. Nearly 300 photographs were taken in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. About 900 Mammoth Plate Photographs include views of Hopi peoples and their crafts and landscapes along several railroad lines in the 1880s and 1890s.

Lakota Winter Counts

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This anthropological exhibit displays, explains, and interprets the Lakota pictorial histories known as winter counts. Featuring a searchable database of winter count images, a documentary about Lakota history and culture, and video interviews with Lakota people, website visitors can view images from 10 winter counts and examine their symbols in detail by year with curator comments. Visitors are also able to examine the various symbols used by the winter count keepers to represent plants and animals, ceremonies, health, trade goods, places, people, the U.S. government, and the sky. "Who Are the Lakota" offers a historical overview of Lakota history in 10 segments that include the Lakota and the Sioux people, Lakota origins, westward migration, horse-centered culture on the northern Great Plains, important conflicts and treaties, confinement to the Great Sioux Reservation, and subsequent land cessions.