Lesson Plan: Native American Heritage

“Native American Heritage Month”

November is Thanksgiving season. It’s also Native American Heritage Month, which provides a great opportunity for middle and high school students to examine American history from a Native American perspective. In this lesson, students will learn about westward expansion, adding nuance and depth to their understanding of American history and honing their critical thinking skills. Students will analyze how the settlers’ push westward threatened Native Americans’ way of life and consider the different ways the tribes responded. Students will synthesize their learning to create a new classroom resource for students that teaches these events from multiple points of view. As an extension, students can research and present on a historical figure from the lesson.

Objectives
Students will:
  • Analyze the ways settlers’ westward expansion presented pressures to Native Americans and the various ways tribes responded;
  • Synthesize multiple perspectives on American history by producing a new classroom resource of their own.

Standards
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7
    Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
  • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.7
    Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person's life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account.
  • NCSS C3 Standards
    D2.His.2.6-8. Classify series of historical events and developments as examples of change and/or continuity.
    D3.1.6-8. Gather relevant information from multiple sources while using the origin, authority, structure, context, and corroborative value of the sources to guide the selection.

Materials
Products Created
  • Completed “Pressures & Reactions” graphic organizer
  • A classroom resource that incorporates Native American perspectives to teach westward expansion

Time
  • Two class periods

Sequence
      Day One:
    1. Explain that November is Native American Heritage Month, a month dedicated to the contributions of Native Americans. In earlier grades, students may have learned about Native American tribes and culture. Remind them of these activities and that it’s important to keep the Native American experience in mind as they develop an understanding of US history. Explain that in today’s lesson students will learn about westward expansion from a Native American perspective. Share the learning objectives with the class.
    2. As a warm-up, have students write down what they know about westward expansion. Invite students to share their responses. Explain that the process of expanding westward might have been good for the settlers, but the land they took over was not empty. There were Native American tribes living there.
    3. Watch Indian Removal. Read the lyrics and infoboxes. Hand out the graphic organizer.
    4. Rewatch the video and instruct students to fill out the graphic organizer, noting the pressures Native Americans faced and different ways they responded.
    5. Students can share their responses. Record these on chart paper or the blackboard at the front of the room. Encourage the class to consider how settlers threatened different facets of Native American culture, including religion, education and dress as well as land. Push students to use active language in examining who and what was threatening Native Americans.
    6. Discuss the various ways tribes reacted. Ask students to consider the many nonviolent responses attempted, including legal battles and assimilation.
    7. Discuss how a historical event might be good for some and bad for others. Ask students if they feel like history is always taught this way and if not, how it might be. Discuss different resources they’ve come across that teach aspects of this history and what is omitted from them or left incomplete. Explain that in the next class period, they will be building a more complete classroom resource to teach westward expansion.

      Day Two:
    1. Return to the graphic organizer and review key insights from the previous class period.
    2. Have students break into small groups to discuss how they learned about America’s early history. What resources have they used in the classroom? What was omitted or left incomplete in their learning? Resources might include history textbooks, movies, historical fiction, primary source and documents.
    3. Provide each group with various materials on westward expansion. These might include textbooks, maps or online resources. They will be using this material to research the events from various perspectives and to create a classroom resource of their own.
    4. Students will create a classroom resource that teaches about westward expansion from different perspectives, including the settlers’ and Native Americans' experiences. They might create one resource as a group or work independently. Their resource might be a graphic novella, a short chapter from a history textbook, fictional first-person diary entries from multiple perspectives or any other format that could include an in-depth view of westward expansion and be used in a classroom setting.
    5. To close, students can share their resources and how they hope students and teachers might use them to teach a more complete version of historical events.

Wrap Up/Extensions
    1. Go deeper! Students can select a historical figure from the lesson whom they either did not know or learned something new about. Historical figures might include Tecumseh, Chief Justice John Marshall, Samuel Worcester and Andrew Jackson. For homework or in the next class period, students should research this person further. What other information can they find about him/her? What role did this person play in the history discussed? Would everyone agree on this person’s significance? Students should be prepared to present this figure to the class.

Guided Reflection
  • “I used to think _______, and now I think _______.”
  • “One thing I learned is __________, and one question I still have is _________.”