Relevant
Standards
Lesson Plans
I. Ancestral Lands
- Debating for
Land
Overview: In this lesson students will learn about
the varying attitudes and definitions of land ownership held by Native
and European Americans by studying a variety of primary documents from
the nineteenth century. They will learn about how various treaties—the
Homestead Act and the Dawes Act—affected both Native and European
Americans. Students will discuss these issues in the form of a debate,
and will also write journal entries.
Cross-Curricular
Connections: Language Arts, Social Studies
- Making
Treaties and Weaving Wampum: Communication Across
Cultures
Overview: In this lesson students will be exposed
to the cultural and artistic importance of wampum belts to the Native
American tribes that George Catlin encountered on his travels, and the
importance of the belts in American history as markers of relations
between tribes and the U.S. Government between 1776 and 1878. Students
will gain insight into the differing ways in which these cultures
expressed ideas, values, and policy through objects, written documents,
and oral traditions.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
History/Social Studies, U.S. Government, Visual Arts/Art History
- Pipestone
Quarry and Westward Expansion: Whose Rock is this
Anyway?
Overview: This lesson is designed to emphasize how
individuals' worldviews affect their method of expressing themselves and
of telling stories. People describing the same thing will convey very
different things depending on their worldviews (composed of their
personal philosophy, religion, and even their job or discipline).
Students will compare primary documents and analyze the motives of the
speaker, and the author's intended audience. They will respond to these
comparisons in writing and then by creating a representation of what
they studied for a timeline.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
History, Geography, Sociology, English (Language Arts)
II. Catlin's Quest
- Inside
Catlin's Head
Overview: In this lesson, students will be
asked to examine Catlin's life and to determine how various decisions he
made affected its outcome. Students will be asked to interpret,
elaborate on, and reenact events occurring in Catlin's lifetime by
writing, drawing, and role-playing.
Cross-Curricular
Connections: Social Studies, Language Arts, Theatre, Art
- Letters from
the Frontier: Reading and Writing Primary
Documents
Overview: By immersing themselves in primary
sources (George Catlin's letters), students will learn the difference
between objective and subjective writing styles. They will draw facts
out of the letters to create newspaper articles in Activity 1, and write
their own letters as if they were members of the Catlin family in
Activity 2. These activities are designed to enliven historical figures,
to connect the "current events" of the past with the current events of
the present, and to help students read and interpret historical
documents.
Cross-Curricular Connections: History/Social
Science, English/Language Arts, and Psychology
- Creating the
Past: Understanding Artifacts
Overview: After studying
the historic events of Catlin's life, this project allows students to
imagine the material culture of the time. They will become
archaeologists and anthropologists, looking back on previous cultures
for clues as to the motives and inspirations for the choices that shaped
their lives. Each student will bring in a fabricated artifact from
Catlin's life, resulting in a museum exhibit in the class.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
Anthropology, Archaeology, Language Arts, History, Visual Art
- Connecting to the Past: Making a Memory Box
Overview:
Artists across cultures and throughout time have sought to incorporate
the multifaceted connections between past and present in their
artworks. In many ways, Catlin's lifelong quest and the eventual
creation of his "Indian Gallery" can be seen as an attempt to connect
what he felt to be the "past" of American Indian society to the
"present" of nineteenth-century westward expansion by European
Americans. As is evident today, Native American culture is very much
alive and present in the fabric of America. Catlin, however, made it
clear that he viewed his subjects as a "vanishing race" and sought to
preserve their images for future generations. In this activity,
students will create their own memory box, linking the past and the
present, and in so doing examine Catlin's ideas and motives.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
Anthropology, Archaeology, Language Arts, History, Visual Art
III. Chiefs and Leaders
- Leadership
– Past and Present
Overview: Studying
leadership qualities is highly important for students of all ages so
that they can identify and develop their own. In this lesson, students will be introduced to several Native American leaders,
both past and present, and will be asked to examine their different
styles of leadership.
Cross-Curricular Connections: Social
Studies
- Symbols of
Power in Clothing Worn by the Plains Indians
Overview: Power shirts,
often made of tanned animal hides and adorned with objects such as fur,
beads, and locks of hair, were highly important in the culture of many
Native Americans. These shirts, which were associated very closely with
the identity of their wearer, contained various symbols representing
success in war, spirituality, special abilities, and outstanding
achievements. After studying these shirts, learning to understand their
significance to Native Americans, and discussing the symbols they
contain; students will identify achievements in their own lives that
reflect leadership and power. They will document these achievements in
symbolic form on shirts that they create.
Cross-Curricular
Connections: Language Arts, Art, Social Studies
- Cracking
Catlin's Code
Overview: This is a creative approach to
teaching basic skills involved in the formal visual analysis of works of
art. Students will learn how to interpret artworks in cultural and
historical contexts by becoming "art detectives." Students will analyze
Catlin's formal compositions to learn about the Native American leaders
he painted. They will examine visual clues and write a final "case
summary" in which they "crack Catlin's code."
Cross-Curricular
Connections: Visual Art/Art History, Social Science/History
- QUIZ
SHOW! What were you thinking? What did you say?
Overview:
Native Americans responded to U.S. expansion policy in different ways.
By incorporating Internet resources and working in groups, students will
participate in a game show to share the information they have uncovered
in a fast-paced, competitive environment. At the end of the game, the
winning team receives a prize.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
History/World Cultures, Social Studies, Performance Art
IV. Western Landscape
- Native
American Folklore
Overview: In this lesson students will
familiarize themselves with the Western landscape through both Native
American folklore and George Catlin's paintings of the prairie. After
reading several Native American legends, students will compose and
illustrate their own legend.
Cross-Curricular Connections:
Language Arts, Geology, Theatre, Visual Arts
- The
Mandan Buffalo Dance
Overview: The Mandan and the
Sioux depended so heavily on certain animals that they would starve
without them. In the Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni depended as heavily on
annual rainfall for their survival. In each of these cases, the tribes
created interpretive dances to encourage the arrival of something that
was so important to their survival that they would die without it. In
this exercise, we will learn about how several Native American tribes
construct their dances and dedications. We will also look at how people
have used dance, poetry, music, art, or other expressions to make a
dedication to a physical or conceptual thing. Finally, we will each make
our own dedication to a theme of our choosing, and perform or display
them to each other.
Cross-Curricular Connections: Art, Music,
English, History/World Cultures, Drama
- At
Home on the Prairie
Overview: The Western landscape which
George Catlin encountered on his travels was dominated by the great
expanse of the tall and short grass prairies. Home to countless species
of plant and animal life, the great prairies once spanned millions of
acres across North America. Today less than ten percent of the complex
ecosystem remains, largely under the protection of parks and nature
preserves. In this lesson students will gain an understanding of the
interdependence of living organisms on the prairie and the fragility of
their existence by investigating life on the prairie and relating their
findings to their own experience.
Cross-Curricular
Connections: Life Sciences, Geography, Art
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