Introduction
Indians. . .what is the first thing you think of? You may think of horses, teepees, buffalo hunting and scalping parties. You may think of popular culture Indians like Tonto, the Lone Ranger's sidekick, or Chief Iron Eyes Cody shedding a tear when litter was tossed on the side of the road. You may think of a sports team—the Chiefs, the Seminoles, the Redskins, or the Atlanta Braves and the tomahawk chop. None of those thoughts come close to an encompassing or inclusive view of Native Americans. First, these thoughts are too restrictive and try to group over 500 different socio-economic and political cultures into one stereotype. Second, they often freeze Indians in time and expect them to retain a culture that existed for a few tribes generations ago. While these views are not accurate for all Native Americans, they do provide us with an insight into those making the assumptions.
This unit is designed to explore how Euro-Americans viewed Native Americans at different points in U.S. History. In terms of misconceptions, it does not matter what the reality of the Native American situation was; what matters, for the purpose of this curriculum unit, is what the Euro-Americans thought of them. The Euro-American view changed over time depending on the interactions between the Native Americans and the Euro-Americans (Jennings, 1975:59). The interaction often took place on the frontier or the West. As an Easterner, it is easy for me to forget that the West, the frontier line, was a moving and jagged line for most of American history, starting on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, moving to the Appalachians by 1763, reaching the Mississippi River by 1803 and declared closed in 1890 by the Superintendent of the Census. It was at the frontier where contact was made. It was from the frontier that word was sent back to civilization— whether that be the East or Europe, as to what the Native Americans were like.
Once I decided what I wanted to do I needed to determine how to approach it. I debated the use of written works which would include journals, newspaper accounts, letters and diaries; and/or visual images which would include woodcuts, sketches, paintings and photographs. I wanted to use an approach that I could apply to all of my classes in some manner using differentiation.
I teach U.S. History to high school juniors. I teach all levels as determined by the state of North Carolina which include Standards, Honors, and Advanced Placement. In addition to those my school has an International Baccalaureate program, and I will teach the junior level History of the Americas. The students self-select their levels. This inevitably means there are some whose abilities do not match the level. Once the year has started it is very difficult for them to change levels. As a result my classes are more heterogeneous than homogenous.
For the most part my students are not readers. The history texts are large and not very interesting. The size of the books is an instant turn off for many students and the presentation does nothing to excite them either. While considering using the written works I realized that would discourage some of my students because of the style and vocabulary of many of primary sources. While I could edit the sources to their level, that would remove much of the sources' impact. My students are visual. They are the MTV generation. I have been experimenting using images to tell the story of American History.
Images are good to use with students for many reasons. If the right image is used the concepts can be taught using only the image. Certain images evoke an emotional response. Images allow the students to visualize in a way textual material does not. Images make the portrayed person or event more real to my students than words do. This emotional response, this visualization, this realism allows the student to more readily connect with the past. Differentiation with images does not change the image but changes how the image is approached in the classroom. For a short time I debated using a combination of written works and visuals. For now I have decided to focus only on the visuals for this unit with the idea that it could be expanded in the future.
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