Who Arrived in Montana When?

There is a fair amount of dissension among tribal cultural experts, historians, and others about when various tribes arrived in Montana and from where they came. We've done our best to present as accurate a story as we could in this chapter, but teachers should be aware that experts disagree. This might be a good place to talk about how we know what we know. (See Essential Understanding #3 for more details.)

Other resources available include:

Educational Trunks

Lifeways of Montana's First People from the Montana Historical Society. This trunk emphasizes the various tribal lifeways of the people who utilized the land we now know as Montana in the years around 1800.

Montana Indian Stories Lit Kit from the Montana Historical Society.This trunk immerses students in storytelling and the oral tradition withseven class sets of Montana Indian stories collected for the Indian Reading Series (1972) and reprinted by the Montana Historical Society Press. The lit kit includes animal puppets and User Guide. NOTE: Out of respect for the storytelling customs of many Montana Indian people, this kit will be made available for use in the winter months (November through March).

Takeaways

Inspired by reading specialist Tammy Elser, who was in turn inspired by SKC graduate Taylor Crawford, we've created a "Takeaway" bookmark for every chapter of Montana: Stories of the Land. Before starting a chapter, print and cut out these bookmarks and distribute them to your students. Ask them to use the Takeaway to summarize the GIST of what they learn from reading assigned sections of the chapter. Remind them that they don't have much room, so they'll need to think before they write down the most important idea they want to take away from the section. Learn a little more about the GIST strategy.

Even though we've created Takeaways for every chapter, we don't recommend you have your students complete a Takeaway for every section of every chapter they read. That would be exceedingly tedious. However, used appropriately, they can be a useful tool for encouraging reflection and teaching students how to summarize information.

Websites and Online Lesson Plans

The resources related to Montana's Indian tribes are vast. The Indian Education Division of the Office of Public Instruction is an excellent clearinghouse.

Montanatribes.org includes learning activities and a digital archives, where you can find hundreds of short video clips video clips addressing a wide spectrum of topics from tribal perspectives. The interviews are organized around the Essential Understandings, and touch on issues from sovereignty to cultural continuity, to individual and tribal diversity.

Neither Empty nor Unknown: Montana at the Time of Lewis and Clark Lesson Plan (4-7). For teachers able to bring their students to the Montana Historical Society, this lesson plan offers pre- and post-tour lessons and other resources to complement a tour of the Neither Empty nor Unknown exhibit. (Find information about scheduling tours here.) For those unable to tour the exhibit, the lesson plan offers instructions for modifying the lesson and a "virtual tour" via PowerPoint and script. You can preview the virtual tour PowerPoint here.

Videos or DVDs

Tribes of Montana and How They Got Their Names (35 minutes)

Possible Fieldtrips: View the Map

Cultural Center "The People's Center," Pablo

Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Culture Center and Museum, Poplar, 406-768-2328

Montana Historical Society, Helena, especially the exhibit "Neither Empty Nor Unknown: Montana at the Time of Lewis and Clark"

Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning

Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman

St. Labre Indian School and Museum, Ashland

Alignment to ELA Common Core Standards

Alignment to Content Standards and Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians (EU)

Tests and Answer Keys