January 31, 2008 - Begin the First Americans

Afternoon Cate,

Today we started our new unit - The First Americans. I began by explaining my philosophy of teaching history - thru the use of telling stories. I shared two stories with the students. Each story represented a term they should know. I told a story about a mermaid as an example of a primary source (eyewitness account - person or artifact was there at the time of the event). You can read the story at
Next I shared a story from the book I wrote about my Grandfather. I used this as an example of a secondary source (2nd hand account - the person or artifact was not there at the time of the event).

Okay, then we began to talk about the First Americans. Students learned about the meaning of the word - Pre-Columbian (before Columbus). To start learning about American History you have to start at the beginning - before we were a country. We talked about the people that were here before. The students did a journal entry in which they answered three questions 1. What is an indian? 2. Where does the word indian come from? 3. When you hear the word "indian" what comes to mind? After they wrote answers we discussed there responses. For number 1. Students have an idea that indian refers to people that are indigenous to this country, there roots go back before Europeans, Africans, and Asians came here. For number 2. Indian comes from the mistake made by Columbus when he thought he was near the Indies islands off the coast of the Asian mainland. It is a word that has stuck for good and bad. For #3 - students gave a variety of answers most of them pretty stereotypical and they agreed that A. they don't know much about native americans and B. what they do know comes from TV, movies, and sports...

After all of our discussions I showed them what we will be doing in this unit and had them write down SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK NATIVE AMERICANS REALLY WANT? and they copied A. Respect, B. a chance to have culture celebrated and understood, and C. the opportunity to have their history learned alongside the rest of American history.

That's it - here is the reading and homework for tomorrow!