Projects

The projects for this Summer Institute have two, inter-related dimensions.  Participants will keep journals about their immersive, educational journey, making alphabetic observations but also taking photos and/or making sketches. Some of these materials may be used for the creation of curricular materials toward the end of the institute.

Journals

Over the course of the journey that takes us on a portion of the Lewis and Clark Trail, NEH Summer Scholars will (to some extent) mirror the creation of journals, sketches, and photography that early explorers made on the Trail, drawing from that example but also following contemporary protocols of respectfulness. Keeping a journal will have multiple goals: to make observations of the peoples and places participants are witnessing, but with an awareness of one’s own method of interpretation; to record stories that are being shared, but adding as few filters as possible (or at least being conscious of our filters); and, to reflect on the readings and discussions with an eye to developing curricular materials that encompass the new sources and methods emphasized by the Institute. It is hoped that our Native NEH Summer Scholars will be meeting people and seeing things that are new to them, too, and they will also be expected to keep journals about their experiences and consider sharing them. Favorite examples from each Summer Scholar’s journal will be made available to the wider group and beyond by way of an interactive map that the official Trail cartographer will help create for the Institute website.

Journaling. Public domain image.

Let’s largely limit our active journaling to quiet times. Since writing down what Native elders say while they are speaking might not always be appropriate, do what you can to remember and reflect *after* you hear someone speak. We must be sensitive that indigenous knowledge has been appropriated and shared in offensive ways (being filtered and skewed) over the centuries. Our speakers will know that you are teachers, and they will likely not share information that you could not pass on to your students, but the way we record what we are learning needs to be respectful. It is a rare privilege to hear from elders, people who owe us nothing and are being very generous with their time; they have busy lives.

Due date: We ask that you submit your journals (possibly with sketches) upon your departure from Bismarck or within a month of the end of the institute.

Be sure to label all hardcopies and digital material with your name, address, grade level and subject, and the date. Digital journals and photos can be shared with the director via a Google Drive folder that will be made available for that purpose. Mail any hardcopy submissions to Stephanie Wood, 2085 University Street, Eugene, OR 97403. Stephanie will work with the institute’s core faculty and the National Park Service’s cartographer to see what we would like to extract from your journals (or which sketches or photos) for publishing to the Trail’s interactive map on line. We will assume that anything you submit can be shared unless you specify otherwise [e.g. by labeling something “Please do not share this (passage, photo, sketch).”] Everything we publish will carry with it a request that teachers who borrow from our websites will provide attribution to the original contributor.

Teachings

In our concluding seminar, NEH Summer Scholars will also sort through their journals (whether texts, sketches, or photos) and review the salient themes we have studied with the goal of seeing them coalesce into outlines and/or actual lessons (“Teachings”) for classroom use.

Due date: An outline of your new “Teachings” (i.e. new curricular materials developed as a part of the Institute) will be submitted to Stephanie Wood on July 20th, with the full Teaching due on September 30. Digital journals and photos can be shared with the director via a Google Drive folder that will be made available for that purpose. Mail any hardcopy submissions to Stephanie Wood, 2085 University Street, Eugene, OR 97403, post-markng it by 9/30.

Publishing Your New Curricular Materials.  All NEH Summer Scholars who take part in this institute will be invited to make a Teaching, which will be considered for online publication. Tweaks may be required prior to publishing the Teaching, and so edits may stretch into the fall. The Director and her editorial assistant reserve the right to clean up typos and make other minor edits of uniform formatting, spelling, and syntax. Furthermore, after your school year ends, if you wish to submit a revised version of your Teachings (with the hindsight of having taught the material), we would gladly replace what we are serving on line.

Collaboration.  We encourage you to find a partner or two within our group to build curricular materials that will be useful in your own classrooms. You can team up with others in your same grade band or scaffold your lesson to work with different grade bands. In other words, a science lesson could have a set of instructions for a high school teacher and another set of instructions for an elementary school teacher, each set created by the teachers who normally teach that grade band. We strongly urge you to create a partnership or team that includes both Native and non-Native teachers. We advocate the idea of non-Natives teaching with–versus simply teaching about–Native peoples when addressing Native cultures and their histories.

Open Access.  Because this institute is federally funded, the goal is that your Teachings will be published in open access to our website. It is our hope that other teachers across the country will benefit from using (or adapting) your curricular materials for their own classrooms.

Photographs.  Because your Teaching will be published openly, and because the government will insist upon copyright conformity, we will only be able to include images that you have taken among yourselves, provided by the institute faculty, or that you have found to be in the public domain. Thus, we encourage you to share images among yourselves and provide a photographic credit that we might include when we publish an image. We must also insist that photography is conducted with great sensitivity, usually requiring permission prior to shooting (e.g. in a museum or in a gathering with Native people).

Themes. Themes addressed in the Innovation gallery there in our seminar location in Bismarck include: language and identity (including revitalization); oratory, oral tradition/memory/storytelling, and other forms of communication; math; science (e.g. astronomy); timekeeping, the cosmos, and cardinal directions (medicine wheels, historical annals and other forms of record keeping, such as ledgers and painted hides/robes); sedentary living and agriculture; hunting; gathering/gleaning; architecture (tipis of bark, hide, and cotton, and earth lodges); conical, linear, and animal-shaped mound cemeteries; cosmology; pottery; long-distance trade (maize, shells, guns, beads, etc.); transportation (rivers/boats, horses and travois, dog sleds, etc.); ethnozoology (dogs, birds, bison, horses, etc.); ethnographic art; indigenous art (past and present); spirituality; dance, drumming, and song; contemporary literature (novels, short stories, poetry, etc.); gifting and reciprocity. From Bismarck, Erik Holland, will be following our educational journey and camping in his own tipi. He is offering for NEH Summer Scholars to watch him put up and take down his tipi (ask him if you can film him doing this), and he invites shared campfire meals and conversations.

Recognition

All NEH Summer Scholars who complete the program and the projects listed above will receive a certificate of completion and a letter documenting hours spent and the nature of the work. Those wishing to arrange for the academic credit or continuing education units also have those options available:

Optional Academic Credit

The University of Mary, in Bismarck ND, will offer graduate credits at a rate of $45 per credit, and Summer Scholars may pay for and earn up to 4 credits for submitting a journal and completing a (collaborative) Teaching, as outlined herein, on some aspect of the program of study.  Our Master Teacher, Dr. Carmelita Lamb will supervise the completion of work required to earn the credits. Summer Scholars will be able to obtain a transcript from the University of Mary showing the credits they have earned.

Optional Continuing Education Units

The University of Mary is offering Continuing Education Units (CEUs). The number of units are 1 to 3, at the rate of $45 each unit. Dr. Carmelita Lamb, a dean at the university and an Honoring Tribal Legacies curriculum designer, will supervise the distribution of CEUs.

North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum, Bismarck, ND, the site of our concluding seminar.

 

 


This institute is being funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this web resource do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.”