Lesson Plan

Oral Histories and Glacier National Park

Grade Level:
Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
Subject:
Literacy and Language Arts,Science,Social Studies
Lesson Duration:
60 Minutes

Essential Question

How do mountains form?
What is their significance?

Objective

Students will be able to:
• Explain the importance of oral history and cultural stories.
• Compare and contrast it to a story their family tells over and over again.
• Produce their own stories of environmental phenomena in their community.
• Speculate creatively and scientifically about natural phenomena in their lives.
• Consider compatibilities between Western science and Native knowledge.
• Realize there are multiple perspectives for the same landscapes.

Background

The full Work House Program can be found on Glacier's Lesson Plan Webpage.

Review the definitions for oral history and origin story.

  • An oral history is a historical account recorded in the memories, legends, stories, songs, art, and languages of people who did not create written histories. Oral histories are passed from one generation to the next and are as valid as written histories. Indigenous languages are the key to the survival of oral histories, as they can seldom be translated accurately into other languages.
  • Origin story – An origin story is a people’s account of their own creation and beginning. Origin stories are part of tribes’ oral histories. They do not always concur (agree) with archaeological or academic theories about the origins of humankind, or human migrations. However, this does not mean that such stories are not true or do not have value and importance.

Percy Bullchild in The Sun Came Down: The History of the World as My Blackfeet Elders Told It, writes, "All of this story is true, because we Natives preserved our history in our minds and handed it down from generation to generation, from time unknown, orally. From the time human life began. It isn’t any different from the stories our white friends tell about such as King Arthur of the Round Table and Joan of Arc, there are many other stories of the white legends that are written too. Some of these stories may sound a little foolish, but they are very true. And they have much influence over all of the people of this world, even now as we all live." (3)

This activity is designed to get students thinking about story telling and the importance of oral histories and origin stories. It should also get them to speculate creatively and scientifically about natural phenomena in their environment. It is best to have students choose phenomena that they have often wondered about. This is a warm-up writing activity and topics need not be limited to mountain building.

Preparation

  • Review the lesson plan to make sure it is appropriate for your students
  • Access to a TV or Computer to watch At Home In This Place online or with the DVD
  • Student Reading, Unit 2
  • Paper 
  • Pencil
  • Colored pencils

Procedure

  1. Share the information each tribe contributed to the St. Mary Visitor Center Exhibit: Wisdom in Spoken Words (page 8 of the Work House Program), as well as the unit introduction about the importance of the Rocky Mountains to the four tribes and to their oral history creation stories. Show the videos from each tribe: “It’s Like Being Home,” “The Place Where They Dance,”and “I Can Almost Hear our Ancestors.” Discuss the connection each video relates about the stories and the area that is now Glacier National Park.
  2. Have the students do the Student Reading for Unit 2 (page 113 of the Work House program). Use whatever works best - homework, silent reading, group reading, or teacher reading out loud. The Glenbow Museum, Canada, as part of their Niitsitapiisini- Our Way of Life, virtual exhibit has a video link for Okotoks, Alberta where one of the largest rock fragments associated with the Napi story is located.
  3. Use the questions and vocabulary at the end of the reading for discussion. Then have students speculate creatively and scientifically about natural phenomena in their lives.
  4. Have them use language arts and artistic skills to produce their own stories about environmental phenomena in their community. Have them illustrate their story with colored pencils.

Possible Extensions

  • All stories and illustrations could be collected and bound into a book by one or two of the students who would like to create a cover and table of contents. What might the cover of that book look like? Would students like to design a cover for one of the stories?
  • Ranger-Led Field Trips and Service Learning Projects in Glacier National Park. Earth Science and Forest Processes field trips about park geology.
  •  Self-Guided Field Trips as well as Guided Tours - various concession operated - in Glacier National Park.
  • Glacier Institute - geology and other education programs.
  • Flathead CORE - outdoor education guide for field trips in the Flathead.

Vocabulary

Environment, mountain, oral history, phenomena.

Assessment Materials

Editing partners should practice reading their stories to each other, make constructive suggestions for revision, and rewrite a final draft.

Those students who feel secure enough should tell their stories without the paper. Others could read their story to the class or have the teacher read the story for them. How did it feel to share their story- easy, hard, scarey?

Additional Resources

Contact Information

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Tags: workhouse iefa essential understanding 1 essential understanding 3 essential understanding 6 mountains geology history tribes native american oral history stories indigenous history origin story indian education work house

Last updated: September 15, 2023