Connecting Literature to the Social Studies Classroom

The History Behind the Story

In this day-long session, teachers will investigate primary sources connected to picture books on Abenaki and early settlement history of the region. Brush up on your early settlement era knowledge, learn strategies for helping students investigate primary sources, and develop writing tasks directly connected to the Common Core. Teachers will leave with primary source packets connected to each picture book. The day will focus on three topics:

The Abenaki
In Malian's Song, by Marge Bruchac, a young Abenaki girl recounts the 1759 English attack on her village. This session will use maps and early documents to explore the relationships between the Abenaki and English settlers.

Early Settlement
Giants in the Land, by Diana Applebaum, tells the story of the giant pines used for masts for the Royal Navy in the days of early settlement. Tricking the Tallyman, by Jacqueline Davies, is set in 1790 and tells the story of the dilemmas of the tallyman who must deliver a count of the citizens of Tunbridge, Vermont. In this session we will look at town charters, maps, and the first United States Census to understand settlement issues in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Early Farming and Industrialization
Bobbin Girl, by Emily McCully, is the tale of a mill girl in 1830s Lowell, Massachusetts. Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man reveals the rhythms of the agricultural year and economy. This session will explore the lives of New Hampshire and Vermont children and their experiences on the farm and in the mills through letters, photographs, farmer's almanacs and other sources.

Cost: $150

Time: 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

Dates and Locations:

January 24, 2017: The Learning Collaborative, Dummerston, VT
January 30, 2017: Sugar River Development Center, Claremont, NH

REGISTER HERE

Early Settlement in the CT River Valley Unit Frame

The purpose of this unit is to study the early settlement of the Upper Connecticut River Valley using primary sources and the landscape. Students follow an inquiry model where they gain background knowledge to the topic, generate questions about the people who settled this region, and then launch an historical investigation culminating in a historical cemetery quest that they can share with their community.




Enduring Understandings

• The Abenaki first lived and named the area we now call Vermont and New Hampshire.
• The Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire was primarily settled by colonists from Connecticut and Massachusetts.
• Town meeting was the main political institution in VT and NH communities.

Essential Question

What is the relationship between culture, humans, and geography?

Focusing Questions

• Who first lived in this area we now call Vermont/New Hampshire?
• Where did the first European settlers come from? Why did they come to this area?
• Who settled here and how did they live?
• What did they do to organize their towns?

Background Information

• Who first lived in this area we now call Vermont/New Hampshire?
• Where did the first European settlers come from? Why did they come to this area?
• Who settled here and how did they live?
• What did they do to organize their towns?

Bibliography

Early Settlement Links

Background Information

Freedom and Unity
This exhibit provides good contextual information.

New Hampshire Historical Society Slide Shows
Several slideshows discuss early settlement topics. See especially "Settling New Hampshire Towns" and watch New Hampshire develop from its original four towns in 1623 up to the last town to be recognized in 1966.

Native Americans of New Hampshire
Information, lesson plans, and activities inform students about life among the Woodland Indians who lived in this area and prepare them for the museum traveling program On the Abenaki Trail.

Landscape History of Central New England
This is the website for the book "New England Forests Through Time"

Maps

Old Maps
Here is where you can find copies of old maps such as the 1796 and 1810 Whitelaw maps

Cemeteries

New Hampshire Census Information
Spreadsheet and worksheet for exploring New Hampshire's population

How to Read a Graveyard

This website provides concise, step-by-step directions on how to look at a graveyard as a historian.

Stones and Bones

"Stones and Bones: Using Tombstones as Textbooks" contains content information about what to look for in cemeteries, cemetery symbology, glossaries, burial customs, attitudes toward death, information about marble and granite, folklore and superstitions about death and burial customs. The packet also includes skill sheets and sample activities, including important information about the "do’s and don'ts" of gravestone rubbing, and a resources section that includes a list of organizations, books available from the Barre Granite Association about gravestone memorial art and architecture, and a bibliography.

The Cemetery Quest

This lesson introduces students to data collection and to the families buried in their local cemetery. It also provides resources that can be used back in the classroom to link student work in mathematics and computer technology.

Exploring the Cemetery
This is an introductory lesson for students and teachers about exploring cemeteries.

Town Meeting

Town Meeting Lesson Plan
About Town Meeting Records

Evolution of New Hampshire Town Meeting

Vermont State Archives
The Vermont State Archives includes election history, transcriptions of Vermont’s constitutions, and essays about continuing issues in government.

Who's Who in Local Government
The Vermont Secretary of State's page includes links to guides to the duties of officials elected at town meetings as well as a variety of kids’ guides to local government.

Abenaki History and Culture Unit Frame

Abenaki History and Culture

Overview: The purpose of this unit is to study the history and culture of the first people who
inhabited and continue to live in Vermont and New Hampshire, the Abenaki.

Enduring Understandings:

• The Abenaki have lived in the area we now call Vermont and New Hampshire for at least 12,000 years.
• This area is the Abenaki homeland.
• There are many Abenaki place names in Vermont and New Hampshire.
• From first contact to the American Revolution, Abenakis and Europeans sometimes cooperated with each other and sometimes fought.
• European settlement of Vermont and New Hampshire increased continually and the Abenaki tried to maintain control of their lands.
• Europeans eventually prevailed over the Abenaki and took control of their lands.
• Today, the Abenaki have reasserted their identity as the longstanding inhabitants of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Essential Questions

• Why do groups of people come into conflict with each other?
• How are Native American and Euro-American cultures different?

Focusing Questions

• How was traditional Abenaki society organized and how did the Abenaki live?
• How is the landscape central to Abenaki culture, stories, and history?
• Why did the Abenaki and European and American settlers come into conflict?
• Why did Americans in Vermont and New Hampshire come to believe that the Abenaki had disappeared from these states?
• How do Abenaki people live today?

Background Information

• Freedom and Unity: The First People
• New Hampshire History Slideshows: The French, the Indians, and the English: Trouble in Colonial New Hampshire

Bibliography

Mosbas and the Magic Flute

Jesse Bruchac has published a new book written in both English and Abenaki. A lesson story for all ages. Mosbas was far too shy to speak to girls. When he is given a magic flute, he finds its power too much to control and is eventually changed forever. You can actually download the book as a PDF here.


Connie Bresnahan, a Middle School teacher in Putney, VT, has used this book with her students combined with a visualization reading tool where students write down what they "see," "hear," "smell," "taste," and "feel." This tool provided a springboard for a lively discussion of both the story and the role of stories in Abenaki culture.

Teachers in spring workshops agreed that this would be a useful teaching tool to help students keep focused on the story and yet not be distracted by too many questions.

A Historical Tale

Have you ever played the telephone game with your class? Give it a try with this sentence:

"A blue bird is sitting on eggs in her nest." First write down the sentence, then pass the word around. Walt Garner, middle school teacher at Tunbridge, VT, has used this game as a way to introduce to students the idea that stories passed down through the generations can remain accurate.


Malian's Song is an example of a story passed down through the generations. In the words of a young Abenaki girl, the book tells the true story of the deliberate English attack by British Major Robert Rogers on the St. Francis Abenaki community near Montréal in 1759. Jeanne Brink, a descendant of Malian living in Vermont, told the little-known Abenaki version of the brutal attack--which stands in direct contrast to Rogers’ surviving journal records--to the Vermont Folklife Center. The only picture book to present this key piece of North American history from the Native American perspective, Malian’s Song underscores the Abenaki people’s strength and fortitude in the face of unspeakable loss.

This story began in 1759 and has only been passed along 4 times. That is because it was a story that was deliberately told from Grandmother to youngest grandaughter as a key piece of history. You can hear Elvine Obomsawin Royce tell this story online at the Vermont Folklife Center.

Abenaki Place Names

Who first lived in the area we now call Vermont/New Hampshire?

Place Names are another way to help students recognize that there were Native Americans in the land we now call Vermont/New Hampshire.

Connecting Now & Then to Place

Ask students if they know of any places in their area with Native American names then share with them a list of local Native American place names. Create a Google map with the place names then navigate a journey from one place to the next using Native place names.

e.g. How might you get from Mt. Ascutney to Lake Sunapee? Travel east from Kaskakadenak (Wide Mountain) to Kwanitekw (Long River). Follow the river south to Senomoziktekw (Sugar Maple River); then east up the river to Seninebes (Rock Lake).
Drawing
Provide your students with a ½ sheet of construction paper. Have them carefully write their native word on the top. At the bottom, have them write the definition/translation. In between imagine and draw a picture of that definition.

Discussion

• Emphasize many Abenaki still inhabit this community
• Emphasize Abenaki folk-ways and food-ways still inform our lives: paved roads trace Abenaki trails; planted fields trace the floodplains; we enjoy and recreate in Abenaki sacred places; and honor the seasonal harvests (sap run, fiddleheads, berries ripening) with celebration.
• Native words - not always correctly interpreted or pronounced by Europeans – surround us today.
• As Europeans heard Native Americans say a name they would apply these words to name places more permanently by placing the names on maps; and different groups might spell these words in different ways: for example, the name Lake Winnipesaukee has over 100 spellings.

Want to try an online version? We've created two interactive Place Name Activities:

http://doinghistory.org/activities/original/wmap.html

http://doinghistory.org/activities/map_w/map.html

Place Name Abenaki English Translation
Abenaki Wôbanakiak People of the Dawn
Alnôbak The People
Ammonoosuc Ômanosek Zibo Fishing River
Ascutney Kaskakadenak Wide Mountain
Connecticut Kwanitekw Long River
Contoocook Bagôntekw Butternut River
Coos Koasek Pine Tree Place
Mascoma Mazalopskok Zibo Clap Place River (also the name of a Sokwaki man)
Merrimack Molôdemak Zibo Deep Water River
Mississiquoi Wazawatekw Crooked River
Monadnock Menonadenak Smooth Mountain
Moosilauke Mozalhlakik Wadso Cow Moose Land Mountain
Ompompanoosuc Bemômanosek Zibo Fishing Place River
Passumpsic Pasômkasek Zibo Sandy Bottom River
Sunapee Seninebes Rock Lake
West River Wantastekw Lost River
Winnipesaukee Wiwinebeskik Lake Region Place
Winooski Winoskitekw Onion Land River

Original Wobanakik Map, Copyright 1995, Frederick M. Wiseman used by permission.

Our thanks to Steve Glazer, Poetics of Place, for his support in creating this lesson.

Background Resource: Rebecca Brown, ed., Where the Great River Rises, 132 - 137. This essay on Native Space includes a map and glossary of Native and European names in the Connecticut River watershed.

An Abenaki Couple

This watercolor of an Abenaki couple provides us with opportunities to discuss the interactions between Europeans and Native Americans. Can you figure out how? Use the guiding questions below.


Look closely at this image. Make a detailed list of what you see. Go to this larger image and zoom in carefully.

Descriptive Question: What are they wearing?

Interpretive Question: What do you think their clothing is made from? How can you tell?

Analytical Question: Do you think this couple has had any interactions with Europeans? What makes you say that?

Continue your analysis by examining William Wood's 1734 New England Prospect.

Image Credit:
Abenaki Couple, an 18th-century watercolor by an unknown artist. Courtesy of the City of Montreal Records Management & Archives, Montreal, Canada. This version obtained from Wikipedia Commons

New England Prospect

The New England Prospect, by William Wood was originally published in London in 1634. This was the first book to provide reliable first hand information on British America for prospective colonists. Particular attention is paid to Native culture and the environment.

Before looking at the New England Prospect, spend some time analyzing the Abenaki Couple. See if Wood's description of Native American clothing adds to your analysis of the image.

Descriptive Question:

1. Based on Wood’s description, what did the Indians wear in winter?

Interpretive Question:

2. How would you describe Wood’s description of the Indians?

Admiring? Condescending? Arrogant? Sympathetic? Bewildered?

Analytical Question:

3. What makes you say this? How does he explain why they dress the way they do?

For background information to pull these two primary sources together, take a look at William Cronon's book, Changes in the Land, p. 102

Bibliography on Abenaki History and Culture

Teacher Resources

Abenaki in Vermont: A History Kit for Students and Their Teachers, Sarah Rooker, ed, (Vermont Historical Society, 1988). Artifact kit and Teachers Guide, available through the Vermont Historical Society.

The Abenaki of Vermont: A Living Culture: Teacher’s Guide, Gregory Sharrow. ed. (Vermont Folklife Center, 2002). Designed to accompany the Vermont Folklife Center’s video of the same title, the book is a valuable tool for teachers. The Abenaki of Vermont: A Living Culture

1609: Quadricentennial Curriculum (Lake Champlain Maritime Museum). An up-to-date curriculum for Vermont schools, with a good focus on the Native American experience. Good for all grade levels.
Champlain: The Lake Between (Vermont Public Television, 2009). This video about the history of the lake region from Champlain’s visit through the French and Indian War features Abenakis and Iroquois. The accompanying curriculum guide has good content and lessons.

History

Calloway, Colin G., The Abenaki (Chelsea House, 1989). Calloway is the premier non-native scholar of the Abenaki. This is a good first book for grades 4-8, and a resource for 9-12 and teachers. For a more comprehensive history, read Calloway’s The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1990).

———, ed., North Country Captives (University Press of New England, 1992). These captivity narratives are interesting primary sources that reveal much about the Abenaki during the eras of contact and early European settlement.

Cherry, Lynne. A River Ran Wild (Harcourt, Brace, 1992). This excellent picture book portrays the historical evolution of the Nashua River from Native American use up to present-day clean-up; timeline included.

Gallagher, Nancy, Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State (University Press of New England, 1999). The stunning story of the eugenics movement in Vermont from the 1920s to 1940s reveals the ways that Abenaki people were targeted for persecution and sterilization. It’s critical to understanding recent Abenaki history.

Haviland, William, and Marjory Power, The Original Vermonters (University Press of New England, 1994). This is the standard anthropological/archaeological work on the Western Abenaki area; makes a strong case for the presence and persistence of the people. It’s a good resource for upper grade teachers and could be used with high school students.

Wiseman, Frederick M., The Voice of the Dawn, an Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation (University Press of New England, 2001). Designed as a resource book for teachers (middle school and up) and professionals, this book combines personal experience and philosophy with historical data, and discusses the important political events of the 1990s.

Stories and Tales

Bruchac, Jesse, Mosbas and the Magic Flute (Bowman Books, 2010). This wonderful book includes an Abenaki dictionary and pronunciation guide along with a great story.

Bruchac, Joseph, The Wind Eagle (Bowman Books, 1985); The Faithful Hunter (1988). Excellent collections of Abenaki stories.

Joseph Bruchac has written several young adult novels about Abenaki history and experience, covering various time periods. Ones especially recommended by teachers include The Winter People (Puffin, 2002), about Rogers’ Raid of 1759; The Arrow Over the Door (Puffin, 2002), which takes place during the American Revolution; and Hidden Roots (Scholastic, 2004), about a teenage boy who struggles with his Abenaki identity as his family copes with the aftermath of the eugenics project in Vermont.

Bruchac, Marge, Malian’s Song (Vermont Folklife Center, 2005). Based on oral history, this wonderful picture book tells the Abenaki side of the story of Rogers Raid, which destroyed the village of Odanak in 1759, during the French and Indian/Seven Years War.

Caduto, Michael, and Joseph Bruchac, Keepers of the Earth (1988). Native American stories with environmental lessons; contains Abenaki stories as well as those of other tribes. Excellent resource for teachers wishing to integrate science, literature, and social studies.

Speare, Elizabeth George, Calico Captive (Sandpiper, 2001). A well-regarded young adult novel inspired by Susannah Johnson’s famous narrative about her capture at Fort Number Four in 1754 and subsequent three years living with the Abenaki.

Online Resources

Flow of History: The Gathering and Interactions of Peoples, Cultures, and Ideas
This section of the website includes background essays and timelines focused on early settlement in the Connecticut River Valley.

Freedom and Unity
This exhibit provides good contextual information.

Native Americans of New Hampshire (New Hampshire Historical Society)
Information, lesson plans, and activities inform students about life among the Woodland Indians who lived in this area and prepare them for the museum traveling program On the Abenaki Trail.