13 minute read
Whose stories should we tell?” by Jessica Ellison
C3 Framework Indicators
Staging the Compelling Question
Supporting Question 1
Whose stories should we tell?
D2.His.6.9-12. Analyze the ways in which the perspectives of those writing history shaped the history that they produced.
D2.His.7.9-12. Explain how the perspectives of people in the present shape interpretations of the past.
D2.His.8.9-12. Analyze how current interpretations of the past are limited by the extent to which available historical sources represent perspectives of people at the time.
In this inquiry students will consider the inclusion and exclusion of perspectives in historical narratives. Using examples of memorials in Germany and a historical fort in Minnesota, students will learn to identify perspectives present and missing in complex historical narratives and discuss the factors that determine whose stories are told. After this lesson, students will more thoughtfully examine historical narratives they see in educational and public spaces.
Supporting Question 2 Supporting Question 3
How do we identify the perspective of a historical narrative?
Formative Performance Task
In small groups, the students will read the description of Fort Snelling, from three different captures from the Wayback Machine, and will highlight words that give clues about the stories being told at the historic site. Based on the clues identified, the group will consider the perspective of the historical narrative in their given year.
Featured Sources
Source A: “Historic Fort Snelling - Wayback Machine“ (Minnesota Historical Society)
Summative Performance Task
Taking Informed Action
How do we figure out which perspectives are missing and why?
Formative Performance Task
Divide students into two groups. One group will explore German memorials, and the other group will dig deeper into the captures from the Minnesota Historical Society‘s Wayback Machine. How do we decide which stories to include?
Formative Performance Task
Share the two recent articles linked below. What do these articles reveal about public reaction to the inclusion of different stories? In a journal or notebook, students reflect on whom they believe should decide whose stories are told.
Featured Sources Featured Sources
Source A: Recent German Memorials Slideshow (Handout 1)
Source B: “Identification for prisoners in concentration camps“ (Wikimedia Commons)
Source C: “Projectile point“ (Minnesota Historical Society)
Source D: “List of slaves owned by Lawrence Taliaferro (1839-43)“ (Minnesota Historical Society)
Source E: “Dakota Internment Camp at Fort Snelling“ (Minnesota Historical Society) Source A: “Monument Seeks to End Silence on Killings of the Disabled by the Nazis” (Eddy, M.)
Source B: “’Fort Snelling at Bdote?’ Senate passes GOP measure cutting Historical Society funds over ‘revisionist history’” (Salisbury, B.)
Argument: Construct an argument addressing the compelling question: “Whose stories should we tell?” Use evidence from Historic Fort Snelling and German memorials, as well as other relevant sources, to make a case for the perspectives that should be included when addressing histories in public spaces.
Extension: Students imagine they work at a museum or historic site and are charged with creating a new exhibit. They need to choose a topic in history that is usually taught in American high schools and tell that story. It is up to them to choose which stories to include, but they will need to justify their choices.
Understand: Are there historic sites, historical markers, exhibits or other public historical narratives in your community?
Assess: If so, do any of them need updating? Consider the stories being told in your public spaces: the words used, the people included and excluded, the dominant narrative shared.
Act: If you identify a public narrative that you feel needs revision, identify the person or organization responsible for that narrative. It could be a local historical society, a local or state government, or a private organization. Contact them with your thoughts about why and how it should be revised.
COMPELLING QUESTION
Whose stories should we tell?
INQUIRY OVERVIEW
In this lesson, students will consider the inclusion and exclusion of perspectives in historical narratives. Using examples of memorials in Germany and a historical fort in Minnesota, students will learn to identify perspectives present and missing in complex historical narratives and discuss the factors that determine whose stories are told. Students will examine elements of both public historical spaces and current articles about changing names, images, representations, and narratives. After this lesson, students will more thoughtfully examine historical narratives they see in educational and public spaces.
TEACHER BACKGROUND
Historical narratives are consistently shifting as we challenge the status quo and act intentionally to include more perspectives. Often this is labeled as “revisionist” history. But for decades, the stories of women, African Americans, Native Americans, LGBTQ, disabled people, and other groups have been left out of traditional historical narratives, and historians and educators are working to remedy those omissions. Our public history is often a reflection of these narratives and of our values as a community and nation. The way we memorialize the past is deliberate and is revised as additional stories are included.
Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote (the Dakota name for landscape around the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers), is a historic site in St. Paul, managed by the Minnesota Historical Society. The buildings on the land are from various eras of the US military fort, which was constructed at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in 1819. Indigenous people have lived on this land for thousands of years. It has been a meeting place and sacred site for Native people. The fort was also home to Dred and Harriet Scott, whose presence in this free territory led them to sue for their freedom in the 1850s. Other enslaved people lived and worked at the fort in the years before the Civil War. After the US-Dakota War of 1862, grounds near the fort housed a concentration camp for Dakota people. Hundreds of soldiers have trained at Fort Snelling, and during World War II, people of Japanese descent worked at the Military Intelligence Service Language School here. It is a place with many stories, yet for decades, the military story was the dominant narrative. With collaboration from the community and Native nations, MNHS is expanding the stories told. These efforts have met with pushback from community members who feel that MNHS is changing history and pushing aside the stories of the soldiers.
Germany has been acknowledging the crimes of National Socialism in various ways since shortly after World War II. The type of memorial, locations, language used, and stories included have evolved over 70 years. Currently, three former concentration camps in Germany are preserved as museums: Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen. Others have monuments or memorials at the sites. Various cities across Germany have built memorials, with varying levels of support from the community. In the last 20 years, new memorials have expanded the narrative of National Socialism to include diverse stories, as Germany continues to grapple with the context and impact of this period in its history. Some of these efforts have met with complex reactions from the public.
SUGGESTED TIME FRAME: Two 50-minute class periods
INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES
Recent German Memorials Slideshow (Handout 1) 10 copies each of Featured Sources #1 1 copy each of Featured Sources #2 Computer and projector
All handouts can be found here
https://tinyurl.com/y23bl2gy
INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY
Ask students to write down a description of the room that they’re sitting in. After a few minutes, ask a few of them to read their descriptions out loud. Point out that no one’s description is exactly the same, even though everyone is sitting in the same room at the same time. Explain that history is like this; even when people experience the same thing, they have different perspectives and would describe experiences in different ways.
Then, randomly choose descriptions written by two students. Tell the class that these descriptions will be the ones used to share with future students about history classes in 21st-century America. The rest will be recycled. Explain that historical narratives are like this; often, when a history is told, it is from the perspective of a select few. Other perspectives are either lost to history or difficult to find.
SUPPORTING QUESTION #1
Formative Performance Task #1: Split students into groups of three. Each group will receive copies of, or links to, one of three website captures from the Wayback Machine. These captures, from the Minnesota Historical Society’s Fort Snelling page, are from 1999, 2009, and 2019. In their small group, the students will read the description of Fort Snelling, and highlight or circle words that give clues about the stories being told at the historic site. Based on the clues identified, the group will consider the perspective of the historical narrative in their given year.
Students will then jigsaw into new groups of three, where each person has a different website capture. Each student will share their capture’s perspective and the clues that their former group identified.
In these jigsawed groups, students will track their findings in the attached graphic organizer and discuss this follow-up question: How has the historical perspective of Fort Snelling changed in 20 years?
Formative Performance Task #1a: Reconvene as a full class. Solicit answers to the follow-up question that the small groups just discussed.
Explain that the class will now examine another example of changing perspectives, this time from another country grappling with a difficult past. Show the PowerPoint of memorials – on the impact of National Socialism -- that have been built in Germany since Reunification. Note the date built, location of the memorial, the group memorialized, and the language or symbolism of the memorial. Based on the students’ understanding of changing historical perspectives, put this question to the class: How has the historical perspective of German memorials changed in 30 years?
➤ Featured Sources #1: • Minnesota Historical Society. Historic Fort Snelling. Website capture, Wayback Machine, Internet Archive. 20 April 1999. https://web.archive.org/web/19990420132737/http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/hfs/index.html
Minnesota Historical Society. Historic Fort Snelling. Website capture, Wayback Machine, Internet Archive. 21 March 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090321105004/http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/hfs/ history.html
Minnesota Historical Society. Historic Fort Snelling: Learn. Website capture, Wayback Machine, Internet Archive. 2 May 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190502144024/https://www.mnhs.org/fortsnelling/learn
SUPPORTING QUESTION #2
Formative Performance Task #2: Divide the class into two groups. One will focus on Fort Snelling and the other on German memorials. (You can also further divide each group if your students work better in smaller groups. You will need more copies of the sources).
Give the Germany group access to Handout 1, which shows recent German memorials. Have them consider these questions: Do these memorials represent all relevant perspectives? What additional information do we need to determine if perspectives are missing?
Give the Fort Snelling group the three website captures from Featured Sources #1. Have them note the perspectives that appear in 2019 but don’t in 2009 or 1999. Have them consider these questions: What information did historians need to broaden the stories told? How do we know if perspectives are still missing?
After about 5-10 minutes of discussion, give the groups the additional sources listed in Featured Sources #2 below. Groups should then discuss: How does this new information help you answer the questions?
Both groups choose a representative to briefly share out their questions and conclusions to the full class.
➤ Featured Sources #2: • Recent German Memorials Slideshow (Handout 1)
For Germany group: “Identification for prisoners in concentration camps.” Wikimedia Commons. https://de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Datei:Kennzeichen_f%C3%BCr_Schutzh%C3%A4ftlinge_in_den_Konzentrationslagern.jpg.
For Fort Snelling group: “Dakota Internment Camp at Fort Snelling. 1862-1863.” Minnesota Historical Society, http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=10615904.
“List of slaves owned by Lawrence Taliaferro (1839-43).” Minnesota Historical Society, Page 2, Fort Snelling, http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=10614503.
“Projectile point. Circa 6000-800 BCE.” Minnesota Historical Society, Found 1973-1974 at Fort Snelling, http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=11356653.
SUPPORTING QUESTION #3
How do we decide which stories to include?
Formative Performance Task #3:
Share the two recent articles linked below. You may want to project them and highlight the sections where people are commenting on the shift in narratives, at Fort Snelling and in Germany. What do these articles reveal about public reaction to the inclusion of different stories?
Private reflection: In a journal or notebook, students reflect on who they believe should decide whose stories are told. They should consider all the evidence presented from the recent history of Historic Fort Snelling and German memorials, and the recent public reactions. A possible sentence stem: When historical events are told in public spaces, I believe decisions should be made by…
➤ Featured Sources #3: • Eddy, Melissa. “Monument Seeks to End Silence on Killings of the Disabled by the Nazis.” New York Times, 2 September 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/europe/monument-seeks-to-end-silence-o n-killings-of-the-disabled-by-the-nazis.html
Salisbury, Bill. “’Fort Snelling at Bdote?’ Senate passes GOP measure cutting Historical Society funds over ‘revisionist history’.” Pioneer Press, 25 April 2019. https://www.twincities.com/2019/04/25/ fort-snelling-at-bdote-republican-senators-threaten-minnesota-historical-society-f unds-over-alleged-revisionist-history
SUMMATIVE PERFORMANCE TASK
Construct an argument addressing the compelling question: “Whose stories should we tell?” Use evidence from Historic Fort Snelling and German memorials, as well as other relevant sources, to make a case for the perspectives that should be included when addressing histories in public spaces. Use the supporting questions to help structure your argument into a persuasive essay. You might consider including the interpretation of perspectives of a local historic site or memorial as part of your argument.
EXTENSION (OPTIONAL) TASK
You work at a museum or historic site and are charged with creating a new exhibit. You are given a maximum of 400 words and eight images. You cannot use objects. You have a very limited budget so you cannot create multimedia or interactives. You need to choose a topic in history that is usually taught in American high schools (reference your classes, your textbook, your teacher’s perspective) and tell that story. It is up to you to choose which stories to include, but you will need to justify your choices.
Choose a topic. Research the topic. Find it in a textbook, if possible. Consider the stories being told. Decide how you want to tell the story. Write exhibit panels and headlines (not to exceed 400 words), and choose up to eight images (photographs, maps, newspapers, documents, posters, etc.) to support the historical story you are telling. Assemble the text and images on paper, poster board, or Google Slides. Write an additional 100-word reflection about why you chose to tell the story in the way you did and how you feel that your historical narrative would be received by your community.
Possible extension: Students build an actual exhibit and share it with others in their community, perhaps at a library, community center, historical society, or another school in their district.
TAKING INFORMED ACTION
UNDERSTAND Are there historic sites, historical markers, exhibits or other public historical narratives in your community?
ASSESS If so, do any of them need updating? Consider the stories being told in your public spaces: the words used, the people included and excluded, the dominant narrative shared.
ACT If you identify a public narrative that you feel needs revision, identify the person or organization responsible for that narrative. It could be a local historical society, a local or state government, or a private organization. Contact them with your thoughts about why and how it should be revised.
MODIFICATIONS FOR DIFFERENTIATION
Possible topics for research: If students struggle to identify public history to research further, provide a list of examples to get them started. Such a list can include: historic sites connected to national figures (Mount Vernon, Monticello, Ford’s Theatre); statues depicting individuals, actual or composite (statues representing a group of people, such as soldiers, but not representing one particular person); historical markers or plaques noting a past event or location; commemorative spaces (Gettysburg, Yorktown, Historic Jamestowne); memorials to people or events (National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Vietnam Veterans Memorial).
MODIFICATIONS FOR ONLINE LEARNING
This lesson can be modified for distance learning. In Formative Performance Task #1, create virtual breakout rooms for the jigsaw activity. For Formative Performance Task #2, create a space in Padlet or Google Jamboard for students to comment on the supporting sources. In Formative Performance Task #3, use an Annotate or Draw tool to allow students to identify key points in the articles. The Private Reflection included in Task #3 can be extended throughout the lesson, allowing students to note their thoughts and wonderings as they consider the compelling and supporting questions.
Jessica Ellison is a teacher educator at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, MN, USA.
