The Birchbark House
Book – Fiction. By Louise Erdrich. 1999. 244 pages.
Historical fiction set in the mid-19th century in the Lake Superior area.
Order book online.
Omakayas, a seven-year-old Native American girl of the Ojibwa tribe, lives through the joys of summer and the perils of winter on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. This is the first in a series of young adult novels based on noted author Louise Erdrich’s own family history.
A Broken Flute, a leading review of native experience in children’s books commends The Birchbark House as “the single best book of its kind,” for writing from within a native culture, rather than simply about it.
The Birchbark House can be included in a unit on indigenous peoples, North American history, or social studies units on ecology or geography. For students who are reading Little House on the Prairie, this is a great book to show what is missing or mis-represented in the popular Laura Ingalls Wilder series.
Published by Hyperion Books for Children.
ISBN: 9780786814541
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Zinn Education Project
Saturday, February 4th at 7:12 Today is the birthday of Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (Feb. 4, 1913 – Oct. 24, 2005). Below is a key article by Herbert Kohl from Rethinking Schools that challenges the myths prevalent in children's books and textbooks about Rosa Parks. Here is a link to more resources about Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott: http://zinnedproject.org/posts/tag/rosaparks
The Politics of Children’s Literature: What’s Wrong with the Rosa Parks Myth
zinnedproject.org
Aritcle. By Herbert Kohl. 6 pages. A critical analysis that challenges the myths in children’s books about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Zinn Education Project
Saturday, February 4th at 0:40 via ColorLines Magazine People have taken to Twitter to talk about the histories they wish they'd learned about in high school. Use: #WishiLearnedinHS
Pay Attention! Ethnic Studies #WishiLearnedinHS Curriculum Hits Twitter - COLORLINES
colorlines.com
Educational policies start trending on Twitter.
Zinn Education Project
Friday, February 3rd at 7:25 On this day in 1944, U.S. forces invaded and took control of the Marshall Islands. Who was living there? What is the status of the islands today? The Insular Empire: America in the Marianas is a powerful film on the U.S. colonies in the western Pacific.
Suggestion: ask your students - "Does the U.S. have colonies?" Let us know how they respond.
The Insular Empire: America in the Mariana Islands
zinnedproject.org
The Insular Empire is a one-hour PBS documentary about America’s colonies in the western Pacific. Six thousand miles west of California, the Mariana Islands include the U.S. Territory of Guam and the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (or CNMI). Although most Americans don’t believe t...
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