Digital Writing Indecision

I wanted to create another resource to help kids learn about the Voyageurs and the role of the fur trade in MN history. There's something about the French Voyageurs that captures my imagination.

I started by selecting photos from a recent family visit to the Northwest Fur Trading Post near Pine CIty, MN. (What a great way to learn history: visiting a fur trading post with costumed interpreters who speak with a French accent!) As I reviewed my photos, I found myself wishing I had more. Since the site is closed after Labor Day, I resorted to a search on flickr and google images for photos. I added my photos to Flickr and found more I could use.

As I began to write my nonfiction piece, I wrestled with several issues:
1. What story shall I tell? In researching the MNHS website, I learned much about the NW Fur Trading Post, even the names of some of the voyageurs who lived there according to journal entries by John Sayer, the owner of the post. I could tell about life at the post: what they wore, how they lived. Or I could outline the sequencing of events from trading post to Grand Portage to Montreal where the pelts were loaded onto ships headed for France...No, too much information. Our Social Studies standards require that students "understand the interaction between Native peoples and fur traders..." So, I tried to focus on that relationship: how the Ojibwe helped the French with everything from making birchbark canoes, to providing food, making moccasins, and trapping and cleaning beaver pelts. Of course, the Ojibwe also benefited from the fur trade, receiving goods from Europe, including cloth, iron pots and tools, even guns and whiskey! The Ojibwe also got smallpox, French relatives (as the voyageurs married Native women), and probably more often then not, the short end of the stick. This leads to another question:

2. How to simplify history? As I viewed the Thanksgiving Charlie Brown DVD last week, I chuckled at the simplicity of the story of Samoset, Miles Standish and the story of the first Thanksgiving nearly 400 years ago. How do we simplify history in terms that children can understand without creating a canoe full of misconceptions?

3. Where to find photos of the Ojibwe as they may have looked 200 years ago? While there are many photos of white guys acting out events in history, its harder to find Native Americans reenacting life hundreds of years ago. No surprise there.

What to do? One of the reasons I started this project was because I wanted additional resources to teach students about the Fur Trade in MN history. Since then, I have found 2 fabulous books (The Voyageur's Paddle, by Kathy-Jo Wargin, and The Illustrated Voyageur by Howard Sivertson) and a video that have been very useful. These three resources provide much more than I can with a Voyageur Photostory. At this time, I will abandon this project and invest my energy in a project more useful to me and my students...

A gathering of resources and digital writing on my classroom blog.
(I started to do this on Think.com but found that it was too limiting. One advantage of Thinkquest is that student work is viewed only by students at Cornelia. Disadvantages include: 1. Password is required to access 2. Design options are limited. Font, color, and backgrounds cannot be changed. 3. Space is limited. After I loaded links to several sites, my hope was to have students share an "aha!" and a question from the site, but my page was full.

My goals for classroom blog include:
1. Gather resources for social studies in one place for teaching and learning. (See MN HIstory and Geography) Our MN book is an inch deep and a mile wide. These links from the Minnesota Historical Society enrich our learning.

2. Showcase student work: See Picasa Slide show on main page. The students wrote the captions. I hope to add a lot more in the next few weeks.