During the 2014-2015 year of teaching 4th grade at Silver Lake Elementary I was part of the 4th grade Nevada History and Art Cohort. We met many times during the school year. During this Cohort we discussed Nevada History and how to teach students using the textbook, but to give students a more accurate view of what is happening we discussed, and learned how to pull resources from other places to support the textbook. This gives the students a more thoughtful and accurate portrayal of what actually occurred during the time period we are studying. My grade level at Silver Lake created the OUT below. I completed this lesson with my students and it was VERY successful. The students were actively involved and had wonderful discussions about the content. I learned through this Cohort how to pull resources from other sources to create a well-rounded lesson that is thought provoking and effective.
Open Up the Textbook (OUT)
Enlarge Complicate Contest Vivify
In this OUT analysis, 4th grade students will study the shelter and habits of Nevada’s Native Groups in order to better understand why Nevada’s Native People were nomadic. This OUT analysis provides students with documents that are meant to deliberately enlarge and vivify the textbook.
This strategy is implemented most effectively when students collaborate to analyze the texts in small, heterogeneous groups. The texts that accompany the textbook are complex and often include difficult vocabulary and syntax. (For a few words that are likely unknown to students and unidentifiable based upon context clues, helpful synonyms are provided in the footnotes.) Students should first annotate each text and then collaborate to answer the text dependent and specific questions that follow. Questions will highlight sourcing and perspective of the author, close reading of key details from the document that enlarge, complicate, contest, or vivify the textbook, as well as questions that help students corroborate (or not) the accuracy of individual documents. The writing task that follows is an independent activity wherein students will employ evidence from multiple sources to justify their analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Source A: The Textbook – Nevada Our Home Pg. 60
Native Life and Customs
Nevada’s native people lived in simple shelters. In warmer months, their shelters were built from mesquite branches. Desert breezes could blow through these branches to cool them. When it turned cold, they covered pole frames with grass, reeds, or bark. Both shelters were easy to leave behind and build again when native groups moved to find food.
Source A Questions for Consideration
1. What evidence in the text tells you the shelters were easy to leave behind?
2. What tells you in the paragraph that Nevada’s Native People were nomadic?
Source B: (Secondary source) – Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes
BUILDING HOUSES
The Paiutes, dependent on hunting and gathering for survival, made shelters that were quickly and easily constructed. The Great Basin provided few sizeable animal hides for tepees, so for the Paiutes, shelters were at best only temporary structures made from grass, tules, cattails, sagebrush, willows, or pine boughs. When they needed shade for rest, they pulled brush up by the roots, leaned it against whatever was at hand, and crawled under. In their more permanent camps, the Indians, for protection from the cold in the mountain forests where fuel was abundant and logs were plentiful, large fires could be made, so only a minimum of shelter was needed. Semicircles of brush and branches, piled head high, broke the wind and reflected the warmth of the large logs burning in the center. Patched and repaired from year to year, abandoned when not needed, or burned when death occurred in them, shelters were mainly for protection from the elements. They were never "home."
Source B Questions for Consideration
1. What evidence from the text supports the authors claim “they were never home”?
2. What do you think a temporary structure is?
3. What new information did you learn about Native Nevada shelters from this source?
Source C: (Primary Source) Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes
Open Up the Textbook (OUT)
Enlarge Complicate Contest Vivify
In this OUT analysis, 4th grade students will study the shelter and habits of Nevada’s Native Groups in order to better understand why Nevada’s Native People were nomadic. This OUT analysis provides students with documents that are meant to deliberately enlarge and vivify the textbook.
This strategy is implemented most effectively when students collaborate to analyze the texts in small, heterogeneous groups. The texts that accompany the textbook are complex and often include difficult vocabulary and syntax. (For a few words that are likely unknown to students and unidentifiable based upon context clues, helpful synonyms are provided in the footnotes.) Students should first annotate each text and then collaborate to answer the text dependent and specific questions that follow. Questions will highlight sourcing and perspective of the author, close reading of key details from the document that enlarge, complicate, contest, or vivify the textbook, as well as questions that help students corroborate (or not) the accuracy of individual documents. The writing task that follows is an independent activity wherein students will employ evidence from multiple sources to justify their analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Source A: The Textbook – Nevada Our Home Pg. 60
Native Life and Customs
Nevada’s native people lived in simple shelters. In warmer months, their shelters were built from mesquite branches. Desert breezes could blow through these branches to cool them. When it turned cold, they covered pole frames with grass, reeds, or bark. Both shelters were easy to leave behind and build again when native groups moved to find food.
Source A Questions for Consideration
1. What evidence in the text tells you the shelters were easy to leave behind?
2. What tells you in the paragraph that Nevada’s Native People were nomadic?
Source B: (Secondary source) – Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes
BUILDING HOUSES
The Paiutes, dependent on hunting and gathering for survival, made shelters that were quickly and easily constructed. The Great Basin provided few sizeable animal hides for tepees, so for the Paiutes, shelters were at best only temporary structures made from grass, tules, cattails, sagebrush, willows, or pine boughs. When they needed shade for rest, they pulled brush up by the roots, leaned it against whatever was at hand, and crawled under. In their more permanent camps, the Indians, for protection from the cold in the mountain forests where fuel was abundant and logs were plentiful, large fires could be made, so only a minimum of shelter was needed. Semicircles of brush and branches, piled head high, broke the wind and reflected the warmth of the large logs burning in the center. Patched and repaired from year to year, abandoned when not needed, or burned when death occurred in them, shelters were mainly for protection from the elements. They were never "home."
Source B Questions for Consideration
1. What evidence from the text supports the authors claim “they were never home”?
2. What do you think a temporary structure is?
3. What new information did you learn about Native Nevada shelters from this source?
Source C: (Primary Source) Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes
Source C Questions for Consideration
1. What do you notice in this picture?
2. Why do you think the Native People chose grass for shelter instead of animal hides?
3. How do you think they got the material for their shelters?
4. What evidence in this picture supports what you learned from Source A?
Source D: (Primary Source)
1. What do you notice in this picture?
2. Why do you think the Native People chose grass for shelter instead of animal hides?
3. How do you think they got the material for their shelters?
4. What evidence in this picture supports what you learned from Source A?
Source D: (Primary Source)
Source D Questions for Consideration
1. Why does the map show the food sources on the route paths? Why is that significant?
2. Native Nevadan’s used materials from the land to construct their shelters. What resource on the map allows these materials to grow?
3. In Source B it states “The Paiutes, dependent on hunting and gathering for survival”, what evidence from this map supports this statement?
Student Writing Task:
This is an informational writing task based on NVACS standards: W.4.2, W4.4, W.4.6, W.4.8, W.4.9. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the texts as well as the ways in which the textbook was enlarged and vivified.
Create a better version of the textbook paragraph Native Life and Customs by including details from the sources you just analyzed. Write approximately 3 paragraphs that includes evidence from all of the sources you analyzed. When you quote or paraphrase the evidence, be sure to cite the source at the end of the sentence in parentheses like this: The Paiutes, dependent on hunting and gathering for survival, made shelters that were quickly and easily constructed. (Source B). Action Steps:
1. Reread Source A – The Textbook. With a partner, refer back to each source and find details/evidence that is important to add to the textbook version of the story. Write each piece of evidence down on a strip of paper and include the source letter in parentheses. (You must have at least six pieces of evidence to add to the textbook version.)
2. With a partner, move your strips of evidence around to put them in an order that makes sense. Group similar ideas together. Decide how many paragraphs you will have and give them titles (like the textbook in Source A).
3. Make sure you use at least eight of the words below in your writing and that you include context clues that demonstrate your understanding of the word.
shelters
native
temporary
nomadic
material
permanent
resources
survival
constructed
protection
4. Write a draft of your new textbook chapter. Have another student(s) check your draft to make sure your ideas flow and are correct. They should check to make sure you are using linking words and phrases and precise vocabulary from the box above.
5. Finalize your writing.
6. Title your paper. Draw a picture that shows some of your details. Label your picture with a caption.
1. Why does the map show the food sources on the route paths? Why is that significant?
2. Native Nevadan’s used materials from the land to construct their shelters. What resource on the map allows these materials to grow?
3. In Source B it states “The Paiutes, dependent on hunting and gathering for survival”, what evidence from this map supports this statement?
Student Writing Task:
This is an informational writing task based on NVACS standards: W.4.2, W4.4, W.4.6, W.4.8, W.4.9. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the texts as well as the ways in which the textbook was enlarged and vivified.
Create a better version of the textbook paragraph Native Life and Customs by including details from the sources you just analyzed. Write approximately 3 paragraphs that includes evidence from all of the sources you analyzed. When you quote or paraphrase the evidence, be sure to cite the source at the end of the sentence in parentheses like this: The Paiutes, dependent on hunting and gathering for survival, made shelters that were quickly and easily constructed. (Source B). Action Steps:
1. Reread Source A – The Textbook. With a partner, refer back to each source and find details/evidence that is important to add to the textbook version of the story. Write each piece of evidence down on a strip of paper and include the source letter in parentheses. (You must have at least six pieces of evidence to add to the textbook version.)
2. With a partner, move your strips of evidence around to put them in an order that makes sense. Group similar ideas together. Decide how many paragraphs you will have and give them titles (like the textbook in Source A).
3. Make sure you use at least eight of the words below in your writing and that you include context clues that demonstrate your understanding of the word.
shelters
native
temporary
nomadic
material
permanent
resources
survival
constructed
protection
4. Write a draft of your new textbook chapter. Have another student(s) check your draft to make sure your ideas flow and are correct. They should check to make sure you are using linking words and phrases and precise vocabulary from the box above.
5. Finalize your writing.
6. Title your paper. Draw a picture that shows some of your details. Label your picture with a caption.
