Today's Activity

Because it is important to have some cultural and historical context in order to understand literature written from an Indian perspective, over the next two days we will be building on our collective knowledge of American Indians. Today, you will conduct research on a topic in Native American history/culture which Sherman Alexie draws on in The Lone Ranger and Tonto. You will use this information to create a handout which is one (1) page. Here is what your handout needs to include:

• Title/topic

• 200-300 word summary of research in your own words
  

• A brief, interesting, and relevant quote from one of your sources

• A 3-5 item bulleted list of important facts or a timeline of 4-5 important dates

• One image

• 3 complete citations

Choose one of the topics below to research (you may need to pair up, sharing topics and computers but creating your own handouts):

• Broken Native American treaties

• Coeur D'Alene War/Spokane Plains War

• Colonel Wright and 1858 Horse Slaughter

• Crazy Horse

• Coeur D'Alene/Schitsu'Umsh tribe

• Chief Til-co-ax

• Commodity food

• Ghost Dance

• General George Armstrong Custer

• Coerced sterilization of Native American women

• HUD houses (US Department of Housing and Urban Development)

• American Indian Movement/Alcatraz Occupation

• Indian Health Service/tribal hospitals

• Stick game

• Spokane Indian Reservation

• Dawes Act/allotment of Native lands

• Owl dance

• Fancydancing

• Smallpox-infected blankets

• Diabetes in Native American populations

• Sacred Black Hills/Mount Rushmore

• Uranium mining on Native American land

• Massacre at Wounded Knee

Here are some websites to get you started in your research:

• Native Web Resource Database

• Native American Resources

• A huge list of links

• Image Galleries

• Smithsonian - Amer. Indian History & Culture

Here is a sample handout I made about Sherman Alexie.

This will be due Thursday, March 5th at the beginning of class.