Teaching Critically About Lewis and Clark: Challenging Dominant Narratives in K–12 Curriculum

$34.95
by Alison Schmitke

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The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery is often presented as an exciting adventure story of discovery, friendship, and patriotism. However, this same period in U.S. history can be understood quite differently when viewed through an anticolonial lens and the Doctrine of Discovery. How might educators critically interrogate the assumptions that underlie this adventure story through their teaching? This book challenges dominant narratives and packaged curriculum about Lewis and Clark to support more responsible social studies instruction. The authors provide a conceptual framework, ready-to-use lesson plans, and teaching resources to address oversimplified versions of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Indigenous perspectives, along with contemporary issues, are embedded in each lesson to encourage active and critical engagement with history and the legacies of conquest those living in what is now called the United States have inherited. Book Features: A new look at social studies curriculum about the Corps of Discovery―and Manifest Destiny―through the Doctrine of Discovery. - Examples of how Indigenous peoples have long engaged in philosophical, legal, and political challenges to the principles of the Doctrine. - Social studies lesson plans for elementary and secondary classrooms. - Useful curriculum materials to help teachers present a deeper examination of this topic. “Not only are the lessons presented in this text practical and relevant to today’s teacher, but the text offers additional teacher resources that truly challenge the dominant narrative surrounding Lewis and Clark. The text supports teachers in understanding the multiple perspectives and vast history surrounding the Doctrine of Discovery. In addition, the resources offer voices other than those of Lewis, Clark, Jefferson, and other prominent white males, instead offering counternarratives. Inherently, the lesson plans and resources push students to dive deeper into the content at hand. Thus, they become active, engaged participants in their learning, leading to their evaluation and challenging of the dominant curriculum.” ― Teachers College Record “The authors’ efforts to empower students, as both scholars and citizens, to learn and then reconceptualize dominant narratives of exploration and discovery will undoubtedly make the book an invaluable and controversial contribution to contemporary battles over history education.” ― Teaching History: A Journal of Methods ?Not only are the lessons presented in this text practical and relevant to today?s teacher, but the text offers additional teacher resources that truly challenge the dominant narrative surrounding Lewis and Clark. The text supports teachers in understanding the multiple perspectives and vast history surrounding the Doctrine of Discovery. In addition, the resources offer voices other than those of Lewis, Clark, Jefferson, and other prominent white males, instead offering counternarratives. Inherently, the lesson plans and resources push students to dive deeper into the content at hand. Thus, they become active, engaged participants in their learning, leading to their evaluation and challenging of the dominant curriculum.? ? Teachers College Record ?The authors? efforts to empower students, as both scholars and citizens, to learn and then reconceptualize dominant narratives of exploration and discovery will undoubtedly make the book an invaluable and controversial contribution to contemporary battles over history education.? ? Teaching History: A Journal of Methods “This amazing book, and the thoughtful lesson plans included therein, should be required teaching materials in all K–12 classrooms in the United States. The unique and invaluable information that the authors provide will expose students to the federal law that still restricts Native Nations today and will require students to think more critically about this chapter of American history and what they have previously been taught on the subject. This book is revisionist history in the best sense of that tradition because it teaches students a more complete, more true, and more complex history about the Lewis and Clark expedition.” ― Robert J. Miller , professor, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University “The story of the ‘Corps of Discovery’ remains one of the most persistent yet misunderstood historical narratives within K–12 classrooms. Teaching Critically about Lewis and Clark offers rare support for teachers, teacher educators, and schools ‘to challenge these issues, to defend tribal sovereignty, and to stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples’ (p. 10). The book’s resources and strategies advance historical rigor, contemporary relevance, critical thinking about multiple perspectives, inquiry-based experiences, and alignment with state level initiatives like Montana’s Indian Education for All and Washington’s Since Time Immemorial, all while revitalizing Indigenous histories that have been marg

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