This webinar will introduce middle school social studies educators to several frameworks drawn from history and the social sciences, such as settler colonialism, physical and cultural genocide, and human rights, for teaching about the mass violence perpetrated against Indigenous peoples in the United States in the nineteenth century. Through the use of primary source documents, participants will learn about the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War and its aftermath, as a case study for teaching and learning about specific examples, as well as the broader history, of such mass violence. In addition, participants will analyze the competing narratives around how narratives U.S.-Dakota War have been remembered, memorialized, and taught over the past 150 years. Participants will discuss how the use of such newspaper accounts can be used to foster reading comprehension, document analysis, and media literacy skills in the classroom. Educational resources and sample lesson and unit plans will be provided. 

Participants will be introduced to several theoretical and educational frameworks, drawn from the academic fields of history, the social sciences and American Indian Studies, for teaching about the mass violence perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples of the United States, including settler colonialism, physical and cultural genocide, legal and human rights, and Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. Participants will examine the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War and its aftermath through a variety of primary source documents (newspapers), learning how such newspaper accounts can be used to foster reading comprehension, document analysis, and media literacy skills in middle school social studies classrooms. Participants analyze the individual and collective memories around, and memorialization of, the U.S.-Dakota War over the past 150 years, as a case study for analyzing how mass violence against Indigenous peoples is understood and represented in United States history and the collective imaginary of the nation.

Fee: $25 members/$50 non-members

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Presenters

George Dalbo is a Ph.D. student in Social Studies Education at the University of Minnesota with research interests in Holocaust, comparative genocide, and human rights education in secondary schools. In addition, he serves as the Educational Outreach Coordinator for the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. Previously, he was a middle and high school social studies teacher, having taught every grade from 5th-12th in public, charter, and independent schools in Minnesota, as well as two years at an international school in Vienna, Austria.

Joe Eggers is the Research & Outreach Coordinator for the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. His work primarily focuses on forced assimilation policies towards Native people in the United States, specifically the boarding school system. Joe completed his master's degree at the University of Minnesota in 2016.