Beads, Quills, and Ribbon
Lesson #: 14
Grade: 4th
Subject Area: Social Studies
Context
Materials
Introduction/Investment
Put up different pictures of authentic Menominee creations, most notably the creations that were based around weaving.
Content
For this there are a few interesting facts to know:
Whole-Class Activity
As a whole class, begin to think about the things that we would use in order to create something with meaning like the Menominee did with the animal head and geometric shapes.
Why are those themes, animals and geometric shapes, important to the Menominee and what themes would we as a class use?
Once we have come up with some of the themes that have importance to use, which we have written on the board, talk about what it means that the Menominee changed their materials but not their styles and themes.
Practice
As a class, begin to create a class identity based on themes and shapes that are important to the class.
Then, as a class, create a symbol that represents the classroom and write out the meaning to the symbol. This will be something that each student participates in and helps decide the major factors.
This would be a great chance to build the community in the classroom, but also, use the indigenous concepts with your students.
Assessment
This would be a short assessment to connect what we had learned in the past week and how it relates to everything else that we have been learning.
Ask the students to look at the Menominee and discuss how their history and culture relates to what we learned about American Indians and the prejudices/preconceived notions that people have.
Grade: 4th
Subject Area: Social Studies
Context
Materials
- Pictures of authentic Menominee artifacts
Introduction/Investment
Put up different pictures of authentic Menominee creations, most notably the creations that were based around weaving.
- What do you notice?
- Is there anything that you see in common with some of the items?
Content
For this there are a few interesting facts to know:
- The themes and styles used are almost identical to what was done in the past.
- That is for traditional clothing and weaving
- Huge emphasis on geometrical shapes and abstract animal heads (Why? Think about the clans and the importance of the animal to the Menominee)
- Their preferred materials prior to Europeans was porcupine quills because of their relative ease to find and also because of the ability to dye them
- This changed after the Europeans came and brought glass beads
- These were easier to weave than the porcupine quills
- Also the glass beads were easier to dye and were more durable
- The other change was the use of ribbons and the art of ribbon appliqué
- This is the use of ribbons as a border
- The ribbons and the designs resemble the traditional patterns that the Menominee used.
Whole-Class Activity
As a whole class, begin to think about the things that we would use in order to create something with meaning like the Menominee did with the animal head and geometric shapes.
Why are those themes, animals and geometric shapes, important to the Menominee and what themes would we as a class use?
Once we have come up with some of the themes that have importance to use, which we have written on the board, talk about what it means that the Menominee changed their materials but not their styles and themes.
Practice
As a class, begin to create a class identity based on themes and shapes that are important to the class.
Then, as a class, create a symbol that represents the classroom and write out the meaning to the symbol. This will be something that each student participates in and helps decide the major factors.
This would be a great chance to build the community in the classroom, but also, use the indigenous concepts with your students.
Assessment
This would be a short assessment to connect what we had learned in the past week and how it relates to everything else that we have been learning.
Ask the students to look at the Menominee and discuss how their history and culture relates to what we learned about American Indians and the prejudices/preconceived notions that people have.
