Introduction

Imagine living off the land, moving from place to place, hunting for survival, making your own clothes, tools, and weapons, and fighting to keep your way of life. This was how the Native Americans lived so many years ago. To get a better understanding of the different Native American Tribes of Michigan, the class will be divide up into tribes. Each tribe must research things about their tribe like where did they live in Michigan, what did they eat, what tools and other materials did they make, and so on. Each tribe will present their findings to the class and help to answer the question, what role did the Native Americans play in Michigan's history.

 Each of you will research the tribe they have been assigned and give a presentation and write a reflective 1 page paper on it. The presentation should lead the students to answer the focus question of the lesson: what role did the Native Americans play in Michigan's history.

The Task Top

Each tribe will:

• research their way of life(language, culture, food, houses, etc.)
• build a model of their tribe's type of housing
• make a map of their tribe's location in Michigan
• present their findings to the class
• write a reflective 1 page paper on the assignment

The Process Top

1. You will be divided into five tribes: the Chippewa, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Fox, and Sauk.

2. Each tribe will elect a "chief" to be the leader of the tribe and make sure their "braves" are on task. Just like the Native Americans in the past, everyone must do their part for the tribe to survive.

3. You will use the Internet links provided as well as other resources (books, encyclopedias, etc.) to get their research for the presentation.

4. Besides the presentation research, each group must make a map showing where their tribe was in Michigan and make a small model of the type of house they lived in with the materials that are provided. An blank map of Michigan and materials like twigs, cloth, glue, etc. are provided for the students to use.

5. When finished with the research, each tribe will put together a presentation and every person in the tribe must present on part of it.

6. Every tribe member must also write a 1 page reflective paper on what they learned from this project.

Links

1. This link is for research on your tribe. http://www.artsofcitizenship.umich.edu/sos/topics/native

2. This link has more information on your tribes. http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/michigan

3. This link will help find the language your tribes spoke. http://www.native-languages.org

4. This link will show you pictures of Native American houses to use for model. http://www.greatdreams.com/native.htm

5. This link has more information on your tribes.
http://www.hanksville.org/NAresources/indices/NAhistory.html

Evaluation Top

You will be graded by the follwing rubric:

Group Work	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4	Score
Presentation: artifacts, food, clothes, language, and historical events in Michigan.	Groups identified two or less research elements.	Groups identified three research elements.	Groups identified four research elements.	Groups identified all five research elements.
Map: Location of their tribe, boundaries, labeled, colored, and outlined in black.	Groups did two or less of the instructions.	Groups did three of the instructions.	Groups did four of the instructions.	Groups did all five of the instructions.
Model: Know name and tribe it belongs to, is put together, has a realistic background, and looks somewhat like a historical representation.	Groups did one of the elements.	Groups did two of the elements.	Groups did three elements.	Groups did all four elements.
Individual Work	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4	Score
Paper: Talked about their experiences and what new things they learned, with good spelling, punctuation and sentence structure, and is one page or more.	Student did one of elements.	Student did two of the elements.	Student had three elements.	Students had all four elements.

Conclusion top

This assignment has helped to gain a better understanding the Native American tribes of Michigan. We learned how they survived and thrived in the past. It has revealed a new culture as well as the role the Native Americans played in Michigan's history.

Credits & References top

1. Images from http://www.greatdreams.com/native.htm