LEARN NC

11.9 Teaching resources

By Kathryn Walbert

Provided by The North Carolina Humanities Council.

While teachers can certainly build their own lesson plans and teaching resources based on primary and secondary sources, a number of excellent lesson plans and teaching resources on American Indians in North Carolina have already been created. Below are just a few of the many resources that you may find valuable for your own classroom teaching.

Intrigue of the Past: North Carolina’s First Peoples: A Teacher’s Activity Guide for Fourth through Eighth Grades
This guide wascompiled and edited by Margo L. Price, Patricia M. Samford, and Vincas P. Seponaitis of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with lesson plans by Kelly A. Letts, Jeanne M. Moe, Danielle M. Paterson, Margo L. Price, Patricia M. Samford and Shelley J. Smith. The site includes a wealth of resources for teachers and students including images, lesson plans, and background readings. The collection is divided in to five parts – Fundamental Concepts, The Process of Archaeology, North Carolina’s First Peoples, Shadows of People, and Issues in Archaeology. This is an excellent collection with a large number of very detailed and well-organized plans based on archaeological research.
Excavating Occaneechi Town: Archaeology of an Eighteenth Century Indian Village in North Carolina
This site provides detailed information about how archaeologists study important sites. Students can learn about excavations and then try their hand at excavating an eighteenth century American Indian village in an “electronic dig.”
Lesson Plans from LEARN North Carolina
Teachers can visit the Lesson Plans area of LEARN North Carolina to search for lesson plans on any topic they can imagine. LEARN NC plans have been reviewed and aligned to North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study. Many of the plans have been created by and for North Carolina teachers. The following are just a few of the many plans on LEARN NC that relate to American Indians in North Carolina:
The Trail of Tears and the Forced Relocation of the Cherokee Nation
This lesson plan from the National Park Service’s Teaching With Historic Places series is a very detailed plan using readings, visual evidence, and historical analysis.
Lesson Plan: Mapping North Carolina’s Present-Day Tribes (Grade 4-8)
This plan from the North Carolina Museum of History addresses curriculum objectives for fourth and eighth grade. Students identify the recognized tribe in North Carolina and create a map showing the location of these tribes. There are ideas for discussions of how native people have interacted with their environments, math integration, and connecting with tribal representatives around the state as well.

The following resources may also prove helpful for educators both for developing their own knowledge and for use with their students. These resources were provided by the NC Humanities Council to the participants in the Teachers Institute seminar series on American Indian Studies.

  • Bigelow, Bill & Peterson, B. (Eds.). (1998). Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (2nd Ed.). Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools Ltd.
  • Duncan, Barbara R. (1998). Living Stories of the Cherokee. Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press.
  • Duncan, Barbara R., Riggs, B.H. (2003). Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook. Chapel Hill & London: The Museum of the Cherokee Indian, The University of North Carolina Press.
  • Humphreys, Josephine. (2000). Nowhere Else on Earth. New York: Penguin Group.
  • Knick, Stanley. (Ed.). (2003). River Spirits: A Collection of Lumbee Writings. Pembroke, NC: Native American Resource Publications, UNC-Pembroke.
  • Oakley, Christopher A. (2005). Keeping the Circle: American Indian Identity in Eastern North Carolina 1885 – 2004. Lincoln, Nebraska & London: University of Nebraska Press.
  • Perdue, Theda. (2005). The Cherokees: Indians of North America. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.
  • Seale, Doris, Slapin, B. (Eds.) (2003). Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience Book for Children. Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, University of California.
  • Wolfram, Walt, Dannenberg, C., Knick, S., & Oxendine, L. (2003). Fine in the World: Lumbee Language in Time and Place. Pembroke, NC: Museum of the Native American Resource Center, UNC-Pembroke.