Writing Our History Together

When I was first presented with the idea of writing a K5 social studies curriculum from scratch, I was a bit skeptical. Having done curriculum work in the past, I know it can be time consuming and locating sources can be a tedious task. Minneapolis Public Schools has a long-standing relationship with the Minnesota Humanities Center so we decided to partner with them for support throughout this endeavor. The first step of the project was working with MHC to bundle the benchmarks into units and create compelling and supporting questions to drive the inquiry process.

Once we had the framework built, we brought in a team of elementary teachers to begin building the units and bringing the curriculum to life. This is where things got really fun. Our teachers are so knowledgeable and passionate about local history. One of the benefits of writing our own curriculum has been how many local narratives we have been able to weave into our units, connecting the experience of diverse Minnesotans to larger social studies themes.

Our Kindergarten writer came across Minnesotan Toni Stone, the first woman to play on a major league baseball team in the 1950’s. Toni’s story is now included in a unit on understanding the past. Our first grade team was inspired by local food justice and included narratives about our cities’ many community gardens and farmers markets. We have units that include sources about harvesting wild rice up North, the renaming of Bde Makaska, the self-emancipation of enslaved woman Eliza Winston here in Minneapolis, and the murals of Lake Street. The fourth grade units examine local indigenous place names and maps and also highlight the work American Indian activists have done to protect and steward land right here in the Twin Cities. These are just a few of the ways our teachers have been able to use local history to make social studies relevant to our students.

Incorporating local sources not only allows kids to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, primary sources open the door for critical thinking and conversations.

Kiah Young-Burns, a Kindergarten teacher at MPS and K5 curriculum writer shared the following example: “I had some amazing conversations when talking about Somali American farmers in MN. We talked about how all families have the same need for healthy food but meet them in different ways (farms, gardens, community gardens, grocery stores, farmer’s markets).”

Megan Peterson, a 1st grade teacher and K5 curriculum writer, incorporated maps into her unit in order for students to explore equity across our school district. “When learning about the history of our neighborhood, and how unfair housing rules created segregated schools, we used a primary source map (created by Minneapolis public schools) to locate the two schools featured in this unit (Hale and Field).  We asked the students if they think all schools are now created equally, and mapped out which schools do and do not have air conditioning and what schools do and do not have a fully functional kitchen using this primary source.  Students were incredibly surprised to discover how different our school is from other schools in our district, and we took some action to help spread our knowledge in forms of letters to those in power.  This primary source is now one that students choose to look at and discover new things during morning work time. There is always something new to discover and uncover when looking at maps!”

Minneapolis has such a rich and diverse history. Our city and state also include history that is difficult including colonization, displacement, and inequality. We were able to use primary source documents to allow students to grapple with these histories in an honest and age-appropriate way. Teachers were also mindful to include narratives of resistance and joy and to highlight ways in which various communities have fought to improve conditions for themselves and others.

Having the freedom to include local sources has been one of the most rewarding and exciting aspects of this project. Our team of teachers brought a wealth of knowledge and a willingness to dig through historic archives in order to find the stories that both support the benchmarks and will connect to and inspire our students. We benefited greatly from the work of local historians and archivists such as the Minnesota Historical Society, who have beautiful source sets on their website highlighting Minnesota history through the decades. My hope is that students will learn to analyze and draw their own conclusions from primary source documents and that they will carry the skill of critical analysis into adulthood.

To learn more about MHC’s K–5 social studies workshops and instructional resources, visit our social studies webpage.