Using their classroom notes as an outline, sixth grade students at St. Francis Middle School wrote the history of the Blue Earth Reservation with the goal of getting a page published on Wikipedia.
Knowing the students couldn’t get all the information on their own, sixth grade social studies teacher Ted Gehring and St. Francis Area Schools American Indian Education (AIE) Coordinator Haley Dagel connected the students with a member of the Ho-Chunk tribe, Bradley Blackhawk, to teach the history of the Ho-Chunk people – a history that is missing from the textbook.
The lecture notes provided to students came largely from two different sources, To Banish Forever by Cathy Coats and Citizens of a Stolen Land by Stephen Kantrowitz.
Their work was peer reviewed by 8th grade honors Language Arts students, high school AIE students and a team of adults. The end product was typed into Wikipedia where citations and links were added. Plus, pictures from the Minnesota Historical Society.
A process they thought could take months took just days, as the page was published in December and according to Wikipedia editors, the first draft of the page scored in the top 23% of all Wikipedia pages published. View the Wikipedia page. Hear what the project meant to 6th grade student Cora Wolff.
The students involved conducted the project during school hours during Saints Time as an extension opportunity to their in-classroom learning.
To celebrate, students gathered for a Wikipedia Project Reveal Party that featured:
Pizza, pop and snacks
The 6th grade students that helped create the page
The 8th grade students that helped peer review student's first drafts
High school students that helped peer review student’s 2nd drafts and better understand the primary sources
Retired Language Arts Middle School Teacher Patty Peterson
AIE Leaders - Haley Dagel and Abigail Wilde
Ho-Chunk elder Bradley Blackhawk
And a zoom call with Stephen Kantrowitz - Historian/Author of Citizens of a Stolen Land and other historians