Events

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

2005 Montana Heritage Project Summer Institute Syllabus

Syllabus: Montana Heritage Project Summer Institute 2005

Department: University of Montana C & I

Course Number: 455

Course Title: Montana Heritage Project 2005 Institute - “Lessons fom Wonderland: What
Can My Community Learn from Yellowstone? ”

Instructor: Michael Umphrey

Dates and location: June 19 through June 25, 2005, West Yellowstone, MT

1.WORKSHOP OVERVIEW:

This course is a training component of the Montana Heritage Project and is open only to demonstration site teachers (experienced teachers who have been funded by the Project for more than a year and accepted for independent work).  It targets Grades 9-12 teachers of language arts and social studies. (Note that during two days of the Institute, we are also providing training to teachers who have been funded as Project affiliates--teachers and programs in training. We concentrate on introducing them to the basics of oral history, community research, and community heritage events--and we work to integrate them into the rest of the group and its practices).

The Montana Heritage Project—a student and community education project that encourages high school students to compare and contrast community life in Montana now with that of the past—organizes student work into five steps that are captured by the acronym ALERT:
Asking questions—essential questions, expedition questions, and research questions.
Listening to sources that help address the questions asked.
Exploring actual sites and actual historic records and materials.
Reflecting on information learned, individually and through group discussion.
Teaching or transforming information learned into products, events, and materials that can be used by other scholars and community members.

Each Montana Heritage Project Summer Institute (this is the eleventh Institute) incorporates these ALERT steps into the week’s work, emphasizing different components during different Institutes or a different stages of Institute learning.

For the 2005 Institute, Institute participants will concentrate on the essential question: what can my community learn from Yellowstone--as a park AND a community; as a set of resources; as a set of political and management questions; as a metaphor. We will listen to speakers with widely varying understandings of Yellowstone and varying roles in the Yellowstone community: managers, writers, interpreters, historians. We will explore Yellowstone National Park and West Yellowstone resources. Throughout the week, we will reflect on what we are learning from speakers, from readings, and from onsite experiences through discussions and writing.  We do not anticipate providing or orchestrating how each participant answers the question “what can my community learn from Yellowstone.” However, here are examples of discussions or considerations that may be triggered by the invited speakers.

There are many other possibilities.

Every element of Yellowstone National Park is studied and analyzed (animal populations, visitor use, climate changes). Would my community be helped or harmed by greater scientific study and careful analysis? How does in depth data help us care for a place we love?

Yellowstone garners huge public attention. It is the object of myth and literature and endless press coverage.  Does this public attention, mythology, and literary treatment help to create good working relationships among groups, help to resolve problems, help to draw out the best in residents and managers? Or does it have a different effect?

West Yellowstone may be Montana’s first true tourist town. What effect has a full reliance on tourism done to create good schools, civic organizations, commitments to shared community enterprises?

For years, the Nation has prided itself on preserving Yellowstone National Park.  What are the benefits and the liabilities of concentrating our natural and historic resource preservation on one plot of land--as oppposed to an ecosystem, a community, a region, etc.?

2. EXPECTED STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES FOR THE WORKSHOP:

As a result of completing this class, all participant teachers will:

A. Possess greater understanding of an unusual resource (Yellowstone) as a source of inspiration, information, metaphor, guidance, or challenge relevant to their own communities and to their teaching experiences.  (Listen, Explore, and Reflect).

B. Employ with increased skill the practices of detailed observation of, active listening to, and detailed recording of both classroom and field experiences. (Listen and Explore)

C. Demonstrate increased skill in finding commonalities, differences, and overarching questions related to how Yellowstone functions and how their community functions--drawing deeper meaning from new experiences and places. (Ask, Reflect, and Transform).

D. Possess greater understanding of the primary elements that comprise all good story forms including the principles of good storyline and script development that help readers, viewers, or listeners perceive answers to important questions in a powerful way. (Transform).

As a result of this class, participants seeking graduate credit will also:

E.  Demonstrate the ability to craft a compelling story (storyline) that answers an important question. (Transform).

3. SCHEDULE: See attached.

4. ASSESSMENT:

Pass/No Pass Option:

For 400 level University of Montana pass/no pass graduate credit and as a basic requirement for all funded Project demonstration site teachers, participants will, in teams, use the week’s information and experiences to prepare and present a radio documentary storyline. The script storyline (not a full script) is expected to effectively and powerfully answer the question: what can my community learn from Yellowstone. All workshop participants will be given the opportunity and be expected to question presenters and then follow-up with additional questions--to flesh out and test particular answers and ideas. Using the questioning techniques of investigative journalism and the skills of field observation, documentation, and research, participants will build their storylines from notes and journals they have kept throughout the week.

Storyline presentations will occur in a planned public discussion format that draws elements from classroom Socratic Dialogues on the final full day of the Institute. During the dialogue each team will give a 10-minute report in the form of a storyline treatment that includes: What is the story we want to tell? What’s at stake? What is the conflict? Who is the main character? What are the five moments from the week that we will present to our communities and why? Then, the rest of the group will critique and analyze these treatments based on the week’s examination of Yellowstone images and issues and on the teaching they have received about storytelling and script development.

For undergraduate credit, students will document their week’s experiences throughout the Institute in notes and journals. They will submit these notes and journals to the Instructor for assessment. If they choose, they may draft a storyline that they would use to answer the question, “what can my community learn from Yellowstone,” but they are not required to do so.  They will not be required to develop those findings into a radio documentary storyline or to present a storyline during the Socratic Dialogue.

5. REQUIRED READING:

Paul Schullery. “Searching for Yellowstone.” Montana Historical Society Press. Helena, 2004.

Selections from:

Gary Ferguson. “Hawks Rest: A Season in the Remote Heart of Yellowstone.” National Geographic Adventure Press. 2003.

Jim Howe, Ed McMahon, and Luther Propst, “Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities.” Island Press, 1997.

Jim Robbins. “The Last Refuge.” Harper Collins West. 1994.

Jim Robbins. “Lessons from the Wolf.” “Scientific American. May 2004.

Paul Schullery. “Mountain Time: A Yellowstone Memoir.” Roberts Rinehart Publishers, Boulder, Co., 1985, 1994.

Diane Smith. “Letters from Yellowstone.” Penguin. New York, 1999.

5/31/05

2005 Montana Heritage Project Summer Institute Schedule

Lessons From Yellowstone: What Stories Can My Community Learn From Yellowstone?

June 19-25, 2005
Location: West Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park

SUNDAY

Sunday night 7:00 to 9:00 - Union Pacific Dining Hall Firehole Room Affiliates and Demonstration Sites

7:00 - 8:30 p.m.  Institute Introduction - Michael Umphrey and Marcella Sherfy

1. Group introductions.

2. Outline of the week.

3. Introduction to the week’s oganizing question: What Stories Can My Community Learn from Yellowstone

4.  Introduction to the storyline and radio documentary format for the week’s work.

8:30 - 9:00 p.m Schools check in all materials from 2004-2005 School year including portfolios, tapes, transcripts, permissions, in other word, materials to be archived at the Montana Historical Society.

MONDAY
(Affiliates and Demonstration Site teachers together)

Breakfast - 6:30 - 8:15 - Motel Continental Breakfast

Monday morning - Union Pacific Dining Hall Firehole Room

8:30 - 10:30 “What Makes a Documentary Story Work? Creating Powerful Storylines for Documentary Presentations” - Peter Rosten

For 30 years, Peter produced feature and educational films, television series, and documentaries and was based in Hollywood. Now working from his home with Bitterroot Valley with schools and the “Media Arts in the Public Schools” project, Peter is helping students develop and apply their creative skills to the medium of film production. For us, Peter will take our vague understandings of “story” and give them concrete shape by explaining the “formula” that he finds most effective in building storylines for documentaries--a formula that helps to organize and choose information while capturing audience attention.

Break

11:00 - 12:00 “How the Project Works: An Introduction to Project Protocols for Affiliates and a Refresher for Demonstration Sites"- Katherine Mitchell.  We’ll address topics ranging from next year’s calendar, Montana Heritage Coollist, http://www.montanaheritageproject.org, billing, library grants, final products, Winter Summit, our involvement at the MEA meeting, to the Youth Heritage Festival.)

Lunch on your own.

Monday afternoon - 1:30 - 5:00 - Union Pacific Dining Hall

Best Practices for Project Work - Demonstration Site Mentors Teach Affiliates

1:30 - 2:30 “Introducing Oral History in Your Classroom” Dorothea Susag.
Dottie headed the Simms Heritage Project for seven years and now serves as a consultant to the Project. In particular, Dottie is available to provide workshops to new teachers. In this session, she will provide a short workshop emphasizing the basics of oral history: purpose, etiquette, and getting students started.

2:30 - 3:15 “Inviting Students into the Craft of Narrative Writing” Darlene Beck.
Darlene has served as Broadwater High School’s lead Project teacher for a number of years—always successfully inviting English students into the process. Given the emphasis that the Foundation places on excellent student writing, we’ll revisit this topic often.  We’ve asked Darlene, one of our most skilled English teachers, to summarize the primary goals she has in teaching students to write narrative well (technically and compellingly) and to describe her strategies for moving students to improve their writing. 

Break

3:45-4:30 “Five Minute Best Ideas” Current Demonstration Site teachers will each identify a single concrete teaching practice that has proven critical to their success in heritage teaching. In 5 minute summaries, each mentor teacher will describe the practice and explain why it works.

4:30 - 5:00 “Giving Gifts of Scholarhips through Heritage Events” Jeff Gruber
Jeff Gruber has been a Heritage Project teacher since the Project becgan in 1995. He has tried his hand at integrating the Project into a variety of classes and into the community in a variety of ways. Although heritage fairs or programs aren’t required, they extend the benefits of the Project many times over in our communities. We’ve asked Jeff to explain why he finds doing events difficult but important and how he has worked with students to host public events in Libby.

6:00 Catered Picnic in City Park - Opportunity for Affiliates and Demonstration Site folks to know each other better

Monday Evening

8:30 Motel Gathering Room - Roundtable Discussion on Searching for Yellowstone. Katherine Mitchell.
We’re using Paul Schullery’s book as our “text” for the week. We’ll be hearing from him on Tuesday morning. This discussion, that draws most from the Introduction, Chapter 13, and the Epilogue will give us the chance to drop into the heart of our week’s question: what stories can my community learn from Yellowstone.

TUESDAY
(Demonstration and Affiliates teachers together)

Breakfast - 6:30 - 8:30 - Motel Continental Breakfast

Tuesday morning - 9:00 to 12:00 - Union Pacific Dining Hall

Conversations with Paul Schullery
Over the span of 25 years, Paul has written as many books--centered on small and large aspects of Yellowstone National Park.  He has served as a ranger-naturalist, historian, and researcher for the Park. He also teaches at Montana State University. The hallmark of Paul’s writing and thinking is his ability to see Yellowstone with both an intellectual zoom lens and a wide angle one--extracting meaning and understanding from his observations that are relevant to how we care for Yellowstone and our world. Out of dozens of Yellowstone experts, Paul can offer us what may be broadest and most tempered ideas in one morning.

9:00 - 9:45 “Defining Yellowstone in Lines: Edges, Boundaries, Migration routes, Roads, Maps”
Of course, Yellowstone functions as a whole--a whole park, a whole ecosystem. But humans tend to see and manage it within lines. Paul will talk with us about how many different lines have been used to define and understand this area--and what that has meant for its resources.

10 minutes - Small groups generate questions for Paul

20 minutes - Radio documentary questions and answers and discussion

Break

10:45 - 11:30 “Yellowstone and the Two Cultures: Can Science and the Humanities Share a National Park”
In this second session, Paul will explore the amazing spectrum of emotional and intellectural resources we apply to our appreciation and use of Yellowstone. Yellowstone has always been both a fantasy landscape and a scientific treasures. Can that remain true?

10 minutes - Small groups generate questions for Paul

20 minutes - Radio documentary questions and answers and discussion

Lunch on Your Own

Tuesday afternoon - 1:30 to 3:30
Concurrent Sessions: one for affiliates and one for demonstration site teachers. Both in different sections of the Union Pacific Dining Hall.

Affiliate teachers: “The Nuts and Bolts of Oral History” Michael Umphrey
Mike will extend the introduction that Dottie provided on Monday to the details and protocols of good oral interviewing.

Demonstration Site teachers: “Plumbing our Portfolios for Great Ideas” Marcella Sherfy
With a greater emphasis on student writing submitted electronically, with our new EE website and the ability to turn in final reports in that format, portfolios have taken on a somewhat different role in Project work. They remain important gifts to the community and to the state archives--documenting what all happened through the year. We’ll review these in a spirit of seeing what we can learn from each other and how, if at all, we want to rethink the content and use of portfolios.

Working in small groups, teachers will review binders from all the schools (the ones turned in on Sunday evening). We will work in eleven groups--one group for each binder. Each group will have 6 minutes per binder to review with these questions in mind: Is everything here? Is each component sufficient? What is strikingly good?
After half the binders are done (about 40 minutes) have each group report for a couple minutes on whatever they feel is noteworthy.

Break

Repeat above steps again to complete all the binders.
Summarize what we have learned. Let each teacher propose candidates for our “Keeper of the Record” recognition.

Conclusion of Affiliates Sessions.

4:00 – Time on your own to go to the Yellowstone Historic Center Museum or the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center.

Dinner on your own

Tuesday evening

7:00 IMAX “Yellowstone” (Have group tickets for all of us.)

8:30 Our motel meeting room. Roundtable discussion.  Katherine MItchell. Wednesday’s presenters will draw from Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities (readings provided in binder) and Letters from Yellowstone (first 57 pages, book provided) in their respective presentations. In this evening’s discussion, we’ll talk through any lessons we might already have drawn from Balancing Nature and then consider how a book like Diane’s might be used with high school students or in a letters project. (Note that in the Appendices we’ve also included readings from our Wednesday evening presenter, Jim Robbins, but likely won’t have time to discuss those this evening.)

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast - 6:30 - 8:15 - Motel Continental Breakfast

Wednesday morning 9:00 - 12:00 Union Pacific Dining Hall

Conversations with Paul Shea
Paul Shea is the founder and has served as director of two affiliated organizations: the Yellowstone Historic Center and the West Yellowstone Historical Society. He was among the first residents to beginning talking about the fact that, as a community, West Yellowstone has its own distinctive history and character. He’s spearheaded community efforts to preserve historic buildings and archival records--and to make sure that visitors understand that the town is its own interesting destination.

9:00 - 9:45 “Do We Find Community in Montana’s First Tourist Town?” Paul Shea
In this first session, Paul will talk us through West Yellowstone’s history and whether or how it is a “community"--not just a batch of motels, gift stores, filling stations, restaurants, and “attractions.”

10 minutes - Small groups generate questions for Paul

20 minutes - Radio documentary questions and answers and discussion

Break

10:45 - 11:30 “What is Really Keeping West Yellowstone Alive?” Paul Shea

For this session, Paul will talk with us about how the community has grown economically and about the economic controversies that surround its relationship to “the company"--the National Park Service.

10 minutes - Small groups generate questions for Paul

20 minutes - Radio documentary questions and answers and discussion

Lunch on your own

Wednesday afternoon - Union Pacific Dining Hall

Conversations with Diane Smith
A Livingston, Montana, resident, Diane Smith is a science writer, specializing in public understanding of science. She studied western and environmental history at the University of Montana and is now pursuing her doctorate at Montana State University, writing a dissertation on the history of public interpretation and education in Yellowstone National Park.

1:30 - 2:15 - “One Park, Many Stories: What Has NPS Wanted Visitors to Learn” Diane Smith
This first session draws on Diane’s current examination of the changing interpretive “messages” that the National Park Service has presented at Yellowstone and her understanding of why that evolution in “message” has occurred.

10 minutes - Small groups generate questions for Paul

20 minutes - Radio documentary questions and answers and discussion

Break

2:45 - 3:15 - “Learning How Literature Reflects and Shapes our Understanding of a Place” - Diane Smith
Diane is best known as the author of a novel, written as a body of letters about a 1898 botanical expedition in Yellowstone, titled Letters from Yellowstone.  Letters from Yellowstone has just been selected by the Montana Committee for the Humanities as this next year’s “One Book Montana” selection.  We’ve asked Diane to talk about the decisions that she made in crafting this novel: why Yellowstone, why 1900 as time period, what messages she wanted the book to communicate.

10 minutes - Small groups generate questions for Diane.

20 minutes - Radio documentary questions and answers and discussion.

Time on your own

5:15 Preparation for evening in Yellowstone with Jim Robbins. Motel meeting room. Jim is a Helena-based author, best known for The Last Refuge, a book that addresses how and whether we can preserve Yellowstone National Park, a small part of a much larger regional ecosytem—as a question that haunts the whole West. Jim continues to write about the Yellowstone region for audiences ranging from New York Times’ readers and to children.

5:30-6:00 (when bus arrives back at motel):  Board bus for evening with Jim Robbins in the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone.  This evening’s trip into the park will introduce us some of the best known, iconographic features of Yellowstone.

7:00 approximately: Group tickets for dinner in the Old Faithful Lodge Cafeteria

Time on your own in the Old Faithful area

9:00 - Expedition Discussion:  Regather before boarding the bus to talk through what we’ve learned.

9:15 - Start back to West Yellowstone - may be able to walk Fountain Paint Pots Trail

THURSDAY

Breakfast - 6:30 - 8:15 - Motel Continental Breakfast

A Day in Yellowstone

As we travel: Yellowstone for Real - Examining its Resources and its Visitors for Ourselves
As we visit with National Park Service employees - Yellowstone as Seen by the Staff

8:30 Motel parking lot: Board bus for Mammoth Hot Springs and Gardiner

Travel to Madison, Norris, and Mammoth Hot Springs. We may be abel to stop at Obsidian Cliff on this leg of the trip or on our return.
Use of some of bus time to craft radio documentary questions for the NPS employees that we’ll be hearing from.

11:00 - Deputy Superintendent Frank Walker, Conference Room, Basement, Albright Visitor Center (One question to consider: Yellowstone is the first, biggest, most unusual, wildest, and among the most intensely visited of all national parks. What is like to manage a resource under the brightest lights that public scrutiny/love can turn on? Does that heap of public attention help oro hurt?

Eat our boxes lunches wherever we would like in the Mammoth area

12:30 Board bus to Gardiner, Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center

1:00 - Park Historian, Lee Whittlesley (Possible questions to consider: How important is it for Yellowstone National Park to have its own archivist; its own historian? How are park records used and by whom and for what purpose? Does the historical record help address current issues?)

2:00 - Board bus back to Mammoth area

2:30 - Formal Education Program Manager Janet Ambrose, Conference Room, basement, Albright Visitor Center, Mammoth (Possible question to consider: What message does THE PARK want folks to take home with them--and why? Is that working?)

3:15 - Time to explore the Mammoth area more

5:00 - Group Dinner at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel Dining Room (prime rib or chicken linguine)

6:30 - Expeditionary discussion as a group before we board our bus: what will stick with us from today. Organize into our final groups for Friday’s work and presentations.

7:00 Board bus to head back to West Yellowstone.

FRIDAY

Breakfast - 6:30 - 8:15 - Motel Continental Breakfast

Friday morning - Union Pacific Dining Hall

9:00 - 10:30 Project Discussion time:  YHF evaluation processes: writing, presentations, and displays; selecting distinguished librarians and educators; MEA colloquium ideas. Michael Umphrey

Time to prepare Radio Documentary storyline presentation

Lunch on your own

1:30 - 4:00 - Group Presentations - What Does My Community Have to Learn from Yellowstone? - Union Pacific Dining Hall

Five teams of five people team will give a 20-minute report in the form of a script treatment or summary: What is the story we want to tell? Why have we chosen the outline and format that we have? What’s at stake? What is the conflict? Who is the main character? In order, here are the five moments from the week that we will present to our communities. Using the format that we have used throughout the week, the rest of the group will have 10 minutes to ask questions of each presenting team.

Friday evening

6:00 Winding Down:  Informal group dinner - Bar B Q Picnic close to the UP Dining Hall (Paul Shea may have arranged tours for us in the historic Yellowstone touring car.)

SATURDAY
Breakfast - 6:30 - 8:15 - Motel Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 12:00 - Union Pacific Dining Hall - Inspiration and Conclusion

9:00 Review of logistics and assignments for the year and following the Institute.

Short Break

10:30 Conversational review of the week and “Keeper of the Record” presentations

Noon - Adjourn

Monday, April 18, 2005

2005 Youth Heritage Festival

Eleven writers honored at Montana’s premiere conference for high school scholars

Full Report on Festival

Students ran the conference, introducing guests and acting as masters of ceremonies. Seated on stage from left: Mark Sherouse (Executive Director, Montana Committee for the Humanities), Linda McCulloch (Superintendent of Public Instruction), John Bohlinger (Lieutenant Governor of Montana), Jim Murtaugh (Program Manager, Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation), Guha Shankar (Program Manager, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress), and Brian Cockhill (former Director, Montana Historical Society and Liaison Officer for the Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation).