Blog Post #5

“Little War on the Prairie”

For next class, you will listen to a 60 minute podcast about Native American history and culture broadcast recently on This American Life. Here is a description of the program from their website:  “This American Life is a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 1.8 million listeners. It is produced by Chicago Public Media, distributed by Public Radio International, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards. It is also often the most popular podcast in the country, with around 700,000 people downloading each week… There's a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It's mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There's lots more to the show, but it's sort of hard to describe.”

Activity:

1.    Listen to the “Little War on the Prairie” episode from This American Life.

Go to: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/479/little-war-on-the-prairie

o   Here is a description of the episode taken from the website: “Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen says, nobody ever talked about the most important historical event ever to happen there: in 1862, it was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged after a war with white settlers. John went back to Minnesota to figure out what really happened 150 years ago, and why Minnesotans didn’t talk about it much after.”

2.   As you listen to the program, write down your thoughts and feelings about this historical event. You will need to pause the program at key moments to do so.  How has your study of Pine Ridge helped you to gain insight into the silence that still conceals the event in Minnesota? What similarities and differences do you see between the histories of contemporary Pine Ridge and 1862 Minnesota? What do you like and/or dislike about the storytelling? What might you take away from it to help your group in the creation of the “Living Newspaper”? Polish it up.

3.   Post Your Blog

4.   Comment on at least 2 blogs. Each comment should be approximately 100-200 words (or more if you’re inspired).  Pick out a piece of the post that made an impression on you and to offer a thoughtful response to the writer. 

Make sure to post  by Monday, April 1 at noon. Comment by Wednesday, April 3  at noon.