Activity Ideas
for
Forests, Fields, and the Falls: Connecting Minnesota

What this includes:

• An Overview of the Site
• Technical Requirements
• Ideas for Learning Activities

An Overview of the Site
Forest, Fields, and the Falls: Connecting Minnesota introduces students to Minnesota's lumbering, sawmilling, flour milling, and farming history through four first-person narratives presented in a comic-book format. A single message connects these four stories:

Farming on the prairie was made possible by the lumbering of the white pine forests. The Mississippi River divides these two regions; the work at the sawmills and flour mills at Saint Anthony Falls bridges the divide.

The stories and their authors
The four stories are edited versions of original accounts. The following list names the author and the original source their stories were edited from.

• Lumbering: Beginning in 1899, Joseph DeLaittre spent three winters as a clerk in a logging camp near Aitkin, Minnesota. His reminiscence is titled A Story of Early Lumbering in Minnesota.
• Sawmilling: Melvin Frank grew up near the sawmills of northwest Minneapolis at the turn of the century. His memoir, "Sawmill City Boyhood," appeared in Minnesota History magazine.
• Farming: Mary Carpenter and her family moved to a homestead near Marshall, Minnesota in 1873. Her letters are a part of the Minnesota Historical Society's collections.
• Flour Milling: Journalist E.V. Smalley visited Minneapolis to write an article promoting the Minneapolis flour mills. It appeared in The Century magazine in 1886.

Historic Sources
Inside each story you will find links to related historic sources (i.e. documents, photos, objects, etc.) and quotes. Look within the stories for the icon of a small brown scroll with buttons, or skip straight to the Index.

Index
The index is the same site as the Non-Flash Version. In addition to containing the text for the stories and links to historic resources, the index contains:

• unedited versions of the four stories, including scans and transcriptions of 22 of Mary Carpenter's letters.
• links to related historic sites.
• links to related online resources located on the Minnesota Historical Society's web site.

Technical Requirements
To experience the complete story you will need:

• Netscape or Internet Explorer (I.E.) 4.0 or higher (Note: Macintosh users with Internet Explorer 4.5 will need to upgrade).
• The Flash Player, version 5 or higher. This is a free, quick download, available through the Forests, Fields, and the Falls home page.

Ideas for Learning Activities

Find the Connections
Have students find visual clues (in both the comic panels and in the links) to the relationships between the stories. For example, find flour barrels in the lumber story, references to wheat in the flour milling story, buildings being constructed of lumber in the farming story, and logs coming down the river in the sawmilling story. Each story has relationships to all the others.

Mapping Minnesota's Natural Resources
Introduce your students to the terms prairie and pine forest. Once students have gone through the stories, give them a blank map of Minnesota and display a wall map of Minnesota. Ask them to:

• locate the towns of Marshall, Aitkin, and Minneapolis.
• sketch in the Mississippi River.
• shade in the prairie, pine forest, and the river zones.

(The result should look something like this:)

Lumbering, Sawmilling, Flour Milling, and Farming: Then and Now
Have students select and explore one story. In groups, or individually, have them research their story's topic as it relates to today. Students could do a broad survey of their topic in Minnesota or they could find and interview someone working in that area.
Have them:

• identify what they've learned about their topic from the story.
• brainstorm a list of questions and key words that will help them explore their topic today.
• brainstorm a list of how they might research those answers: where they might look for answers (specific web sites, books, organizations, or magazines), who they could contact.
• investigate their questions and present their findings to the class.

Marshall, Aitkin, and Minneapolis: Then and Now
Have students research and report on the present economic, social, demographic, and/or political conditions of the different locations of the four stories. How have the communities changed, how have they remained the same? Resources for information include the Aitkin County Historical Society, Hennepin History Museum, the Minneapolis Public Library-Downtown, Forest History Center, Southwest State University, the Lyon County Historical Society, and the Minnesota Historical Society.

Write a Letter, Illustrate it as a graphic comic.
Have students go through the "Farming" story and identify the main topics, or elements, of Mary Carpenter's letters (i.e. family, health, hardships, work, joys, etc.). Have students write a letter about themselves that includes at least three of the elements they've identified. After they've written the letter, have them illustrate it in a comic format.

Scavenger Hunt
Have students find four primary sources (photos, objects, or documents)--one from each story--and answer as many of the following questions as possible: What type of source is it? When was it made? Who made it? Why was it made? How does it relate to the story? What information does it give you? What do you find most interesting about it?

Transportation
Have students read through the four stories, paying close attention to the means of transportation. Have them write down both the means of transportation depicted and the objects being transported. Ask the students to compare and contrast the past and present modes of transportation. How have things changed? How have they remained the same?

Identify Point of View
Have students select one of the stories, paying close attention to the perspective of the narrator. Students should record any important biographical information they learn about the narrator (i.e. where they're from, what they do, etc.). Ask them to think about how the narrator's background might affect his or her point of view. Have students identify someone who might offer a different perspective on farming, flour milling, saw milling or lumbering. It might be someone shown in the drawings, referred to in the text, or someone not mentioned at all. Have students describe who the individual is, how his/her opinions would differ from the narrator's, and why.

Understanding Historical Interpretation:
Reediting and Reinterpreting Mary Carpenter's Words
Introduce students to the concept of historical interpretation using the "Farming" story and the unedited letters of Mary Carpenter. Explain to students that a historian edited Mary Carpenter's letters to make the "Farming" story. He interpreted her experience by including some events and feelings she described and omitting others.

Have students read over the Farming story. Then direct them to the unedited versions of Mary's letters (located in the Index, under "Farming", or directly at: http://discovery.mnhs.org/connectingmn/resources/farming/f30letterindex.htm).

Ask them to read and print out a certain number of Mary's letters (or pre-select and print the letters you'd like them to read). Have them:

• identify, with pencil, passages that were included in the edited "Farming" story and passages that were left out.
• write about how they would edit the letters differently. What parts of the letters would they add? What would they take out? How would they change the physical representations of Mary? How would their changes affect the depiction and interpretation of Mary Carpenter?