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Lesson 7

How do Edward Curtis’s photographic images combine with and complement the ethnographic research and writing in The North American Indian? We will engage in primary-source research by examining an evocative Curtis image, Apache Medicine-Man, and a related text from Volume 1 of Curtis’s The North American Indian. We will practice inquiry-based note-taking and use the information we gain to write a short, research-based analysis of the photograph.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I explore a variety of credible primary and secondary sources to answer questions about the work of Edward Curtis, using an organized process of inquiry?

  • Can I recognize points of connection among photographic images, ethnographic analyses, and the photojournalist’s perspective in connecting and comparing excerpts from Volume 1 of The North American Indian?

Texts

Core

  • Digital Access
    • “Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian,” Northwestern University

Optional

  • Digital Access
    • Apache Medicine-man, Edward S. Curtis, Charles Deering, McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries
    • The North American Indian, Volume 1, Edward S. Curtis, Project Gutenberg, 1907/2006

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Write – Discuss

We will practice note-taking from a primary source document with a passage about the Apache tribe from Edward Curtis’s introduction to Volume 1 of the north American Indian.

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher introduces or reviews the process of taking and making notes in a two-column format, referencing the Annotating andNote-taking Reference Guide and its template for formatting notes that combine both notes you take about what you are reading and notes you make, which includes interpretations, comments, questions, or other annotations.

Step 2

Access an excerpt of the first three paragraphs from the introduction to Volume 1 of The North American Indian, p. xix.

Using a two-column note-taking format, take and make notes, paying attention to details related to this question:

  1. Why is it that Curtis paradoxically represents the Apache as both the “best known of our tribal groups” and one for which “we have known practically nothing”?

Compare your notes to those taken by other members of the class—and potentially to a model set of notes made by your teacher.

Step 3

Discuss what you noted and learned so far from Curtis’s introduction to the ethnography of the Apache tribe.

Discuss the following question:

  1. To what degree would you consider the text in the introduction to Volume 1 to be a primary or secondary source? Defend your answer, considering what the sources for the information and ideas might have been.

Activity 2: Read – Write – Discuss

We will engage in primary-source research by studying an image and related text from the Apache section of the American Indian, Volume 1.

Step 1

Use the Northwestern University Edward Curtis Collection website and search feature to locate a 1907 photographic image from Volume 1, titled Apache Medicine-Man.

With a partner, use a Visual Analysis Tool to study this image and analyze key details, thinking about the following question:

  1. In what ways might the Apache Medicine-Man photograph be considered evocative? What feelings and questions does the photo evoke in you as a viewer?

Compare your observations about the photograph with observations from another set of reading partners.

Step 2

Listen as your teacher again explains the importance of citing sources when doing primary-source research and the format for citations you should use in this class.

Use the “Cite This Item” button on the northwestern.com webpage for Apache Medicine-Man to access a link for a properly formatted citation in the designated format for your class.

Add the citation to your Visual Analysis Tool.

Step 3

Read and take notes on a second passage from Volume 1: “The Apache: Homeland and Life.” Pay attention to details about the contradictory nature and character of the “primitive Apache.”

Compare your notes with those taken by other members of the class.

Activity 3: Read – Write

We will take and make notes about Apache medicine-men from two additional excerpts from Volume 1.

Step 1

Access a short passage, “The Apache: Creation Myth” on pages 40-41 of Volume 1 of The North American Indian.

Use a two-column note-taking format to take and make notes in response to this question:

  1. What details and evidence do the authors provide to support their claim that “The Apache is inherently devoutly religious”?

Step 2

Access the Questioning Reference Guide and read the section on Posing Inquiry Questions for Research.

Generate a class list of inquiry questions about Apache medicine men that you might want to research further.

Select one of the questions that interests you.

Step 3

Access another short passage, “The Apache: Medicine and Medicine Men” on pages 49-50.

Take and make additional notes related to the Apache – Medicine-Man image you previously examined and these questions:

  1. In what ways were Apache medicine men “most influential personages” within the tribe?

  2. How do the descriptions of the medicine man’s ritual use of his “medicine skin” correspond to and expand your understanding of Curtis’s photographic image?

  3. Consider the open-ended inquiry question you selected previously. Search the passage to see if it provides any information related to your question, and make notes about what you find.

Step 4

From the notes you have taken about the relevant passages from Volume 1’s ethnography about Apache medicine men, identify several key details you might want to use to explain your visual analysis of Curtis’s related photograph. Make a note indicating the paragraphs in which these details are found.

Follow along as your teacher reviews the protocol and format for making parenthetical citations within your own writing about a text. Make a general Sources Cited entry for Volume 1 of The North American Indian to which your parenthetical citations can be linked.

Activity 4: Write

For homework, we will write a short explanatory passage about Curtis’s Apache Medicine-man photo, using our observations from the Visual Analysis Tool and our notes from the text excerpts we have read.

For homework, write a short explanatory passage about Curtis’s Apache Medicine-Man photo, using your observations from the Visual Analysis Tool and your notes from the text excerpts you read about the Apache, their creation myth, and their medicine men.

For key details you reference or quote from The North American Indian, Volume 1, include parenthetical citations. List sources cited information for both the photograph (from the northwestern.edu website) and the Project Gutenberg text.