Educators from across South Dakota, in collaboration with Lynn Verschoor, the Executive Director of South Dakota Art Museum, developed K-12 classroom curriculum for the Takuwe exhibition. The Curriculum Development Team included (from R to L):

Special thanks to the South Dakota Community Foundation for supporting this endeavor.

Blanche Froelich

Deanna Stands

Peri Strain

LaRayne Woster

Lynn Verschoor

Mabel Picotte

and the CAIRNS director (not pictured).

This curriculum is based on the text of the exhibition panels, and is intended to assist classroom educators in incorporating all components of the exhibition into their instruction. It includes examples of classroom activities for elementary, middle and high school students. The activities are grouped into the seven sections of the exhibition. You may access them by clicking their titles below.

Students read closely about the Ghost Dance and work together to write a poem using “found language”

Students write an informative essay about aspects of the Takuwe Belief panel

Students use close reading strategies, concept maps, and historical timelines to prepare for and write an analytical essay about the Ghost Dance

Prior to reading the Takuwe Belief panel, students journal about their own experiences of Belief

Students make connections between an informative text about historical events and a poetic interpretation of those same events. They practice using specific citations as support for their literary analysis.

Students create a Reader’s Theater performance based on accounts of Sitting Bull’s assassination

Students journal or write reflectively in response to “lifted lines” from the Assassination panel of Takuwe

Students read and annotate historical reports about two reservations during 1890, considering how this information may change their perspective on the Wounded Knee Massacre or Sitting Bull’s assassination

Using a timeline, close reading strategies, and character charts, students will become “experts” on Sitting Bull’s assassination and present their knowledge to classmates

Students closely analyze quotations from the Assassination panel and support the conclusions they draw in a logical manner

Students create a “Human Timeline” to better understand the sequence of events and distance traveled during the journey detailed on the Takuwe Trek panel

Students research and create weather maps relevant to the Wounded Knee Massacre and document that information in a visual presentation

Students create a tree diagram to represent underlying factors leading to Wounded Knee Massacre, the facts of the massacre itself, and the names of the victims

In this three-part activity, students use concept maps to become familiar with the vocabulary terms related to massacre. Working in pairs, they also do a close reading of the Massacre poem from Takuwe, analyzing stanzas and presenting them to the class. Finally, the class plans a memorial reading of victims' names

Students critically review quotations from the Interval panel and the poem

Correlating imagery to text

Students silently reflect on the facts of the Interment panel

Students journal a Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) session, remove personal opinions, and then share in discussion

Students study past efforts to commemorate the Wounded Knee Massacre and work together to draft a letter to current elected officials

Students critically consider multimedia sources related to issues of healing, reconciliation and commemoration, and develop their own memorial for the Wounded Knee Massacre site

Students revise the narrative of the Wounded Knee Massacre as it is told on the current monument sign by comparing and contrasting it to the Takuwe exhibition

Students analyze Lakota narrators’ quotes

Students analyze, write and perform poetry inspired by art, also known as Ekphrastic Poetry

Annotate and express emotions of a narrator through questions, answers and art

Students write an imagery poem based on the Takuwe text

Students use vocabulary to evoke emotional reaction to Wounded Knee Massacre

Students critically analyze and synthesize how two different mediums support a theme. The themes are the title of each panel. The two mediums are the poem and song associated with each panel

Students critically analyze and synthesize how two different mediums support a theme. The themes are the title of each panel. The two mediums are the poem and song associated with each panel

Students critically think about how art represents ideas and historical events, and make informed claims in the form of essays about how a piece of art best represents a Takuwe panel

Students write a short story encompassing the events covered in Takuwe and based on the perspectives of Lakota narrators quoted in the exhibit