An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. On October 8th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a presidential proclamation recognizing October 11th as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, marking the first time an American president had officially acknowledged this national holiday. As stated in the Indigenous Peoples’ Initiative mission statement, “the Indigenous Peoples’ Initiative was established to tell a more positive and more accurate tale of Native Americans by replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” In what other instances have we, as a society, moved to correct a less accurate or inaccurate narrative?

Teaching Suggestion: Before reading this nonfiction work, students might benefit from thinking about the ways in which a particular narrative can influence a view of history and the positive effects of seeing from others’ points of view, which connects to the text’s theme of Viewing History from an Indigenous Perspective. If students struggle to think of other corrections to biased historical narratives, the class might engage in a group reading of “14 Big Facts That Were Left Out of History” from Readers Digest.