SETTLING THE RED RIVER VALLEY
A TOWN'S FOUNDERS

Grade Level:
4^th-8^th

Standards Integration:
Minnesota:
Grades 4-5: Read, Listen, and View: Literal Comprehension
1. Reading, listening, and viewing of nonfiction and fiction selections to identify main ideas and support details, retell main events or ideas in sequence.
Inquiry and Research: Media, Observation, and Investigation
C. Direct observation and interviews, including identifying a topic or area for investigation, writing a detailed description of the observation, conducting an interview with follow-up questions or designing and conducting a survey, recording and organizing information, and evaluating the findings to identify areas for further investigation.
Grades 6-8: Inquiry and Research: Direct Observation
2. Direct observations, interviews, or surveys, including framing a question; collecting data through observation, interviews, or surveys; recording and organizing information; and evaluating the question based on findings.

North Dakota:
Grades K-4: Language Arts: Students engage in speaking and listening process.
6.4.1 Use voice and body to communicate.
Language Arts: Students gather and organize information.
1.4.3 Use appropriate reference tools.
Grades 5-8: Social Studies: Social Studies Resources
8.4.3 Use technologies to gather, organize, record, interpret, and evaluate historical events and time periods.
Language Arts: Students engage in speaking and listening process.
6.8.2 Use various dimensions of delivery.

Materials:
Resource materials, such as books, historians, Internet

Objectives:

Students will develop communication skills through interviews and oral presentations.

Background:
A general knowledge and understanding of the community in which one lives is necessary to complete these activities.

Pre-Visit Activity:
Write the name of your community(s) on the board, inquire of the students whether or not they know how, by whom, or for what or whom their community was named. Encourage the students to discuss legends and fact about place-names. Tell the students they will conduct a research project into how their towns and landmarks in their communities were named. Allow each student to select a landmark and steer them toward a local historical society or newspaper or encourage them to interview local residents or relatives to discover the history of the landmark.

Post-Visit Activity:
Have each student share the origin of the landmark and the reason why it was named as such. Discuss the origin of names—suggest that they are often of Native origin, relate to another place name, a geographical feature, a battle, or reflect an event or the name of an individual.