The digitized Wrangel Island collection offers many opportunities to engage college level students in primary source research. The following lesson plan for an individual class session is just one example. It is followed by an optional extended research assignment.
Description: Using a variety of primary sources, the students will explore multiple perspectives on the Wrangel Island Expedition to better understand the complex nature of historical narrative.
Learning Outcomes: By the end of the session, students will have developed a deeper understanding of how to interrogate primary sources. Students will learn to synthesize information in different formats to create an argument or narrative.
Pre-class reading: Ada Blackjack Diary, Collating Wrangel Island homepage
Lesson Plan: Divide the students into four groups. Each group is assigned two primary documents from the digitized collections to discuss among themselves. After 15 minutes, each group reports back to the entire class on what perspective on the Wrangel Island Expedition they saw in their documents.
Questions to consider: How does the source of the document shape its version of the reality of the situation? Whose voices are given authority? How do the documents in isolation change when viewed together?
Sources:
Group 1:
Two items that show Stefansson’s pre expedition excitement and post expedition defense
Group 2:
Item 2.1: Frederick Mauer to his mother, September 5, 1921.
Papers of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Mss-98, Box 9, folder 7
Item 2.2: Allan Crawford to Vilhjalmur Stefansson, September 6, 1921.
Papers of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Mss-98, Box 9, folder 7
Group 3:
Item 3.1: Telegram typescript, Harold Noice to V. Stefansson, August 31, 1923
Papers of Harold Noice, Mss-91, Folder 2
Item 3.2: Statement by Ada Blackjack, August 23, 1923.
Papers of Harold Noice, Mss-91, Folder 4
Group 4:
Item 4.1: Letter from Crawford to Stefansson, 28 November 1923
Papers of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, MSS-98, Box 9, Folder 17
Item 4.2: Newspaper clipping from Toronto Evening Telegram, 29 April 1925.
Papers of Harold Noice, MSS-91, Box 1, Folder 3
Follow up research assignment;
Using the Wrangel Island Digital project materials, choose one of the principal participants and write an account of the expedition from their perspective. Use sources by them, but also by other participants to create your narrative. Feel free to illustrate your narrative with photos from the collection.
