Teacher Resources

Note: If you would be willing to share a successful teaching unit based on one of my books and have it posted on this website, please Contact me if you're interested.

Special thanks to the teachers who've shared their classroom ideas from the following schools: Willow Creek Intermediate School in Owatonna, Minnesota; Jeffers School in Painesdale, Michigan; Michaelson Middle School, Brookings, South Dakota; Little Falls Community Middle School in Little Falls, Minnesota.

The Winter War

An ideal companion for my Winter War novel is the documentary film Fire and Ice, available from Masterworks Studio and elsewhere. http://www.mastersworkmedia.com/fireandice/

A Winter War re-enactor site with great photos and technical articles: http://www.kevos4.com/

A complete history of the Winter War, including a timeline, news stories, and archival photos: http://www.winterwar.com/

El Lector

Minnesota Public Radio link to William Durbin interview
Ybor City Museum lesson plans
Ybor City Museum educational materials

The Darkest Evening

Vocab - Darkest Evening [MS Word]
Compare working conditions - MN & Russia [MS Word]
Quote Research template [MS Word]
Quote Research template - examples [MS Word]
Study Guide [MS Word]
Test [MS Word]

Song of Sampo Lake

Random House Teachers Guide

Voyageur Resources for studying The Broken Blade & Wintering

Broken Blade Lesson plan
Broken Blade Response Packet [MS Word]
THE BROKEN BLADE Review [MS Word]
THE BROKEN BLADE chapter 2 through 6 work [MS Word]
POST-test [MS Word]
Draw critter [MS Word]
study guide KEY [MS Word]
Letter writing assign [MS Word]
Jeopardy questions [MS Word]
Friendly letter format [MS Word]
Wintering reading response packet [MS Word]

History Comes Alive
Includes links to many informative voyageur sites.

White Oak Trading Post
The White Oak Trading Post site has study guides and many links.

A PowerPoint with information about the White Oak Fur Post in Deer River, MN.
Credit: Connie Quirk, Mickelson Middle School, Brookings, South Dakota.

Heartistry Music
Has both voyageur and lumberjack music.

Cross-curricular, school-wide units on The Broken Blade often include studies of fur trade history (the Great Lakes basin 1600-1850), geography (the routes from Montreal to Athabaska), sociology (cultural interaction among the Ojibwe, French-Canadian, and British) economics (market forces that drove the fur trade), foreign language (French studies), literature (contemporary and historical pieces), creative writing and art (lots of possibilities for modeling and story/character extensions), music (fur trade songs), physical education (cardio vascular effort of paddling of portaging), health (diet of fur traders), biology (ecosystems of lakes and rivers), mathematics/physics (forces paddling 40 ft. canoe with 4000 lb. load), shop class (model voyageur canoe), home economics (food preparation and fashion trends).

Logging History/Lumberjack Resources

Books

Daylight in the Swamp by Robert W. Wells, NorthWord Press, Inc., Minocqua, Wisconsin (1978).

Early Loggers in Minnesota, Volumes I-IV by J.C. Ryan, Minnesota Timber Producers Association, Duluth, Minnesota (1973-1986).

Holy Old Mackinaw by Stewart H. Holbrook, Macmillan, New York (1956).

History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota by Agnes Larson, Arno Press, New York, (1972).

The Loggers by Richard Williams, Little Brown & Company, New York (1976).

The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau, Penguin USA, New York (1988).

Tall Timber: a Pictorial History of Logging in the Upper Midwest, by Tom Bacig and Fred Thompson, Voyageur Press, Bloomington, Minnesota (1982).

Timber! by Ben Rajala, North Star Press, St. Cloud, Minnesota (1991).

Under the Tarpaper by J.C. Ryan, St. Louis County Historical Society, Duluth, Minnesota (1985).

Blackwater Ben Resources

Skeleton notes for Blackwater [MS Word]
Blackwater Ben study guide [MS Word]

Organizations

The Cradle of Forestry in America, CFAIA
100 S. Broad St.
Brevard, NC 28712
www.cradleofforestry.com

The Forest History Center
2609 County Road 76
Grand Rapids, MN 55744
www.mnhs.org/places/sites/fhc

Forest History Society, Durham, North Carolina
701 Wm. Vickers Avenue
Durham, N. C. 27701-3162
www.lib.duke.edu/forest

The Minnesota Historical Society,
345 W. Kellogg Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55102-1906
www.mnhs.org

United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service,
USDA Forest Service
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, D.C. 20090-6090
www.fs.fed.us

The World Forestry Center
4033 SW Canyon Road
Portland, Oregon 97221
www.worldforestry.org

My Name Is America

Assignments Based on The Journal of Otto Peltonen

Book Discussion [MS Word]
Family Tree Project [MS Word]
Map Assignment [MS Word]
Vocabulary Assignment [MS Word]
Credit: Cheryl Ruohonen and Jennifer Pera of the Jeffers School in Painesdale, Michigan