How Should We Remember Westward Expansion? (Part 1)

The period of American Westward Expansion, roughly the mid-1800s, is an interesting topic to teach and talk about with 8th grade students. Sometimes it seems that all they know is the world they live in and they don't often think about how the borders of the United States came to be. Why, for example, does the United States stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific? How did we acquire that land? What happened the other groups that were there before? These are all questions that are important to answer and a chance to teach the idea of multiple perspectives to US history. In the past, I have taught this topic to students in a variety of ways. My first year teaching 8th grade, we did a flipbook: horrible. The second year we read the textbook for perspective but then also read excerpts from a Mexican textbook about Manifest Destiny: better. The third year I focused on primary sources (Polk's declaration of war on Mexico, political cartoons, etc.): still better. This year I decided to go in a completely different direction. For a couple years now I have been following the debate surrounding Confederate monuments and their place in today's landscape. For students this is a hard concept to dive into as they don't have the content of the Civil War and Reconstruction nor the politics of the 1920s or even the era of segregation (when the majority of the monuments went up). Besides that, injecting 8th grade students into the politically charged climate of Confederate monuments doesn't seem like the best idea to me. I want to give that topic full justice if I was going to tackle it, and at the end of the school year we just run out of time and I can't do the topic justice. For that reason I took the ideas gleaned from reading the work, and discussions with, Kevin Levin a historian who in my mind is a go-to source if you want up-to-date information on the monument debate.

Since Manifest Destiny is a controversial topic it seemed like the perfect place to place discussion about monuments and memorials and how we actually remember the past. I gave my students three full class periods to do some independent inquiry (with some standard structure) on the topics relating to Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny. These included James K. Polk, acquisition of Florida, Louisiana Purchase, Texas, Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush, Trails West, Trail of Tears, etc. The students were given some basic guidelines as to how to explore the topics and to look through the lens of how we should remember Westward Expansion. At the end of their inquiry time I introduced the concept of monuments and memorials to them. To prepare for this idea, I spent some time reading and then used some of the ideas from Kevin Levin and his Civil War Memory blog and Confederate Monument Syllabus along with ideas modified from Facing History's lesson plan on Holocaust Memorials, students were introduced to what monuments mean and how we commemorate the past through out current views. We used the Gateway Arch (a monument to expansion) and Mount Rushmore as examples of how Manifest Destiny is glorified. But we also talked about how those monuments alone don't tell the whole story of expansion in the mid-1800s.  A whole class discussion ensued about what monuments and memorials actually represent and what it says about the people at the time who made them and how they viewed history. I gave them the example of the Texas Heroes Monument in Galveston, Texas.  It's a 74 foot tall monument with a statue of Victory at the top and was dedicated in 1900 to the heroes of the Texas Revolution. We reflected back on what the students had learned about the Texas Revolution from Mexico. Some great comments came out of that discussion about American settlers that had moved to Texas (when it was part of Mexico) and refused to follow the Mexican Government's rule (particularly about slavery). One kid commented with "does not following the rules make you a hero?" We then discussed how the Mexican government would commemorate the Texas Revolution. Would they build a monument to Texas heroes? Or would they feel differently? And why 1900? Why almost 150 years after the Texas Revolution did they erect this monument? Some kids were struggling with the point: who cares what a monument says? Does anyone pay attention to what's actually on them anyways? Surprisingly other students chimed in right away (before I could say it) and talked about how a person of Mexican descent might feel viewing that statue. Or a person whose descendants were enslaved in Texas (since the Texas Revolution eventually lead to Texas become a US state, and a slave state to boot).

 With that in mind I cut the students loose with the task of picking an aspect of Manifest Destiny to commemorate in a monument, memorial, or artwork. After about 20 minutes of brainstorming some had their ideas already forming in their head. Some took obvious routes for good or bad (monuments celebrating the economic achievements of the Gold Rush and monuments commemorating the negatives of the Trail of Tears). But others pushed their thinking and ideas. Some wanted to commemorate James K. Polk for actually achieving the goals he set out to accomplish, for example. For the first day of brainstorming I asked them to pick a topic and then focus on the message they want that monument/memorial/artwork to portray.

This week we will design and construct. I will be conferencing with each student along the way to see what they're thinking and why they are designing theirs the way that they are. Stayed tuned for a reflection on the work and examples of student monuments.