I have been combing the "Interwebs" for teaching materials that will help students understand this key idea in IEFA. Most of the resources are geared toward older students, which I suppose makes sense. For younger kids, I think some of the current events topics that are frequently in the newspaper might lead to a good discussion, especially the controversial ongoing drama at the National Bison Range. Even that might be too political to understand.
In the lower grades, I think it is helpful for the students to first grasp that various tribes have very different traditions, which is evident in a examination of picture books containing different stories from different tribes. I have been teaching "Fire Stories" to my 3rd graders, and have found this site with several different stories of how mankind acquired fire.
I visited a site "Indian-Ed Washington State" that looked like it would be a rich depository of teaching resources, but when I clicked on the items, I just got a "404 errors".
Our state Office of Public Instruction should be a great resource, but it's not easily navigable AT ALL. I entered "sovereignty" in the lesson search box, and received exactly one lesson (High School Level) for my efforts. The link for the Small School Alliance teacher plans is also dead. Obviously, the OPI site needs an overhaul!
I have no problem with the "Challenge To Survive" series, and they are parked with reverence on the library shelves in the 970.004. It's just difficult to conceive of how they will work into my teaching yet. Today, OPI sent my library yet another IEFA resource book that I'm afraid will never get read. The intended audience is adult, like most of them are, and frankly, busy teachers don't have the time to sift through them trying to mine for relevant teaching materials.
This is why most of the teachers in elementary depend mightily on folklore to try and meet IEFA standards. It would be great if more child-friendly, high quality materials (like the Johnny Arlee stuff) were shipped to us instead of obscure, longwinded works.
I have a few comments to make - first, it's funny that you mention spelling, because I tease my high school students that I'll be happy if they emerge from "sovereignty week" with the ability to spell the word. Second, agreed on the OPI site. You basically have to know where you are going in that site in order to make it work. And third, yes, the materials are often dense. When I designed my online NAS course for high school students which I teach through the Montana Digital Academy, I had this exact problem. Simply said, I think the solution is a piece-by-piece approach. You have to find a single item that makes sense at your grade level and tease it into a complete lesson by adding concept vocabulary work, developing ideas through close reading, and reader response to help students internalize the concepts. If you can do that with a single text, you will have a great start on this complicated topic.
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