CAMPAIGN
DAWNLAND’s impact team follows a model established by our organization, the Upstander Project. We use film, intensive teacher professional development, and interactive educator tools to help bystanders become “upstanders.” Upstanders are people who stand up and speak out against injustice. Our strategy is to use post-film discussions to teach the history that has been intentionally disavowed by the dominant culture, and build awareness and develop understanding of Native peoples and the issues that are important to them. We are heartened to know that DAWNLAND is being used to create conversations in the formation processes of other truth and reconciliation processes in others parts of the United States.
#DawnlandMovie #WabanakiREACH #NativePride #WabanakiPublicHealth #TruthAndReconciliation #NICWA #TRHT #HonorNativeLand
YOU ARE ON INDIGENOUS LAND
We invite action at screenings by modeling Indigenous land acknowledgements using words, posters, and plaques in the spirit of the #HonorNativeLand campaign. We also encourage going beyond land acknowledgments. Some ideas are offered here.
Click here to access the folder of all You Are On Indigenous Land posters. Some examples are shown here.
ACKNOWLEDGE THE LAND & TAKE ACTION
- Do your research to make meaningful Land Acknowledgements like this one.
- Listen, learn, unlearn, grow, act and ask local Native people how you can be helpful.
- Speak up from the heart against offensive, condescending speech, writing, and behavior.
- Contest how public spaces are named, challenge popular narratives that erase Native peoples.
- Transform curricula, make it interdisciplinary and place-based, use View from the Shore/View from the Boat, highlight Native voices and authors, and support Native makers like Urban Native Era, Wabanaki Marketplace, B.Yellowtail, From the People, We are the Seeds, Abbe Museum, and Wampanoag Trading Post. (Let us know who else to add to this list, please.)
- Ask who’s at the table, whose voices are heard, who makes decisions, who gets funded, whose issues are addressed.
DAWNLAND TEACHER’S GUIDE
This website includes a comprehensive teacher’s guide to help teachers get the most out of the documentary film, DAWNLAND, and its companion short films. The guide is tightly bound to the films and helps connect the dots between the viewing and learning processes. The guide indicates how scenes from DAWNLAND and the lessons in the guide best interact.
The Compelling Question of the DAWNLAND Teacher’s Guide is: What is the relationship between the taking of the land and the taking of the children?
This question frames the study across five separate but related inquiries and will help students collect and organize evidence to support an argument that answers the question. The guide is freely available as an online resource.
PARTNERS IN ACTION
Akomawt Educational Initiative – dedicated to furthering knowledge of Native America through innovative learning approaches
Maine-Wabanaki REACH – advocates for Wabanaki self-determination
Change the Massachusetts Flag – a movement to change the offensive flag and seal
Reclaiming Native Truth – A project to dispel America’s myths and misconceptions