Upper-division Writing Requirement Review Form (5/4/09)
I. General Education Review – Upper-division Writing Requirement
Dept/Program
Course # (i.e. ANTH HSTA 455
History
Subject
455) or sequence
Indians,
Bison,
and
Horse
Course(s) Title
Description of the requirement if it is not a single course
II. Endorsement/Approvals
Complete the form and obtain signatures before submitting to Faculty Senate Office.
Please type / print name Signature
Dan Flores
Instructor
243-4234
Phone / Email
Richard Drake
Program Chair
III Overview of the Course Purpose/ Description
Date
INDIANS, BISON, AND HORSES is a closely-focused historical course that treats perhaps the most
famous human/animal interactions in world history. The course will commence in the late Pleistocene,
with the migration of bison and humans across the Bering land-bridge and the continental extinction of
the native North American horse. It will continue through 10,000 years of co-evolution between Native
American societies and bison to the late 20th century, when bison have come to play a revitalized role in
Indian societies. In the interim we will examine in detail the re-introduction of the horse to North
America and the efflorescence of horse-mounted, bison-hunting Indian cultures in Western America
between 1650 and 1880. Finally, we'll take a look at the fate of both bison and horse in the American
West since the late 19th century, including the increasingly important role both are playing today in
Indian communities.
This course uses a multi-disciplinary approach but asks historical questions. History 467 is a W (writing
intensive) course, so is designed to expose students, through a major research paper, to historical
techniques of asking sophisticated questions, assembling evidence from both primary and secondary
sources, analyzing that evidence imaginatively and rigorously, and writing clearly and forcefully. At the
conclusion of the course students will understand through their own research projects how historians
write history.
IV Learning Outcomes: Explain how each of the following learning outcomes will be achieved.
Student learning outcomes :
Identify and pursue more sophisticated
questions for academic inquiry
Find, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize
information effectively from diverse sources
(see http://www.lib.umt.edu/informationliteracy/)
Manage multiple perspectives as appropriate
Students in the course are introduced to the
major theoretical questions, and various
explanations, as points of departure.
Recognize the purposes and needs of
discipline-specific audiences and adopt the
academic voice necessary for the chosen
discipline
The course deals with history and I am a
historian, so that is the voice I adopt. I expect
and urge students to do the same in a search for
what happened in the past and why. Students in
this course tend to be history and NAS students
familiar with the historical approach.
I have assembled a large student coursepack of
primary and secondary material for the
interdisciplinary approach required.
Course introduces materials and explanations
from several cultures, appropriately so given the
subject matter.
Use multiple drafts, revision, and editing in
conducting inquiry and preparing written work
Follow the conventions of citation,
documentation, and formal presentation
appropriate to that discipline
Develop competence in information
technology and digital literacy (link)
The course features 3 significant writing
assignments, 2 book reviews and a major paper.
The research paper is submitted in an initial draft
and a final version, the latter benefitting from my
suggested revisions and editorial markup.
I use handouts and examples to show them
proper professional techniques. I teach
graduating writing seminars annually so am used
to this kind of instruction.
I ask Donna McCrea in Archives to give these
classes her presentation on using on-line
searches and sources for historical research.
V. Writing Course Requirements Check list
Is enrollment capped at 25 students?
If not, list maximum course enrollment.
Explain how outcomes will be adequately met
for this number of students. Justify the request
for variance.
Are outcomes listed in the course syllabus? If
not, how will students be informed of course
expectations?
X Yes  No
Are detailed requirements for all written
assignments including criteria for evaluation in the
course syllabus? If not how and when will students
be informed of written assignments? Please attach
one example of instructions for written assignment.
Briefly explain how students are provided with
tools and strategies for effective writing and editing
in the major.
X Yes  No
X Yes  No
(See syllabus below)
We read together top articles and book chapters
in the field and evaluate how they ask questions,
how they use evidence, how they are written, and
why they're successful.
The course's major research paper.
Which written assignments include revision in
response to instructor’s feedback?
Are expectations for Information Literacy listed in
X Yes  No
the course syllabus? If not, how will students be
informed of course expectations?
VI. Writing Assignments: Please describe course assignments. Students should be required to
individually compose at least 20 pages of writing for assessment. At least 50% of the course grade
should be based on students’ performance on writing assignments. Clear expression, quality, and
accuracy of content are considered an integral part of the grade on any writing assignment.
Two book reviews and a draft and final version of
Formal Graded Assignments
a course research paper.
Informal Ungraded Assignments
VII. Syllabus: Paste syllabus below or attach and send digital copy with form.  The syllabus
should clearly describe how the above criteria are satisfied. For assistance on syllabus preparation
see: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/syllabus.html
Professor Dan Flores
History 467-W: INDIANS, BISON, AND HORSES
The University of Montana
Spring Semester 2007
INDIANS, BISON, AND HORSES is a closely-focused historical course that treats perhaps the
most famous human/animal interactions in world history. The course will commence in the late
Pleistocene, with the migration of bison and humans across the Bering land-bridge and the
continental extinction of the native North American horse. It will continue through 10,000 years of
co-evolution between Native American societies and bison to the late 20th century, when bison
have come to play a revitalized role in Indian societies. In the interim we will examine in detail the
re-introduction of the horse to North America and the efflorescence of horse-mounted, bisonhunting Indian cultures in Western America between 1650 and 1880. Finally, we'll take a look at
the fate of both bison and horse in the American West since the late 19th century, including the
increasingly important role both are playing today in Indian communities.
This course uses a multi-disciplinary approach but asks historical questions. History 467 is a W
(writing intensive) course, so is designed to expose students, through a major research paper, to
historical techniques of asking sophisticated questions, assembling evidence from both primary
and secondary sources, analyzing that evidence imaginatively and rigorously, and writing clearly
and forcefully. At the conclusion of the course students will understand through their own
research projects how historians write history.
The teaching aspects of this course will be handled as part lecture, part seminar. One day a
week I will present a regular lecture that introduces the themes in the readings and attempts to
lay out some of the historical problems the readings address. The second class meeting will be
devoted entirely to discussion of the week's readings. We'll also try to get in a diverse range of
media presentations.
In addition to the faculty pack of article readings (see below), there are three assigned book
readings for the course: Dale Lott's American Bison: A Natural History, a new work by an
internationally famous biologist on the long duration of buffalo as a keystone wild species in the
Americas; cultural anthropologist Preston Holder's classic The Hoe and the Horse on the Plains;
and the deceptively simple but evocative novel by writer Mari Sandoz, The Horsecatcher, which
captures the zenith time of horse-propelled bison hunting peoples in the mid-19th century. We
will read the first 12 chapters of Lott's book for the midterm, and the final 13 for the final.
For Holder and Sandoz you will write a book review/personal response, each worth 75 points,
each of 3-4 pages in length. Due dates are listed below.
The heart of the course readings will be the faculty pack articles and excerpts, drawn from a
variety of disciplines but with a decided historical focus of both primary sources and interpretive
articles and book chapters. The historical works here serve the additional function of providing
examples of scholarship and writing of the type you will be expected to do in your course
paper. You'll have approximately 30-50 pages of readings a week, usually 2-4 articles. Weekly
reading assignments appear beginning on page 4 of this syllabus.
Grades: There will be two major exams, a midterm and a final. Both will be essay and short
answer, and each will be worth 150 pts. They will cover lectures, discussions, and assigned
books and readings.
Since History 467 is a writing course, your fourth grade, at a value of 150 points, will be based on
the quality of your research paper, a major part of the course. It should be roughly 15-20 pages
in length, should address one of the major problems the course introduces, should feature a mix
of primary and secondary sources, use professional citation, advance an argument, and the topic
should be selected in consultation with me. A first submission of this paper will come due on April
12 and will be marked and returned to you by April 24. The final version of the paper is due on
May 1. I'll base your final grades on point totals out of a possible 600 using the standard 90% =
A; 60% = D, etc. Attendance and class contributions obviously are important in a course like this
and can make a difference in close calls.
My office is #260 in the Liberal Arts building, and my office hours this semester 2:00-4:00 p.m.
TT, or by appointment. Because of a significant writing load, I tend not to hang around the office
much, so bear that in mind.
I will make arrangements for students with special learning needs if they will see me. For
graduate students I expect a scholarly article- length (20-25 pages) version of the research paper,
with special reliance on primary materials, and an additional book review.
COURSE CALENDAR
Weekly Lecture and Discussion Topics
Week 1:
January 23 -- Course introduction
January 25 -- Indians, Bison, and Horses: Three Ancient Americans; START LOTT
Week 2
January 30, February 1 -- Animals and People in History
Week 3
February 6, 8 -- La Longue Duree on the Great Plains
Week 4
February 13, 15 -- Bison Ecology
Week 5
February 20, 22 -- Ancient Hunters
Week 6
February 27, March 1 -- The Buffalo Life (REVIEW OF SANDOZ DUE)
Week 7
March 6, 8 -- Invasion
Week 8
March 13 -- The Horse Life
March 15 -- MIDTERM EXAM; FIRST 12 CHAPTERS OF LOTT; FAC-PACK READINGS
Week 9
March 20, 22 -- Buffalo and Religion, Pt. 1 (START HOLDER)
Week 10
April 3, 5 -- Evolving Horse Lifestyle
Week 11
April 10, 12 -- The Great Buffalo Hunt (FIRST VERSION OF RESEARCH PAPER DUE)
Week 12
April 17, 19 -- Buffalo and Religion II
Week 13
April 24, 26 -- Buffalo and Indian Wars; The Horse in Transition; HOLDER REVIEW DUE
Week 14
May 1, 3 -- Loss, Memory, and Return (FINAL VERSION OF RESEARCH PAPER)
FINAL EXAM, May 9, 1:10-3:10, this room (LAST 13 CHAPTERS OF LOTT; FAC-PACK
READINGS)
READING ASSIGNMENTS
Week 2 -- Animals and People in History
Worster, "Other People, Other Lives," from An Unsettled Country, 35 pp.
Olsen, "Horse Hunters of the Ice Age," 19 pp.
Week 3 -- La Longue Duree on the Great Plains
Davidson, "Climate Variability on the Northern Great Plains," 22 pp.
R. D. Guthrie, "Bison and Man in North America" 22 pp.
Week 4 -- Bison Ecology
Huebner, "Late Prehistoric Bison Populations in Central and Southern Texas" 21 pp.
Larson, "The Role of the Bison in Maintaining the Shortgrass Plains" (partial) 9 pp.
Week 5 -- Ancient Hunters
Wilson, "That Unmanned Wild Countrey" 2 pp.
McDonald, excerpt from North American Bison, 16 pp.
Excerpt from Bison Jumps of the High Plains 9 pp.
Week 6 -- The Buffalo Life
Spielman, "Late Prehistoric Exchange, Southwest and the Southern Plains" 8 pp.
Duke, "Symbolic Content of Procurement and Processing," from Points in Time, 41 pp.
Week 7 -- Invasion
Rostlund, "The Geographic Range of the Historic Bison in the Southeast" 12 pp.
Wolf Calf, "Some Strange Animal" 3 pp.
Roe, "The 'Stray' Legend," from The Indian and the Horse, 22 pp.
Week 8 -- The Horse Life
Catlin, "Letters No. 41 and 42," from Letters and Notes, 16 pp.
Table -- Documented Horse Populations, 1 p
Flores, "The American Trader and the Southwestern Frontier," 30 pp.
Week 9 -- Buffalo and Religion, Part I
Catlin, "The Buffalo Dance and the Mandan O-Ki-Pa Ceremony," 40 pp.
Brown, "The Role of Animals in Ogalala Life," from Animals of the Soul, 31 pp.
Flores, excerpt from "Closing the Sacred Circle," 6 pp.
Week 10 -- Evolving Horse Lifestyle
Wilson, "An Inquiry into the Nature of Plains Indian Cultural Development," 16 pp.
Roe, "Indian 'Wealth in Horses'," from The Indian and the Horse, 32 pp.
Week 11 --The Great Buffalo Hunt
Burlingame, "The Buffalo in Trade and Commerce," 18 pp.
Flores, "Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy Redux," 20 pp.
Koucky, "The Buffalo Disaster of 1882," 7 pp.
Week 12 -- Buffalo and Religion II
"The Great Vision," and "The Buffalo Hunt," Black Elk Speaks, 40 pp.
"Plenty Coup's Vision," from Bergstrom, Wilderness Reader, 7 pp.
Week 13 -- Buffalo and Indian Wars; Horse in Transition
Bamforth, "Historical Documents and Bison Ecology," 13 pp.
Ostler, "They Regard Their Passing as Wakan," 17 pp.
"War for the Buffalo" from Dee Brown, Bury My Heart, 23 pp.
Ten Bears' Testimony at Medicine Lodge Creek, 1867, 2 pp.
Red Cloud Speech at Cooper Union, NY, 1870, 2 pp.
Sitting Bull Account, 1 p.
Sherow, "Workings of the Geodialectic," 20 pp.
Week 14 -- Loss, Memory, and Return
Isenberg, "The Returns of the Bison" 28 pp.
Vrooman, "Buffalo Voices," 8 pp.
Hodgson, "Back Home on the Range," 18 pp.
Flores, "The Horse Nations Endure," 24 pp.
Franke, excerpts from To Save The Wild Bison, 18 pp.
FILMS: We'll try to see excerpts of varying lengths from the following films:
Great Plains Experience: The Lakota
The Wild Horse Controversy
Where the Buffalo Roamed
Bring Back the Buffalo
Wild Horse Spirit