Talk:American Indian boarding schools in Wisconsin

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 October 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:12, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Evaluations

There are many very solid parts to our Wiki page as a whole. Overall, issues I saw were in that the Hayward School information was a bit repetitive for such a short section. I think that the sections on conditions and "day in the life" are somewhat similar in how they read. The best solution could be to combine these sections and add a little more information in. Also, the Saint Joseph's section needs to scale back the information presented as it appears overwhelming to the article as a whole. Pictures could be helpful throughout the article as well. The information is almost there, the balance is not. --Joe Hinds. --Joerock 81 (talk) 06:30, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Reading over the other comments, I agree for the most part with what they have to say. Just some minor stuff: For the Oneida Boarding School, our section on the "Outing System" should have properly cited sources instead of just listing the page numbers. Also, maybe rephrase "This system was called the 'Outing System'" to avoid the redundant word. For the Saint Joseph's School, it seems a bit redundant to say the boarding school was located in Wisconsin because it's already implied in our title. For the Saint Joseph's School "Early," "Mid," and "Late" history headers, it might be helpful to put the approximate years and/or significant events (e.g. "Early History - Founding"). Apart from those small details, I think our article as a whole is really coming together! I didn't notice any extreme biases. As a whole, we just want to make sure we stay on topic and make sure we're addressing the histories of our schools. --MichaelGira23 (talk) 05:10, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Overall I think the Wikipedia page is really good! I think some more pictures would be helpful and I didn't really see many links and citations in some parts of the article. Like Joe said, the section about St. Joseph's was definitely too long compared to the rest of the sections. Also, I really liked what the Hayward group did with the chart! I think that it's super helpful for the reader to see something like that instead of reading the statistics in a line. Also, for the picture that we do have, I think it would be more useful if the annotation for it is located underneath the picture rather than having to hover your mouse over it. --Bli378 (talk) 04:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

After reading through our Wikipedia page I think we have a great start! Something I noticed was in the beginning of the Hayward School section it's unclear why the Chippewa could also be known as the Ojibwa because "Ojibwa" is just placed in parenthesis. Maybe adding in a sentence explaining why it is referred to as both names could be helpful. I also noticed there is some inconsistency with titles and names, everyone should review their sections and double check that they remain consistent with their references. Also, just including more references to ensure the reliability of the information we are providing. NatalieCoan (talk) 05:28, 27 November 2019 (UTC) Natalie Coan

Overall I think the page is looking like its off to a great start! Throughout the entire thing I did notice some grammatical errors, so I would recommend going through and reading your section one more time and maybe out loud to catch those. For the Tomah Indian Industrial School, I wouldn't end the intro paragraph with just "the boarding school closed in 1941", give some context as to why it closed. Not enough funding, weather conditions, etc. Also I noticed that no one has written the lead section for the entire article, do we have someone that is going to do that? --Maddisengrimm (talk) 13:58, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I think all groups have a really good thing going so far. The lead section looks great, and I believe we have structured in a very clear sense. My group still needs to cite a few new sources before publishing. I really like the imagery displayed in our article. I especially liked the table provided because it seemed very "wikipedia." Like many of my peers said before, we need to scan the article for grammatical errors. It helps me to read what I have written out loud before publishing. Overall, we are for sure on the right track. JoeSchwaba (talk) 20:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

The information included for each school seems to be pretty thorough and unbiased for the most part. I agree that we need more clarifications for some of the facts that were listed without much background information. For Hayward, Oneida, and Tomah, we should link some of the words to other preexisting Wikipedia articles so the readers can understand the context better. Also, there are only two images in our article so far so we should look to see if we can find more interesting and usable images from our sources. Finally, I spotted some small grammatical errors we could correct, such as the faulty parallel structure in the last section of the Tomah Indian Industrial School. SangminJKim (talk) 00:50, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I think each entry brings a different aspect of the system to light, which makes the information interesting and not repetitive. I think that it would be helpful for each group to read through and add some transition phrases so that ideas can flow more smoothly. Furthermore, I agree with the other reviews that it would be helpful to link for Wikipedia articles and finish up citations. I also think that adding more photos if possible would make the articles more engaging for the readers. In regards to the background section on the Saint Joseph school, I think it is valid info and if it can be somehow related directly to the school I would keep it. If that is not possible I also think that it can be removed. Great work to everyone overall!Bellacerda123 (talk) 03:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)--Bellacerda123 (talk) 03:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm so impressed by how far we've come! Overall, I think we have a super strong foundation, and now we just need to tweak and delve a little deeper. For one, I think the page can be more interactive. Hyperlinks, images and other features where users can navigate can really bring it to life (there's no wikipedia challenge without links). I think we do a great job being objective and unbiased like a true wikipedia page. There are some grammatical errors but those can easily be picked up by grammarly. Mikaela259 (talk) 20:14, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I feel as though we have made tremendous progress. What started off as pieces of information that we found scattered from different sources has really come together quite nicely. I agree with others that there are some grammatical errors, as I noticed the repetition of the idea that the Outing System from the Oneida section was trying to distance the children from the native roots. Further explaining things can help the statements being made but so can hyperlinks, and so I believe that if we include some hyperlinks throughout the page it would have it seem more reliable and alive.--Grailed (talk) 23:10, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page on American Indian Boarding schools has come a long way in a short period of time. The page is incredibly informative and enlightens the reader on the history of such schools in Wisconsin dating back to previous centuries. On a critical note, I believe my group's page on the Tomah Indian Boarding School has minor edits and additions needed. We need to focus on consistency and use proper references when writing about our specific Native American group. The information is valid and pertains appropriate knowledge on this group, which is important. Essentially, I believe our group needs to make sure we are properly articulating our thoughts in a clear and concise manner. - Morgana Lipton

I don't have time to research them but I want to point out the identity of religious sponsors of the schools are not mentioned except for the Catholic examples and a Lutheran example. The Wisconsin Historical Society points to all 10 very early (existing by 1836) government Indian schools as protestant, while in the early era Catholic institutions were not government-funded, and I am going to quote below a historical source about that. The Memoirs of Catholic priest Samuel Mazzuchelli (which he wrote modestly referring to himself in the third person) describe what was probably the first such school in Wisconsin--and the anti-Catholicism of the government officials which would be a recurring theme throughout much of the history of the government schools for native children: "During the spring of 1834 the number of Christian Indians in the Green Bay Mission exceeded one thousand; this fact led our Missionary to believe that he could easily obtain from the Government the sum usually appropriated to the education of the Menominees. These had lately sold their right over a portion of that territory in which they were living near Green Bay, and for that were receiving from the United States Government a stipulated sum of money, besides two thousand one hundred dollars for the education of their children. Animated with the hope inspired by the chiefs of the tribe, the Priest somewhat imprudently began the building of a frame house large enough to serve exclusively for the instruction of the Indians. The resident agent of the Government, contrary to the expressed wish of the Indians, chose to give the sum above-mentioned to the Protestant Missions of the Anglican sect, who already possessed not far from the Catholic Church, a large and commodious building, erected by the contributions of the followers of their sect throughout the United States. The agent himself, the Anglican minister, and all the Protestants of the vicinity were witnesses that the Menominees had not become Protestants, but Catholics; on Sunday every one saw them making their way to the Catholic Church and not to the sectarian meetings. The chiefs of the tribe when holding councils with the agent had clearly expressed their predilection for the Catholic Mission; moreover, public opinion was to the effect that this Religion alone had the power by its influence to improve the intellectual and moral condition of the savages; facts abundantly proved this truth. Notwithstanding all this, the Catholic Mission was defrauded of that means which would have facilitated the conversion of the entire tribe. "It would be entirely wrong to attribute so great an injustice to the laws or to the spirit of the Government, for this is absolutely disconnected with any religious belief, and it protects the rights of individuals of any religion whatsoever. The wrong always lies at the door of the officials to whom is entrusted the impartial administration of business affairs. In our case it was contended that the Protestant Mission had been appointed for educating the savages with their consent, and that the yearly sum of two thousand one hundred dollars ought to be paid to them. But the distances, the one-sided influence of officials, according to the opinion of the more prudent, rendered any effort useless for remedying so unjust a distribution of that money. Notwithstanding their pecuniary assistance, the Anglican Mission could not boast of having wrought any conversions among the Menominee tribe; some children of Canadian fathers, a half dozen of really native Indians at times were supported at their Mission, usually for the sake of a living, and on some occasions an adult of that tribe pitched his temporary dwelling in their neighborhood, urged to this step as the public well knew, either by hunger or by an objection to earn his living through his own industry. And yet in the reports submitted to print, the sectarians failed not to boast of having made a number of proselytes among the natives, while that was exclusively the work of Catholicity." The above piece of writing is from the 1914 English translation of an 1844 Italian language original memoir by pioneer Dominican priest missionary Father Mazzuchelli which is extremely, extremely rare but can be accessed at the archive of the Wisconsin Historical Society Library in Madison. It was written to record history and inform Italian supporters of the Catholic missions in the United States of his and other Catholics' activities. Mazzuchelli was very much a champion of the natives' rights. The original Indian schools founded by him and other Catholic missionaries were located right in the native community and in at least some cases enlisted native adults to teach in their own language. There's no indication it ever crossed Fr Mazzuchelli's mind to try to erase the native tribal identity of children, in his memoirs he shows tons of admiration and interest in who the Menominee and other natives are and their culture. It's a great read. Find a good edition via Amazon under the title "Memoirs of a Frontier Missionary Priest". Elizdelphi (talk) 02:08, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

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