Louise Erdrich Birchbark House series online book club

This self-paced online five credit course uses The Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich as a foundation for understanding the effects of Federal government policies and the Westward Expansion movement on American Indian people. The course begins with an overview of the Federal Indian Policy Eras from colonization through treaty-making. Participants will then read all five of Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House series novels, and examine them alongside additional fiction and nonfiction literature selections, primary sources, and Office of Public Instruction IEFA materials. The conclusion of the course focuses on Montana’s landless Indians and the Little Shell Tribe of the Chippewa-Cree, which has finally received federal recognition, over a century after the death of Chief Little Shell.