Lesson 3: Being Native American Today

In the third lesson of the unit, students will review the information they learned in the previous lesson about the history of Native American identity classifications, and will expand that knowledge through more contemporary classifications for Native Americans. They will learn about the ways that Native American tribes and individuals are identified in the “Indian” vs. “non-Indian” discourse, and the motives behind qualifications of Native identities. Students will evaluate identity through the lens of both federal, tribal, and informal modes of identification, and will observe their own identities through multiple lenses.