DHS students explore the westward expansion of the United States

World famous showman Buffalo Bill Cody welcomes area 5th graders to his amazing Wild West Show during Rendezvous at Washington Park on October 11. The entire DHS junior class participated. Cody Shulte played Buffalo Bill Cody. At right is Brady Lutz, who was a trail guide and played the character Jim Beckwourth. Photos by Dan Mundt

On Wednesday, October 11, the junior students of Denison High School (DHS) traveled to Washington Park in Denison to reenact events that helped shape America as we know it today.

Students in the DHS American Heritage class spent the day performing short plays as part of “Rendezvous,” which is part of a unit called “Westward Expansion.”

Each of the 180 students in the class was required to research a specific character from that era.

The students worked in small groups to create a story to be performed at the park.

Area fifth grade students traveled to the park to be the main audience.

Dave Houston, DHS social science instructor, who teaches the class along with language arts instructor Nancy Voggesser, said that in the lead-up to this year’s event, a greater emphasis was placed on the educational part of preparations rather than on the final performance.

“As instructors, we were working on reputable sources this year and the research part of it,” Houston said.

“We talked about what it takes to be a reputable source. We went more into the challenges that come with our access to information; what information is good and what is not.”

Students were encouraged to seek out .edu and .org online sources.

“Miss Voggesser told the kids they needed to look up as many of those as they could,” he said.

“We told them we wanted to take a look at the .coms before we allowed them to use them as a source.”

Students were also required to use two older, print-based sources as they compiled 30 research cards on the person they were assigned.

The students were also shown media bias charts.

**The infamous female outlaw Belle Starr (Nallely Rivera) holds up and robs an innocent citizen (Gabe Henningsen).**

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From left, the notorious female gambler Eleanor Dumont (Kamden Bruhn), also known as Madame Mustache, explains the secrets to her success as a gambler during the Gold Rush. With Mayah Slater as Charles Goodnight, Eryn Wilson as Jesse Chisolm and Lauren Herrig as Narcissa Whitman. Esmeralda Galdamez is the student in the background.

“With the type of research the students are doing, you don’t necessarily run into a lot of disreputable sources trying to purposely mislead people,” Houston said. “It’s an opening of dialogue with the kids and we’ll continue to build on that. This year, we’ve already shown them media bias charts for the different media sources as we look at news stories that shape the world around us.”

Houston said he and Voggesser work hard to make the history lessons relevant to today.

He noted that an America political commentator had recently said Israel is using the “Kit Carson approach” to the current situation in Gaza.

“I automatically lit up because Kit Carson is one of the characters at our Rendezvous,” Houston said. “To me, one of the things we’re trying to do is show that the history is still a binding aspect to society.”

Beyond teaching about the formative years of the United States, Rendezvous also teaches teamwork.

The students have to be able to communicate with the other members of their groups and then work together to create their skit.

“I felt the kids did a great job,” Houston said. “There were very few weak presentations this year. You can’t help but compare to other years, and I thought the overall level of this Rendezvous was very high for what we asked the kids to do.”

The class had to deal with a last-minute curveball when a cross country meet was rescheduled to the same day.

“We had some cross county kids taken out because the meet got moved,” he said.

He said rescheduling the meet was a good move for the cross country team, but many of the students were disappointed at missing out on Rendezvous.

“There is an educational value in that for the kids that were here because they had to adjust and adapt on the fly,” Houston said. “Those are good skills to be teaching young people.”