I will also develop a separate curriculum unit on the life of Annie Oakley, using films to introduce this folk heroine to the students. Through film and literature we will sort out the facts and learn a bit about the history of the times, as well as talk about tall tales. This unit can be flexibly used for grades 1 - 3.
Like the male folk heroes in Mrs. Martin’s unit, Annie Oakley was also a real person about whom many fantastic tales were told, not all of them true. We will examine several children’s books as well as two films about her and then compare facts to fiction. We will also get acquainted with some other heroines of the Wild West. I chose Annie Oakley because she is a woman who broke ground in her day by being famous for doing the things men do. She could hunt and shoot better then most men and was a very independent woman.
She was born as Phoebe Ann Moses in Darke County, Ohio in 1860 into a poor family. It was in fact this poverty that spurred her on to achieve her fame. Her early life reads like an old dime store novel. Her father died from the effects of a blizzard. Her widowed mother had several children to support, and the family was on the brink of starving. Her mother married twice more but , in Dickensian fashion, Phoebe was sent out as a live-in helper at various neighbors or to the poorhouse to work in exchange for food, and was badly treated. Eventually she returned home, took up her father’s old rifle, taught herself to shoot, and began successfully hunting game. Soon she was selling meat and skins in town in order to support the family.
She won a shooting match against the expert marksman, Frank Butler,. Instead of being insulted by being bested by this young pint of a girl, Butler fell in love. They were married and he became her agent. Despite a 10 year age difference, they were, by all accounts, very happy. For showmanship reasons, she took the name Annie Oakley. She hated the name Phoebe and always used her middle name,. Oakley came from the name of a suburb of Cincinnati that she liked.
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The couple toured with a circus until they joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1885. Buffalo Bill had created a rooting’ tooting’ good show that was popular all over the country as well as abroad.
Annie soon became his star performer. Chief Sitting Bull, the unpopular Sioux who had caused Custer to fall, was also a star in the show and was so impressed by Annie that he adopted her as his daughter and gave her the sobriquet “Little Miss Sureshot.” In Europe, she created a sensation when she shot the ashes from the cigar of Kaiser Wilhelm II with a Colt .45. Imagine how the course of history would have changed if she had missed and shot him in the head!
In 1901, a train accident caused Annie’s hair to go white and paralyzed her left side. Eventually, P. T. Barnum took over the management of the show and Annie eventually retired.
Annie Oakley and her husband died a few weeks apart from each other in 1926.
The story of Annie Oakley will appeal to all children. Girls will hear about an extraordinary women of the Old West and boys will be drawn in as soon as they hear about Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which at the time was as popular as the movie Titanic is today. My unit will incorporate tall tales and history. One film we will use has an animated Will Rogers narrating the tale of how he first saw Annie at a Wild West Show and then proceeding to tell her life story. At the end of this clip, we see actual moving picture images of Annie that were taken as a result of meeting with Thomas Edison. Annie, Buffalo Bill and the Indians pantomimed shots, dance and sign language for the camera. In some ways, this was the first Western on film.
Annie Oakley lived through the hey-day of the West and also saw its demise. In her time, she also saw many new inventions, including the motion picture camera.
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As a Library Media Specialist, I am also in a position where my unit can affect other students in the school, by displays or activities. The lessons in this unit would be helpful across the curriculum and can be modified for all grades. I will be working with classes and small groups and the use of film and literature will be advantageous to all.
By examining films as they relate to fact and/or fiction, I hope to expand and enhance the cause of literacy in our school.