Overview
This unit is meant to be a thread woven into the junior year American Literature English core curriculum class. Throughout the year, students will consider the question: How can we uncover the authentic voice of a people, particularly the earliest peoples of the Americas? We will trace the beginnings of European contact with American Indians and their culture, identify the goals, deeds and effects of that contact, observe the myriad ways Europeans and then Euro-Americans filtered, manipulated, misstated or hid evidence of civilizations that existed prior to their arrival and listen to present-day voices for guidance in understanding the past.
In recent years, a remarkable assemblage of American Indian writers — many of mixed background, some yet searching for the particularities of their origins — have emerged to raise questions about their own identities, Euro-America's impact on their multi-tribal heritage, and most challenging of all, the possibilities for a better future. Nine years ago, in the wake of Michael Dorris' tragic suicide, Dinitia Smith catalogued the new generation: Louise Erdrich, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, Susan Power, Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Her observation was that, "The new Indian writing is a reflection of these authors' complex lives, growing up walking a cultural tightrope, on the one hand hearing echoes of old tribal stories and on the other immersed in MTV" (D. Smith, 1997). Combining our study grounded in the 11th grade American literature anthology with additional resources of short biographies and fiction, poetry, film, images of things, news articles and historical monographs, we will enhance and amplify the core curriculum without neglecting or changing its direction.
Comments: