Selected literature to help understand cultural teaching
Literature from Joy Harjo, Sherman Alexis, Leslie Silko, and books with illustrators like Shonto Begay are leading the way for our young learners to appreciate self. Many Native American Indians / indigenous people have found their identity through life events and personal challenges. By reading short stories by the authors mentioned, students will see that modern and contemporary thinking is okay.
Teacher and students can select biographies of authors like Joy Harjo. Joy Harjo does an excellent job of summarizing her journey to being an author. I enjoyed reading her acknowledgments and introduction in her book, How We Became Humans. The fluency of her voice comforts you as a reader to connect to your own experience. Since many of the poems talks about the hardship and raw reflections of negative behaviors, I would be careful to share only three poems. The three poems would be Letter (with songline) to the Breathmaker, Naming, and Notes on It Is an Honor. The notes spell out a chant that is used for Navajo Night Chant song. This chant is called House Made of Dawn: Tsegihi.
The chant are verses that can be explained by using Wilson Aronilth Jr.’s book called Foundation of Navajo Culture. Wilson Aronilth Jr., is a well-known speaker and an instructor at Dine’ College. Aronilth explain how some Diné people clarify their identity using religious chants such as House Made of Dawn: Tsegihi. As a teacher, I will not be able to teach the chant but only use it to have students see how Navajo chants can parallel bits and pieces to how culture structures it’s teaching to self-identity.
How does Diné philosophy, culture, and creation stories cultivate many Navajo minds? Wilson Aronilth Jr.’s outline of the book Foundation of Navajo Culture explains the four directions of the Navajo Philosophy. He associates the symbolism of animals’ traits to how we humans should be, and he uses certain creation stories that entail good thinking and planning skills.
He shows how the sacred mountain of the four directions portrays a life cycle and expectation of life.
He weaves the Navajo clanship and kinship into his teaching. The clanship is used as a mechanism to show self and respect to others who are strangers at first. Many of these ideas or content are taught and iterated but not organized into a curriculum with literature. The focus of organizing and interweaving of the philosophy and cultural foundation will be a part of my lesson.
By using Aronilth’s outline of teaching culture, students can see how Joy Harjo designed her poems. I believe this will help our Diné students understand Diné teaching and culture of grandparents.
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