102 FDAI Ed

The Composition of American Indian Literatures:

Mount Saint Mary's

Forward

My journey toward conceptualizing the four learning phases and the Composition of American Indian Literatures has been a long process that blossomed out of my own teaching experiences in my own classrooms. I realized very early in my career that in order to teach many of the students who attend my classes, I would have to figure out how to reach this young MTV generation who seems to be bent on instant gratification. I also knew that I would have to be imaginative in order to create a safe and fun environment that would be conducive to learning for this pierced and tattooed, under-prepared generation of the 90s who entered my classes tightly clutching their twenty minute attention spans. Of course, not all of my students fit this stereotypical portrayal, but I found that most students do expect to be entertained during class; I am expected to be both an actor and a comedian.

In order to meet the challenges inherent in teaching an English Composition class, I have always relied on such techniques as collaboration in the classroom, decentering authority, portfolio evaluation, and writing as a process. These methods are effective in teaching students the game of writing and afford them the opportunity to take responsibility for their own academic progress. Students usually gain academic self-esteem as they realize the power inherent in effective oral and written communication.

In order to also be effective in my Native American Literatures courses, I present the courses in a manner that will make the classroom experience real for the students as well as create a safe and fun environment that is conducive to learning. I approach these courses from a Native perspective, which includes such techniques as tribalism, circularity, and polyvocalism. I bring in Native Americans (in full regalia) on the first and last days of class, have guest speakers, and have the students work in groups, make clapper sticks and dream catchers, learn songs, give oral presentations, incorporate an oral and a visual dimension to their research projects, and learn the history and culture of the writers being studied. I find that the students respond to this environment similar to the students in my English Composition courses--they are academically empowered as they became actively involved in the classroom experience.

My ideas about composition and literature began to emerge and merge as I began to see similarities in my composition and literature courses. The link and overlap of theories and methods became apparent to me as I tried to make the topics accessible to students, and I found that the originally hesitant students began to blossom academically. For example, in all of my classes I use the powerful technique of storytelling as a method of empowering both the orator and the receiver of the information. Five to ten minutes before each class starts is set aside for storytelling, which ends exactly as class officially begins. Storytelling is strictly voluntary, and there are usually more students who want to tell stories than the time will permit. The only two rules that the students must follow are that as a student is telling a story, the rest of the class listens intently and without interruption, and the subject matter must be appropriate for the classroom. An added benefit to storytelling is that students are very rarely late to class. As a matter of fact, my students can often be seen running to class in order to be able to hear the stories. This oral technique helps the student telling the story because he or she is being heard, and it helps the audience learn the art of listening. The class forms a bonded unity through the storytelling that remains intact throughout the class period and the entire course.

Even though Susan Jaye Dauer discusses the effective and interactive nature of using computers in a literature class, she sees the same positive changes in students as they are empowered in the classroom through her method of storytelling. Speaking about her community college students she states:

They have lively and intelligent discussions about banning books from high schools, about how a runaway slave might make it to Canada, and about what Young Goodman Brown is doing in the woods. They have come to class as much as fifteen minutes early to see what the day’s questions are and to begin working on their answers to those questions. (A3)

I do not think that this kind of eager anticipation is typical on the part of community college students, and Dauer uses questions on the computer in the way that I use student storytelling in order to create a sense of community for the students. She has found a way to make the topics in her classes sing and dance for the students as they see the relationships between their readings and real life.

This unity is also formed as the students feel safe to express their ideas in an environment that, besides being interactive, is fun. Many under-prepared students enter classes with negative feelings and high personal walls built for self-protection, walls typically built because of years of negative experiences in the classroom. Further, many students are foreign to the college classroom experience and need time to connect to it.

I concur with the ideas of Joseph Meeker, in his text The Comedy of Survival, wherein he argues that humor is a serious and important aspect of life. Meeker states that people who see their lives as play live longer and that one of the ultimate goals in life is to see our jobs as play. I want my students to see their jobs in the classroom as enjoyable and look forward to attending class. Creating a learning experience that is fun allows the students to methodically tear down their walls of self-protection and be absorbed into an environment that welcomes and empowers them. Creating these environments allows me to reach a wide variety of students and introduce these diverse students into the world of academics, which they ultimately embrace wholeheartedly.

I took these thoughts and ideas about empowering the students and absorbing them into academics into my Mount St. Mary’s class, a class that linked both types of classes that I have taught so often: English Composition and American Indian Literatures. At Mount St. Mary’s, I had the opportunity to use these techniques and expand and conceptualize a new method of instruction.

Designing the Project

Before conceptualizing and instructing the new course, I had the opportunity during the Spring of 1996 to teach the course “Native American Literatures” (English 192B), for Mount St. Mary's weekend college (Brentwood CA), which met for six consecutive weekends. After successfully completing the teaching assignment, I submitted a proposal for the new course to Dean Merrill Rodin and, as a result, was scheduled to teach the course during the fall of 1996 as a one unit, one week-end course. The course entitled “Composition of American Indian Literatures: A Holistic Cultural Immersion” was held on 14-15 December 1996, for eight hours on Saturday and eight hours on Sunday. Of course, I was delighted for the opportunity to try my new ideas and be able to test the theoretical backbone of my Four Learning Phases. Even though I successfully used composition as a component in other Indian Literatures courses (California State University, Park College, Victor Valley College, and Mount St. Mary’s College), this class afforded me the first opportunity to fine tune my theories and to take my Indian Literatures courses to what I saw as the next logical step--the composing process.

I used Stephen North’s perception of a case study in his text The Making of Knowledge in Composition to analyze the information regarding the classroom experience of the students at Mount St. Mary’s. He represents a case study as containing the following five components:

1. Identifying Problems

2. Designing the Study

3. Collecting and Analyzing Data

4. Interpreting and Analyzing Data: Contributions to the Canon

5. Drawing Conclusions: Implications for Research and Teaching. (207)

A case study exchanges depth for breath in research and affords an in-depth analysis of a small sample, in my case a one-unit class. I was drawn to the case study methodology because of the close interaction required between participants, which I already create in my classes.

I believe that North is discussing fun in the Meeker sense when he describes the intimate relationship that must exist between the researcher/instructor and the students when he argues that “the clinical investigator depends on her [or his] relationship with the subjects to get the information she [or he] wants” (208). This close relationship can only be created in an environment and that is fun and conducive to learning where students feel both trust and safe. Such a relationship must be created in order to empower students in their classroom experience, which allows them to transform from passive to active learners and quiet to eager classroom participants.

As I was conducting my case study with the students at Mount St. Mary’s, I decided to keep in mind the eight point checklist that Janice M. Lauer discusses in her text Compositional Research: Empirical Design:

1. What theory, questions, or hypotheses govern the research?

2. Who are the subjects and why were they chosen?

3. By what means were the data collected? What data were gathered?

4. What variables were identified and operationally defined?

5. In what ways were the variables interrelated, tabulated?

6. What level of agreement did the coders reach? How was it calculated?

7. In what format were the results reported? Summaries? Figures? Tables? Extensive Description?

8. What problems, if any, afflict the study? (34)

In many ways Lauer’s questions reiterate North’s points, but her questions have been valuable to me because they also form a kind of road map that allows easy access to the same destination. In the Lauer sense, it was necessary to be able to answer certain questions in the affirmative if the theory that Composition of American Indian Literatures can be taught and, indeed, is not a function of bloodedness. During my research, I attempted to answer the following four questions: are there any non-Indian authors who write in the form and style inherent to American Indian Literatures; if so, what particular experiences enabled these authors to write in this form and style; can these experiences be created in a classroom setting allowing the students to compose in a manner of American Indian Literatures; can the desired result be achieved in the relatively short time span of a class? I determined that Tony Hillerman writes Indian Literatures even though he is not an Indian, and he was immersed in the cultures about which he writes. Ultimately, I found that when the students use the four learning phases (foundation, conception, immersion, and invention) they do indeed demonstrate that they can write in the manner of American Indian Literatures in the time allotted in a classroom setting.

Tony Hillerman

I selected Tony Hillerman and his novel Sacred Clowns as an example of a non-Indian author who writes American Indian Literatures. Hillerman is a prolific, award-winning writer of mystery novels and is a popular writer on numerous Indian reservations. Most of his work is specific to the Navajo tribe, but Sacred Clowns also reflects the Pueblo, and to a lesser extent, the Cheyenne cultures. This novel offers an opportunity to retrace Hillerman’s journey of life experiences and reconcile them to the end product, a novel of multi-cultural American Indian Literature and style.

Several biographies of Tony Hillerman were available, allowing for the tracing of his life experience. I surveyed numerous critical essays on his works in general and specifically Sacred Clowns. These essays hailed Hillerman as a great writer of mysteries and American Indian Literatures. I did not find any critical essays that challenged his style and form as being that of American Indian Literatures. Therefore, I conducted an analysis of Sacred Clowns and analyzed the narrative to establish the presence of circularity and non-linear form, multiple points of view, and a-ethnocentrism. These elements were indeed present.

The Hillerman biographies reflected a life experience a-typical of the dominant Euro-American culture but typical of American Indian cultures. Immersed as a child in the Potawatomi culture of Oklahoma, Hillerman gained an early understanding of the belief systems, mores, history, and lifestyles of Oklahoma Indians. Hillerman was a New Mexico journalist and a college professor. As a result, he became immersed in the Pueblo and Navajo cultures. Hillerman clearly seemed to have learned about the history, culture, and literatures through immersion.

After assessing Hillerman’s life and writings, I determined that immersion appeared to be the critical element necessary to teach the Composition of American Indian Literatures in a classroom setting. This, in turn, posed another question. Could the desired result be achieved in the relatively short time span of a class?

The Class

I knew that the initial classroom experience that I chose to conduct my case study had to be one in which I could create an immersion experience. I considered both a three-hour per week class at California State University, San Bernardino, and an eight hour per day weekend class at Mount St. Mary’s College. Even though the opportunity to have a 51 student sample size at Cal State initially seemed more inviting, I chose the much smaller class at Mount St. Mary’s. I was drawn to the small student sample size because it allowed me to interact with the students on a much more intimate level. The smaller class size afforded greater student participation, allowed students individually to interview in-class guest speakers, and, in general, offered a setting more typical the Native American learning experience and a more ideal immersion experience.

The students were given 30 days prior to class to read and journal the assigned texts, an exercise that was intended to begin their foundation and conception experience. The journals were turned in at the beginning of the first class and lacked any analysis of the American Indian Literatures assigned. The students journaled their readings before they had any instruction about the four concepts, which allowed me to use these student writings as a pre-test and basis of comparison for their writings after the course, which served as their post-test. I used both samples of student writing to help prove my theory that the immersion experience does work.

I presented the remaining elements of foundation and conception in the classroom environment and analyzed the readings considering the elements inherent to American Indian Literatures. The students began to learn and understand what set their assigned readings apart from other literatures and what made them specifically American Indian Literatures. It was in this safe and fun environment (where the students were living in an immersed experience) that the concepts began to make sense, which became apparent in the students’ writing.

The immersion experience continued for the students as they were given the opportunity to meet, interview, and converse with Indians representing four different cultures: Crow, Navajo, Ahtna, and Tlingit. The students learned Native American songs and crafts, as well as some anthropology and language relationships. The students seemed to really enjoy this participatory aspect of the immersion experience.

After the class ended, each student was given 30 days to complete a class project requiring both primary (preferably an interview with an Indian) and secondary research and both a visual and written element. Each student’s final project clearly demonstrated his or her newly obtained knowledge of the style and form of American Indian Literatures. Their post-immersion writing demonstrated that my theory worked: after employing the four learning phases, students can write in a manner of American Indian Literatures.

One of my first tasks in conceptualizing the case study was to review the syllabi of nine instructors of American Indian Studies, six at the university level and three at the community college level, and the information on four on-site Indian “schools” in order to gain new insights and to see if any of the courses or “schools” created an immersion experience for their students. I reviewed this information to help me focus my thoughts and ideas before I began the task of forming the course goals and writing the syllabus for the Mount St. Mary's class.

Other American Indian Studies Courses

In order to analyze the pedagogical approaches taken by other American Indian Studies instructors, I initially looked at a group of Native American Studies course outlines from the university level, UCLA specifically. Although all of the six syllabi dealt with Indian issues, none of them had a consistent title or even dealt with Literatures specifically, however, I still hoped to gain some insight into their pedagogies. The course syllabi that I reviewed were “Cultural Worldviews of Native America” (Greg Sarris), “Contemporary Issues of the American Indian” (Duane Champagne), “Contemporary Native American Societies” (Duane Champagne), “Sociology of Native North America” (Duane Champagne), “Indi'n Humor” (Kenneth Lincoln), and “American Indian Studies” (Melissa Meyer).

The six UCLA course syllabi were from three different fields: English (Sarris and Lincoln), sociology (Champagne), and history (Meyer). All six courses were lower division courses. The Champagne (“Comparative...” 161) and Lincoln (190) were 100 level courses, and the Sarris (266), two Champagne (“Contemporary. . .” 275, “Sociology. . .” 285), and Meyer (200) courses were 200 level.

I did not find many similarities in required readings, possibly because of the different fields of study. The Sarris readings were Love Medicine, Talking Leaves, Harper’s 20th Century Native American Poetry, and Winter in the Blood, Black Elk Speaks, Forked Tongues, Ceremony, Storyteller, and The Way to Rainy Mountain. The Champagne required readings for “Contemporary Issues of the American Indian” were American Indian Water Rights, Treaties on Trial, The Return of the Native, American Indian Poetry in the Twentieth Century, Exemplar of Liberty, Oil Age Eskimos, and Behavioral Health Issues Among American Indians and Alaska Natives. The required readings for the second Champagne course “Comparative Native American Societies” were all included in his list of required readings for the previous course: American Indian Societies, Mother Earth, Symbolic Immortality, and Roots of Resistance. The required readings for the third Champagne course “Sociology of Native North America” were American Indian Societies, Best Left as Indians, Mother Earth, The Enduring Indians of Kansas, Symbolic Immortality, Roots of Resistance, and Bashful No Longer. Lincoln’s required readings for “Indi’n Humor” were Custer Died for Your Sins, Lame Deer, Portraits of the “Whiteman,” The Wishing Bone Cycle, A Breeze Swept Through, American Indian Poetry, Winter in the Blood, Love Medicine, House Made of Dawn, and New Native American Drama. The required course readings for Meyer’s “American Indian Studies” were American Indian Holocaust & Survival, Indeh, Changes in the Land, The Indians’ New World, ‘Many Tender Ties’, Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings, A Final Promise, and Indian Survival on the California Frontier. As I already stated, there were not many similarities between the texts used in these courses, possibly because of the various areas of specialization. The only overlap that I found between instructors was Winter in the Blood, which both Sarris and Lincoln used.

Even though the instructors did not overlap required course readings, they all chose texts that seemed consistent with their genres, and all were readings that had to do with Indians. The only consistency in textbooks occurred in two of the Champagne courses (“Contemporary Issues of the American Indian” and “Comparative Native American Societies”).

What I found similar with all six course approaches was that they were political and addressed current controversial topics. Sarris mixed genres such as music, stories, and histories, and he had a statement in his syllabus that seemed to make the course real for students when he stated:

A particular concern of this seminar will be on ourselves as readers of the American Indian texts we encounter. How does our historical, social, political, ethnic, and gender based background shape how we read these texts? How are the texts shaped as a result? (1)

This type of theoretical analysis echoes the thoughts of Bakhtin, who believes that no text exists in isolation and that an individual absorbs language through the point of view of another. Language is, therefore, polyphonic. Similarly, Stanley Fish, a controversial contemporary literary theorist expounds on the important relationship between a reader and the text itself, which has been called reader-response theory. The Sarris classroom employs these two linking theories that demonstrate the communal and ever changing power of words and oration.

Similarly, Champagne states in “Contemporary Issues of the American Indian” that “during the course of this seminar we will discuss some of the most significant issues confronting contemporary American Indians” (1). Champagne in “Comparative Native American Societies” states that during the fourth section of the course they will explore the different types of responses to Western competition. Some responses are: revitalization movements, state formation, cultural traditionalism, political fragmentation, formation of collective social movements, and others. (1) In his third syllabus, Champagne states, “In this course we study comparative social-cultural change found in Native American societies as responses to Western economic and political competition, and cultural exchange” (1). Champagne’s bend is still on politics, but he adds competition to the political aspect of the course.

Lincoln has very little as far as prose in his syllabus, even though he has some good quotations. For example, Lincoln quotes Vine Deloria, Jr. in Custer Died for Your Sins when he states “One of the best ways to understand a people is to know what makes them laugh.” Lincoln also has another aspect that the other syllabi do not; he adds a visual dimension to the syllabus when he puts in a cartoon.

The Meyer syllabus, however, troubles me a bit because she seems to be arguing against herself and the genre when in the first paragraph of her syllabus she states: although the literature in the field as a whole is vast and growing, it is of very uneven quality, with much of it being downright bad. I have in the past focused on representative examples of some of the worst approaches to help students learn to identify and evaluate them, since they are certain to encounter them if they read further in the field. Having been persuaded that it is more valuable to foster enthusiasm and interest, I have abandoned this form of torture [emphasis mine]. (1)

I wonder if Meyer realizes the impact of her statement in the perpetuation of racism; it is racked full of ethnocentrism. I chose UCLA in the first place because it is considered to be one of the leaders of Indian studies in the country.

In analyzing the courses to see if there is an oral aspect, I find that the Champagne syllabus “Comparative Native American Societies” does not have an oral participatory aspect for the final course grade. Each of the other five syllabi do have an oral and/or participatory aspect to the grade: Sarris 10-15 minutes, Champagne syllabus on contemporary issues 10% of overall grade, Champagne sociology course presentations/participation weigh heavily in the final grade, Lincoln discussion/presentation aspect of final grade, and Meyer states that students are expected to participate in weekly discussions. The oral aspect of Indian culture is crucial, and the students should be required to participate in this important cultural form. Out of the six university level syllabi, I find the Sarris syllabus most consistent with mine. He also requires his students to keep a journal, and he uses some of the same Native writers whom I consistently use, such as Erdrich, Silko, Welch, Neihardt [Black Elk], and Momaday. He discusses contemporary issues, songs, stories, histories, anthropology, folklore, and linguistics. Even though he does not specifically create an immersion experience in his class, Sarris, who is Miwok (a central-California Penutian ethnie), definitely approaches his course from a Native perspective. The second two Champagne courses are approached from a sociological standpoint, and the Lincoln course deals with humor and the way Indian humor has changed over time. The fact that Sarris uses readings similar to mine is not surprising considering that his course is the only one specifically listed as an English course.

For the next part of my analysis, I chose three more Native American Studies syllabi, except this time from courses being taught at the community college level. The three courses were taught at three different community colleges: Santa Monica College (Cathleen Long), Riverside Community College (Dwight Lomayesva, Hopi), and Victor Valley College (Cheryl Elsmore). However, this time the course titles were all virtually the same: “Native American Literature and Perspectives” (Long), “Native American Literature” (Lomayesva), “Native American Literature” (Elsmore), which I would assume allows for more consistencies between the courses than I found with the UCLA classes.

The three community college course syllabi that I chose are in the field of Native American Literature (Long, Lomayesva, and Elsmore). Long’s course syllabi does not mention its course rubric, but the Lomeyesva (English 18) and Elsmore (English 31) courses are both English classes. The three courses are beginning level courses and do not list any prerequisites, but Elsmore recommends that her students complete English 1B (English Literature) before signing up for her course.

I was interested in seeing what required course readings these instructors chose and if there would be more similarities in readings between these three syllabi than there were with the six university courses, which I assumed would demonstrate the affirmative. I also wondered if there would be any similarities between the six university course syllabi and the three community college course syllabi.

I first looked at the course readings. The Long readings were The Way to Rainy Mountain, House Made of Dawn, Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry, Earth Power Coming, Ceremony, I Tell You Now. The Lomayesva readings were Literature of the American Indian, House Made of Dawn, Voices From WAH’ KON-TAH, and Talking Leaves. The Elsmore readings were Talking Leaves, Black Elk Speaks, The Way to Rainy Mountain, House Made of Dawn, and Ceremony. All three community college instructors assigned the text House Made of Dawn, Long and Elsmore both assigned The Way to Rainy Mountain and Ceremony, and both Lomayesva and Elsmore assigned Talking Leaves. There seemed to be much more consistency between the texts that these instructors require than with the six university professors, which may be accounted for by the fact that the course titles were very similar.

Just as I suspected, I found similarities with the course content of the three course syllabi. As a matter of fact, they were very similar to the Sarris syllabus because all three instructors approached the courses from a Native perspective. All three used similar books and authors, such as Momaday and Silko, and mixed genres, such as poetry, prose, music, and orality.

Long discusses the first paper that her students are required to write when she states “students will form book groups to discuss and present a novel chosen from Momaday or Silko” (5), and, similar to Lincoln, Long adds a visual element to her syllabus by adding pictures of Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, and two Indians. The student discussions and presentations about either Momaday or Silko add the oral dimension to her course, and, because Momaday and Silko are both heavily into storytelling, the students feel the power inherent in the telling and receiving of stories.

Long does not specifically discuss her pedagogical bent, but she is defining immersion when she discusses a different way of looking at Indian texts, looking at familiar topics from a number of new perspectives. She also states:

And reading any American Indian novel has made me re-think my assumptions about plot and structure, the role of the narrator, point-of-view, even the function of literature. It’s made me think deeply about oral history, story-telling, and the written word, both crossculturally and in terms of my own personal family and life. (5)

Long seems to imply that culturally specific texts can best be understood from a culturally specific perspective, which, of course, I agree. One can only hope that she takes this kind of culturally sensitivity into her classrooms.

The Lomayesva syllabus does not contain a course description or course goals; actually, it only has two sentences of prose and the rest of the document is a listing of required and recommended texts and a tentative course schedule. The two sentences in his syllabus are as follows:

A survey of the literature of the Native American as he [or she] sees himself [or herself] and as other [sic] see him [or her] in fact and fancy. Emphasis will be upon the analysis of this literature and becoming aware of the cultural and social differences. (1)

Similar to the Long syllabus, I think Lomayesva is implying that there are actually differences in the literatures of both Indian and non-Indian prose, and I think that is what he means when he mentions the “the cultural and social differences.” During week one the students will learn the “major concepts,” and I think that the differences inherent in both Indian and non-Indian texts might be addressed.

The tentative course schedule that Lomayesva provides for his students contains six weeks of instruction, even though a semester is seventeen weeks. During the first four weeks of the course, the students study major concepts, creation stories, oral literature, trickster tales, tales of love and lust, coyote stories, music, ghosts, and stories of the Spirit World, oratory--great Indian speeches, and the great American epic. I am not sure what exactly “major concepts” means, and I am also not sure what is meant by “great American epic.” This course appears to have an emphasis on orality, but I do not know if the students are required to present anything orally.

Because the Lomayesva syllabus is surprisingly skeletal, incomplete, and underdeveloped, it is difficult to analyze the course merits. The elements of his course that I was able to glean from his syllabus are based on my own implications and guesses from his words.

Elsmore’s class syllabus mixes many genres and affords her students the opportunity to attend and analyze a powwow. She gives her description of the course as follows:

An introduction to Native American literatures from the oral tradition to contemporary writing. Study of myths and legends, traditional oral narratives and songs, transitional forms such as oration and autobiography and written genres (poem, short story, and novel). (2)

Elsmore also has her students complete an oral and written book report and a journal, which must include a reader response aspect in the writing. Out of all nine-course syllabi, Elsmore creates the most immersed setting for her students.

I did find some similarities between the university and community college book orders. Lincoln also uses House Made of Dawn, which makes this text the most used text between all nine instructors; it is used by four (Lincoln, Long, Lomayesva, and Elsmore). The next most used texts are The Way to Rainy Mountain (Sarris, Lomayesva, and Elsmore), Ceremony (Sarris, Long, and Elsmore), and Talking Leaves (Sarris, Lomayesva, and Elsmore), which are each used by three instructors. Sarris and Long both use Harper’s Anthology of 20th Century Native American Poetry and Sarris and Elsmore both use Black Elk Speaks. The fact that Sarris uses many of the same texts that the community college instructors use could be because his is the only university class that is specifically designated as English Literature.

I recognize that a syllabus is not conclusive evidence demonstrating whether an instructor creates an immersion experience for his/her students--much of what goes on in a class is not written in a syllabus. I am even willing to speculate that Lomayesva does an excellent job of teaching Native American Literatures, even though his syllabus is the weakest of the nine I analyzed; he is a full professor, well liked by the students, and he is Hopi. I wanted the nine syllabi to serve as a guide and help ground me in teaching philosophies of other instructors, and I think that they served that purpose.

I realize that these nine instructors may have made many changes in their methodologies since they taught these courses. Three syllabi do not list course semester or quarter dates, but I believe that they fall within the same date parameters as the other courses. The other six courses were taught between six and eight years ago: Sarris nd; Champagne 1991, 1992, 1992; Lincoln 1992; Meyer 1992; Long nd; Lomayesva 1993; Elsmore nd. I am aware that much can change in an instructor’s pedagogy within that amount of time. However, I wanted to look at these syllabi in order to assist me with the syllabus of the Mount St. Mary’s course.

Although all nine instructors employed some aspects of tertiary immersion, Elsmore is the only one who entered secondary immersion by requiring her students to attend a pow-wow. Is this element coincidental or could it be because we both had the same mentor for our Master's Degrees, both wrote on Momaday, have been colleagues at Victor Valley College for seven years, and have had long discussions regarding our pedagogies? Is the fact that of the university instructors Sarris is the closest to my own teaching experience similarly a coincidence, or could it be because Sarris and my mentor were long-standing colleagues or the fact that I worked closely with Sarris when he was a guest editor for Studies in American Indians Literatures? In order to be objective, do I need to remove Sarris and Elsmore from my group of nine? Actually, I enjoy the collaborative aspect of the field and am pleased that my ideas are consistent with other scholars.

Other Cultural Immersion Experiences

I surveyed three Indian schools to see if they created immersion experiences for their students and examined what the experience looked like from their perspectives. Were these schools attempting to create a holistic and an interactive experience for both Indian and non-Indian students, which would be teaching from an Indian perspective rather than an Euro-American one? Unlike my analysis of the nine college level Indian courses, this time it was necessary to look at on-site schools for their perspectives before I constructed the Mount St. Mary’s learning environment. I considered four programs that were known as Indian schools or as having Indian programs: Satwiwa (Santa Monica CA), Idyllwild Arts (Idyllwild CA), Crow Canyon Archeological Center (Cortez CO), Earth Skills (on-site, Wrightwood CA). I chose these four schools because of their positive reputations. I did not have the opportunity to visit Satwiwa or Crow Canyon, but I had the opportunity to visit both the Idyllwild facility and to be present during part of an Earth Skills course, which means that I had the opportunity to meet Tom Fresh, who was the past director of the Idyllwild school, and Jim Lowrie, who founded the Earth Skills program.

Satwiwa is a one and a half-mile trail that winds through nature. Visitors see through Native eyes as they travel this site. Visitors are educated in such traditions as spirituality, food gathering, games, architecture, and handicrafts of the Chumash and Tongva peoples. This nature trail advertises that Indian volunteers are present. Although some immersion may take place, this facility seems to be primarily a nature trail and can only loosely be considered a school. The brochure that I received does not mention the volunteers in any detail. I would like to know the basis of their knowledge of Indians and their educational levels. It would also be helpful to know exactly what these volunteers do or say to the people entering their domain.

Crow Canyon Archeology Center and the Idyllwild Arts Academy (previously I.S.O.M.A.T.A.) have many research and education programs, and they advertise a balance with students and instructors alike. Both centers offer a wide variety of courses and a few Indian courses. Students stay on-site and work with professionals and actually participate in the programs. They both offer one day, weekend, and week-long classes for both students and non-students alike. They definitely offer an immersion experience for their students, and their classes are accredited, some for college units

A private individual, Jim Lowery, runs the Earth Skills program. He offers his courses at several facilities. Although his courses are not specifically Native American, he teaches wilderness skills. During his courses in Wrightwood, he has two local Indian women (Robin Cornett, Blackfoot, and Barbara Drake, Gabrielieno/Tongva) teach his students about local plants and their uses; they make such things as pine needle brushes and hand lotion. His students also stay on-site with him and learn from his exuberant personality and expertise in his field. He has a good soul and appears to really enjoy his work and his students. Even though Lowery’s courses are not specifically Native American, they certainly do qualify as immersion experiences.

Similarly, the Idylwild school is a renowned school for the arts and is the inspiration for the television show Fame. Besides being a school for gifted musicians and dancers, this school has a program to preserve Indian artforms by creating an immersed environment for both the artist and the students.

Lucy Lewis was the last potter of the Acoma style of pottery (matte, black on white). I.S.O.M.A.T.A. brought Lewis together with Indian students and apprentices; when Lewis passed away at the approximate age of ninety, four other people were carrying on the legacy of her pottery. I.S.O.M.A.T.A. can take a great deal of credit for saving this art form, as well as many others (Casas Grandes pottery, Cahuilla basketry, Makah carving, and Huichol beadwork). Idyllwild is a model of immersion, and I think for the right reasons. What I found consistent with all four on-site schools is that they all create immersion experiences that include hands-on learning. Satwiwa does not offer specific courses, but it attempts to introduce non-Indians to Indians mores, which I think is definitely positive. The other three courses (Crow Canyon, Idyllwild, and Earth Skills) offer intensive classroom settings and qualified instructors who stay with the students. I have not been to Crow Canyon because it is not local (Colorado), but I have spent time at both Idyllwild and with Jim Lowery, and I will use their methods as models for my own teaching in the future.

Pedagogical Thoughts

After considering nine college course syllabi and four on-site schools, I created an immersion experience for the students in the Mount Saint Mary’s composition course while implementing my learning phases (foundation, conception, immersion, invention). I intended to link theory and practice in order to demonstrate that students can write in the manner of American Indian Literatures and show that one does not have to be Native American to write from a Native perspective.

In deciding upon the appropriate method to use for approaching the case study and to give my ideas some more validity, I considered what some critics have stated regarding this issue. In 1979, Jarold Ramsey expressed his concerns over what he called the conflict of interests when teaching the writing of living Native American authors. He stated that the conflict of interest was whether to approach Indian texts as a scholar or as a critic. Do we read the works as expressing the author's Native traditions, or do we read the works as one would the works of any other American writer? (162). Ramsey effectively argued that “the danger lies in the way ethnographic literary study tends tacitly to deny the imaginative freedom of the writer” (163). Ramsey helped to make the argument about Indian authors and which approach to take regarding the teaching of Indian writers and warned against shoving them into some type of stereotypical, ethnographic mold. However, when students experience the holistic nature of my four learning phases, they are able to see the writer’s works through a Native perspective, not a stereotypical one.

Elaine Jahner added her caution regarding the pedagogical approach to American Indian Literatures, which can be expanded to include composition and the dangers of ethnocentrism when she stated:

In developing an approach to a vocabulary with which to respond to American Indian literature, critics have to remain constantly alert to the dangers of ethnocentrism, which would force American Indian literature into a non-Indian frame of reference making the Indian works appear to be lacking. (212)

Ramsey and Jahner send the same warning: to gain a richer understanding of the Native texts, it is important to understand the specific cultural mores and to teach from that perspective and not from an Euro-American or stereotypical one. Indian texts are not meant to be read in the same manner as Euro-American texts, but reading Indian texts from an Indian perspective eliminates the Ramsey conflict of interest problem and allows the students to gain a much deeper level of understanding regarding their readings.

Similarly, Paula Gunn Allen adds her concern over the dangers of teaching Indian texts from a Euro-American perspective. She argues that the actual and only reality of oral literatures exists within the performance dimension:

In the classroom, the tradition incorporates three dimensions or contexts: (1) the generating context, including the individual creator, the social milieu in which he or she works, and the tradition of prior performances; (2) the performance context, including the situation, conditions, and audience involved in the performance; and (3) the reception context, and multileveled reality involving the first audience of original auditors, the second audience of the translator/transcriber, and the final audience of the classroom presentation. . . . Finally, if students are truly to enter the living reality of oral literature, they must enter an American Indian storytelling situation, perhaps through contact with storytellers and singers in the classroom. (34)

I concurred with Allen’s assessment regarding oral literatures, which is why I decided to create the same experience for my students by employing such activities as student presentations of the course readings and research projects (which are required to include both a written and visual aspect of the work), student interviews of Indians, and storytelling. Combining these techniques created a sense of tribalism and community for the students in an effort to initiate the performance dimension and allowed students to enter the realm of oral stories and realize the inherent power within.

Similar to what Allen asserts, I am also aware of the enormous power of words. For example, usually five to ten minutes before class officially starts, students tell stories. I have seen students come alive when the rest of the class is listening intently to their stories. The storytellers are empowered by being heard. I had one student, who would not be able to attend the class due to a dentist appointment, come to class just to tell her story. The audience is empowered through connecting to the story, and the class as a group is empowered by the entire experience. The students refine and develop the skills of telling and listening. Further, as a result of the storytelling, students are rarely late to my classes, and, as a matter of fact, students can often be seen running to my classes so that they will not miss the daily stories. These stories are another attempt to help the students realize the power of storytelling and enter into that age-old tradition.

At Mount St. Mary's, I decided to continue the ancient storytelling tradition, which would allow students to enter what Allen has identified as the “living reality or oral literature” (34). Two local Native storytellers (Dennis, who is Ahtna and Fausto, who is Tlinget) came to speak to the class. These two gentlemen presented a dynamic performance dimension in their oration that made their presentation experiential for the students. This participatory aspect demonstrated to the students the rich dynamics of oral stories and allowed them to shatter stereotypes and see the guests from an a-ethnocentric perspective. The speakers demonstrated the important connection between oral and written literatures in a display of visual literacy. The students now had a better understanding of these culturally specific literatures and the link between them and composing the rich stories.

I needed to continue the active and participatory link that was created between storytelling, orality, and performance for the students. The students knew the power of telling their own stories, and Dennis and Fausto showed the students how interactive oral traditions were when the audience actively participated in the telling. I also wanted the students to experience the shift from storytelling and audience to being the performers themselves. The students were brought into this new arena by making clapper sticks and learning how to clap and sing some Indian songs.

During my two summer internships at Indian Springs Ranch, I discovered that learning takes place in a group dynamic. Artists told their stories as they wove their baskets and sat by a lake, under the Cottonwood trees. Any time a person had difficulty with the intricate construction of the basket, he or she would set the basket down in the center of the group and do something else, like take a walk or go and play with the children. The basketweaver returned once the peaceful feelings returned. I saw this same phenomenon take place with the students at Mount St. Mary’s when they made their dream catchers and some of the students became frustrated as they tried to learn the requisite knotting technique. Because of time constraints in the classroom, these students could not leave and take a walk; instead, I sat with each of these students and told them stories as I finished the knotting for them--peace was restored and the task was completed.

During hot afternoons at Indian Springs Ranch, I learned lessons about life and family while the children frolicked closeby. The activity of basketweaving not only helped to keep the important tradition alive, but the activity brought the participants closer together as a unit. The participants’ laugher always seemed to be present during these situations, which meant that the experience was also fun. This sense of community was what I wanted to create by having the students make their clapper sticks. I wanted the students to begin to “see” the world through the eyes of Dennis and Fausto and to experience the same communal sensibility as if they were weaving their own baskets.

In order to bring about this phenomenon, students made their own clapper sticks and then I taught them songs to sing and clap. Each session at Mount St. Mary’s started and ended with students in a circle, singing and clapping. I added the clapper sticks and singing to the curriculum, which was consistent with the beliefs of scholars like Richard Bauman who asserted that understanding and analyzing the performance context in oral stories was important, but actually experiencing it was more important. By having the students tell their own stories, listen to Indian storytellers, and clap and sing songs, they shared a holistic experience, and it brought the students into the powerful arena of American Indian oral traditions in a way that they could not possible ascertain from simply reading a book.

Course Design

Mount St. Mary’s is located high atop a hill in Brentwood, California. This private school is run by the Catholic Church and is peaceful and serene. The student population is made up mostly of middle- to upper-class young ladies. My class was offered as an elective for the weekend college. The students were all female, except for one. I had two students who had successfully completed my Indian Literatures course sign up for this composition course. None of the students claimed Indian bloodedness, even though two students seemed to be well acquainted with someone of Indian heritage. Because the course was offered as an elective, students chose to attend the course and seemed like they wanted to be there. Actually, several students said that they had been anxiously awaiting the start of the class. Most of the students worked regular jobs during the week and attended college solely on the weekends. The students were older than the students who usually appear in my Freshman Composition classes; the majority of the students in the class appeared to be in their 30s.

The Mount St. Mary’s course was designed for a two-day, sixteen hour, one unit course at the freshman level, and it had no prerequisite. The course was not designed to include all tribes or all literatures reflecting any given Indian culture because of the limitation of time. The course emphasized exposition and was intended to develop competence in rhetorical skills through Native American cultural immersion. The students fused the visual and verbal as well as the theoretical and the practical and shared a holistic learning experience. The students also implemented the four learning phases (foundation, conception, immersion, and invention) in order to write using the patterns and forms of American Indian Literatures.

Course Readings

I chose Gerald Vizenor's Native American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology as the required text for the class in an attempt to show the transition from oral to written literatures. His new text includes fiction, poetry, and drama, and an authorial autobiography precedes each section. Vizenor’s short anthology includes several genres in one text, which gives the students a wide variety of readings and contexts. The authorial backgrounds allows the students to view the author’s cultural realism and analyze the immersion experience of each writer. Further, Vizenor’s text prevents the students from having to buy more than one text or having to purchase a booklet of course readings.

I also chose Vizenor’s text as the only required text for the case study because I have actually been privileged to spend time with Vizenor, and I admire and respect him and his writings. I interviewed Vizenor for a special issue of the academic journal Studies in American Indian Literatures that was devoted to him and his work and spent time with him when he spoke for The Stanford Program for Faculty Renewal (under the direction of David Halliburton). The greatest academic compliment that I have ever received came from Vizenor--he began to call me “spider” (changing woman). I knew that besides using Vizenor’s text, I would be able to enrich the student reading experience by telling them some of my best Vizenor stories.

Besides requiring the students to read excerpts from seven living authors, I required the students to journal (one page, summary and opinion) each section by the following authors: N. Scott Momaday (excerpts from The Way to Rainy Mountain and The Names), Louis Owens (“Motion of Fire and Form”), Paula Gunn Allen (“Someday Soon”), Leslie Marmon Silko (“Call That Story Back”), Louise Erdrich (“Lipsha Morrissey”), Linda Hogan (“The New Apartment, Minneapolis,” “The Truth is,” and “Return Buffalo”), and Sherman Alexie (“Before We Knew About Mirrors,” “Crazy Horse Speaks,” and “Robert Dinero”). The student journal entries served as a pre-class sample of their writings.

The presentations in the anthology were by the authors, not about them as with most anthologies. This autobiographical aspect of the anthology humanized the writers, and they tell some interesting stories. Vizenor added samples of the writer’s works following their autobiographical entries. The seven authors that the students read (Momaday, Owens, Allen, Silko, Erdrich, Hogan, and Alexie) were all well-known contemporary authors. I wrote about Momaday for my Master’s Degree, I had the opportunity to meet Allen, Silko, and Hogan, and I also enjoyed the writings of Erdrich, Owens, and Alexie. The authors range from those who began writing at the beginning of the Native American Renaissance, which Momaday started, to those authors just entering the arena. This kind of diversity in readings allowed students a sweeping sample of Indian Literatures. The outline of Vizenor’s anthology was consistent with and connected the students to the rich history of oral stories and histories. This historical link was important for students because the norm in oral stories had always been to recite an introduction about personal lineage before beginning the story.

Besides requiring the students to obtain the Vizenor text, I brought in a few items that I thought were important to set the stage for the immersion experience. I brought in a handout on the Concepts That Define Indian Literatures (circularity and non-linear presentation, multiple points of view, and a-ethnocentrism) and the following two songs that the students would sing while clapping with the clapper sticks that they made in class:

	The Chumash Welcome Song
	(repeat entire song four times)
	(regular)
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	(higher)
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	(regular)
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey, hey Hey, hey Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey ung/goo/wa
	Hey ung/goo/wa

	Chee Chi Oh (The Bear Song)
	(repeat entire song four times and sing slightly faster with each repetition)
	Enna may, enna may, enna may chee chi oh
	Enna may, enna may, enna may chee chi oh
	Henna, henna, henna
	Henna, henna, hi oh
	Henna, henna, henna
	Henna, henna, hi oh

I also taught them Win-de-ya-ho (The Cherokee Work Song), which is sung in a round without the clapper sticks:

	Win de ya ho. Win de ya ho.
	Win de ya. Win de ya.
	Hey hey hey hey ya ho, Hey ya ho
	Ya ya ya. Ya ya ya.

I brought in the following quotation by Paula Gunn Allen:

Traditional American Indian Literature is not similar to western literature because the basic assumptions about the universe and, therefore, the basic reality experienced by tribal peoples and by Western peoples are not the same, even at the level of folklore. This difference has confused non-Indian students for centuries. (58)

I wanted the immersion experience to begin with the students understanding that Indian texts are different from non-Indian texts, and Allen does a good job of explaining this point and contextualizing the philosophy of the entire class.

I have had the opportunity to meet and converse with Paula Gunn Allen. I first met Allen when she zipped into a parking place that I had been waiting for at one of her readings in Los Angeles. At the time, I did not recognize her, and I am glad that I chose to be silent and find another parking place. I was afraid that I might see this person inside at the reading, and I didn’t want a pox on the event that I had been so anxiously anticipating. Right before the reading, as I was browsing through the books, I found that I was standing right next to the same woman, and I was once again chose to be silent. I was quite surprised when the reading began that the same women came out from behind the curtain as Paula Gunn Allen.

Later, our paths crossed again on a much more positive level at a conference at Mount St. Mary’s (under the direction of Wanda Teays), at the California Indian Conference, and at The Stanford Program for Faculty Renewal (under the direction of David Halliburton). I had the opportunity to discuss my pedagogical ideas with her and inform her that I would be using her quotation as the basis for my ideas; she simply and quietly said, “thank you.” I admire her and her work, even if she took my parking place.

The final preparation that I completed prior to class in order to create the immersion experience for the students was to gather all of the required materials for the artifacts that they would create. I brought in all of the required materials for clapper sticks (elderberry, sinew, leather, and beads), dream catchers (hoop, sinew, leather, beads, and feathers), and enough sage bundles to burn in class and for each student to take one home upon completion of the course. These elements of the course added to the cultural experience and helped to make the experience enjoyable for the students.I hoped that by bringing in these added items I could, at least metaphorically, allow the students to sit under those cottonwood trees with the basketweavers.

Curriculum

The first day of class began with the burning of sage as a symbol of peace and harmony. Sage is a traditional plant that is usually picked (an offering must be given to the plant first), bundled, wrapped (usually with red yarn), and dried before burning. After being lit, the tightly wrapped sage smolders as the fragrant smoke slowly meanders up toward the heavens. Many Indian events begin and end with members of the group gathering in a circle for the sage ceremony and a prayer to the Great Spirit. One group member, usually an elder, approaches each member from the center of the circle with the burning sage. Each group member in turn guides the smoke of the sage over his or her body as a sign of purification (smudge). So that good feelings would permeate the room in the same sense as when the ladies wove their baskets, I chose to burn the sage at the beginning of each class session. Most students enjoy learning about the spiritual aspects of Indian culture, so I smudged the room generally. I did not smudge the students individually because I did not want to seem like I was presenting them with a belief system. In a smudging ceremony, the smoke is meant to be the intermediary between earth and the Great Spirit and deliver good thoughts up with the ascending smoke, which is why many Indians smudge themselves each morning as they pray. In my class, I wanted a sense of peace and harmony to exist and the fragrance of the burning sage to fill the air as we began our two-day adventure together.

After setting the peaceful tone as the classroom experience began, I had the class proceed in the same manner as Vizenor’s anthology--we told our autobiographical stories. Introductions and family histories have been the favored way of beginning stories or when meeting someone new for centuries. The students entered this age-old tradition and shared stories that were powerful and a-ethnocentric. The class was silent and listened intently as each person began to speak. I told a personal story for my introduction because I wanted the students to see me as human.

For my story, I told of one of the most significant events of my entire life: when I was lost in the woods when I was nine years old. I expressed the incredible feeling of fear and helplessness that I felt and how I came to rest by a huge tree as the sun was going down. I remembered grabbing the soil and squeezing it hard in my clenched fist, in an Ernest Hemingway sort of fashion. Somehow, I knew that if I remained sitting under that tree after dark that I would be in enormous danger, and my family would not be able to find me. I got up and began to retrace my steps and eventually walked out of the woods. When I approached camp, it was empty (everyone, of course, was searching for me)--but I did discover my mother, the lone Madonna, by a stream crying. Because of this event I have had a life-long fear of separation and nightmares, and even now when I am afraid, my hands clench together. The class sat together in unity after the storytelling. As a society, we make friends by feeling safe enough to share personal stories in a trusted setting, and we started a close community in our classroom by participating in this ancient act. The tone was set.

After each student was empowered by telling a story, we discussed how we would proceed for both days. The students actively participated in the two-day plan, and they even made some suggestions. Of course, I incorporated the student suggestions, one of which was to make dream catchers. I wanted the class, even from its inception, to have a tribal and communal sensibility, and I wanted to empower the students in the decision making process, which I hoped would also enhance the learning experience. The initial plan for the two days is listed as follows:

	Saturday
	introductions, expectations, business
	discussion of five concepts
	pre-history and history of North America
	glottochronology and linguistics
	Navajo: history, culture, and literatures
	lunch
	make clapper sticks
	learn and sing songs
	Crow: history, culture, and literatures
	autobiography: discussion and workshop
	poetry: discussion and workshop
	Sunday
	music, poetry, and storytelling
	Ahtna/Tlingit: primary immersion, storytelling, presentation, and interviews
	lunch
	dream catchers
	short story: discussion and workshop
	drama: composition of Woman Chief
	research project: discussion
	final examination
	closure

We did not adhere steadfastly to this schedule, but it served as a roadmap throughout the two-day session.

After joining together in a discussion about how we would proceed with our two days together, I discussed the controversy regarding Indian bloodedness, stereotyping, and defining Indian literatures. I used an overhead and gave them a handout on the issue, along with Paula Gunn Allen's quotation about Indian thought. I wanted the students to start to understand that Indian literatures are not written like non-Indian literatures so that they could carry the thought with them throughout the entire classroom experience. The activities and workshops helped to cement the idea that the Indian texts can be understood at a much deeper level when they are read from their own cultural perspectives in an immersed setting.

I discussed glottochronology (which is the theory that languages can and do change at a predictable rate and linguistic history can be discerned by deconstructing the effects of those changes) and gave a pre-history and history of Indians populating North America.

I presented the theory of lexicostatistical (dynamics of cognate words) glottochronology in a format applicable to the American Indian language groups of North America. Students broke up into groups and work-shopped a project establishing the time depths of English, German, and Spanish. Each group established probable linguistic separation dates of the three languages that were consistent with the historical evidence. This exercise established glottochronology as an analytical tool for the students and provided a technical vocabulary base necessary for the discussion of Native American pre-history and history.

I presented pre-history around the probable migration, fission, and fusion dynamics of the eight North American Indian language groups and several isolates. I also presented corroborative archeological evidence where applicable, thereby establishing an understanding of the relationships of the various American Indian ethnies.

I presented history with an emphasis on the three elements that affected 90% of the post-European arrival Native American decreases: intertribal warfare, smallpox, and conflict (with Whites, particularly in California). I mentioned and compared anecdotal history (Wounded Knee, Sand Creek Massacre, Trail of Tears) even though it presented a relatively insignificant number of Indian deaths when compared to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost as a result of the three aforementioned phenomenons. We also discussed the dynamics of populations, migration, fission, fusion, and political contributions.

We discussed pre-history and history specifically relative to the Navajo ethnie. We then expanded discussions on the Navajo ethnie to include their anthropology and literatures. Students then interviewed one our guests who role-played the part of a Navajo. This was the first of four primary immersion experiences I introduced in the classroom. The class then broke for lunch.

After lunch, the students made clapper sticks. I chose clapper sticks because California Indians did not drum--they clapped, and I wanted to be respectful to the Indians on whose lands we were standing. The clapper sticks were made out of elderberry branches cut into approximately two-foot lengths, which, along with the central slot and hole at the end (to hang leather and beads), I had pre-cut prior to class. The elderberry tree is native to California and was used by California Indians for many things, including clapper sticks. Because each branch from the elderberry tree had a different size, shape, and sound, I asked the students chose the piece of elderberry that, hopefully, spoke to them, and then we all went outside. As the students peeled the bark from the sticks, I told them stories about the California Indians and the clapper sticks. We returned to the classroom, and the students wrapped the handle of their clapper sticks with sinew and decorated the end with leather and beads. I then had the students get into a circle and taught them how to clap and sing the “Chumash Welcome Song,” “Che Chi Oh” (The Bear Song), and “Win-de-ya-ho” (The Cherokee Work Song). From that point on, whenever we entered or exited the classroom, we would gather in a circle and clap and sing our songs in order to set the mood for that session.

The rest of our first day was filled with more instruction. I presented the pre-history, history, anthropology, and literatures of the Crow ethnie. The Crow tribe started as two closely related Plains tribes who fissioned from the Hidatsa about 1776. They were strategically isolated and enemies of the Blackfoot, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, with virtually no military allies. Though outnumbered in their 100-year war more than ten to one, they none-the-less survived by being mobile and extremely aggressive. This presentation followed the format of the earlier Navajo presentation, including overheads and handouts for the students.

I gave the last two presentations on autobiography (discussion and connection to cultural and autobiographical research project) and poetry (discussion and workshop). After sharing personal stories at the beginning of the class period and singing with the clapper sticks, the students spoke freely about their personal perspectives regarding themselves and the seven authors in the Vizenor text.

In order to break up the long afternoon, we took several short breaks, and I had the students engage in singing and clapping, and, once we had analyzed and defined Indian poetry, the students broke into groups and wrote a group poem. The students then wrote their poems on the board. After each group read and described their poem, we looked for the parts we had defined. I was pleased atthe students’ participation in the poetry section of the day. They were tired, but they remained focused and did an excellent job.

Before leaving class on Saturday, the students submitted their journals, which they completed on their assigned readings before coming to class. I had the students journal each reading, which was to include a hand- written, one page summary and opinion. I spent the next several hours reading and assessing their journals so that I would be able to return them to the students on Sunday morning.

Sunday began with the burning of sage and clapping and singing. The day evolved into a similar beginning as day one: clapping, singing, storytelling, and a discussion of the scheduled activities for the day. Besides our discussion and workshopping of music, there were two guest speakers: Ahtna (Dennis) and Tlinget (Fausto). The two came in full regalia and told stories, danced, sang, and drummed. Finally, Dennis and Fausto submitted to the student’s interviews.

Though geographical neighbors in southern Alaska, the Ahtna and Tlingit speak different Athapaskan languages. The Ahtna are linguistically more closely related to the Navajo (time depth about 1300 years) than they are to the Tlingit. Nonetheless, the Ahtna culture is totally different from the Navajo, and indeed it is similar to the Tlingit. Their primary difference is that the Ahtna were a small river culture dependent on trapping and fishing, and the Tlingit were a large maritime culture.

After the dynamic presentation of our speakers, the students made dream catchers. As they were wrapping the leather around the hoop and learning how to knot the sinew, I explained the history of dream catchers to them and explained the “good feelings” that were necessary to successfully create a dream catcher. I explained to the students that the dream catcher is usually hung in a bedroom on a north wall. Bad dreams are caught in the web and burned off by the morning light, and good dreams are caught and slide off the leather strand to be dreamed again another day. I know the students enjoyed this aspect of the course because they added this activity to our curriculum themselves, and dream catchers are a popular item to purchase at powwows. The students worked together, and their laughter could be heard permeating the room. One student had her daughter participate in the making of the dream catchers, and several students took enough supplies with them to make dream catchers as gifts for loved ones.

After lunch we discussed and work-shopped the short stories from our readings and looked for the concepts that define Indian literatures within the pieces. We looked at drama under the same rubric. We looked at the play Woman Chief to see if it fell under what we would consider Indian literatures and why.

After singing and clapping, the two-day course ended with a final examination. For the final examination, I asked the students a question that I thought would be fair and encapsulate our two days together:

Paula Gunn Allen asserts that Native American literatures and EuroAmerican literatures are not the same because they spring forth from very different cultural perspectives and worldviews. In fact, Michael Doris stated that there is no such thing as Native American Literatures, which leads to another interesting question about authorship. Is a text written by a non-Native (Tony Hillerman) that imitates Native structure an Indian text, or must an Indian text be written by an Indian regardless of its structure, as Greg Sarris believes?

The students embraced the question without any apparent hesitation.

Many of the students had a difficult time saying goodbye when the class ended. I was a bit surprised by the emotional responses that many students exhibited. I received many gifts and cards, vigorous handshakes, and big hugs. Several students either had tears in their eyes or actually cried as they said goodbye. I was told by many of the students that the class experience had changed their lives and that they would keep in touch with me. I already knew that the class had been successful, but the parting students reinforced this feeling. I left Mount St. Mary's exhausted but academically rewarded and pleased that my ideas had worked in practice--they actually worked.

Implementation of Four Learning Phases

I employed the four learning phases throughout the two-day class, and the phases were non-linear, overlapping, and recursive.

Foundation (history, anthropology, psychology, sociology) General history, Navajo, Crow, Athena, and Tlingit history, autobiography, and clapper sticks. Presentations Dennis and Fausto.

Conception (analysis of the structures of and the critical experiencing of those literatures, both oral and written, which includes circularity and non-linear presentation, multiple points of view, and a-ethnocentrism.) Analysis of readings, oral stories, music, clapper sticks, singing, poetry, two guests, tribal sensibility, recursive instruction, and storytelling.

Immersion (engrossed, surrounded, absorbed):

	Tertiary Immersion (classroom experience, holistic, and collaborative) Group identity, speakers, songs and clapper sticks, oral presentations, communal sensibility
	Secondary Immersion (cultural events) Guest speakers, clapper sticks, singing, dream catchers, sage
	Primary Immersion (meet and interview an Indian) Guest speakers and interviews
	Invention (the actual writing) Written and visual research, including an interview, in-class writings, and journal entries

Student Examples: Journal Entries

Before the Classroom Experience

I asked the students to read the assigned readings from Vizenor's text before they came to class. I also asked them to write a one-page, hand-written journal entry for each reading, which was to include both a summary and an opinion. I wanted the students to actively read the works and make the reading/writing link; students who read extensively are better writers, and students who write often have better reading comprehension than those who do not. I use journalizing in all of my classes because of its effectiveness.

One of the difficulties with the two-day course was that the students had to read the assigned readings before they received any instruction from me.They had no previous instruction regarding Indian and non-Indian texts. I did not particularly like giving this kind of blind assignment, but because of the time constraints, I could not think of a more effective approach. I was asked by Rodin not to assign the students any work between Saturday and Sunday and that it was standard practice to have the students read the assignments before attending class.

What I later discovered was that this activity provided a built-in pre- and post-test of the effectiveness of the four learning phases on the student writing. What I did was inadvertently set up a comparison and contrast of student writing, which allowed me to ascertain if the student post-writing was different that the pre-writing and if the learning phases altered the student writing in a way that it could qualify as American Indian Literatures.

As I began the task of analyzing the student writings, the first problem I encountered was finding four journal entries on the same writing because most students did not even complete their journal entries. It seemed to me that the student reluctance to complete the journal entries could be from a lack of understanding of the culturally specific readings. Some of the students even stated that they found the readings confusing. I got the idea that most of the students had read the readings, but they did not seem comfortable completing the journal entries.

I chose a set of four student journal entries that looked at the assigned Indian readings (pre-test) and another set of writing from the same students, which had them actually writing (post-test) from a Native perspective. The enormous difference in the student writing from before and after class instruction clearly demonstrated my thesis that after employing the four learning phases students can write in a manner of American Indian Literatures.

I chose four student journal entries on Sherman Alexie's “Before We Knew About Mirrors” to demonstrate the student responses to Indian Literatures before class instruction.

The first thing that I noticed about all four entries was that they were all short entries. The assignment was for each journal entry to be one page each and three of the four entries had wide margins and did not have a full page of response. One of the four journal entries contained only six short sentences and another journal entry contained eight lines. The second part of the assignment was to include a summary and opinion of the reading, and none of the four student journal entries included any comments that would classify as opinion statements. All four entries contained simply summary statements, and all four entries omitted any reference to the concepts that define Indian Literatures.

	Student entry #1 stated:
	Black Star, the hunchback magician, gave the boys magic. Filled their lives with hope and questions. It wasn’t until Black Star left that the magic left. They figured out it was all smoke and mirrors.
	Student entry #2 stated:
	Before we knew about mirrors talked about an old magician on the reservation that performed feats to astound the Indian boys until he moved and they found his book of magic. It also talks about how the Indians all have the same face looking back at you.
	Student entry #3 stated:
	This writer tells about different situations in which children were easily tricked with magic tricks. The stories are very sentimental. The first example is the story of the man named Black Star who made kids believe in him by magically pulling coins out of kid’s ears. Pick a Card Any Card; Black Star is very bitter and resentful about assimilation and its effects on the Indian. He is very sarcastic with his humor, especially when he says sawing beautiful women in half was the only revenge he ever had.
	Student entry #4 stated:
	Black Star was a magician who brought some magic and mystery into an otherwise flat world for some small boys. He drank for assimilation, he said to make his life on the reservation more barable. He was bitter and angry and warned the boys about women. He packed up and left town one day, never to return. They found his book of magic tricks after he left. They felt angry and betrayed. They had believed in his magic. The continuation of loss and dreams destroyed. There is no comfort, no real home--only the search for small ways to escape, if only for a moment.

Student Examples: Research Projects

After the Classroom Experience

I chose four students research projects as examples of the post-classroom immersion experience. All four of the projects (“Ishi of the Yahi Tribe: A Story for Children,” “My Experience at a Pipe Ceremony,” “Dedicated to the Dream Catcher Lady,” and “My Passion for Art”) fused both the visual and the verbal, dealt with Indian themes, and were very personal and creative renditions. Each project also exhibited aspects of the concepts that define Indian Culture: circularity and non-linear presentation, multiple points of view, and a-ethnocentrism.

The first student example, “Ishi of the Yahi Tribe: A Story for Children,” is written for children, and each page contains a small amount of prose and a picture (drawn by the student). The story begins with a history of Yahi, a small northern California tribe that is now extinct. The student includes such information about this group as population, foods, basketry, digging tools, clothing, and oral traditions. Ishi is mentioned briefly in the beginning of the text, and the discovery of gold marks the destruction of the Yahi. The text abruptly shifts back to Ishi and describes important aspects of his life: sweat ceremony, death of his family, and the eventual meeting of UC Berkley professor, Dr. Kroeber. The student offers a brief account of Ishi in San Francisco and his early death.

The second student example, “My Experience at a Pipe Ceremony,” is a personal narration and experience. The student explains the process of the ceremony and includes photographs and coloring book pictures. The student takes the reader on a personal journey; her wonder and excitement can be felt in her writings. She explains that her husband is a pipe carrier and that saging, smudging, and praying are important elements involved in the Indian sweat ceremony. She describes the prayers that are said to each of the four directions and the actual ceremony itself. The student then proceeds to connect the ceremony to each of the five native concepts.

The third student example, “Dedicated to the Dream Catcher Lady,” is another creative story with pictures drawn by the student. Similar to the children's story, this work is in the format of a book written for children. This work starts with a poem and moves on to tell the Chippewa legend regarding dreams and dream catchers. This student tale mixes prose, poetry, and myth.

The fourth student example, “My Passion for Art,” is a personal account of the history of Indian art. The student is fortunate to have heard a lecture on the subject by Dr. Rick Danay, who is the Costo Chair for American Indian History at University of California, Riverside. In her essay, she expresses her delight at learning about pictographs and petroglyphs. She offers her deep admiration for Danay's work and adds many art pieces in her essay as examples. She made a book, and her art pieces contain such items as feathers.

The pre- and post-class writings demonstrate the validity of my theories. Each student in the class successfully wrote in American Indian literary form. Even if only one of the students had realized this success, it would have still proven that the composition of American Indian Literatures could be taught to non-Indians.

Student Evaluations (SETEs and Written)

SETES

Upon completion of the course at Mount St. Mary's, I gave the students an evaluation form that consisted of fourteen questions and a numbering system ranging from 1-7, with one being the lowest rating and seven being the highest rating. I provided a place for additional comments at the bottom of the page.

Out of the nine course evaluations, seven students scored all fourteen responses as a 7, which is the highest rating, one student gave twelve 7s and two sixes (evaluation and homework), the last student gave the course thirteen 7s and one 5 (evaluation). For the course I received one hundred and twenty 7s, one 6, one 5, and four N\A (non-applicable), which, of course, would qualify as outstanding SETEs.

Five of the students chose to add comments at the end of their course evaluations. The comments are listed as follows:

1. “This was an eye opening experience into the immersion of Indian culture. This learning experience should be a must for others to create a better understanding of the cultures and people in general.”

2. “Ms. Julie LaMay Abner is truly a wonderful Professor. Class was very enjoyable. I actually looked forward to coming to class.”

3. “Guest Speakers! Terrific.”

4. “I totally enjoyed the class.”

5. “Excellent class. Please continue the classes in Native American thought.”

Written Comments

I also asked the students to write a separate written evaluation of the course, which would include both course strengths and suggestions for improvement. Five students returned the evaluations. Similar to the SETEs, the student’s responses were very positive.

The words/phrases that the students used to describe the course were as follows: “informative,” “fantastic,” “very enjoyable,” “interesting,” “enjoyable,” “a great experience,” and an “absolutely a mesmerizing experience, interesting, the weekend flew by.

The students listed the strengths of the course as follows:

1. “The discussion on autobiography was powerful.”

2. “The crafts were a great break from book work while still staying with the culture” (happy face drawn in).

3. “The variety of activities kept me interested and made time fly by.”

4. “I was honored to have such a fine teacher. I enjoyed the poetry (I loved the singing).”

5. “Variety of activities”

6. “Everything that was done was just perfect. What I really thought added to the class was: a) the making of the dream catcher, b) making the clapper stick and actually singing with it, c) sharing our stories and d) the guests. This little breaks in the class made it much more interesting. As I said, being a traditional student taking this class was absolutely a mesmerizing experience. This class should definitely be offered again. I loved every minute of this class. And believe me that's the truth (double underline).”

The students made the following course suggestions:

1. “Writing poetry would be fun if time wasn't so short.”

2. “Excessively brief”

3. “What would have helped was a map with the different tribes and their locations. I would also have liked a little more prep for the guests on Sunday. A reading or sources list would also be helpful.”

4. “I would like more on the five concepts.”

5. “What could be shortened would be the geography.”

Conclusion Formation and Application

Study Strengths and Successes

Even though the student SETEs and written evaluations seemed to demonstrate that the students enjoyed the class, I am aware that students are not usually qualified to assess course content or instructor knowledge on any given subject. In the 16 January 1998 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, in the article “New Research Casts Doubt on Value of Student Evaluations of Professors,” Robin Wilson argued that instructors who take acting lessons and use excessive hand gestures during class lectures received better student evaluations than those who did not (A12). Even though student evaluations can be used as a guide in instructor performance and course content, they are definitely subjective bits of information and should be used as part of a larger assessment picture, which would also include peer evaluations.

I realized early in my own teaching career that instructors are expected to be entertainers, and my quiet personality comes alive when I step in front of a classroom. As a matter of fact, students have uttered their surprise at how quiet I am outside of the classroom; I think they expect me to entertain them as I am walking down the hallway. Even with my great animation, there could also be other reasons for my extremely high student evaluations. This course was offered as an elective for the Weekend College. The students chose to be in the classroom--they wanted to be there. Even though it is true that students who attend Freshman Composition courses, for example, are also making the choice to attend, the course is required in order for a student to obtain a degree; this difference adds to the probability that the Mount St. Mary’s students enter the course with a positive outlook and excitement that is not usually the norm. In a required English course, even with a good instructor, students are likely to become disgruntled, no matter how nicely the instructor explains the need for them to revise their work. Therefore, even before I introduced the four learning phases to the students, the audience was probably more receptive than usual.

I am aware that there could be other reasons why the initial student journal writings were of such poor quality overall, and the argument would be stronger if the two writing assignments were more similar.

The fact that I become a performer when I teach my classes and that the course is offered as an elective might explain some of the hyperbole in the student evaluations, but I still believe that the students know good instruction when they receive it. The class was new, exciting, different, and fun, which laid the groundwork for learning to take place.

My argument is also made much stronger considering the fact that I presented my ideas to a group of my academic peers in San Francisco (California Indian Conference), who do understand teaching excellence. This audience, which was filled with non-Indians, Indians, and Indian academics, enthusiastically validated my theories both during and after my presentation. During my presentation, the audience clapped, nodded, and affirmed what I was saying; after my presentation, I was asked to set up a course to teach the 35,000 Los Angeles School District teachers my concepts. I believe that my thesis has been proven: by employing my learning phases the students can write in a manner of American Indian Literatures.

Study Deficiencies and Limitations

The student SETEs and written evaluations argue that the course was basically flawless or perfect. Although this kind of student hyperbole is pleasant academically and builds teaching self-esteem and confidence, it makes me realize that the students, just like the instructors, recognize hard work and excellence. I also feel that the students enjoyed the course, learned something, and, definitely, feel like they got their monies worth.

Time

Obviously, one of the main deficiencies and limitations of my study is the time constraints required for the two-day course. Sixteen hours in two days is an enormous amount of time for both the students and instructor. Preferably, the course would be taught over a longer period of time because by the afternoon of day two the students were tired, which made them much more quiet than they were on day one. I also think that the enormous influx of data requires a little bit more time for the students to assimilate the information. I realize that part of the immersion experience necessitates several hours of interaction, but, in the future, I would include more activity-based instruction, like a nature walk, a movie on one of the required reading texts, another craft (mandella), and more student storytelling.

Pedagogy

As far as the actual instruction itself, I would still require the students to journal their readings before attending the class. The time constraints inherent in a two-day course do not allow any other reasonable option. Also, the journal entries offer a built in pre-test for the success of the four learning phases. What I would, however, do differently regarding the journals is not agree to read them on Saturday night in order to return them to the students on Sunday morning. In my planning, I did not anticipate that I would be exhausted from the eight-hour marathon day or that I would have to stay up half the night to complete the task. In the future, I would agree to mail the journals back to the students with their research projects.

Speakers

I had four speakers (Barbara Drake, Tongva/Gabrielino, Mark Mendez, Chumash, Terry Cornett, Cherokee, and Robin Cornett, Blackfoot) withdraw from their presentations at thelast minute. Fortunately, I was able to call on two other guest speakers (Dennis and Fausto), and they agreed to assist me with the class. Polyvocalism and multiple-points-of-view are important aspects of the conception part of the four phases, both oral and written. I am not sure how to guard against last minute cancellations, but I feel strongly that the guest speakers are an integral aspect of the concepts.

I also discovered that just because someone is an Indian does not necessarily mean that he or she is adept at public speaking. Nonetheless, the a-ethnocentric experience of presenting Indians who may not be good speakers is probably more academically sound. I would not script the speakers because I think it would be disrespectful to them, but, in the future, I would give them a few more items to consider that would be of interest to the students. I think this would allow for more of a presentation and less of an hour of ques

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