Reading Native American Literature: A Teacher's Guide

High school and college teachers interested in offering units or courses on Native American literature have often had to carve out new teaching strategies because ready resources and guides are scarce.

In Reading Native American Literature: A Teacher's Guide, Bruce A. Goebel offers innovative and practical suggestions about how to introduce students to a range of Native American works. Grounded in the idea that studying tribal cultures will enable students to gain deeper insights into Native literatures, each chapter helps teachers recognize what students need to know and then provides them with supporting materials and activities that will lead them to more informed interpretations of the literature.

After considering ways in which a study of Native American literature addresses gaps in standard American history textbooks, Goebel discusses the complexity that lies in the language of race. In the following chapters, he offers in-depth study of specific texts, including early Native American poetry, James Welch's Fools Crow, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, and Sherman Alexie's The Business of Fancydancing. Reproducible copies of traditional, tribally specific poems and stories are linked to the larger texts being studied. In addition to a brief annotated bibliography of resources for teaching Native American literature, the chapters also contain histories, a glossary, and teaching activities.

Bruce A. Goebel is a specialist in American literature, postmodern literature, humor, and English education. He is the author of Humor Writing, Reading Native American Literature, an editor of Teaching a New Canon, and the author of articles appearing in English Journal, Philological Quarterly, Journal of American Culture, and others.