Getting the 'Indian' Out of the Cupboard: Using Information Literacy to Promote Critical Thinking, by Rhonda Harris Taylor and Lotsee Patterson

In the December 2000 issue of Teacher Librarian is "Getting the 'Indian' out of the Cupboard: Using Information Literacy to Promote Critical Thinking," an excellent article by two Native women at the University of Oklahoma's School of Library and Information Science, Rhonda Harris Taylor and Lotsee Patterson.

In the article, they talk about many resources that will be helpful to librarians, teachers, and parents working towards helping children learn how to recognize stereotypical or biased characterizations of American Indians. These resources include videos as well as print and on-line publications. I've added this article to my list of articles on the right-hand side of this page. UPDATE: 1/30/2011....  Teacher Librarian reconfigured their website and the article is no longer available online to the public. Anyone with access to a library that carries Teacher Librarian can get it that way, but for those who don't have that option, I've got a pdf copy of it and will send it directly to you by email. My address is dreese dot nambe at gmail dot com.

Eighth Graders Analyze SIGN OF THE BEAVER

[Note: This essay submitted by Karen, a classroom teacher, in response to my post (on March 17th) about using Caddie Woodlawn to teach about stereotypes.]

My students and I have done critical analysis much like this, years ago with Sign of the Beaver, and more recently with a history textbook's chapter on the Civil War. I was working with 8th graders in a Title I pull-out language arts and social studies class when we analyzed Sign of the Beaver. The history text analysis was done with my fifth/sixth grade class last year. We also think critically about historical events, looking at them from the perspectives of ordinary people affected by the decisions of those in power.

The one piece that I found essential to have in place before analysis of Sign of the Beaver was a thorough grounding in culturally authentic literature. Living and teaching in southern Vermont, most of my students are white. Before my students can think critically about stereotypes in literature, they need to see literature that's positive and authentic. That's equally true for the very few students who have strong Native ties or are black or Asian as for the white students.

Having said that, I think the analysis of specific chapters and passages in Sign of the Beaver was also successful because, as you suggest, we didn't read it as a novel or as literature, we just read those passages, largely comparing the ways in which Attean's speech, his grandfather's speech and that of Matt are described. The students, given to me to teach because they'd been unengaged in the "regular ed" classrooms, were vocal and articulate in their responses to Speare's depiction of Attean's speech as grunts. I can still hear their voices, 18 years later, as they "talked back" to Speare.

I don't do this more often for a couple of reasons: -first, with only so much time, I do want to make sure my students get that authentic literature. I'm reading Hidden Roots right now to my class. -second, even in snippets, literature is so powerful and can be so powerfully painful. When most of the kids are white, the possibilities of pain for others are so much greater, as my own sons (we're a multiwhateverish background family, black, white, Mi'kmaq, and mystery genes) have let me know. Thinking critically about historical events and about texts somehow doesn't hurt as much as the literature can.

Paul Chaat Smith on BROTHER EAGLE SISTER SKY and THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE

Paul Chaat Smith is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. He and Robert Warrior wrote Like a Hurricane, the Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. Published in 1996, it ought to be used in every high school class that looks at the Civil Rights Movement. Alcatraz was occupied by American Indians in the late 1960s. It inspired Native people to take action at sites across the country in the 70s.

I’ve recently found Smith’s website, Fear of a Red Planet. It includes Exile on Main Street, which is Smith’s cyberbook. I want to draw you attention to his essay,  “Home of the Brave.” In it, he talks about some of America’s favorite books, ones that masquerade as being by or about American Indians: Susan Jeffers’s Brother Eagle Sister Sky, and Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree. Here’s an excerpt from his essay:

Indians have been erased from the Master Narrative of this country, and replaced by the cartoon images that all of us know and most of us believe. At different times the narrative has said we didn't exist and the land was empty, then it was mostly empty and populated by fearsome savages, then populated by noble savages who couldn't get with the program, and on and on. Today the equation is Indian equals spiritualism and environmentalism. In twenty years it will probably be something else.

Visit his website. Read the entire essay. And, reconsider how you use Brother Eagle Sister Sky, or The Education of Little Tree.

Note: There is discussion of Brother Eagle Sister Sky in the article Jean Mendoza and I wrote for the journal, Early Childhood Research & Practice. The article is called "Examining Multicultural Picture Books for the Early Childhood Classroom: Possibilities and Pitfalls." It is listed under "ARTICLES" (right side of this page) or you can click here to get to it.

See "naked wild men" (Indians) from Little House on the Prairie at my other blog, Images of Indians in Children's Books.

Reflections on CADDIE WOODLAWN: Teaching about Stereotypes using Literature

One evening in 1999, when my daughter, Liz, (then a third-grader) was doing homework, she said "Mom, I don't get it." She’s exceptionally bright, so when she told me she didn't get it, I knew something was up. I asked her what she was reading. She held up Caddie Woodlawn.

I was well into my research by that time (study of representation of Native Americans in children's books). Given UIUC's “Chief Illiniwek,” Liz learned early on about racism, representation, and stereotyping.

By then, I was already collaborating with Beverly Slapin at Oyate. I told her about Liz’s experience reading Caddie Woodlawn. She invited Liz to dictate her experience for inclusion in A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children. Titled “Liz’s Story” here is a portion of what eight-year-old Liz said:

"And so we were reading it and when we got to the second chapter, it said, I'm not sure exactly what it said, that the Native Americans were sneaking around like dogs, and they picked up Caddie Woodlawn by her hair, and they were acting like dogs sniffing a bone. In another part it said that the Native Americans were massacring, murdering, and scalping the pioneers and made belts out of their hair and skin. They made the pioneers seem like angels and the Native Americans like inhuman monsters. I felt hurt inside, my eyes were watering, and I felt like I wanted to cry. But then I thought, there's something I can do about this."

Liz goes on to talk about how, the next day, she went to her teacher and the group to tell them how she felt about the book, and that she wanted them to stop reading it. Due to the teacher's social justice approach to teaching, Liz's group had great empathy and agreed to choose a different book.

Liz's best friend at the time was also in the group, and she said she didn't want them to pick a book that made white people look bad. In the end, I bought and donated 10 copies of Erdrich's Birchbark House. That is what they read instead. Liz went on to write a short play of one scene in the book, which her group later performed for their classmates.

This episode illustrates some of what good teachers must contend with in America’s under-funded schools.

The teacher chose this book because they were studying historical fiction, and she wanted them to read a story set in or near the midwest. She was using ‘best practice’ in that regard.

She chose that book because there were multiple copies of it available at the school.

She knew it contained derogatory content about American Indians, but, she thought it would give the students the opportunity to deconstruct stereotypical images, applying their critical thinking skills to issues of representation, etc.

As Liz’s experience documents, it didn’t work.

Back then, I called my friends and colleagues in children’s literature, asking them for ideas on what to do. One expressed disgust that an old, outdated book was still being used in the classroom. She suggested the teacher use the book, but NOT as a work of literature. Here’s her rationale:

If a book is well-written, readers will be drawn into it, identifying with characters, setting, story, etc. as they read it, cover to cover. It might be difficult, given that growing attachment to the book, to distance themselves enough to be able to critically discuss the negative representations of American Indians. Analyzing such representations is important, and using children’s books to do it is possible, but not if the book is read, first, as literature. Here’s a rough outline of what a teacher might do:

1. Assign specific chapters to different groups of children.
2. Ask each group to focus on passages about American Indians in their specific chapter. What words are used to describe them? What tone is conveyed?
3. Repeat this exercise for the non-Native characters.
4. Compare and contrast the two sets of data.
5. Engage the children in conversations about differences in these representations.
6. Talk about the period when the book was written.
7. Talk about the period itself, and how people thought about American Indians at that time.

If any of you (readers of this blog) have done something like this, please write to me. I’d like to hear how it works in practice.

Headed to NYC for NCTE's Conference on College Composition and Communication

Next week I'll be visiting New York City (for the first time), attending NCTE's Conference on College Composition and Communication. I'm speaking at a session titled "Research on Cultures of Writing."

My paper is designed to look at the process of retelling American Indian stories. I will use two children's books in my session, Penny Pollock's Turkey Girl and Kristina Rodanas Dragonfly's Tale. Both are deeply flawed.

My hope is to reach teachers who teach writing, to help them help writers approach this task in a more careful, thoughtful way. My session is on Saturday, 3:30 to 4:45.

NCTE invited Joy Harjo and Lee Marmon to speak on Thursday morning. Previously on this blog, I'm talked about her book, The Good Luck Cat. Her poetry is in a new book by Lee Marmon, called The Pueblo Imagination. You may not recognize his name, but anyone that has followed Native photography knows his signature shot of an elder Pueblo man in sneakers. That photo is featured on the cover of The Pueblo Imagination. (The photo itself is called "White Man's Moccasins.") Marmon's daughter is Leslie Marmon Silko, author of Ceremony, which is often used in high school lit classes. I'm really looking forward to their session.

My family will join me in NYC on Friday, where we'll see Mama Mia. I'm looking forward to being in NYC, and seeing a musical that draws from the songs of my teen years. It should be great fun.

Update 3/18/2007: I've spent much of this afternoon listening to Joy's CD, Native Joy for Real. She's a musician, plays sax. Go here to see her CDs.

Margaret Bruchac's MALIAN'S SONG

Update on Sep 30 2023: I (Debbie Reese) no longer recommend Bruchac's work. For details see Is Joseph Bruchac truly Abenaki?

Editor's Note: This review used here with permission of Beverly Slapin at Oyate. It may not be published elsewhere without her written permission.

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Bruchac, Margaret (Abenaki), Malian’s Song, illustrated by William Maughan. Vermont Folklife Center, 2005. Unpaginated, color illustrations, grades 4-up; Abenaki.

Malian's Song is neither myth, legend nor folktale, but a true account of the October 4, 1759, attack on the village of Odanack by Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers. Because the people were warned by one of Rogers' Mohican scouts, 32 of the villagers were killed, rather than the 200 later claimed by Rogers, but their homes were burned, and their stores of corn pillaged. This story has existed in the living traditions of Abenaki people for nearly 250 years, and Bruchac sets down this tragic event carefully and with great feeling. Young readers will see the loss and pain and sorrow, and they will also see how the people have continued, and do so still.

The illustrations are lovely. The people are dressed as they would have been in that day, in a combination of Native and English clothing. Maughan has beautifully drawn the close ties between family members and the strengths of each. The names are known: Malian was the young daughter of Simon Obomsawin; her cousin was Maliazonis. Malian's granddaughter was Mali Masadoques. In telling their story, Bruchac does them honor, and with respect for young readers.

This is Malian’s song:

"Nziwaldam, nziwaldam, anakwika ndodana

I am lonesome; I am lonesome; our village grows up to trees

Malian pihta oziwaldam, nda tomo widoba

Malian she is very lonesome; there is no friend anywhere.”

—Doris Seale