GOALS (& MEANS)

1. To introduce students to several important texts spoken, performed, written, and/or directed by American Indian women. (readings, class discussions, films). The emphasis will be on written texts originally composed in English. For authors who have written several book-length works, I selected books that concentrated on women (e.g.: Hogan's Solar Storms; Erdrich's Tales of Burning Love. )
2. To introduce students to texts that represent a variety of historical periods and literary genres (readings).
3. To foster critical examinations of gender, though our discussions of the texts will not be limited to gender. (discussions, exams).
4. To help students to develop critical writing and research skills (exams and paper).
5. To help students to develop oral discussion skills (class discussions; group discussions/presentations).

For specific means of assessment and grading criteria see the Examinations and Paper.

REQUIRED READINGS The last two readings are the longest; pace yourself accordingly.

Course Packet (CP) at Bird's Copies; Allen, Spider Woman's Granddaughters; Underhill, Papago Woman; Silko, Storyteller; Sarris / Mckay, Mable Mckay; Tapahonso, Saanii Dahataal; Harjo, She Had Some Horses; Hogan, Solar Storms; Erdrich, Tales of Burning Love. Also two required films, one other recommended, and two videotapes.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF TOPICS, READINGS, EXAMS, AND PAPER

Introductions: The Topic, the Course, the Instructor 1/18

American Indian "Herstory," Indian Women Today, & Literature 1/18, 20 Panel Discussion: Metroplex Professional Women
Reading: Handout; Course packet (CP): excerpts from Utter,
American Indians; short articles from Indian County Today;
Van Dyke, "Women Writers"; Kilcup, "Writing"; Ad for Chamberlain; Allen's "Introd." to Spider Woman's

Oral to Written (and Viewed) Literatures
Readings/Video: Helen Sekaquaptewa: Hopi Coyote Story (videotape)
(CP) Wiget, "Telling the Tale"; Allen ("The Woman,"
"The Beginning," Coyote Kills," "Evil Kachina,"
"Whirlwind Man," and Silko's "Yellow Woman") 1/25, 27
Recommended: Silko's film Arrowboy and the
Witches on reserve in the library

First Examination 2/1

19th- and 20th-Century Life Stories: Spoken, Told-Through,
Written in Non-Fiction, Fiction & Poetry, & Filmed
Readings: Zitkala Sa (CP) [non-fiction, single author] 2/3
Papago Woman [cross-cultural, told-through] 2/3, 8
Silko: Storyteller [mixed genre] and Running on the
Edge of The Rainbow ( film) 2/10, 12, 17
Sarris/Mckay, Mable McKay (dialoging lives) 2/22, 24

Second Examination 3/1

20th-Century Poetry: Rural/Urban; Tribal/Pan-Tribal; Full-Blood/Mixed-Blood
Readings: (CP): selections, e.g., Rose, Hogan, and Endrezze and Tapahonso, Saanii Dahataal 3/3
Harjo, She Had Some Horses 3/8

Third Examination 3/10

Spring Break 3/15, 17

19th- & Early 20th-Century Short Stories & Novels (see Karen Kilcup's
Native American Women's Writing, 1800-1924 [2000] )
Reading: In Allen: Zitkala Sa, Johnson, Deloria, Humishima 3/22,24

Late 20th-Century Short Stories & Novels (For a broad sampling
of short fiction and excerpts from novels, see Joy Harjo's and
Gloria Bird's Reinventing the Enemy's Language, 1997 and Carol
Comfort's and Carolyn Dunn's Through the Eye of the Deer , 1999)
Reading: Sears (in Allen), (CP): Hill, Glancy, Power 3/29
Hogan, Solar Storms 3/31;4/5,7,12
[Note: we may not meet as a class on] 4/7
Erdrich, Tales of Burning Love 4/[12], 14,
19, 21

Paper Due (I do not accept e-mailed papers.) 4/28

Tribal & Pan-Tribal; Rural, Urban, Suburban; Multi-Media, Multi-Racial Film & Drama
Reading: (CP): excerpt from Corrigan's A Short Guide to . . . Film
Viewings: Spiderwoman, Theatre's, Sun, Moon, and Feather 4/26 Valerie Red-Horse's Naturally Native 4/28; 5/3
Review for Exam 5/5

Final Examination 5/12, 8 a.m.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Examinations

Each of the four exams will consist of two parts: a short-answer section and an essay question. For the first exam, the short answer section will focus on the course packet readings and Allen's Introd. In the essay questions, I will expect you to concentrate on the specific issues presented in the question and to support your arguments with relevant examples from the texts. (The essay section will be open-book; the short answer section will be closed-book. I encourage students to prepare notes and outlines for the essay questions.) I will offer examples of types of short answer questions, discuss the essay questions, and distribute a detailed study sheet during the class preceding the test.

Research Paper

Length: approximately 2,500 words (10 pages; MLA format); Due date: April 28
The paper should demonstrate your ability: (1) to select a focus and argument that you can justify as being significant to readers; (2) to integrate your own ideas and the ideas of scholars and critics (at least five); i.e., enter the critical conversation about the text(s); (3) to support arguments adequately and to organize them in logical and convincing ways; (4) to master basic mechanics of writing (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.). (The Writing Center,4th floor Library, can offer assistance. Bring this syllabus to inform them about the paper.) The focus should be strongly influenced by the length requirement. Too broad a focus will invite a superficial paper; focusing too narrowly can lead to repetition. You may wish to concentrate on one text or to do a comparative study. The methodological approach is open; for example, New Critical detailed readings, cultural, feminist, biographical, ethnic, postcolonial, or historical studies are all acceptable, though I do want the focus to be on (a) "primary" text(s), which could be a film, rather than on the theory or criticism. It will be important to talk to me about your paper, preferably BEFORE mid-semester. I will look at outlines and drafts up until a week before the due date. Under normal situations, I do not accept late papers.

Reference works that are particularly useful to the study of Native American women's literature include the major sources listed at the end of Van Dyke's essay (CP). There are also special issues of journals (e.g., Femspec 2.2 [June 2001] ). The most valuable on-campus general resource for research on American Indian literatures is UTA's MultiCultural Collection on the second floor of the Central Library. The written and electronic general resources are many. Here is a sampling. Reference resources/surveys: A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff's American Indian Literatures; Kenneth Roemer's Native American Writers of the United States (Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 175); Roemer and Joy Porter's, Cambridge Companion to Native American Literature (forthcoming); Andrew Wiget's Handbook of Native American Literature; Wiget's Native American Literature; Janet Witalec's Native North American Literature; Suzanne Eversten Lindquist's Native American Literatures; Daniel Littlefield and James Parin's A Biobibliography of Native American Writers; H. David Brumble, An Annotated Bibliography of American Indian and Eskimo Autobiographies; Louis Owens & Tom Collonnese's American Indian Novelists; Kay Juricek and Kelly Morgan's Contemporary Native American Authors. Historical and literary cultural / political contexts: Jack Utter's American Indians (rev. ed.), Shari Huhndorf's Going Native, Craig Womack's Red on Red, Jace Weaver's That the People Might Live, Louis Owens' Mixedblood Messages, Chad Allen's Blood Narratives, Robert Dale Parker's, The Invention of Native American Literature. Literary critical sources include (general) Abraham Chapman, Literature of the American Indian; Paula Gunn Allen's Studies in American Indian Literature and The Sacred Hoop; Arnold Krupat's Voice in the Margin and Ethnocriticism; David Murry's Forked Tongues; Brian Swann's Recovering the Word and (with Krupat) New Voices in Native American Literary Criticism; Roger Dunsmore's Earth's Mind; (oral literatures) Karl Kroeber, ed. Traditional Literature of the American Indian; Jarold Ramsey, Reading the Fire; Dell Hymes, In Vane I Tried to Tell You; Brian Swann, Smoothing the Ground; (life stories) H. David Brumble, American Indian Autobiography; Arnold Krupat's For Those Who Come After; Hertha Wong's Sending My Heart Back Across the Years; Kay Sands's Telling a Good One; (poetry written in English) Michael Castro's Interpreting the Indian; Kenneth Lincoln's Sing With the Heart of the Bear and Native American Renaissance; Norma Wilson's Native American Poetry, Robin Riley Fast, The Heart as a drum; (drama) Hanay Geiogamah's New Native American Drama and Stories of Our Way, Mimi Gisolfi D'Aponte, An Anthology of Native American Plays; (fiction) Charles Larson's American Indian Fiction (out of date), Kenneth Lincoln's Native American Renaissance, Louis Owens' Other Destinies , Richard Fleck's Critical Perspectives on Native American Fiction, James Ruppert's Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction, Catherine Rainwater, Dreams of Fiery Stars, Eric Gary Anderson, American Indian Literature and the Southwest, Sid Larsen, Captive in the Middle, Susan Berry Brill de Ramirez, Contemporary American Indian Literatures and the Oral Tradition, Joni Adamson's American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice and Ethnocriticism; (non-fiction) Robert Warrior, Tribal Secrets. Important journals include: SAIL (Studies in American Indian Literatures), which has its own excellent Web sites (see below), American Indian Culture and Research Journal (AICRJ), American Indian Quarterly (AIQ), and Wicazo Sa Review and a forthcoming journal Indigenous Journeys.. Some excellent articles have also appeared in less specialized journals such as Critical Inquiry, College English, American Literary History, PMLA, Modern Fiction Studies, and American Literature. Bibliographical guides to articles and books on specific authors can be found in recent issues of American Literary Scholarship, the PMLA Bibliographies, SAIL, AICRJ . The First Search internet resource available in the UTA Library can also be helpful. Many Web sites can provide information on Native writers in general and on specific authors. Besides the SAIL site mentioned above (<http://oncampus.richmond. edu/faculty/asail/notes.html> ). There is a good Listserv for ASAIL members. One of the best general sites is <www.anpa.ualr.edu> , the American Native Press Archives. Another excellent Web site is the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers (<www.wordcraftcircle.org/>). Individual author books include the new MLA Approaches to Teaching volume on Erdrich. For a sampling of the hundreds of individual author Web sites, see <google.com> . See also: <nativeauthor.com>, <www.ipl.org/ref/native/>, <www.english.uiuc.edu/maps> ( e.g., Momaday homepage), and <users.mwci. net/~lapoz/ MBio.html> . There is a general "American Indian Resources" Web site: <jupiter.lang.osaka-u.ac.jp/~krkvis/naindex.html>. The Fall 1998 issue of Wicazo Sa (13.2) offers an overview of internet resources in Native American studies. For information on how American Indian literatures have become part of the American literature canon, see <www.uta.edu/english/roemer/ctt> -- a resource guide for American literature anthologies.

Approximate Grading Weights, Warnings, and Invitations

First exam (10%), second exam (20%), third exam (10%) final exam (25%), paper (35%).
Contact me if you are uncertain about your grade status.

Warnings: (1) Dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism) will be handled according to University procedures, which can include expulsion. Chapter 2 of the MLA Handbook offers good examples of what constitutes plagiarism. (2) Professors are not allowed to drop students for excessive absences. If you drop, please follow University procedures. In this course for every five unexcused absences, the semester grade will drop by a half-letter grade.

Encouragement: Consistent and constructive class participation and improvement can elevate semester grades significantly. Also I am very willing to work with students who have disabilities. At the beginning of the semester, these students should provide me with documentation authorized by the appropriate University office. Students seeking academic, personal, and social counseling should contact the Office of Student Success (817-272-6107).

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