Sherman Alexie; Native American Culture Sample

LAB:

If you missed it the first few times around, take a look at this video to prepare you for today's class.

• A Conversation with Native Americans on Race (short video)

TASK: In the COMMENT section of the blog, please post a comparative/contrasting critique of the plays and graphic novel American Born Chinese. Consider what we've learned about race--how does cultural heritage, identity, and the issues of race infuse these plays and graphic novel with significance for a contemporary audience? Your post on the topic will be due by the end of first period (lab) Tuesday, March 20. No late responses will be given credit. 

When you have completed your post, please use the time to workshop or work on your upcoming portfolio (due next week!) See previous posts for details.

At the end of period 1, please go to the library to pick up the short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie. This unit will move us into our unit on gender as well. First up: men. Because most of you are not.

Period 2:

Dangerous Astronomy

Sherman Alexie, 1966

I wanted to walk outside and praise the stars,
But David, my baby son, coughed and coughed.
His comfort was more important than the stars

So I comforted and kissed him in his dark
Bedroom, but my comfort was not enough.
His mother was more important than the stars

So he cried for her breast and milk. It’s hard
For fathers to compete with mothers’ love.
In the dark, mothers illuminate like the stars!

Dull and jealous, I was the smallest part
Of the whole. I know this is stupid stuff
But I felt less important than the farthest star

As my wife fed my son in the hungry dark.
How can a father resent his son and his son’s love?
Was my comfort more important than the stars?

A selfish father, I wanted to pull apart
My comfortable wife and son. Forgive me, Rough
God, because I walked outside and praised the stars,
And thought I was more important than the stars.

Spend the first 10 minutes reading the introduction on pages xi - xxii. Then we'll start reading together as a class. Eventually, you should note the following:

Sherman Alexie: "I started writing because I kept fainting in human anatomy class and needed a career change. The only class that fit where the human anatomy class had been was a poetry writing workshop. I always liked poetry. I'd never heard of, or nobody'd ever showed me, a book written by a First Nations person, ever. I got into the class, and my professor gave me an anthology of contemporary Native American poetry called Songs From This Earth on Turtle's Back. I opened it up and--oh my gosh--I saw my life in poems and stories for the very first time."

Sherman Alexie's top 10 Tips for Writers
Sherman Alexie's reads "The Toughest Indian in the World"
Sherman Alexie: "When Literature Meets Standup" (full episode 26 min.)
Various videos/interviews by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie references or alludes (allusion) to various key historical, fictional characters and events in his stories. Here are a few definitions/descriptions that may help you:

• HUD: Housing and urban development (department of the U.S. government). 
• Drugs: Native Americans have a higher risk for alcoholism and drug use. Many Native American tribes used "drugs" like tobacco and peyote as medicine for spirit walks or to contact the "other" world. European settlers introduced Native Americans to alcohol--Native Americans introduced European settlers to tobacco. 
• Jimi Hendrix: In the 60's, the hippies were interested in celebrating Native American culture. You can see that in their dress and anti-government protests. They often saw "Indians" as the original people before the government held power over the people. Jimi Hendrix was a guitar player/musician who attended Woodstock. Notice how he's dressed.
• Desert Storm was the name given to the Gulf War with Iraq in 1990.
• Crazy Horse: Sioux leader and military figure 
• Lakota: one of the 500 tribes.
• Totem animals
• The Lone Ranger & Tonto & the meaning of the word: Kemosabe; Lone Ranger
• Powwow
• Vision Quest

Prompts to use:

• Some ideas/prompts to develop characters. Use any of these prompts to flesh out and develop the characterization of characters from your drafts.
• Story idea: write from the perspective or voice of a Native American. Put yourself in someone else's moccasins. Develop your character by providing physical details, character traits, and psychological traits. 
• Story idea: If you had a totem animal, what would it be? How would it find you? What might it say to you? What might it symbolize about your "character"?
• Story idea: Thanksgiving. Write a story that takes place during this holiday.
• Story idea: Use Alexie's writing style and model your own fictional story from his structure. 
• Story/Poem idea: See your "life in stories and poems for the first time" in your life. Write about one of these events.
• Story idea: Write about your mother or father's life before you were born, but fictionalize events, details. Use the story "Because My Father Always Said...At Woodstock" (pg. 24-36) as a model. You might also write a story in which you recount and analyze the phrase that your father or mother or grandparent(s) always say to you. Start your story with: "My ____ used to always say to me..." or something of that sort.

HOMEWORK: Read the short stories on (pp. 1-53).