Pueblo author Simon Ortiz discusses Indigenous authors' use of their native language as a form of self-assertion, pointing out how African literature drives the decolonizing impulse in literature today. Use of the dominant language would reach a larger audience but would also make transmission of colonizers' cultural assumptions unavoidable while…

Coeur d'Alene School District (Idaho) developed an American Indian oral literature curriculum component with the help of the neighboring Coeur d'Alene people. This book is based on a general background guide that provides classroom teachers with a context for understanding Coeur d'Alene narratives incorporated into the curriculum. The book also…

This manual provides a general introduction to folklore and folklife. Certain articles herein may be used in a basic activity-oriented approach to the study of folklore, beginning at the fourth grade level. Other articles proved a more in-depth study of folklife and of the means by which folk culture is preserved and shared. The teacher must…

Stories of personal experience of supernatural events are a highly-valued form of verbal art for Cherokee speakers. Both the people who tell them and those who listen regard such stories as entertaining and instructional. These stories even reflect some of the tensions that exist between traditional Cherokee culture and modern American social…

Six stories told by Teddy Charlie, an Alaska native, in the Lower Tanana Athabaskan language of Minto, Alaska are presented here and illustrated with maps and photographs. A foreword offers background information on the storyteller and the recording of the stories. The six stories include: "When Minto Village First Began"; "How We…

This article describes "inshimi"--a musical storytelling practice of the Bemba people in Zambia. It gives a general perspective on the whole practice and some details on the "MUSIC" as contained in the practice. The article further encourages the idea that "inshimi" represents a nucleus of the "MUSIC"…

It took 25 years to develop and arrive at a consensus for a standard orthography for the language of the Innu, or Montagnais, who live in Quebec and Labrador. The principal obstacle to standardization came from dialect diversity. An effort at standardizing the spelling system in the 1970s failed because speakers were not ready to let go of the…

Fables and trickster tales are short narratives that use animal characters with human features to convey folk wisdom and to help people understand human nature and human behavior. These stories were originally passed down through oral tradition and written down later. The legendary figure Aesop was reported to have orally passed on his animal…

Describes an approach to mainstreaming Native American works into an American literature survey college course using the "Norton Anthology of American Literature." Goals are to situate Native American texts within the canon, accentuate their aesthetic qualities, address the fundamental questions they raise about literature and American…

Stories handed down from Dakota grandmother to granddaughter were rooted in a kinship responsibility to relay the culture, identity, and sense of belonging essential to a child's life. Conveyed by Native storytellers rigorously trained in oral tradition, historical "stories" have a reliability not found in mainstream oral history.…

Aboriginal literacy programs in Canada are using literacy as a means of reclaiming Aboriginal languages and a positive cultural identity. The Rainbow/Holistic Approach to Aboriginal literacy uses seven ways of knowing, each corresponding to a color. The approach recognizes that spirit, heart, mind, and body equally contribute to a life of balance,…

Addresses the issue of quality within inquiry which uses narrative forms of representing human experience. Focuses on environmental education research. (Contains 101 references.) (DDR)

As his family joins him at his grandfather's burial, the author muses on the direction and lessons he gained from his grandfather's stories. He recognizes the interconnectedness of his present-day life and goals with the teachings and influences of his ancestors, even those he did not personally know. (TD)

This paper reports on a year-long qualitative study of two elementary classrooms in a suburban community near Cincinnati (Ohio). The classes were very homogeneous racially with no students of Hispanic, African-American, Asian, or Pacific Island descent in either class. Interviews, classroom observations and participation, and analysis of student's…

This issue of "The Goldfinch" focuses on Iowa history. The booklet is divided into two sections. Section 1, "Features," contains the following: (1) "Looking for History"; (2) "Talking History"; (3) "Climbing the Family Tree"; (4) "Tribal Storytelling"; (5) "News About You"; (6)…