Native Literature

Slide

Essential Questions & Enduring Understandings

• What are Meaningful Connections and what are some of my own?
• What are the characteristics of indigenous heroes?
• What is the value of studying Native Literature? Do the texts we’ve read this year reflect and/ or shape my identity?
• How have I grown as a reader and writer over the course of the year?
• What is Native Literature?
• How does figurative Language improve my understanding of Native Literature?
• What is the purpose of reading, writing and speaking Native Literature?
• How does Native Literature enrich my culture (reflection through story, poetry, memoir and song, or other creative projects)?
• How is rhetoric connected to intellectually responsible civic engagement?
• How can the pen be mightier than the sword?
• What is rhetoric and how do I recognize and use it?
• How do I create a solid argument (oral or written)?
• How do I show students that argument and rhetoric is something that they’re already participate in?
• How can I have them create arguments for ideas and events they care about?
• How do I analyze and create literature?
• How can I create movement in literary and rigorous environment?
• What does it mean to be a Native American Literature scholar?
• How should technology be used to study Native Literature?

Resources:

These resources are primarily for Grades 6-12. If you are looking for Elementary resources, please visit the Elementary page.

Videos

School UbDs + Curricula:

*All documents listed here are under continual improvement and revision. If used, please cite.

Publications:

Websites:

Reading List:

50 Essays: A Portable Anthology For the AP® English Language Course, containing both classic essays and contemporary readings By: Collective High School

A Girl Called Echo – Northwest Resistance (Vol. 3) Echo travels to 1885, where settlers are arriving daily, and the Métis face hunger and uncertainty as their traditional way of life is threatened By: Katherena Vermette (Author), Scott B. Henderson (Illustrator) Published: March 25, 2020 High School

A Girl Called Echo – Pemmican Wars (Vol. 1) Echo Desjardins, a thirteen-year-old Métis girl, slips back and forth in time visiting a Métis camp, traveling the old fur-trade routes and experiencing the perilous era of the pemmican wars By: Katherena Vermette (Author), Scott B. Henderson (Illustrator) Published: March 1, 2018 High School

A Girl Called Echo – Red River Resistance (Vol. 2) As the Resistance takes hold, on the banks of the Red River in the summer of 1869, Echo fears for her friends and the future of her people in the Red River Valley By: Katherena Vermette (Author), Scott B. Henderson (Illustrator) Published: March 1, 2019 High School

A Place to Stand The Pushcart Prize–winning poet’s memoir of his criminal youth and years in prison. By: Jimmy Santiago Baca Published: January 1, 2001 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

A Radiant Curve A collection of stories and verse, Tapahonso finds sacredness in everyday life By: Luci Tapahonso Published: October 17, 2008 High School

Afterlife Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, Antonia finds a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep By: Julia Alvarez Published: April 7, 2020 High School

An American Sunrise: Poems Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of her homeland and confronts the site where the Mvskoke people, including her own ancestors, were forcibly displaced By: Joy Harjo Published: August 18, 2020 High School

An Indigenous People’s History of the United States for Young People ReVisioning History for Young People By: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Published: July 23, 2019 Middle School

Bad Indian Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems By: Deborah A. Miranda Published: January 1, 2013 Grade 08 and High School

Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me The story of Moana's struggle to understand her ancestral responsibilities, mend relationships, and find her identity as a Hawaiian in today's world By: Lurline Wailana McGregor Published: November 1, 2008 Grade 06 and Middle School

Between the World and Me Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis By: Ta-Nehesi Coates Published: July 14, 2015 Grade 11 and Grade 12

Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun Rooted in the ancient legends of Alaska's Athabaskan Indians, it tells the stories of two adventurers who decide to leave the safety of their respective tribes By: Velma Wallis Published: September 12, 1997 Grade 06 and Middle School

Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir A personal journey, woven with contemporary stories of the Tlingit people and a testament to how going back allows movement forward By: Ernestine Hayes Published: September 21, 2006 High School

Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories Wrapped in blankets and looking at the stars, a young Navajo girl listened long ago to stories that would guide her for the rest of her life. By: Luci Tapahonso Published: May 1, 1997 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

Bone Light Orlando White explores language from a Diné (Navajo) perspective. One idea that interests him, is the idea of the English language as a forgotten language By: Orlando White Published: February 15, 2009 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

Book of the Little Axe In 1796 Trinidad, young Rosa Rendón quietly but purposefully rebels against the life others expect her to lead By: Lauren Francis-Sharma Published: May 18, 2021 High School

Ceremony Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing By: Leslie Marmon Silko Published: January 1, 1963 Grade 08, Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay’s foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today’s diverse studen By: Geneva Gay Published: January 1, 2000

Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture Using compelling evidence from the records and diaries of early Australian explorers and colonists, Pascoe reveals that Aboriginal systems of food production and land management By: Bruce Pascoe Published: May 10, 2018 Grade 11, Grade 12, and High School

Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices An anthology of art, essays, photographs, poetry, short stories, and songs By: Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth Leatherdale Published: July 24, 2014 High School

Drown: Short Stories A family’s precarious journey from the barrios of Santo Domingo to the tenements of industrial New Jersey By: Junot Diaz Published: January 1, 1996 High School

Fire Song Portrayal how a reservation community looks to the past for guidance and comfort while fearing a future of poverty and shame By: Adam Garnet Jones Published: March 13, 2018 High School

Flight A Story of a troubled foster teenager — a boy who is not a “legal” Indian because he was never claimed by his father — who learns the true meaning of terror By: Sherman Alexie Published: April 17, 2007 Grade 08 and High School

Grand Avenue: A Novel in Stories Tales of healing cures, poison, family rituals, and a humor that allows the inhabitants of Grand Avenue to see their own foibles with a saving grace By: Greg Sarris Published: March 19, 2015 Grade 08 and High School

Growing Up Native American Stories of oppression and survival, of heritage denied and reclaimed -- twenty-two American writers recall childhood in their native land By: Bill Adler, Ines Hernandez, Patricia Riley Published: January 1, 1995 Grade 08 and High School

Hearts Unbroken A thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school — and first love By: Cynthia Leitich Smith Published: April 14, 2020 Middle School

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance Stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture By: Zora Neale Hurston Published: January 14, 2020 Grade 11

House of Purple Cedar Rose Goode's story of growing up in Indian Territory in pre-statehood Oklahoma By: Tim Tingle Published: February 18, 2014 Grade 06 and Middle School

How I Became A Ghost A Choctaw boy tells the story of his tribe's removal from its Mississippi homeland, and how its exodus to the American West led him to become a ghost --one able to help those left behind. By: Tim Tingle Published: September 8, 2015 Grade 06 and Middle School

If I Ever Get Out of Here The joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975 By: Eric Gansworth Published: April 28, 2015 Middle School

Indian Killer Gritty, racially charged literary thriller that remains an electrifying tale of alienation and justice By: Sherman Alexie Published: July 1, 2008 Grade 08 and High School

Indian No More Moving novel about Umpqua, Regina Petit, living on the Grand Ronde reservation questioning who she is. Is she Indian? Is she American? By: December 10, 2019 Published: December 10, 2019 Grade 06 and Middle School

Keepers of Life Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children By: Michael J. Caduto (Author), Joseph Bruchac (Illustrator) Published: July 1, 1997

Keepers of the Animals Native American Stories and Wildlife Activities for Children By: Michael J. Caduto (Author), Joseph Bruchac (Illustrator) Published: August 1, 1997

Keepers of the Earth Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children By: Michael J. Caduto (Author), Joseph Bruchac (Illustrator) Published: July 1, 1997

Keepers of the Morning Star: An Anthology of Native Women’s Theater Native women's theater today from the dynamic fusion of storytelling, ceremony, music and dance to the bold experimentation of poetic stream of consciousness and Native agitprop By: Collective Published: January 1, 2003 High School

Killer of Enemies A post-Apocalyptic YA novel with a steampunk twist, based on an Apache legend. By: Joseph Bruchac Published: January 1, 2003 Grade 08 and High School

Look: Poems In this virtuosic array of poems, lists, shards, and sequences, Sharif assembles her family's and her own fragmented narratives in the aftermath of warfare By: Solmaz Sharif Published: July 5, 2016 High School

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning Poet Hong provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America By: Cathy Park Hong Published: March 2, 2021 High School

My Name Is Seepeetza Her name was Seepeetza when she was at home with her family. But now that she's living at the Indian residential school her name is Martha Stone. By: Shirley Sterling Published: June 11, 1998 Grade 07 and Middle School

Native American Gardening Stories, Projects, and Recipes for Families By: Michael J. Caduto, Joseph Bruchac Published: March 1, 1996

Native Science Natural Laws of Interdependence By: Gregory Cajete Published: April 19, 2016

Nevertheless, We Persisted: 48 Voices of Defiance, Strength, and Courage A powerful collection of essays from actors, activists, athletes, politicians, musicians, writers, and teens By: Collective Published: October 15, 2019 High School

New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color Showcases emerging and seasoned writers of many races telling stories filled with shocking delights, powerful visions of the familiar made strange By: Collective Published: March 12, 2019 High School

Not your Princess: Voices of Native American Women An eclectic collection of poems, essays, interviews, and art that combine to express the experience of being a Native woman By: Collective Published: January 30, 2027 Grade 08 and High School

Our History is Our Future Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance By: Nick Estes Published: March 5, 2019 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

Our Stories Remember An illuminating look at Native origins and lifeways, a treasure for all who value Native wisdom and the stories that keep it alive. By: Joseph Bruchac Published: January 1, 2003 Grade 06 and Middle School

Pedagogy of the Oppressed The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world By: Paulo Freire Published: January 1, 1968 Grade 08 and High School

Perma Red Dreaming of both escape and belonging on the Flathead Indian Reservation in the 1940s, Louise White Elk, comes of age as she is pursued by three dangerous men By: Debra Magpie Earling Published: June 10, 2002 High School

Prison Writings: My life is my Sun Dance Invoking the Sun Dance, in which pain leads one to a transcendent reality, Peltier explores his suffering and the insights it has borne him By: Leonard Peltier Published: June 16, 2000 Grade 08 and High School

Red Wolf Life is changing for Canada’s Anishnaabek Nation and for the wolf packs that share their territory. By: Jennifer Dance Published: February 25, 2014 Grade 07 and Middle School

Rose Eagle A prequel e-novella to the award-winning Killer of Enemies. By: Joseph Bruchac Published: November 15, 2014 Grade 08 and High School

Scalping Columbus and Other Damn Indian Stories Fortunate Eagle journeys to Italy to “discover” the land and claim it in protest of Columbus Day By: Adam Fortunate Eagle Published: February 5, 2027 Grade 08 and High School

School Days of an Indian Girl Zitkala-Sa lived a traditional lifestyle until the age of eight when she left Yankton Sioux Reservation to attend Whites Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker mission school in Indiana. By: Zitkala-Sa Published: September 25, 2009 Grade 07 and Middle School

Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers An anthology of essays by Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving By: Collective Published: June 1, 2019 High School

Sing, Unburied, Sing An intimate portrait of a family's hopes and struggles through Mississippi's past and present By: Jesmyn Ward Published: July 8, 2021 High School

So Long a Letter This semi-autobiographical account is a perceptive testimony to the plight of educated and articulate Muslim women By: Mariama Ba Published: May 21, 2012 High School

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism and antiracism in America By: Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi Published: March 10, 2020 High School

Teaching Diverse Populations: Formulating A Knowledge Base This book presents current knowledge about teaching culturally diverse populations, traditionally underserved in the nation’s public schools. By: Etta R. Hollins Published: January 25, 1994

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. By: Sherman Alexie Published: July 19, 2026 Grade 07 and Middle School

The Birchbark House Story of a young Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, living on an island in Lake Superior around 1847 By: Louise Erdrich Published: June 3, 2002 Middle School

The Book Thief One of America's best-loved novels about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times By: Markus Zusak Published: September 11, 2007 High School

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North American King offers a unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian–White relations in North America since initial contact By: Thomas King Published: September 5, 2013 High School

The Lesser Blessed An eye-opening depiction of what it is to be a young Dogrib man in the age of AIDS, disillusionment with Catholicism, and a growing world consciousness By: Richard Van Camp Published: October 8, 2016 High School

The man made of words: Essays, stories, passages Collects the author's writings on sacred geography, Billy the Kid, actor Jay Silverheels, ecological ethics, Navajo place names, and old ways of knowing By: N. Scott Momaday Published: May 1, 1997 Grade 08 and High School

The Night Watchman Based on Erdrich's grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota to Washington, D.C By: Louise Erdrich Published: March 23, 2021 High School

The Poet X Afro-Latina heroine, Xiomara, has plenty to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion into her leather notebook By: Elizabeth Acevedo Published: April 7, 2020 High School

The Round House Story of an Ojibwe boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime By: Louise Edrich Published: September 24, 2013 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir The Tao of Raven takes up the next and, in some ways, less explored question: once the exile returns, then what? By: Ernestine Hayes Published: January 24, 2019 High School

The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale Depicts the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes By: Margaret Atwood Published: September 1, 2020 High School

The Whale Rider Eight-year-old Kahu, a member of the Maori tribe of Whangara, New Zealand, fights to prove her love, her leadership, and her destiny. By: Witi Ihimaera Published: May 1, 2003 Grade 06 and Middle School

The Woman Warrior A classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities—immigrant, female, Chinese, American By: Maxine Hong Kingston Published: January 1, 1976 High School

The Yield A young Australian woman searches for her grandfather's dictionary, the key to halting a mining company from destroying her family's home and ancestral land By: Tara June Winch Published: July 2, 2019 High School

There, There Book follows Native Americans living in Oakland, California and contains several essays on Native American history and identity By: Tommy Orange Published: June 5, 2018 High School

Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock In these two plays, Drew Taylor delves into the past and speculates about the future as he examines the dilemmas facing young Native Canadians today By: Drew Hayden Taylor Published: September 15, 1990 Middle School

Trail of Lightning While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn By: Rebecca Roanhorse Published: June 26, 2018 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup¡k Eskimo Examples Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education By: Gerald V. Mohatt and Jerry Lipka Published: January 1, 1998

Unaccompanied Javier Zamora was nine years old when he traveled unaccompanied 4,000 miles, across multiple borders, from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents By: Javier Zamora Published: September 5, 2017 High School

Understanding By Design By: Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe Published: January 1, 2003

Urban Tribes: Native Americans in the City Young, urban Natives powerfully show how their culture and values can survive—and enrich—city life By: Lisa Charleyboy Published: September 9, 2015 Grade 08 and High School

Vessel: Poems Jones intertwines the stories of her own family with those of historical Black figures, mining the richness of history to create a map of identity and influence By: Parneshia Jones Published: April 7, 2015 High School

Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry and Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School Poetry collection written by Lakota students in 5-8th grades at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation By: Collective Published: April 1, 2012 Middle School

We Rise: The Earth Guardians Guide to Building a Movement that Restores the Planet Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is a 16-year-old climate activist, hip-hop artist, and powerful new voice on the frontlines of a global youth-led movement By: Xiuhtezcatl Martinez Published: September 5, 2017 Grade 11 and Grade 12

We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness By: Chimamanda Adichie Published: January 1, 2015 Grade 11 and Grade 12

Where the Dead Sit Talking Set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s, a stunning and lyrical Native American coming-of-age story By: Brandon Hobson Published: February 20, 2018 High School

WHEREAS: Poems WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? By: Layli Long Soldier Published: March 7, 2017 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. By: Beverly Daniel Tatum Published: September 5, 2017

Widening the Circle Culturally Relevant Pedagogy for American Indian Children By: Beverly J. Klug, Patricia T. Whitfield Published: October 25, 2002

Wolf Mark Luke King, whose father is a black-ops infiltrator, uses the skills his father taught him to save his kidnapped father and his friends By: Joseph Bruchac Published: September 15, 2011 Middle School

Words Like Love: Poems Winder traverses the darkness in a quest to learn more about the most complex of subjects By: Tanaya Winder Published: February 15, 2021 Grade 09, Grade 10, and High School

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir 78 poems and 78 essays, featuring raw, angry, funny and profane memories of a childhood growing up poor on an reservation By: Sherman Alexie Published: June 13, 2017 High School