Short Writing Assignments



Short Writing 1
Due: August 29, 2007

Which stereotypes about Native Americans could be construed as "positive"? How can "positive" stereotypes be destructive? What are the dangers of romanticizing or idealizing Native Americans?

Short Writing 2
Due: September 5

Silko says that the Laguna strive for a communal truth, not an absolute truth. What does she mean? Is there a difference between fact and truth? What is the different between history and story, then?

Short Writing 3
Due: September 12

Read all the selections, then think about what each piece has in common with the others. What similarities, patterns, or topics do you see? Then, choose on topic and trace it through the work of all five authors. Give at least a small example from a work by all five of them.

Short Writing 4
Due: September 19

Characterization is an important part of literature. Choose one of the main characters and write a character analysis.

Short Writing 5
Due: September 26

How is The Surrounded a novel about change? What changes occur to individuals or groups of people in the novel? What does McNickle think about those changes? What does he want readers to understand about those changes after having read the novel?

Short Writing 6
Due: October 3

Respond to ONE of the following prompts:

What are land trusts and what role do they play in Mean Spirit? How do land trusts interrupt relationships? What are the cultural consequences of these land trusts for the Osage? 

OR

In Mean Spirit, Linda Hogan writes a short passage about different kinds of spiritual renewal:

"That autumn night after payment, a peyote ceremony was going to take palce in the arbor at Twin Forks Road. Also, a carnival had been erected just outside the Watona town limits. The Pentacostal Brethren set up their own tent, as always, as close to the carnival as they could get, hoping to catch stragglers that passed by and save their souls. All three events customarily accompanied payment times when the town was richly populated with Indian people whose pockets were full and whose tired spirits longed for renewal" (66).

These spiritual "practices" are also about different ways of knowing, different systems of knowledge. Think of another example from Mean Spirit that demonstrates Hogan's belief in interacting and interdependent ways of knowing about (some aspect of) the land. You may want to consider land use, a sense of place, or the formation of identity, for example.


Short Writing 7
Due: October 10

Consider the appearance of water in Tracks. What does water symbolize in the novel? Then consider the following literary elements in in relation to water: What role does it play in the plot? What role does it play in characterization? What role does it play in the theme?



Short Writing 8
Due: October 17

What is the effect of the poems/songs/chants that Silko includes throughout the novel? What narrative work do they perform?


Short Writing 9
Due: October 23

How is this a novel about individual memory and cultural memory? How is the novel structured like memory? How would you characterize the structure of the novel? Who benefits from forgetting? Who benefits from remembering?

Short Writing 10
Due: November 7, 2007

What does fire symbolize in Smoke Signals?

Short Writing 11
Due: November 7, 2007 (W)

Choose one of these topics for your short writing:

Option 1: Complete this sentence and use it as a thesis for your Short Writing: In Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich uses roads as symbols of ______________ in order to ____________________. Be sure to use examples from the text to support your thesis as you construct your (mini-) argument.

 
Option 2: Water also appears throughout Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, including in the following scenes: King tries to drown Lynette in a sink full of dishwater; Sister Leopolda scalds Marie; Henry, Jr., drowns. Complete this sentence and use it as a thesis for your Short Writing: In Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich uses water as a symbol of ______________ in order to ____________________. Be sure to use examples from the text to support your thesis as you construct your (mini-) argument.



Short Writing 12
Due: November 28, 2007 (W)

Choose one of these topics for your Short Writing:

Option 1: How do both Sherman Alexie, in Smoke Signals, and Thomas King, in Green Grass, Running Water, respond to stereotypes about Native Americans?

Option 2: What does Alexie have to say in Smoke Signals about human connections to one another?

Short Writing 13
Due:  November 28, 2007 (W)

In Green Grass, Running Water, King is playing with conventions and beliefs about storytelling. Ceremony was a very serious inquiry into storytelling while King's is more playful. Does the humor undermine the novel? What is he telling us about story?

Short Writing 14
Due: December 5, 2007 (W)

Choose one important theme (remember to state it as a complete sentence) that emerges in one or more of the assigned poems that you have seen in another work that we have read this semester.