English 11 Literature #24

Mr. Rinka

N. Scott MomadayNaomi Shihab Nye

Native American Renaissance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Renaissance

The Native American Renaissance was a term originally coined by critic Kenneth Lincoln in his 1983 book of the same title. Lincoln’s goal was to explore the explosion in production of literary works by Native Americans in the decade

and a half after N. Scott Momaday had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for House Made of Dawn. Before that time, few Native Americans had published fiction. Writers such as William Apess, Pauline Johnson, John Rollin Ridge and Simon Pokagon in the nineteenth century, and Mourning Dove, John Milton

Oskison, John Joseph Mathews, Zitkala-Sa, Charles Eastman and D'Arcy McNickle in the years before WWII were known, but they were relatively few. Lincoln pointed out that in the late-1960s and early-1970s, a generation of Native Americans were coming of age who were the

first of their tribe to receive a substantial English-language education, particularly outside of standard Indian boarding schools and in universities. Conditions for Native people, while still very harsh, had moved beyond the survival conditions of the early half of the century. The beginnings of a project

of historical revisionism, which attempted to document—from a Native perspective—the history of the invasion and colonization of the North American continent (and particularly the period referred to as the "Wild West)," had inspired a great deal of public interest in Native cultures.

During this time of change, a group of Native writers emerged, both poets and novelists, who in only a few years expanded the Native American literary canon. At the same time, the sudden increase in materials, and the setting up of Native American Studies departments at several universities,

led to the foundations of scholarly journals, such as SAIL (Studies in American Indian Literature) and Wíčazo Ša Review, and publishing imprints such as the Native American Publishing Program (Harper and Row), all of which further increased the interest in newNative American voices and their

chances to be published. Writers normally considered within this movement include:N. Scott Momaday, James Welch,Gerald Vizenor, Leslie Marmon SilkoBarney Bush, Simon J. Ortiz,nila northSun, Louise ErdrichJoy Harjo, and Duane NiatumPaula Gunn Allen.

N. Scott Momadayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._Scott_Momaday

"I sometimes think the contemporary white American is more culturally deprived than the Indian."

N. Scott Momadayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._Scott_Momaday

Navarre Scott Momaday is a Kiowa-Cherokee Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona. He is the son of the writer Natachee Scott Momaday and the painter Al Momaday, and was born on February 27, 1934, at

the Kiowa-Comanche Indian Hospital in Lawton, Oklahoma, United States. He is enrolled in the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma but also has Cherokee heritage from his mother. Momaday's novel House Made of Dawn led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the

mainstream. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. He is featured in the Ken Burns and Stephen Ives' documentary, The West, for his masterful retelling of Kiowa history and legend. Momaday is also featured in another PBS documentary about the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Momaday is the Oklahoma Centennial Poet Laureate. In 1992, Momaday received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. He was awarded a 2007 National Medal of Arts by former President George W. Bush. N. Scott Momaday received an Doctor of

Humane Letters from the University of Illinois at Chicago on May 9, 2010. Momaday founded and operates the Rainy Mountain Foundation and Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit organization working to preserve native cultures. He paints in watercolors and illustrated his own book, In the Bear's House.

Excerpt from The Names: A

Memoir by N. Scott Momaday

http://www.nyhumanities.org/documents/Hauptman_Native%20American%20Identity.pdf

Naomi Shihab Nyehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Shihab_Nye

Naomi Shihab Nyehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Shihab_Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye (born March 12, 1952) is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. She was born to a Palestinian father and American mother. Although she regards herself as a "wandering poet", she refers to San Antonio as her home.

She visited her grandmother in Palestine when she was 14, which gave her a whole new perspective on poetry. At the age of six, Nye began writing poems as soon as she learned how to write. She was influenced by her mother who read to her all the time. At first her early works were based

on childish things such as cats, squirrels, friends, teachers, etc. It wasn't until she was fourteen that she visited her Palestinian grandmother; this would eventually become part of the messages in her many collections of poetry. Her book Fuel is an example. Some of her earlier works were published in

Seventeen, Modern Poetry Studies, and Ironwood.Her first collection of poems, Different Ways to Pray, explored the theme of similarities and differences between cultures, which would become one of her lifelong areas of focus. Her other books include poetry collections 19 Varieties of

Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, A Maze Me, Red Suitcase, Field Trip and Fuel; a collection of essays entitled Never in a Hurry; a young-adult novel called Habibi (the semi-autobiographical story of an Arab-American teenager who moves to Jerusalem in the 1990’s) and a picture book Lullaby Raft, also the

title of one of her two albums of music. (The other is called Rutabaga-Roo; both were limited-edition.) Nye has edited many anthologies of poems for audiences both young and old. One of the best-known is This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World, which contains

translated work by 129 poets from 69 different countries. Her most recent anthology is called Is This Forever, Or What?: Poems & Paintings from Texas. She has won many awards and fellowships, among them four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, the

Paterson Poetry Prize, and many notable book and best book citations from the American Library Association, and a 2000 Witter Bynner Fellowship. In June 2009, Nye was named as one of PeaceByPeace.com's first peace heroes.

“Mint Snowball”

http://homepage.mac.com/karpenglish/planbook/AP%20English%20Language%20-%20Day%201,%20Block%201/Apr062009/Mint%20Snowball.pdf

Discussion

In a Socratic Seminar explore this topic:

Why is it important to preserve traditions of a culture that has been absorbed into a larger culture?

Additional Assignment #1

Watch and listen to N. Scott Momaday.

http://quietube2.com/v.php/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbqzm6x7Noo

Additional Assignment #2

Read several of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poems at this website and discuss as a class.http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/174

English 11 Literature #24

Mr. Rinka

N. Scott MomadayNaomi Shihab Nye