University of Oklahoma Graduate College American Indian Composition Pedagogy

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE AMERICAN INDIAN COMPOSITION PEDAGOGY: RELATED HISTORIES, DIALOGUES, AND RESPONSE STRATEGIES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By LEE SHENANDOAH VASQUEZ-ILAOA Norman, Oklahoma 2009 AMERICAN INDIAN COMPOSITION PEDAGOGY: RELATED HISTORIES, DIALOGUES, AND RESPONSE STRATEGIES A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BY ________________________ Dr. Catherine Hobbs (Chair) ________________________ Dr. Susan Kates ________________________ Dr. Christopher Carter ________________________ Dr. Alan Velie ________________________ Dr. Marcia Haag © Copyright by LEE SHENANDOAH VASQUEZ-ILAOA 2009 All Rights Reserved. DEDICATION For Papa Joe - Joseph Lone Eagle Vasquez, and Dad – Robert Joseph Vasquez. I honor your lives, your work, and your spirits with these words. I love you for the excellence you brought every day to your work in Indian Country, and for the love you gave your family. For my mother, Sue, whose library work at Standing Rock created an inspiration in my path. For my sister Amanda, who always finds a way in her many walks in life. And finally, for Isaac and Sofia, my dearest loves. The warp is even. The warp is even: taut vertical loops between our father and the earth Today I begin anew. Luci Tapahonso, A Radiant Curve ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Catherine Hobbs, first for her never-ending support and encouragement in the development of my dissertation. I would like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr. Susan Kates, Dr. Alan Velie, Dr. Christopher Carter, and Dr. Marcia Haag for their reliable, much-appreciated advice and help. I would like to thank Dr. Jerry Bread, Dr. Kimberly Roppolo, and Veronica Pipestem -- my American Indian brother and sisters who saw me through the execution of this work. I honor my American Indian students and graduate colleagues who were my sources of inspiration and joy in the creation of this material. I must note that this undertaking would never have been completed without the love and encouragement of my dear friends Dr. David Mair, Elyon Wall-Ellis, R. Michelle Lee, and Lynn Lewis. Final thanks go to Kristin Glenn-Meyers and the University of Oklahoma Graduate College as well as the Graduate Student Senate for their research funding and support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………….………….……… vi Introduction: A Discussion to Affirm a Rich American Indian Community of Speakers ………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1: Composition Classrooms and Arguments Related to Institutional and Personal Expectations ……………………………………………………………. 24 Chapter 2: The Road to Intellectual Self-Determination: A Brief History of Recent American Indian Experience in Higher Education ……………… 112 Chapter 3: American Indian Composition and Rhetoric: Ten Years of Creating Outbursts in Academe ………………………………………………………………….. 182 Chapter 4, Part 1: Pedagogical Considerations for Writing Teachers of American Indian Students …………………………………………………………….. 266 Chapter 4, Part 2: American Indian College Composition Proposals - Two American Indian Rhetoric and Composition Courses: Second-Level Composition and Advanced Second-Level Composition ……………….. 287 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………..………… 300 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 304 Appendix: Second-Level and Advanced Second-Level American Indian Rhetoric and Composition Courses: Unit Organization, Unit Goals, and Unit Readings ………………………………………………………………………………………. 319 v ABSTRACT The field of composition and rhetoric needs to invest greater time and resources into the higher educational needs of American Indian students in writing courses. Data from local and national education surveys reveals that the systematic mis-interpretation of American Indian cultures and educational desires continues to present these students with roadblocks to their success in writing classrooms. American Indian students and their families desire a wider recognition that tribal values are equally integral to the experience of higher education as mainstream values. In seeking to understand the points of view of students, however, we uncover the myriad ways in which the knowledge that is currently furthered in writing classes contradicts, if not discounts, American Indian ways of creating and using knowledge. In response to inquiries as to what students need from higher education, many students and researchers who are committed to the success of this student group report that classrooms need to provide the intellectual space for different interpretive models of the uses of language, offer a variety of approaches to teaching certain ideas or constructs, and foster a learning environment that is respectful and aware of American Indian identities and worldviews. This dissertation provides a history and an analysis of the actions in composition and rhetoric that have contributed to American Indian student scholastic impediments, contextualizes these tensions within a larger history of the issues that American Indian tribes have addressed in higher education, that engages an analysis of the concerns vi raised by an emerging groups of American Indian scholars in the field, and presents an American Indian composition pedagogy and writing course overviews that respond to the issues raised in this dissertation. Finally, this dissertation presents a set of two American Indian composition -- a second-level and an advanced second-level course -- that seek to offer solutions to the concerns raised in this work. vii Introduction: A Discussion to Affirm a Rich American Indian Community of Speakers --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “What are American Indian college students like?” “What do they need?” These are questions I was asked early last spring regarding the students I was dedicating my dissertation work to. If I was writing a dissertation about the needs of a particular group of college students, my audience wanted to know what American Indian university students are like in order that they could better understand the claims American Indian academics and students make about the problems that they both grapple with in universities. American Indian students come to colleges and universities with identities as diverse as any other students on campus. There is the dark skinned, dark-haired, full- blood Kiowa young man in class named James who is a first generation college student. 1 He lives in a nearby town and has been through a series of foster homes. In class he is quiet and a bit timid. Later in the semester, he shares with the class information about the spiritual connection he has to Rainy Mountain which is the location of his band’s origin from the great log at the base of the mountain. James knows about his tribe, remembers some of the old stories, but for this student, just “blending in” is his strategy for getting through his first year of college. There is also Jeremiah, the blonde, blue-eyed, freckled fancy dancer that I see at the Osage dances every summer. He has performed in the June dances with his family in 1 The names of the students have been changed to protect their privacy. 1 Pawhuska, Oklahoma for as long as his father and his father’s father danced there under the arbor at the end of Front Street. Jeremiah knows the history of his family, he is active in the local tribal community, and he speaks a little Osage. He says that he comes to college to see what his options are for his future and the future of his family at home. There are other mixed-blood students in college, some who have green eyes and names like Taloa. My student Taloa knows her name means “sing” in Choctaw. She occasionally visits her family back in Durant, Oklahoma, but she prefers the conveniences of larger city life. Taloa only knows a few words in Choctaw, and she emailed me last week to tell me she was getting her first tattoo. “How do I say ‘she looks for the future’ in Choctaw?” she asked after we talked about a Choctaw class I took last year. Student identities, like Taloa’s are as complex as the previous students. Taloa sometimes remembers where and how her grandmother taught her about the significance of their land in Durant, and the journey of tears that brought her people to Oklahoma from what is now Mississippi. Like many who have been away from their people’s home for a time, however, students like Taloa struggle with their place in the university -- they are not quite “White” enough to be in the Kappa sorority on campus, and yet they do not feel “Indian” enough to talk about tribal issues with any self- perceived authority in their classrooms. Over the years of thinking about and researching the experiences of American Indian students like these, a few definitive things became very clear to me about American Indian students and their relationships with writing, their expectations of 2 higher education, and their feelings toward university instructors. It is important to remember that many American Indian students come from smaller communities that have little resources -- education materials, funding, or instructors -- that can help them develop advanced writing and communication skills. Many of them are most familiar with traditional or top-down methods of teaching, many of them are the first in their families to pursue a post-secondary education, many of them work or have siblings or children

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