LING695 Prompt 3 responses

Prompt #3 pp. 84-117; 136-151

1. The understandings that I gathered about the content and reviews in these sections have to do with truth, reality, and resilience. When I was young, I was told by my aunt that I was resilient. She explained what it meant, and I embraced it as a mode of survival through my teens and twenties when I was away from home going to school. I see this concept of resiliency in these reviews and poems despite the anger or pain they express. The reviewers’ and poets’ ability to tell the truth is a reality that all readers of indigenous stories and poems need to acknowledge, accept and amend and not just be a passive reader. That’s the message I’m getting from them and am thankful for it.

2.The genre, elements of literature and forms and features have been addressed in each review at one time or another. I noticed that the photographs, background or history, voice, and word choices were carefully analyzed in each review. Additionally, the publisher’s or editor’s influence in the Native author’s text was researched and included, which I thought was very smart of the reviewer to do and share.

3. These reviews provide me with a framework and focus that I want to apply in my own research as well as in my classroom. I’d like to have my kindergartners analyze the photographs, background or history, voice, and word choice of books written about their culture and hopefully of other cultures for accuracy and truthfulness.

4. The poem that I couldn’t get over was on page 85, She’s a Hawk, by Mary TallMountain not only because of the humor but also because of its reality. It made me remember an elder in our village who would be like Tatiana. This poem showed that less is more/ actions speak louder than words. It’s typical for an outsider or even young people today who don’t know how to listen to come in and think s/he knows it all, whereas it’s useless to argue, so you let your actions speak and maybe they’ll finally hear you. I’d like to try writing a poem or two describing people’s actions and reactions, using them to speak for themselves as the author, Mary TallMountain did. When I first read this poem, I wasn’t sure what gisakk meant, although I imagined an indigenous person being frustrated with someone who doesn’t know how to listen (most likely an outsider, I thought). Then I got to the end and saw that gisakk meant white man and I went into a giggling fit even more (than before I even knew what gisakk meant). Humor is good medicine, and in this case an effective method of writing which in turn can be used as a teaching tool.