INTASC Standards
Standard #1 Evidence
This is the culminating work of my Master's in English (American Literature) program at Radford University. My subject is the Native American author/professor Gerald Vizenor. Professor Vizenor has spent considerable time and energy in an effort to encourage those who have been victims of oppression to remember the past, but live in the present.
On the surface this thesis is an example of my ability to plan and implement a large research project thus allowing me to transfer that knowledge on to my students. However, as is the case with most writing, it is what is beneath the surface that is most intriguing. More than anything this thesis is representative of what I consider the single most important tenet in the study of minority literature: the fine line between appreciation and appropriation.
It is most important to read a wide variety of literature, it is equally important to remember that "studying" a culture, is not the same as "knowing" a culture.
This is my final paper for ENGL 680 "Inventing the Native" in which, I respond to another scholar who mistakenly believes that for a work to be considered "Native" it must conform to a strict set of literary and cultural rules or codes. For this paper I prove why this is not so, I give examples and offer explanations as to why this strict set of qualifiers as to what is and isn't "Native" is not only misinformed, but representative of the racial and cultural biases that continue to oppress a people more than 500 years after Columbus "discovered" them.
As an educator it has always been my desire to release students from the stifling bonds of stereotypes that not only continue to drive a wedge between cultures, but also to reinforce the debilitating affect when one begins to believe the stereotypes that others have assigned to him/her.
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This Thematic Unit was created in a collaborative effort during my Content Reading class. Working with three other students whose specialties include: Science, Math, and English as a Second Language, we created a unit that allows for collaboration between teachers, between students, and between teachers and students.
The purpose of this Thematic, in particular, is to prompt relationships between biology, mathematics, culture, and language arts (through research), in an effort to reveal how drugs influence the systems of both the human body and society as a whole. Students will then develop a multi-layered and purposeful understanding of the cultural history, biological effects, mathematical implications, and research options related to drugs, in order to make informed decisions.
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