ENGL 2015 - American Indian Literature

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3 Lab NA
Internship hours per week NA
Course Description: This college course intended for all students explores and analyzes American Indian Literature. The course includes various expressions of American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literatures with focus on individual and human values as well as the historical and ongoing dynamics of settler colonialism, deterritorialization, racism, and unequal power relations between Indigenous peoples, lands, Native Nations, and other groups, individually and institutionally. Selections may include works by Black Elk, Ella Vine Deloria, Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, and Tommy Orange. 
MnTC Goals
Goal 6 Goal 7B

Prerequisite(s): Course placement into college-level English and Reading OR completion of ENGL 0950  with a grade of C or higher OR completion of RDNG 0940  with a grade of C or higher and qualifying English Placement Exam OR completion of RDNG 0950  with a grade of C or higher and ENGL 0090  with a grade of C or higher OR completion of ESOL 0051  with a grade of C or higher and ESOL 0052  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: ENGL 1020   with a grade of C or higher OR ENGL 1021  with a grade of C or higher.

Major Content

1. An overview of elements of literature, including plot, character, point of view, setting, theme, tone, as well as styles unique to American literature and American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literature. 

2. Diverse literary works expressed by American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous authors from a variety of cultures, regions, ethnicities, and/or classes to support a definition of “literature”, “American Indian Literature”, and canon formation. 

3. A variety of the literary traditions of American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous authors and literature, including various nations, geographical spaces, historical eras, such as variety of genres potentially including oral storytelling, creative non-fiction and memoir style prose, traditional and experimental poetry, literary fiction, speculative fiction, graphic novels, etc.  

4. Authors’ life experiences, identities, and influences on American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literary works as well as artistic trends in American Indian literary expression such as the Oral Tradition, First Contact, Post World War II, the Native American Renaissance, etc. 

5. Historical and contemporary influences on American Indian literary works including social justice and antiracist practices, individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations, and systemic structures of racism. 

1. analyze basic literary elements in American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literary works studied. 

5. articulate an informed personal response by gathering relevant, accurate and fair information regarding works in American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literature. 

6. analyze their own attitudes behaviors, concepts, and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry in order to develop critical responses to works in American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literature.

7. analyze and evaluate the development and changing meaning of American Indian, Native American and Indigenous identities in United States’ history and culture within literary contexts. 

8. analyze these literary works as expressions of individual and human values within a historical and social context in a way that demonstrates awareness of the individual and institutional power relationships affecting American Indian, Native American and Indigenous Cultures. 

9. demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of literary works in American Indian, Native American, and Indigenous literature. 

07B. 02. Describe individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations among racial groups in the United States and how inequality is maintained by redefining race and other social identities and structures. 

07B. 05. Identify socially just and antiracist practices that increase equitable outcomes and inclusion in the United States. 

Practicum hours per week: NA

Courses and Registration