NAV - Native Voices Module Overview


Native Voices Module Overview

Introduction

Welcome to a study of your national literature! As you will soon discover, American literature is as interesting, diverse, and difficult to define as the people who call this land home. In this introductory module, you will learn about the general categories, or time periods, into which American literature is usually divided. These divisions are not written in stone, but they may help you understand how American literature has developed over time and the choices American writers have made in expressing their voices.

You will also begin to see connections between the literature and the American history you have learned, as writers respond to what's happening around them and even do their part to shape those happenings.

We will also take some time during this first unit to ensure that you understand and can apply the rules of MLA formatting. Every piece of writing you submit, from an essay final draft to a discussion post, will need to be in MLA format, so it's important that you master these requirements from the start of our course.

Finally, we will dive right into the earliest of American literature: native voices and first encounters. We will examine the mythology and oral tradition of Native American tribes and how they have influenced Native writings of today. We will also read an account from an early explorer for a glimpse into the experience of traveling to an entirely new land and a first impression of the Natives living here when visitors arrived.

 

Essential Questions

  1. How do the authors and works I will study in this class relate to American history and society at the time?
  2. How do I properly format a formal essay?
  3. How do I create works cited page in MLA format?
  4. How do I use in-text citations effectively and appropriately to avoid plagiarism?
  5. What purposes do myths serve, in both Native American cultures and my own?
  6. How is the oral tradition present in Native American literature from the past and present?
  7. What can I learn from an account of encounters between early explorers and Native American peoples?

 

 

Key Terms 

  1. Puritanism — The Puritans tended to write histories, journals, and diaries in a plain style of writing. Their writings link their lives to the work of God.
  2. Rationalism — A belief in the power of logical thinking and argumentation to help humans establish what is true that arose during the Enlightenment and heavily influenced our founding fathers and the American Revolution. Rationalists valued reason over faith and believed that people could work toward perfecting themselves and their society rather than relying on God's grace.
  3. Romanticism — A 19th-century literary and artistic movement that arose in reaction to Rationalism and valued imagination, emotion, nature, individuality, and the supernatural.
  4. Transcendentalism -- A 19th-century American literary and philosophical movement declaring that intuition and the individual conscience transcend experience and thus better guide to truth. Respect for the individual spirit and the natural world was based on the belief that divinity was present everywhere, in nature and in each person. The Anti-Transcendentalists/Dark Romantics used supernatural, natural, and imaginative elements of Romanticism and Transcendentalism, but were less optimistic and focused on the darker side of human nature.
  5. Realism— The presentation in the art of the details of actual life. Realists tried to write objectively about ordinary characters in ordinary situations and rejected the heroic, adventurous, or unfamiliar subjects of Romanticism.
  6. Regionalism— The tendency to write about a specific geographical area to present its distinct culture, including its speech, customs, beliefs, and history. Local color is a type of realism created through the use of dialect and the description of customs, clothing, manners, attitudes, and landscapes.
  7. Naturalism— Naturalists traced the effects of heredity and environment on people helpless to change their situations. They often focused on the man versus nature conflict.
  8. Modernism— Modernism affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology, and practical experimentation. Modernist literature moved away from traditional themes and styles and used bold experimentation.
  9. Post-Modernism— Postmodern literature refers to works written after World War II and is a reaction against the enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. There is an emergence of ethnic and women writers in postmodern literature.
  10. MLA— acronym for the Modern Language Association, the group that sets requirements for all publications in the field of literature.
  11. Source Citation— The complete publication information for a source used in an essay and provided to give proper credit and avoid plagiarism.
  12. Parenthetical Citation (In-Text Citation)— The short version of a source citation (often the author's last name and page number) that appears in parentheses at the end of the information and refers readers to the full source citation in the Works Cited list
  13. Works Cited— A list of sources used in an essay through the incorporation of the words, information, or ideas of others.
  14. Myth— a traditional story of a culture that explains the origin of the world or humans or some natural or social phenomenon and usually involves supernatural beings.
  15. Oral Tradition— a culture's traditions and values passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth rather than through written text.
  16. Flashback— an interruption in a story that tells about an event that happened earlier to give background to the present and make it more understandable.
  17. Repetition— the use of the same word, phrase, or sentence more than one time to emphasize it and make it clear.
  18. Conquistadors— from the Spanish, conquistadores, meaning "conquerors," were a series of explorers sent to the New World to explore and claim the land and riches discovered in it for Spain.
  19. Ethnographic Writing— writing based on careful observation of the behaviors, physical appearance, customs, and rituals of a group of people.

IMAGES CREATED BY GAVS