Native American Curriculum
Integration of World Cultural Geography and English at the High School Level

In 1993 Mission Viejo High School piloted an integrated program for freshman honors students in World Cultural Geography and English I. Two teachers with 50 students (double-blocked two hours each day in side-by-side classrooms with moveable walls and an adjacent theater) study the cultures of the Middle East, the Former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, and the cultural foundations of Europe via ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages. Speakers, creative projects, art, simulations and learning games distinguish this program from others like it. Although our students naturally make comparisons between the world they inhabit and the worlds disclosed through our studies, there has been no systematic study of their own cultural geography in our syllabus. What a glaring omission! What an unparalleled opportunity to remedy that deficit! This proposed project follows our usual format of blending mythology, geography, broad historical outlines, literature and cultural investigations in each unit, culminating with an interactive project (e.g., putting Stalin on trial, having a Latin American "hunger" breakfast, hosting an African Culture Fair, etc.) The units typically encompass 15 to 20 instructional days or 30 to 40 instructional hours.

• Explore the rich cultural history of the original Americans: "The People"



• Understand the distinct life ways of the various nations within this nation



• Appreciate the stored knowledge within stories and songs



• Investigate concepts of quest, koyaanisqatsi (life out of balance), metis



• Recognize that Native American tradition is not a dead or frozen culture, but, rather, an alive tradition, one that speaks in the present.



• Examine the six ways of thinking about the sacred that most Native Americans share (see Beck, Walters and Francisco)



• Learn to identify the distortions in perspective in various "Indian" histories



• Deconstruct the "image" of the Indian



• Move beyond dichotomous views of "the savage" and the idealized romantic "noble savage" to see native Americans as distinctive and complex individuals



• See how geography influences cultural developments such as diet, ritual, clothing, and myth formation



• Develop an appreciation for the integral role of art and story in native life



• Discern the value of the oral tradition in transmitting culture



• Become sensitive to the power of language, names and naming in native life

• Individual lectures by geography/English teachers



• Independent and directed readings



• Creative writing via "re-creations"



• Readers' Theater with selected poetry and stories



• Journal writing for reader responses



• Bafa-Bafa game with Northeast/Southwest and Northwest/Southeast groups



• Socratic Seminar on The Indian Removal Act, Chapter CXLVII (1830)



• Student-led discussions on the future of Native American culture



• Film Koyaanisqatsi as vehicle for discussion and writing analysis



• Write comparison/contrast and/or critique films The Mission and The Robe



• Visit Bowers Museum to see native artifacts



• Invite local Indian speakers for colloquies and demonstrations

• Ballantine and Ballantine. Native Americans: An Integrated History.



• Lesley, Craig and Katheryn Stavrakis, ed. Talking Leaves: Contemporary Native American Short Stories. New York: Dell, 1994.



• Momaday, N. Scott. The Way to Rainy Mountain. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969.



• Welch, James. Fool's Crow. New York: Penguin, 1986.