Summer Readings Annotated Bibliography

Ballengee-Morris, C. & Aubrecht, M. (2017) EARThworks: Native Ways of Knowing in the Digital Age. Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, Andphilosophies, pp. 132–137.  

In this article, Ballengee-Morris and Aubrecht use this chapter as an explanation of the complexity and importance of the Earthworks, and how they are imperative to understand the knowledge and history of the culture of the people who created them. These effigy mounds are argued to be a prime example of different ways of knowing. The mounds are evidence that native creators were skilled in art, archaeology, astronomy, geography, geology, etc. (p. 133). Ballengee-Morris and Aubrecht also focus on connection, community, and narrative as ways to pass knowledge. “From the indigenous perspective, knowledge unfolds in the everyday, and the everyday becomes a story passed down from one generation to the next” (p. 134). These narratives are an essential way to understand this culture and their relationships to each other and the elements. Throughout all of this information being given, there is an overarching question: How can we share and hear these stories? 

I think there is a small bias that is silently addressed and combatted within the text. I think the story, science, and meaning behind the chapter is beautiful and accurate, however I think the authors planned for speculators to argue “just because somebody passed information down, doesn't make it true.” or “the information could have been misconstrued over time”. I think the authors prepared for this thought from potential audience because of the detail they included about the native people aligning the earth works with solar and lunar systems, much like the pyramids (p. 134). From my interpretation, I believe the article is geared towards scholars familiar with native/indigenous studies and educators hoping to introduce native culture into their classes. 

This chapter (and summer course) was exciting for me because I’ve never had any sort of education about native people. I never even knew was an effigy or Earthwork was until this chapter/module. The chapter has shown me the importance behind narrative and the multiple facets of knowing. It reminds me that just because a student isn’t good at one particular task doesn’t mean they are “bad”. Perhaps I could try teaching it differently, or perhaps their interest and strongsuit lies somewhere else. It also reminds me of the beauty and depth that something seemingly so simple can have. I’ve often found myself thinking about the land we live on and our practices and how they may have been before Native Americans were colonized. 

Eyre, C. (Director). (2009). After the Mayflower [Video file]. PBS. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from Kanopy.   

This video was really important to me because I was never taught the real story. I never once heard a different version than “The pilgrims needed help, Squanto helped the pilgrims, they shared a meal together.” In highschool I learned the darker details like colonists intentionally giving infested blankets/furs to Native Americans. I never learned why or how a vile interaction came to be.  This video gives us a more literal and historical perspective of what is much closer to the truth. After the Mayflower is a chronological timeline explaining the events of when the colonists landed to the colonization of the native people who held a treaty with them. The impact of trading and small decisions are explained throughout the film. For example, it was explained that the Wampanog people were weakened by epidemics and fear of other tribes. Initially there was reciprocity of exchange between the two groups. They grew to have dependent relationships: peace, tools, and protection were all involved. As time went on and the colonists gained strength, knowledge, and independence, they realized they didn’t need the Natives. This shift resulted in the colonists going back on the treaty that was established when they landed in Plymouth Rock. The colonists attempted to convert the Native Americans into Christians, and lost their sense of openness. The Native People were fearing for their lives and some became indebted to the colonists when they would seize their land. They faced an “inability to remain in control of their own lives” (Eyre, 2009). The story sadly progresses into the loss of land and many lives. Native people were eventually considered untrustworthy, and looked at as the “other”. After the Mayflower fills in the gaps that were left by my public education (or lack thereof). Ultimately, this video shows the colonization process of Native Americans. I think the director does a wonderful job of keeping out bias, and disputing the bias that many people believe today. 

This video has made me question many things that I think to be true or fact. It makes me question what we are really studying in history and civics classes, and what unsaid bias we are perpetuating in our daily lives. It doesn’t necessarily change my art style, but it makes me question my teaching style. Am I fact checking what I’m sharing? Is there a history to an art form, style, or artist I could take more time to dive deeper into with my students? Again, this video points to how important and critical narrative is to what we know and our history. It is important to be skeptical of what we take in, try our best to find the truth, and determine what we do with and how we share that truth.   

Willis, S. (2017) A Tapestry of Individuality: Weaving Complexion, Identity, and Authority. In Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies (pp. 169–176). Edited by Ballengee-Morris, C. & Staikidis, K. National Art Education Association.

In A Tapestry of Individuality: Weaving Complexion, Identity, and Authority, Willis beautifully compares us and the results of our experiences and and self identification to a tapestry. This “tapestry is  a metaphor to understand the complicated weaving of cultural experiences (p.171). Willis questions “Who I am, who others perceive I am, and who I really am” (p. 169). Within this tapestry, Willis talks about complexion, identity, and authority. These three main points are the ways Willis explores the multifaceted aspect of our identities, and how those identities are not stagnant in their being, especially as a person born with multiple culturally different heritages. Willis uses this article to argue that Native Americans do not all fit into their stereotype and how it causes self questioning and the need to feel like they have to justify or prove themselves if they don’t fit into this theoretical box. Willis continues to explain that through the introduction to different Native American artists, it will combat the idea of a stereotypical indian and loosen the constraining grip of what it means to be Native to a people who are fighting to not be forgotten. I don’t think Willis holds any bias as he is actively trying to disrupt the bias of what a Native American should be or should look like within this chapter. Willis is speaking to educators in this chapter as he shares his experience and many Native artists who can be incorporated into the classroom. The artists the author has chosen reflect the complex nature of their identities and their narratives (p. 172). 

I do not think Willis leaves any unanswered questions, but leaves us with an extremely thoughtful statement: “We cannot outrun ourselves” (p. 175). He concludes this chapter by providing insightful considerations and applications to consider. I appreciate this aspect of the chapter. Often I read information and think to myself: “Now what?”. Wilis gives his audience active advice on what and how to incorporate the information he has shared. 

This chapter encourages me to explore Native Art and share with my students. I want them to look at cultures unfamiliar to them through a different lens. Rather than looking at something new or unfamiliar as an “other”, I want my students to learn through art lessons that new perspectives and narratives are quite beautiful and will hopefully plant the seed to be empathetic people and active/critical consumers. Willis urges the reader to show the truth and a different perspective of Native People and their artwork to break the script Native Americans may feel they have to follow in order to take claim to the culture that belongs to them. 

Acuff, J.B., A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Online Resources for Creating Native American Art." In Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies (pp. 144-152). Edited by Ballengee-Morris, C. & Staikidis, K. National Art Education Association.

Boyd Acuff uses this article as a call to action for art educators to challenge the use of stereotypical art lessons and analyze what message it is sending to students. In this chapter, she uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) to analyze how online art lessons maintain and perpetuate the stereotypical Native American. Online lessons are typically free and easily accessed by many educators. The online platform is a great resource, but the author is challenging the validity and authenticity of the lessons. Boyd Acuff addresses the audience specifically as being art educators and art teacher educators teaching future art teachers. The audience is encouraged to use this piece of literature as a a means “to become critical pedagogues who can identify the implications of misuse of power, privilege, and (mis)representation in education (p.145). This article argues that using these stereotypical art lessons “negatively impacts Native American identity and art [and] dehumanizes Natives and reduces them to caricatures (p. 146). Boyd Acuff states that these online lessons did not offer any historical context or incite meaningful dialogue about the creation of paper headdresses or dream catchers (p. 146). Acuff Boyd’s final point to be made is this: How can we as art educators teach about a variety of Native cultures and communities while respecting their ability to be fluid (147)? She challenges the audience to ask questions that challenge normalized knowledge (p.148). The author makes an important clarification about the outcome of challenging the normal. We are not giving marginalized people a voice, but we are respecting, listening, and responding to the voice they already have (p.148). 

I really appreciated this reading as a reminder to make sure students are learning historical context while also having discussions and dialogue when making a product. I look at these projects and though I never have made them with my students, I wonder if there is any situation when they would be “okay” to make? When I see projects like this online, I often ask myself “what will my students learn by creating this”. If I can’t think of anything worthwhile, I normally skip the project. Does the historical context and meaningful discussion make these projects any better, or should these items still not be trivialized to a craft item? Does the time of creating them change the authenticity/validity of the project (Making around Thanksgiving vs any other time)?

As I started reading, I was thinking to myself: “Is there a project that generalizes my culture and identity? Can I think of a way that my lessons show how white (majority of my students) are misrepresented?” The answer was no. I thought Acuff’s questions were great questions to consider when reflecting on our identity and lessons. When asking myself these questions, I was able to answer no to all of them. I found Acuff’s question: “In what ways am I perpetuating a false universal narrative about these groups of people” to be one of the biggest reasons I would avoid Native American inspired “art” lessons. Typically ones found online were more of a craft, but I never felt knowledgeable enough about the item being created to share it in a way that would not perpetuate stereotypes.

Edwards (Maoli), S.Hawaiian Eyes: Pedagogy for Teaching an Indigenous Worldview. In Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies (pp. 65-69). Edited by Ballengee-Morris, C. & Staikidis, K. National Art Education Association.

Edwards introduces this article explaining the chapter is based off of her experience of learning hula dancing and the journey to understand the dance from a Hawaiian perspective. Edwards reflects on her experience and how her instructor urged the importance of learning hula from an indigenous perspective. In this chapter, the author uses the term “through Hawaiian eyes” as see the world from an indiginous perspective. The author clarifies this is not exclusive to Hawaiian people, but to indiginous people who are at risk for developing westernized world view that pervades our social and political systems” (p. 66). I think the author is addressing an indigineous audience, and talks about teaching non Hawaiian students and how they can benefit from an Indigenous perspective of learning hula. I think the basic summary of the article is there is not always one way of knowing and learning. The author is arguing that indigenous perspectives can offer deeper meaning that was white washed or completely deleted by westernized curriculum. She describes her experience with learning hula as not just learning the dance, but but how they were immersed in the context and history of the specific dances they were learning. They had to harvest the pala’a and weave it together for their skirt (learned about sustainable harvesting) and the story behind the specific dance. Edwards describes “when it came time for the performance, we were wearing the pala’a we harvested and wove ourselves…[the skirt] gave us the same kind of spiritual power it had give Hi’lakaikapoliopela on her journey” (p.68). 

I think the author does have a little bias when they state their reminder as an educator “to reach beyond the narrow confines of pedagogy imposed by the Western obsession with standardized curriculum and assessment” (p.66). From a Western perspective, I disagree with the statement of being “obsessed with standardized curriculum and assessment”. I don’t believe the majority of educators are obsessed or even supportive of standardized testing. I do think they don’t know how to change the way they were taught to teach, especially when they are mandated by the government to produce data from the standardized tests. This type of learning emphasizes the need for narratives from different perspectives and the importance of context and culture to cultivate authentic learning. It supports my pedagogical belief that lessons cannot always be delivered in a vacuum. There is more to learning about the elements and principles of art. Teaching culture and context behind lessons offers a more meaningful message and perspective rather than the physical creation.   

Ttrybus, M. (2014). Redefining Education through Technology: An interview with Alan November. The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, (pp. 7-12).

This article is an interview with Alan November about his approach to transforming teaching and learning with planning and curriculum with eLearning across the curriculum. This interview is describing a shift in learning that November strives for. Instead of telling students what they will be learning, there is a shift in power from teacher to students. The teacher gives students the power to dictate what they want to learn. I think it is similar to the meaning of Hawaiian Eyes: Pedagogy for Teaching an Indigenous Worldview. There is a call to drop standardized testing and to teach students how to learn vs. teaching “by the book”. November uses technology as a teaching platform to encourage educators to “expand their own boundaries of what is possible” (p.1). Essentially, it sounds like November’s mission is to reteach how to teach. One portion of this article that stood out to me was “teachers must speak a lot less and listen a lot more. This is a fundamental change, and technology enables it” (p. 9). This quote stood out to me because as a young teacher, I see a lot of seasoned teachers set in their ways. I unfortunately also see this dynamic where teachers can be quite mean to students. I don’t know if it’s a sense of power that gets to their heads or if they had mean teachers growing up. What I do know is that by listening more changes this entire dynamic. It allows teachers and students to share this unsaid power and disrupt the dynamic in general.

November also talks about as a nation, we were not ready to convert to online learning so quickly. I think this shows November was wise beyond his years when talking about this in 2014. I see schools using technology as digital notebooks. When we all had to convert to digital learning due to COVID-19, it was and still is, an absolute disaster. I have not experienced or heard of any meaningful online learning happening. As educators, I think we’ve missed this big time. Instead of looking to find the right answer, we should have been working collaboratively and consulting professionals (such as November) to train ourselves how to use these technologies at our fingertips and create meaningful online learning. 

November addresses that the shift in the way technology is used has to start from the top. If there isn’t administrative support, it isn’t going to work. The principal needs to model and be the culture builder (p. 11). November ends with this: students need to own their learning. We (the educators) have to give them the power to do so. 

November, A. (2007). Space: The Final Frontier. School Library Journal, (pp. 44–45). 

This article explains the story of a librarian at a private school redesign the library into a new media center. I think at the time of this being published (2007), it was very progressive and innovative, however at about 13 years later, this doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It essentially sounds like college campus libraries. There are spaces for books, but also spaces for individualized and collaborative learning with the technology to create media such as videos and podcasts. This media center/library allows students to “expand their personal boundaries of learning” (p. 45). The only issue is that many schools don’t have the funding to build a “true 21st century school” (p. 44).  

November explains originally, the plans were designed as a “new old library” with traditional bookshelves and adjacent research rooms and “it wasn’t quite the ideal space for helping students develop the skills necessary for functioning in a digital, global economy” (p. 44).  November suggests that we need to look critically at our spaces and imagine how they would be used 10+ years from now.  

I like this article but feel there are a lot of unanswered questions. I understand what November is explaining and the importance of it, but find it difficult to implement. I’ve noticed a lot of teachers are “set in their ways” and take much longer to learn how to use the technology that is suggested in this media center. The teacher wouldn’t have to be the expert, but they would need to know enough to get students up and running. I think this article is a great idea to move towards, but a lot of districts lack funding and resources to create this space and train teachers on how to use it.   

McGlynn, A. P. (2005).  Teaching millennials, our newest cultural cohort.  The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, 19( 20), pp. 12-16. 

This article defines millennials, how they learn, and how they should be taught in higher education. I am starting this annotation by saying this: I feel the term millennials is over used (and often describes the wrong age group of people) and often villainized by older generations. I think this article is very dated (2005) and doesn’t hold as much merit because of its date and some of the information given. For example, on page 14 McGlynn states “they are used to being indulged as a result of changing child rearing practices, and they are used to being consulted in decision making by their parents”. As a millennial, I disagree with this statement and don’t think an over generalized statement as such should be spread throughout an educational article. I am also interested in how this “data” was collected as I didn’t see a description of the sample being used or the methodology used to collect such information. 

I think this article has good intentions and was meant for educators teaching a new generation of students, but I think the information provided is inaccurate. The bones of the paper seem to have good intentions with the basic message being: get to know your students and try to teach them the way they learn, and actively engage your students. Thinking back to my college experience, this is how we were taught to teach. Establish rapport with your students, find out their interests and make the curriculum relevant and meaningful to your population. We were taught the importance of differentiating our instruction and as a hired educator now, I can vouch that this is still being pushed for.  I think this paper holds a lot of bias and I think people always needed to be actively engaged in order to learn. The way people learn has not changed, but the environment and society we teach in has, therefore our teaching style must change to achieve desired results.  

Castro, J. C. (2013).  Teaching art in a networked world.  Trends, The Journal of The Texas Art Education Association, pp. 87-92.

While reading all of these articles, I began to find a common denominator among the various texts: be flexible, figure out your students’ learning style and use it to your advantage. Get to know your students and figure out what makes them tick - educationally speaking. Castro begins his article talking about finding out about the social media platform, Facebook and how social media platforms are “creating new ways of networked communication (p. 88). Castro discusses the importance of visual language in the classroom and online. I don’t think this text holds much bias, but to me it feels like an adult explaining the technical aspects of social media and using it in a way that becomes cliche. For example, I'm thinking of teachers taking BitMoji’s and printing and creating stickers to put them on papers and assignments and posted around the classroom. For me, it takes the novelty of the “fun” item and makes it not feel fun anymore, but instead overdone. This article really isn’t that old, but I feel technology and our use of it has progressed so much that it makes the text feel dated. It reminds me of a “trendy” adult making a sales pitch about the internet/social media to an elderly person. For example: “The way people interact is still fundamentally the same in kind. Instead of writing letters, we send texts and post pictures on each other’s Facebook pages”. 

Once Castro is done essentially explaining the way social media works, I do find some of his points to be helpful, interesting, and relatable. Castro states that social media “...is a creative reciprocal exchange of ideas” (p.90). Social media allows us to quickly upload, exchange, and view others' work. Looking at others' work is a way students often prefer to learn (Castro, 2013). While I agree that students love to look at peers’ work, I don’t think we need to use social media to do this, but rather technology in general. I think social media opens up avenues for students to get side tracked, but resources such as artsonia or google classroom provide avenues for students to create these relationships mentioned, collaborate, and learn from each other by viewing or conversating.  

Neill, D. [Verbal to Visual]. (2015, October 27) Curriculum Design Part 1: The High-Level Planning [Video]. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm9G1ofQA84

Neill, D. [Verbal to Visual]. (2015, October 28) Curriculum Design Part 2: The Clothesline Method [Video]. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmT1Rkb57rs

Neill, D. [Verbal to Visual]. (2015, October 29) Curriculum Design Part 3: Producing The Material [Video]. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mljZhTaq-mo

There is a series of YouTube videos explaining backward design that I found to be memorable and informative. The creator draws and writes key phrases as he explains a curriculum design method: Backwards design. The use of both verbal and visual made this experience easy to understand and entertaining to watch. 

The creator, Doug Neil explains in a series of 3 videos  that backward design is a tool that is what it sounds like. You start at your end point: what do you want your students to learn? To begin the process, you plan for who your audience is, what is the transformation, and what is the container? So, who your students are, what are they going to learn, and what is the context of the learning? Once you can answer these questions, you can start picking the details of your curriculum. One analogy that stuck to me was a clothes line. You have the beginning and the end that is the starting point and the end goal for your audience: where they are and where they will be. Everything in between is the transformation. The clothesline method helps to organize the sequence or the order of your transformation. Neill provides an awesome visual for this. The imagery has stuck in my head and oddly helps me organize and conceptualize this idea. In the third and final video, Neill gives us information on how to put this theoretical practice into play. He shows how he used the clothesline method for the creation of a lesson he was planning to teach. He showed pictures of his notes and set up: sketches, definitions, and idea pinned up to a wall depending on where they were located on the clothesline.

Because of the digital platform, Neill is addressing a wider range of people, but his audience is geared towards educators. Again, with this tool to develop curriculum you are able to teach in a way that fits your students. All of these articles have been supporting ideas and ways technology can be used in the classroom while also teaching to the population you have, not just following a script of lessons. While I wouldn’t be teaching my students this curriculum design method, these videos are a fun way to think about curriculum planning. I was thinking about creating a unit about Native Americans and was going to use these Backwards Design videos to assist in that process and make it exciting for me.