Review the writing topics below before reading the three essays. Then, after carefully reading all three essays by Greg Sarris, MariJo Moore, and Drew Hayden Taylor, choose two of the three essays to write about in your Reading Response. Respond to two topics for each of the two essays you discuss. Write your response in prose paragraphs, not as a list, and write at least 300 words on each essay, for a total of at least 600 words. Be sure to include one or more specific quotations from the essays as evidence to support your interpretations. Punctuate quotations correctly, and include the page numbers of the quotations (citation). Conclude your response by discussing the Closing Comment at the end. Greg Sarris, “‘The Woman Who Loved a Snake’ and ‘What the People of Elem Saw’”
ÓJaneHaladay2019 AIS/ENG 2200–8002
MariJo Moore, “Everyone Needs Someone”
• Discuss Moore’s complex feelings about her paternal Cherokee grandfather. What were some of the causes for these feelings? Describe the relationship Moore outlines between her Cherokee grandfather and white grandmother. How did they continue to show that they cared for each other despite the fact that they no longer lived together?
• Moore addresses several aspects of Indian identity in this essay. Discuss some of the issues Moore identifies as causing both and pride and shame around Native identity, including the affects of non–Indian perceptions and historical policies.
• Why does Moore tell us she chooses to write about her own personal and family history, even when some of those memories are painful? What is the larger goal she hopes to achieve through her writing, and do you think she achieves this? Explain why or why not. Drew Hayden Taylor, ”Whacking the Indigenous Funny Bone: Political Correctness vs. Native Humour, Round One”
• In his essay, Hayden Taylor discusses how his humor has been criticized and questioned by some people as being “racist against white people” and being “politically incorrect.” He admits that his humor does sometimes “poke fun” at white people, but he explains that the histories from which Native humor arises are part of why white people are a common subject (and target) of Native jokes and teasing. Discuss a few of the historical circumstances and contexts Hayden Taylor tells us are the sources of contemporary Native humor.
• Hayden Taylor explains that there are “spheres of knowledge” that people need to have in order to tell jokes about members of group to which they don’t culturally belong. He describes how members of some groups (those lower down on his “Ladder of Success,” for example) have their own spheres of knowledge and have also had to function, frequently, within spheres of knowledge outside their own cultural group, and that this allows them to observe and joke about members of other cultures. Discuss your understanding of Hayden Taylor’s “spheres of knowledge” concept in terms of who can tease and joke about whom, and why, and when this teasing might “cross boundaries” that lead to insensitivity. What is your opinion of his analysis of these inter–cultural dynamics around humor?
