Instead of reading and discussing American Indian writers in a classroom, a group of UCA students traveled to the Southwest this summer to places where many of their literary works took place.
Studying the literature at the sites depicted in the stories and poetry gave them a meaning and relevance that could not be achieved in the classroom, said Conrad Shumaker, a professor in the Department of English, who led the trip.
“The students really got a feeling for the places where the literature came out of because American Indian literature is connected to place,” he said. “We can really study the literature in a way you can never do in a classroom.”
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The group spent four days learning about American Indian cultures – particularly Acoma and Laguna Pueblo, Navajo, Hopi and Zuni – before embarking on the two-week journey that took them through Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
Shumaker, a native of Arizona, said he selected the Southwest tribes because many of the tribal traditions have been kept intact. Students got a sense of American Indian traditions and met people who are vested in keeping those traditions alive. The group met American Indian storytellers, poets, artists and educators along the way.
American Indian literature studied by the students included the novel Ceremony by Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko; a collection of short stories by Simon Ortiz, a Native American writer of the Acoma Pueblo tribe; poems by Hopi poet and artist Ransom Lomatewama; an autobiography by Pima writer George Webb and a collection of Navajo poems by Luci Tapahonso.
The group also participated in service learning by assisting tribal members and others they met during their visits. Students participated in such activities as plastering walls at the Hopi reservation in the traditional way — by hand with mud; helping to clear a road to a spring; cleaning up an orchard, and working in gardens at the Museum of Northern Arizona.
“I think it’s important to give back to the people who are sharing with us,” Shumaker explained.
Many of the students described the trip as a transformative experience.
“They had learned much about American Indian literature and traditions, but they had learned even more about themselves as they worked together, ate meals together, played music and sang together, shared their thoughts about the experiences, and reflected on their own lives in the light of what they were learning,” Shumaker said. “They were able to appreciate a very different kind of culture and literature in really deep ways. “
