Greg Sarris, MariJo Moore, and Drew Hayden Taylor –Discussion Questions
Assignment Instructions:
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.
Greg Sarris, “‘The Woman Who Loved a Snake’ and ‘What the People of Elem Saw’”
Why is Mabel’s story about the woman who loved the snake confusing to Greg’s friend Jenny, and why are Jenny’s questions about the story confusing to Mabel? Why, in your opinion, are the two women unable to understand each other clearly? Identify the important characters in Mabel’s story about the woman who loved a snake, and think broadly in answering this question.
How does Sarris describe the difficulties of having “ literate” questions for American
Indian oral stories? Discuss your interpretation of what Sarris means in stating that
Mabel’s “talk,” as he refers to the context of her storytelling, “interrupts” her listener’s
preconceptions about her and about her stories.
Discuss Sarris’ key points about the limitations of writing’s ability to “ [recreate] oral
experience in given ways” (174). What are some of the ways writing shuts down the
larger experience of oral events, as Sarris explains it? Discuss Sarris’ view of how all who are involved in the storytelling event – listener and teller – are part of making the storytelling event meaningful.
What questions does Greg ask Mabel about “what the people of Elem saw,” and what
do his questions clarify about the separation between them based on his Western
education? Discuss how Mabel’s responses to him point this separation out to Greg.
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?
