Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10 - by Don K Philpot (Paperback)

About the Book

Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10: Literature Studies Focusing on Indigenized Worlds offers teachers and students in grades 5-10 a unique framework and specialized sets of resources for collaborative classroom explorations of indigenized worlds created by the Indigenous writers.

Book Synopsis

The fictional worlds created by many contemporary American and Canadian Indigenous novelists for young people provide unique access to the lived experiences of Indigenous people, past, present, and future and the often inaccessible worlds they inhabit. Readers aged 10-16 will gain many insights about Indigenous people and themselves--Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike--through sustained immersion in fictional worlds where Indigenous people are foregrounded, active, autonomous, respected, and valued. Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10: Literature Studies Focusing on Indigenized Worlds, a companion book for Indigenous Novels, Indigenized Worlds, offers teachers and students in grades 5-10 a unique framework and specialized sets of resources for collaborative classroom explorations of indigenized worlds created by the Indigenous writers. This unique book offers illuminating sets of questions and carefully selected print and digital resources for classroom explorations of 11 Indigenous novels spanning the genres of historical, contemporary realistic, and fantasy fiction. These questions and resources focus student learning on such indigenizing features as ancestral beings, sacred objects, cultural values, celebratory dances, traditional stories, material appropriation, cultural denigration, community leadership, restoration, and more.

Review Quotes

With Exploring Indigenous Novels in Grades 5-10: Literature Studies Focusing on Indigenized Worlds Don Philpot gives us a very good tool to teach and learn Indigenous cultures and peoples. Presenting a diversity of literary genres for children (historical, fantasy, realist contemporary), Philpot offers teachers and students a series of concrete exercises that will transform their understanding of their cultures. All libraries should have it, all teachers should read it, and we all should know about it.

About the Author

Don K. Philpot is a teacher, teacher educator, and writer. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the topics of instructional methodologies, content area reading, reading and writing instruction, and children's literature in south central Pennsylvania.