However, high school students might enjoy digging into Reservation Blues because music is central to the story, as well as risk-taking, leaving home and negotiating the complexities of family relationships. Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) is an oft-taught-and oft-banned-text because of its young protagonist, humor and dramatic story. Sherman Alexie (Coeur d’Alene), Reservation Blues (1995). Students will enjoy this coming-of-age mystery and connect with the story’s focus on family and culture.

It’s one of the best novels I’ve read in years and worthy of attention in the classroom where a skilled teacher can lead and guide discussion. It is a heartbreaking story that features a young male narrator who works hard to achieve justice for his mom and learns difficult and poignant lessons along the way. Winner of the National Book Award for fiction, this novel tackles the difficult subjects of rape and white-on-Native crime with lyrical language that is simultaneously enchanting and direct. Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe), The Round House (2012). Indigenous peoples were here before the founding of the United States, and we have a responsibility to include their voices and stories in our classrooms.įor teachers who have the willingness and ability to either change the primary indigenous text or add a second one, might I suggest including one of the following seven books for readers in the upper grades. It also shows students that Native peoples still exist, and it infuses much-needed cultural diversity into often Euro-American-centric book lists. Teaching indigenous texts is one tiny step toward correcting the historical inaccuracies about Native peoples that are built into the standard American K-12 curriculum. But it was written in 1986, and other authors have written equally powerful stories in the last 29 years.

Of course, Silko’s lyrical prose and spiritual narrative deserve to be taught Ceremony became canonical over time for good reason. If high school students are introduced to Native writers at all, it is usually through Leslie Marmon Silko’s (Laguna Pueblo) Ceremony (1986), a now-classic story about a troubled Native American man who returns from serving in a war to rediscover his identity and to heal his body and spirit.

Silko leslie marmon ceremony