24 Native American Texts: Teaching Contemporary Native American Literature to High School Students

Ready to integrate more Native voices into your curriculum this year?  

While trickster tales, creation myths, and other traditional stories definitely have their place in an American literature curriculum, it’s important that your students don’t get the message that Indigenous literature is only something from the past or something to read about in their history books. 

In fact, if you’re not intentionally integrating current writers in your plans, you might be inadvertently giving your classes the message that Native culture is dead and gone.  

I also know that it can be tough to find money in the budget for new novels or plays.  Sometimes you just can’t teach those longer texts, even though you would love to be able to make that happen.

So, I’ve spent the past three years looking for essays, short stories, poems, videos, and films that are engaging enough for your average jaded teen and accessible enough for students who might not know much history or background.  Below, you’ll find 11 poems, 1 film, 5 essays, and 7 short stories. All of these texts available online and they are all by contemporary authors who are living and working today.  If you see a link in the title, that means that I have a unit on that source.  (Think about it as a great choice if it’s nine o’clock on a Wednesday night and you’d rather go to bed than sit up writing questions, but you’d really really like to teach that text tomorrow morning to your first period class.  Additionally, I donate income from most of these units to Native causes.) 

The texts are at turns funny, sad, lovely, enraging, challenging, memorable, and sometimes they are all of the above at the same time.  These texts deal with themes unique to Native life as well as themes that relate to any human alive today; they tell the challenging stories of our shared pasts, and they ask questions about our shared futures. 

Tackling big questions around the legacy of colonialism, different forms of resistance and rebellion, as well as reindigenization and everyday life, these texts will not offer easy answers or oversimplified explanations.  Instead, they’ll give you plenty to discuss, analyze, explore, and appreciate with your students this November and beyond.

Here are 24 short texts by Native authors for your High School ELA plans:

Texts About Stereotypes of Native People

  1. “How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” by Sherman Alexie.  This satirical poem is a great choice for exploring stereotypes around Indigenous people.  The haunting final line, that in the Great American Indian novel “all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts” makes a powerful statement on the ways that Native Americans have been portrayed in literature and the media.  
  2. “Love You Some Indians” by Rosie Shebala.  This powerful spoken word poem focuses on stereotypes as well, and the hurt and harm that is caused by what so many view as harmless word choices or team names. Like other great spoken word poems, the one packs a punch in its short three minutes, and is accessible even to students who claim that they don’t like poetry.
  3. “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” by Rebecca Roanhorse.  Winner of the 2017 Nebula and Hugo short story awards, this story is a compelling and fascinating dark read and will be a hit with students who like speculative fiction.  Told in the second person, it portrays a VR experience gone wrong.  This story might be too mature for some classes, so make sure to check it out before sharing with your students—or just enjoy it on your own!

Texts About Storytelling and Why Indigenous Literature Matters 

  1. “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective” by Leslie Marmon Silko.  This speech/essay is a wonderful choice for exploring language, stories, and tradition. It’s also a great choice for incorporating a nonfiction text into your lesson plans. Silko touches on why stories matter, how stories are told in the Pueblo tradition, and how recent history has influenced the tradition of story telling. She also tells a few great stories which serve to convey culture, beliefs, and important ideas.
  2. “I Am Offering This Poem” by Jimmy Santiago Baca.  Students who are bombarded with so many things vying for their attention might not always see the point in spending time with words. Examining the question of why literature is essential, this poem is classic, accessible, and lovely.  It’s also a powerful choice for discussing themes around why we need literature and how we show care and love for others, and it is also a great choice for teaching diction, metaphor, extended metaphor, repetition, point of view, imagery, tone, and theme in poetry. 
  3. “Coming Into Language” by Jimmy Santiago Baca.  This powerful essay by Jimmy Santiago Baca is a great choice for exploring why literature matters. Telling the story of how Baca first found his love for reading and writing, this essay is also a great choice for discussing themes around identity, self expression, metaphor, and the American prison system.  Note: The last line of the essay states “I wrote the way I wept, and danced, and made love” and so it might not be appropriate for all of your classes.
  4. “‘You’ll Never Believe What Happened’ Is Always a Great Way to Start” by Thomas King.  This essay is a great choice for examining questions around how we view the world and the stories we tell about our worlds. It’s a powerful introduction to creation stories and why they matter, and it’s also an entertaining and vulnerable look at King’s own life and the stories he tells about it. The combination of compelling confession, fun and funny storytelling, and deep philosophical and cultural analysis make this essay a great choice for many different kinds of students.
  5. “Raphael” by Stephen Graham Jones.  Besides being a chilling, dark story about the tragic outcomes of four teen friends, this text is a great choice for analyzing literary horror with your classes. Dealing with themes of guilt, peer pressure, the past, storytelling, and our deepest universal fears, it’s also wonderful story for teaching theme, symbol, repetition, point of view, plot, and suspense.  What I love so much about literary horror, when it’s done as well as it is in this story, is that it really gives students a chance to analyze how the author’s choices help to create both meaning and an effect on the reader. If Stephen Graham Jones’ goal is to scare and disturb the reader, he definitely accomplishes that goal, but exactly how he does it is not always easy to parse. And the more you dig in to this story, the more layers of meaning you’ll find. 
  6. “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix Arizona” by Sherman Alexie.  This sweet, endearing, and funny story has been a perennial favorite in my classes for years.  With themes of storytelling, the past, and forgiveness, it’s also a fun choice to read before viewing the film Smoke Signals, which Sherman Alexie based largely on this story.
  7. Smoke Signals film. Created by a largely Native cast and crew and based on the short stories of Sherman Alexie, this sad, lovely, and hilarious movie is well worth the viewing time.  The themes of Native storytelling, family, forgiveness, and the past will give you lots to discuss with your students.  Besides its important ideas and messages, this film has been a hit with my students for years and I look forward to it every year.  (Don’t be surprised when your classes engage in contests of who can do the best “Hey, Victor!” imitation!)

Texts About the Legacy of Colonialism

  1. “The Trail of Tears: Our Removal” by Linda Hogan.  Exploring the lasting legacy of the Trail of Tears, this lovely and challenging poem is also a great choice for analyzing enjambment, point of view, metaphor, shifts, and theme in poetry.  When paired with Hogan’s prose piece, “New Trees, New Medicines, New Wars: The Chickasaw Removal” as well as primary source accounts from the time, these texts make for a powerful lesson in the legacy of colonialism.  
  2. “Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” by Louise Erdrich.  Portraying ways in which victims of mistreatment and abuse resist oppression and rebel in their own ways, this haunting poem is also a great choice for teaching point of view, extended metaphor, diction, enjambment, setting, alliteration, and theme in poetry.  When paired with background information on the atrocities of the boarding schools, this poem will make a powerful lesson on our shared past.
  3. “38” by Layli Long Soldier.  The largest execution in U.S. history was the result of a complex history of money, land, and betrayal; it is also an event that has been brushed aside and ignored for the past centuries. This masterful poem by Layli Long Soldier, confronts the reader with the history of the Dakota 38, the ”thirty-eight Dakota men who were executed by hanging, under orders from President Abraham Lincoln.”  If you aren’t yet familiar with the poetry of Layli Long Soldier, I highly recommend you read whatever you can find, and this poem is a great place to start.  

Texts About Resistance, Rebellion, and Transformation

  1. “When Mountain Lion Lay Down With Deer” by Leslie Marmon Silko.  This lovely poem by the acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist tells the story of a speaker who travels through time as she journeys up a mountain. With themes of metamorphosis, the importance of storytelling, the past, the transformative power of nature, and connection to ancestors, it is also a great choice for teaching setting, point of view, extended metaphor, diction, imagery, syntax, repetition, and concrete poetry (also known as shaped verse or technopaegnia)
  2. “Remember” by Joy Harjo. This lovely poem is an engaging choice for discussing themes around memory, legacy, and literature. It’s also a great choice for teaching point of view, imagery, diction, repetition, and theme in poetry.  Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She was the first Native American to serve as the poet laureate and the second poet to serve three terms in that role. One of the more accessible poems on this list, it’s a nice addition to any unit dealing with themes of storytelling, the past, memory, poetry, and/or Native American culture and history.
  3. “The Alcatraz Proclamation” by the Indians of All Tribes.  The Occupation of Alcatraz was a powerful 19-month long protest in which the Indians of All Tribes lived on Alcatraz Island and created a small society; the occupation sparked the Indian Activist movements of the late 20th century including the Occupation of Wounded Knee, The Trail of Broken Treaties and the more recent Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock among many other actions.  Besides being an example of an important resistance movement, a study of the Occupation of Alcatraz offers ELA classes a wonderful example of how humor and satire can be used as a tool for change, as can be seen in the Alcatraz Proclamation.
  4. “The Gift of Strawberries” by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  Reflecting on her childhood, especially her love for strawberries, Robin Wall Kimmerer explores ideas around gift economies in the accessible yet powerful essay.  This is a great choice if you’d like to incorporate more nonfiction into your curriculum plans.
  5. “America I Sing You Back” by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke.  Responding to the classic poems by Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes, Hedge Coke adds a distinctly Native voice to the conversation around the song of America.  Offering a vision for a new birth, this poem is a great choice for any unit dealing with themes of the American vision or the American dream. 

Texts About Mourning and Apology 

  1. “Lullaby” by Leslie Marmon Silko.  This sad, powerful, and beautifully written story of a Navajo woman at the end of her life is a wonderful choice for exploring beliefs, traditions, and culture.  Though the story is short and accessible, the breadth of the themes covered in the text is remarkable. 
  2. “Whereas” by Layli Long Soldier.  This poem was written in response to the only apology ever made by the U.S. government to indigenous people of the United States.  The apology was never read out loud or made very public, and the legalese throughout the document takes away any sense of regret or actual apology.  Long Soldier’s poem response is challenging, long, innovative, provocative, and moving.  It definitely deserves a spot in your lesson plans this year.

Texts About Healing, Recovery, and Everyday Life

  1. “The Man to Send Rainclouds” by Leslie Marmon Silko.  This seemingly simple story tells the story of the peaceful death and burial rituals of the old shepherd Teofilo. Dealing with themes of cultural assimilation, nature, religion, ritual, and tradition, it’s also great choice for teaching setting, allusion, figurative language, and symbolism.
  2. “Busted Boy” by Simon Ortiz.  Telling the story of a Native American who witnesses a Black boy get arrested at a bus station, Simon Ortiz’s powerful and accessible poem is a great choice for teaching diction, imagery, syntax, enjambment, and point of view. It is also a wonderful choice for discussing themes of race, power, and the American experience.
  3. “Borders” by Thomas King.  This short story focuses on a mother and son who are stuck between the Canadian and U.S. borders after the mother identifies herself as Blackfoot and is unable to enter into either country.  It’s a great choice for discussing some of the everyday struggles of Indigenous people, especially around identity and belonging.  It’s also a short read and one that is accessible to most levels.
  4. “After ‘While” by Cherie Dimaline.  If you’ve been wanting to teach one of Dimaline’s novels to your classes but can’t get the funding, this short story by the popular YA author is a nice choice.  Beginning with a lost tooth and the gifts of a strange tooth fairy, this very short story is a great choice for exploring the unique and universal struggles of growing up Native in the 21st century.  
  5. “Reopening” by Tommy Orange.  While you might not be able to teach Tommy Orange’s award-winning novel There There, this short story is a fascinating exploration of a post-covid world.  This short story is another great choice for portraying everyday life and typical struggles.  
  6. “The Grammar of Animacy” by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  This essay from Braiding Sweetgrass was, at the time of this writing, available online.  In a perfect world, every high school student would read this fabulous book before graduation, but until that time, you can still teach this essay.  Exploring how language defines our worldviews, the importance of words, and just how hard it can be to learn a new language, this essay is fascinating, accessible, and important.