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Osiyo / Hello! ENG-NAS 240 is a 200-level literature course focusing on works of writing produced in English by Native American / Indigenous writers working within the what is now the United States.

About the course itself: Please know that ENG 240 and NAS 240 are the same class and fulfill the same graduation requirements (Arts & Letters Gen Ed requirements for Associates Degrees). Please sign up for the one that you prefer to have on your transcript, either "English" or "Native American Studies."

There are two required books for the class: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (a novel), and the anthology When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through edited by Joy Harjo (poetry). Both of these books were published in 2020.

All other course readings, viewings, and audio recordings will be available for free through our course website.

About me, my background as a professor, and my grading practices: My specialty as a researcher and teacher is Native American and Indigenous literatures. I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, I earned a PhD in English from UC Berkeley with an emphasis on Native literatures, and I'm a founding instructor of Native American Studies at ²»Á¼Ñо¿Ëù. I've published fiction and scholarship within this field, and as a teacher I hope to inspire future generations of writers/audiences to create/read new Indigenous stories.

Ultimately, I believe that it's on me, as the professor, to create a course which will get you to the intended outcomes as long as you put in the necessary work and approach the class assignments in a good way. To that end, I approach grading by looking for ways to recognize your effort and labor for the class in order to lift you up, rather than by nitpicking for reasons to grade you down. I believe this is an anti-colonialist teaching practice. Given that this class is about Indigenous Literatures, I try to push back against what I believe are colonialist teaching and grading practices whenever possible. 

In sum, if you do the work, then you will succeed in this class. "The work" for each week is assigned with the idea that this is a 4-credit course. And like any 4-credit college course in the USA, this class will require roughly 8-12 hours of work each week. Included in "the work" is the amount of time it will take you to complete class assignments. 

Assignments include:

• Weekly readings and viewings
• Online discussions
• Surveys about the content
• Midterm and Final Self-Assessments
• A Term Project of your choice  

If you want to learn more about the remarkable diversity of Native American literatures, and if you can put in the time and effort this course requires, then you can and will succeed in ENG-NAS 240. And you'll learn lots of interesting things in the process!

Please contact me if you have any questions about this course: blake.hausman@pcc.edu.

Wado / Thank you!

Dr H

This is a fully asynchronous Online course. This means that our class takes place entirely online, and there are no class meetings in Zoom at any point in the term.

To participate, you will need the basics for an online course -- a computer or tablet with Internet access.