Discuss Blackbird’s Description Of White People: Church, Schools

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On January 25, by the end of lecture (or as per your TA’s instructions), you will hand in a two/three-page paper (approximately 1000 words) written in response to ONE of the following prompts. I would like hard copy from the students I am grading. Format: double-spaced, one-inch margins, 10-12 point typeface, and a readable font (Times, Courier, etc.). No title required; MLA format for quotes. Example: “… end of quote” (37). Stay to the assigned text. Your thesis sentence subject will be about Blackbird. Don’t over-reach.
Prompts
1. Discuss Blackbird’s description of white people and their institutions (the church, schools, government, etc.). How is critical of them? How does he accept their dominion? How does he balance the unfortunate necessity cultural absorption or assimilation with resistance and insistence on maintaining tribal identity, culture, and language? What is lost, as Indian culture recedes? How does religion affect this? What is the role of disease? Is disease ever used as a weapon?
2. Discuss Blackbird’s representation of non-Ottawa (Odawa)? How does he address the fact that Odawa and other Algonquian tribes were forced into Michigan from further east? Does he think settlers set tribes against each other to make it easier from them to seize the region? How does he discuss traditional enemies, such as the Sioux. In this book, was pre-colonial life simple and peaceful? Or was there conflict with other tribes, especially as the Ottawas kept moving west?
3. Does Blackbird identify primarily racially, tribally, or individually? How do these concepts affect issues of assimilation, especially as he endorses the Dawes Act. Or is there some priority of his sub-identities? What about his own familial origins? What is the role of language in defining tribe? How does process put him in conflict with the goals of assimilation?
Semester-Long Guidelines for Working with Watts’s Prompts
You are expected to write in Standard English and your grammar and mechanics will be policed according to the policies set forth by your TA. On the prompt itself, do not try to answer all of the sub-questions. Instead, just try to get a sense of what parts of it are most important to what you want to say and let your thesis direct the scope and range of your own essay.
Also, this is not a paper about the present or any seemingly similar issue currently in the news (casinos, water rights, etc.). Stay to the assigned text. Moreover, no “information” not presented in the text or in class will be needed.
You are expected to have a thesis that is argumentative, persuasive, and/or analytical—not just observational or obvious. In general, we’re looking for depth rather than breadth—no plot summaries or book reports.