Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics eds. by Lisa King, Rose Gubele, and Joyce Rain Anderson (review)

Educators and activists alike have often advocated for further incorporation of American Indian rhetoric in the classroom, but apart from discussing this desire, few have been able to give concrete examples of what American Indian rhetoric in the classroom looks like. Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story is a groundbreaking collection of essays in which contributors not only show the need for new and diverse methods of education but also provide examples of their own hands-on experience in a classroom setting. A focus of the research relies upon Gerald Vizenor's definition of survivance (survival and resistance of dominant cultures and their assimilation efforts) as it appears in both written texts and oral traditions. It is through examining examples of survivance rhetoric that texts become an extension of sovereignty. Thus, contributors to this collection argue that stories are being used as far more than entertainment for American Indians; furthermore, mainstream educators should do a better job of incorporating Indigenous knowledge into their classrooms—especially considering the vast amount of American Indian novels, poetry, songs, and digital media there is to choose from.

Editor Lisa King's chapter explores how sovereignty transitions from a legal concept to rhetorical sovereignty, or a people's right to determine how they are represented via communications. Part of American Indian survivance is fighting against assimilation efforts, a fight that undoubtedly includes language. What is written about American Indians and what is written by American Indians is often contradictory, and King suggests that students must be able to analyze these differences for themselves by exploring rhetorical sovereignty. King further suggests that educators do not need to be teaching an American Indian studies course in order to teach students about rhetoric. Instead, educators can adapt their lesson plans to fit within a wide variety of courses, since students can be directed to learn research practices in any area of study that will help their future coursework regardless of whether they are going into an Indigenous-specific field of study.

A further example of survivance can be found in Rose Gubele's chapter on teaching the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper in conjunction with Cherokee history. Most history classes gloss over the colonization of American Indian peoples, and if the events of Indian Removal appear at all, they appear in textbooks written by colonizers. However, teaching students from an American Indian perspective can be achieved by learning about Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary, Elias Boudinot's use of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper to deliver news in both Cherokee and English to readers about significant policies affecting the Cherokee Nation—all using firsthand documents written by those affected by removal policies. While history may be set in stone, the way in which students learn about history is not, and the contributors of this book suggest that students deserve more than just a glossing of history. Gubele incorporates an American Indian narrative into the classroom because history has multiple sides, and surely American Indians have their own rhetoric surrounding issues they faced historically and face today.

Additional contributors provide other examples of how American Indian rhetoric can be introduced to courses and how rhetorics can be taught at varying levels. Sundy Watanabe, who discusses the dangers of rhetorical imperialism, suggests that European/Western writings have often been held in more prestige than Indigenous texts and provides examples of reteaching students in the English classroom setting using socioacupuncture pedagogy. Qwo-Li Driskill suggests that decolonial skillshares, radical practices that are used to transform cultural memories while decolonizing rhetorics, can reprioritize colonized peoples. Indigenous languages, for example, should be included as part of the foreign language curriculum where appropriate, according to Driskill. Gabriela Raquel Rios finds that performance is one of many ways to engage with Nahua rhetoric. Performance is one way in which Indigenous participants can control their sovereignty—they alone can determine what is said, shown...