Dear Portfolio Assessment Committee Members,

As a student in Dr. Suhr-Sytsmas English 181 Indigenous Adolescence class I have

completed many written works. With this letter and website I hope to show you all how I have
achieved the outcomes of the class through detailed examples from my writings. Each paragraph
will introduce an outcome and explain how I have achieved it throughout the semester. By
achieving each outcome for the class I have grown as a writer who is capable of using skills such
as analyzing, researching, close reading, forwarding and countering to argue my own claims.
Outcome number one was to compose texts in multiple genres, using multiple modes
with attention to the rhetorical situations. My achievement of this outcome is shown in my
completion of the four major projects of the class. For project one I did a rhetorical analysis of
the song Oil 4 Blood by Native American artist/activist Frank Waln. The title for my project
was Water Over Oil because Walns song was a politically charged song in response to the
Keystone Pipeline threatening the people of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
Through my close analysis of the song I was able to place the song into a bigger context of
environmental activism and Traditional Ecological Knowledge(TEK) with the purpose of
bringing awareness to this bigger context. My audience for this project is broad as it is meant to
reach a variety of people and inspire environmental activism in them. For project two I wrote an
extended chapter to the novel Flight, written by famous Native American author Sherman
Alexie. In my chapter I put the main character of the novel, Zits, into the body of Colonel
Christopher Carson better known as Colonel Kit. My chapter was a fictional narrative but it was
inspired by true events and people. Colonel Kit was the man in charge of the Navajo Long Walk,
the forced relocation of Navajo Indians in the 1860s. Through my chapter I took the teenage
narrator, Zits, on a journey that explored the morality of people and his own morality. The last
two projects were similar as they were academic reviews of scholarly texts. Project three was
broken up into two parts. For part one I had to come to terms with Philip Heldrich and his essay
Survival=Anger X Imagination which close analyzes of Sherman Alexies The Lone Ranger
and
Tonto Fisfgiht in Heaven and The Toughest

Indian in the World . For part two I forwarded

and countered Heldrich using Sherman Alexies two novels Flight and The Absolutely True
Diary of a Part-Time Indian to make my own claims. Coming to terms, forwarding, and
countering are all terms we learned and used in class. Coming to terms means closely reading a
text and synthesizing the main points of the text as you understand them to mean. Forwarding is
to take ideas from a text and expanding on them in new ways and contexts. Countering is coming
to terms with a text while acknowledging its limitations as you develop your own position.
Finally for project four I wrote an academic review of Casino Roots a chapter from High
Stakes: Florida Seminole

Gaming and Sovereignty by Jessica Cattelino. The purpose of this

project was to summarize the chapter in a way that Indigenous Youth would understand it and
know how it is relevant to them.

Outcome two was to summarize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the ideas of others
as you undertake scholarly inquiry in order to produce your own arguments. Project three
is the best example of how I achieved this outcome. In project three I closely read Philip
Heldrichs critical essay of Sherman Alexie. By doing so I was able to come to terms, forward,
and counter Heldrich as I developed my own argument or claim. This passage from my project
three is an example of how I did that.
Philip Heldrich in his essay Survival=Anger X Imagination closely analyzes Alexies
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fisfgiht in Heaven and The Toughest Indian in the World
and argues that Alexie uses dark humor to expose the problems of dominant society and
makes the claim that laughter is a weapon used by Native Americans to survive such
problems. However, I would argue that Alexie does not only use dark humor to expose
dominant society and its problems. In True Diary, Alexie uses questions as a way to
expose problems with society and get readers to think about them and acknowledge them
in new ways. (Project 3)
In the first sentence I summarized and synthesized Heldrichs claims to demonstrate scholarly
inquiry. I further demonstrate scholarly inquiry in the last few sentences of the passage as I
counter Heldrich to produce my own argument.
Outcome three was to practice writing as a process, recursively implementing
strategies of research, drafting, revision, editing, and reflection. Project four best shows my
achievement of this outcome. For project four I wrote multiple drafts that took plenty editing and
revision to ultimately reach my final draft. This excerpt is from my very first draft of project
four.
As a young Native American you may be wondering why Seminole casinos matter to
you. If you take out the Seminole experience and just look at the impact of the casinos you
can see how it matters. Casinos are popular economic developments across many
reservations all over the nation. Many of you may already know that they provide
revenue for the economies on reservations. On the other hand do you know the cost of
that revenue. On the one side you have new economic opportunities and on the other you
have a break from cultural traditions.(Project 4 First Draft)
After meeting with Dr. Suhr-Sytsma I realized I was not fully coming to terms with the text. This
led me to reread the chapter and after I was able to reflect and revise my project. This excerpt
from my final draft best shows how I revised.
As a young Native American you may be wondering why does Seminole casinos matter
to you. It matters because it shows the effects a casino can have. Not all reservations
have successful casinos such as the Seminoles but you as a Native American youth can

learn from the Seminoles and try to improve your own casinos. If you dont have casinos
but are considering having them this chapter can be the push you need to get casinos on
your reservation. As youth you can petition to bring casinos to your reservation. This is
important because casinos not only provide revenue but it can help preserve a culture.
Casinos can have the effect of bringing the community together and allowing the
community to practice their culture more often. If gaming is something that is completely
out of the question you can learn from this chapter. It can serve as inspiration to think of
alternative revenue sources that can have similar effects as the seminole casinos.(Project
4 Final Draft)
Through my revision I was able to better come to terms with the text. Most evident when I
change casinos from being a break from cultural traditions in my first draft to casinos helping
to preserve a culture in my final draft.
Outcome four was to demonstrate a familiarity with a variety of literary and
scholarly texts that address the experiences of Indigenous Young people. My informal
writing number ten best shows my achievement of this outcome. Informal writings were small
works that we did throughout the semester that was mostly geared towards a close reading of the
novel we were reading in class at the time. For informal writing ten I picked a quote from
Sherman Alexies novel True Diary and gave an analysis of what I thought it meant in regards to
the bigger themes of the book. The quote I chose was Son, Mr. P said. Youre going to find
more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation
(True Diary 43). This was my analysis of the quote.
This passage gets at this idea of the reservation being this bad place where people live
sad lives and never really inspire to do anything or be anything. Its like a dream killer.
This passage relates to the passage on page 13, But we reservation Indians dont get to
realize our dreams. We dont get those chances. Or choices. Were just poor. Thats all
we are. In both passages you see the reservation as this thing holding people back from
ever achieving something. The only way you're going to escape this reality is if you leave
the reservation. Which Mr. P is urging the narrator to do in the first passage. (Informal
10)
This passage shows my completion of outcome four, because Sherman Alexies True Diary
detailed the life of a young Native American named Junior. Although, it was fictional it still gave
accurate representations of experiences for indigenous young people. This passage talks about
about hope or the lack of which is common amongst many Native young people. Lack of hope
can speak to the high suicide rates and alcoholism on reservations all over the nation. This lack
of hope leads Native young people to leave the reservation in search of something better like

Junior did in the novel. A real life example would be artist/activist Frank Waln who left his
reservation to attain a better education so he could return to help his people.
Outcome five was to interpret passages from literary by close reading in relation to
literary, historical, national, and cultural contexts. To show my achievement of this outcome
I will use my informal writing eleven. In this writing I closely read and interpreted the following
passage from True Diary.
I mean, if Id been walking around like a zombie, I might have been scary. So, no, I
wasnt a zombie, not at all. Because you cant ignore a zombie. So that made me, well, it
made me nothing.
Zero.
Zilch.
Nada. (True Diary 82)
This was my analysis of the passage.
This passage from page 82 is saying once again how Junior feels like he is
nothing. How people show him no attention and that makes him feel lonely and
depressed. This is an important passage because it highlights a central theme in
the novel, connection. Junior really only wants a connection with people. He
wants to be noticed and paid attention too. Without it he feels like he is nothing.
This passage also reminds of Flight. In both novels the narrator's desire a
connection to someone or something. Its sort of the thing that drives both Zits
and Junior in their perspective novels. This theme might be showing Alexie and
his feelings of being alone.(Informal 11).

In my interpretation I related my analysis back to the author Sherman Alexie when I could have
related it more broadly to many Native Americans from many tribes. Historically, nationally, and
culturally speaking depression is a feeling shared by many Indigenous people. This depression
could come from their historical trauma. It could come from how across the nation they are
oppressed by the dominant society. Their depression could even be from how their culture has
been exploited for years for the benefit of the dominant society. This depression may lead them
to feel alone. Sherman Alexie has admitted to feelings of depression and a longing for a
connection to his father. As I argued in my interpretation, Alexie might have allowed his own
feelings to influence his two characters, Junior and Zits, in their perspective novels.
This English course has challenged me more than any other English class I have ever
taken. It is because of the challenge this course presented that I have improved my writing. This
class taught me how to properly use other scholarly texts to develop my own arguments by close
reading and coming to terms with a text first. This portfolio and all of the artifacts in it are a true

testament to my growth as a writer over the duration of a semester. I have learned a great deal
from this course not only about writing, but about indigenous youth it is my hope that through
my portfolio you may learn or it may inspire you to learn more about indigenous people.
Sincerely,

Darius Stewart