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LRC 412/512: Language and Youth Culture in Indigenous Contexts
Summer 2009
Instructor: Leisy Wyman (lwyman@email.arizona.edu)
Room 535, 1-4PM
It is often stated that youth play key roles in bringing Indigenous languages into the future. Only
recently, however, have researchers, educators and activists begun to specifically consider young
people’s language practices in Indigenous settings of language shift and language revitalization.
In this course we will seek to understand the complex ways that youth act as linguistic and
cultural brokers in Native American and Alaska Native communities. We will read recent
research on Indigenous youth in wide-ranging settings of language shift. We will also learn about
Indigenous efforts to place youth at the center of intergenerational language reclamation
movements. As we do so, we will explore key concepts including human development, language
socialization, community, resistance, identity, and agency. Importantly, we will also consider
how to engage youth in the work of shaping the linguistic futures of their communities.
Course Readings:
Our course will be using articles and drafts of articles, which can be located on the course
website. To find these, go to www.u.arizona.edu/~aildi, look under “summer program” for our
course and click on “website” next to our course name
Major Assignments:
1) Class Participation and presentations of independent work (including graduate student
presentations of readings). NOTE: As part of this class, students and the instructor will be
helping to facilitate audience discussion as part of a panel on youth language for AILDI’s 30th
anniversary celebration.
2) Two short Analyses of Youth Language and Culture (approximately 5 pages) (to be
explained in class)
Paper #1: Students will either 1) describe how young people in a community, or a “communityof-practice” (to be explained in class) used language in the past, or 2) describe the “language
socialization trajectory” (explained in class) of one youth.
Paper #2 Students will describe how young people in a community or community-of-practice use
language today.
3) A final action plan for a language effort involving youth in your community
This could be take many forms (including, but not limited to: a language survey for youth, a
proposal for a language course for youth, a curriculum unit aimed at youth, a workshop involving
youth in language issues in their own community, an action research project focused on language,
etc.)
Students are encouraged to pick topics that will be useful to them. As part of the work on final
projects, students will also be working in “think tanks”, small groups based around their
particular interests and approaches.
Final Grade will be determined as follows:
20 Section attendance and participation (including graduate student presentations of readings)
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20 Assignment 1: Description of the language use of youth in the past, OR language socialization
trajectory of one youth
20 Assignment 2: Description of language use of youth in the present
20 Final Action Plan for a language effort
20 Final Presentation/facilitation of AILDI symposium
Note: each of these assignments will be graded on engagement and effort.
Attendance at all classes is mandatory. Missing more than one class will result in a lowered
grade. No incompletes will be given except in cases of real emergencies.
Readings and Assignments:
Readings may also change as the course progresses and I get a better sense of students’ interests,
needs and backgrounds.
Day 1, Tuesday, June 9: Introduction and Course Overview.
Day 2, Wednesday, June 10: Youth as a Cultural Category
In class: Graduate students sign up for leading 1 discussion
Readings:
Rogoff, Barbara. 2003. Developmental Transitions in Individuals’ Roles in Their Communities.
In The Cultural Nature of Human Development. Oxford University Press.
Day 3, Thursday, June 11: Youth, communities of practice, and peer socialization
Reading:
DeMarrais, Kathleen, Patricia Nelson and Jill Baker. 1992. Meaning in Mud: Yup’ik
Eskimo Girls at Play. Anthropology and Education Quarterly. 23 :120-144.
Day 4, Friday, June 12: Youth, Music and Stylistic performance
Guest Speakers: Brendan O’Connor and Joaquin Munoz
Group 1 read: Deyhle, Donna. 1998. Break Dancing and Heavy Metal. Harvard Educational
Review.
Group 2 read: Mitchell, Doing damage in my Native language: the use of “resistance vernaculars”
in hip hop in Europe and Aotearoa/New Zealand
Graduate students also read: Pennycook, Alistair. 2007. Language, Localization and the Real:
Hip-Hop and the Global Spread of Authenticity. Journal of Language, Identity and Education,
6(2): 101-115.
Day 5, Monday, June 15: Youth and linguistic Identities
*DUE: Short Paper 1
Readings:
Multiple Identities, Multiple Worlds. Zentella, Ana Celia.
Graduate students also read: Henze, Rosemary and Lauren Vanette. 1993. To Walk in Two
Worlds, or More? Anthropology and Education Quarterly.
Day 6, Tuesday, June 16: Youth and Language Endangerment
Reading:
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McCarty and Wyman, Introduction to the theme issue. (forthcoming) Indigenous Youth and
Bilingualism. Journal of Language, Identity and Education.
Day 7, Wednesday, June 17: Youth and ideological cross-currents
Reading: McCarty et al. 2006. Native American Youth Discourses on Language Shift and
Retention: Ideological Cross-currents and Their Implications for Language Planning
Day 8, Thursday, June 18: Youth and linguistic ecologies
Reading: Wyman, Leisy. (forthcoming) Youth, Linguistic Ecologies, and Language
Endangerment: A Yup’ik Example
Day 9, Friday, June 19: Youth, language and cultural practice
Reading: Nicholas, Sheilah. (forthcoming) I Live Hopi, I just don’t speak it.
Day 10, Monday, June 22: Youth-focused efforts in language reclamation efforts
*DUE: Short Paper 2
Readings: Wilson and Kamana, Indigenous Youth Bilingualism from a Hawaiian Activist
Perspective, (forthcoming).
Sims, Christine. 2001. Native Language Planning: A Pilot Process in the Acoma Pueblo
Community, in Hinton and Hale, Green Book of Language Revitalization, p. 63-73.
Day 11, Tuesday, June 23: Youth as agents of social change
Note: Part of this class we will co-convene with the Language Policy and Language Activism
class to have a dialogue about intergenerational language activism
Readings:
Julio Cammarota. 2008. Introduction to Beyond Resistance!
Michelle Fine, from Beyond Resistance!
Day 12, Wednesday, June 24: Youth as language activists
Reading: Lee, Tiffany. (forthcoming). Language, Identity, and Power: Navajo and Pueblo Young
Adults’ Perspectives and Experiences with Competing Language Ideologies
Day 13, Thursday, June 25: Presentation and discussion of final proposals, beginning
planning for AILDI symposium
*DUE: Final Project
Day 14, Friday, June 26: Planning day for the language and youth culture symposium (to be
held June 30 from 2-5PM)