While I was reading up on the Cherokee National Youth Choir this week, it reminded me I haven't said much about term paper topics yet ... and it's time to do something about that. The youth choir would make a good topic -- Gen Ed students could write about the choir itself, or Cherokee gospel singing (or at least a dozen good related topics you can discover for yourself), and education students would use the choir as an entry point into a paper on what the Cherokee people (or many other tribes) are doing to preserve their languages and pass them on to young people. One site I kept coming across is Cherokee Heritage Trails, which has a lot of information on traditional cultural resources in North Carolina. You could get a couple of dozen more ideas there, too. Anyway, it all got me to thinking about topics you can get started on even though research papers aren't due till April.
So here are some other ideas I've scribbled down on legal pads, napkins and other scraps of paper, in no apparent logical order. Think about them, try them out. Please feel free to modify them. An idea of mine might click with something you saw in a video or read in the textbook and trigger a new idea. If so, we're both doing something right. Be sure to clear your topics with me as soon as possible, though. Here are some suggested topics:
- Cherokee gospel singing/hymns on the Trail of Tears.
- Traditional Cherokee religion (and stomp dancing).
- The United Keetowah Band and traditional religion.
- Sequoyah's alphabet (syllabary) and literacy in the Cherokee language
- Cherokee crafts and tourism.
- The Iroquois Confederation, Ben Frankin and the U.S. federal system of government.
- Women in Haudenosaunee/Iroquos governance and/or society.
- Masks. Lots of ways to go here. The role of masks in religious ceremonies and healing. The Haudensaunee ban on using masks except in ceremonies. Masks in other Native cultures.
- Dance. How does dance fit into religion? Healing? Social dancing?
- Casino gambling. You can narrow this in different ways, too, from the Jack Abramoff scandal to how different tribes use it to finance education, local government and cultural activities.
Members of the baseball team might want to use their abundant spare time next month in Arizona to visit Pueblo Grande (an ancient village now within sight of the Phoenix international airport) and find out about the Hohokam people. And those who stay home over spring break might take the oppportunity to visit the Mississippian site at Cahokia, Dixon Mounds or other Native American cultural sites in the Midwest to get inspiration.
Basically, this list of ideas to get you started thinking ahead and brainstorming now so you can choose a good topic and look into it in some depth. As always, I will expect your papers to make a point or state a thesis about Native American cultural expression and support that thesis with factual evidence. I also expect you to do original research, in other words to say something about your topic that nobody else has ever said before. You will need to clear your topic with me, and I will be happy to help you narrow it.
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