Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What do you know about trickster figures in Native American literature? Can you name any trickster figures or explain how this tradition has influenced the larger culture?

Teaching Suggestion: Depending on students’ prior education and experiences, they may know a great deal—or very little—about trickster figures, either within or outside of Native American literature. If you suspect that your students have little prior knowledge on this subject, you might prime them to answer the question by first asking what the word “trickster” implies and then asking if they have heard one of the most prominent North American trickster stories, that of Brer Rabbit, from the African American tradition. Even students with a great deal of background knowledge may be challenged to explain how the trickster tradition figures into North American culture in general. You might ask why movies, books, podcasts, and television shows about con artists—such as Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna—are so popular, or direct them to the second of the linked resources below.

• This list of entries on tricksters, their stories, and suggested readings is provided by the Native Languages of the Americas website.