This unit we start Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko's magnificent novel about war trauma, family, healing, ethnicity, faith, storytelling, grief, America, and Native American Identity. 

Her novel is a great achievement, and it is a gripping story--but the way that story is told is complicated. It is very important to plan to spend enough time with this novel, since it requires close attention and is the longest thing we will read this class. I also urge you to make ample use of the documents I've posted under "Student Resources" (on Timeframes and Characters, and the Readers' guides), and I talk a bit more about them in the video lecture. The video lecture this unit is about 40 minutes, because it both tries to help everyone get oriented in the novel's multiple and fragmentary timeframes, and it also offers some comments on narrative itself. And "narrative" as a concept will play a large role in our analysis of this novel and it will come up again later in the class.

How much to read for this unit? --to do the forum post, you'll have to read at least 63 pages (up through Tayo's first major confrontation with his antagonist, a man named Emo). If you find yourself struggling to stay oriented in the novel, maybe its best to start slowly and only read 63 pages. If you want to get or stay ahead, however, I recommend a good target is read to page 105 (on page 105 Tayo ends the first "present tense" day of the novel and falls asleep and "slept all night without dreams"). So read as much as you want between pages 63 and 105, but be aware that the next unit on Ceremony will require that you have read most of the novel, and then you'll need to be ready to discuss the entire novel at our second in-person class meeting on June 4. So plan accordingly! As you know, this compressed class is very intense, and the next couple weeks will be intense!

So, use the documents under "student resources," be sure you have a good grip on at least pages 1-63, if not more, in order to submit the Forum Post for this unit, Unit Four, by Friday May 27th, but be ready to keep reading large chunks of the novel for the following week, and enjoy this great book!