Perspectives on Contemporary Issues 

Indigenous Literature and Issues

Short Stories

Sherman Alexie Short Stories  three short stories, "Fixed Income", "Honor Society", "Valediction". 

Sherman Alexie "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"

 Sherman Alexie - Superman and Me

Sherman Alexie - "What you Pawn, I will Redeem"

Sherman Alexie "Every Little Hurricane"

Sherman Alexie This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona. 

Leslie Marmon Silko - "The Man To Send Rainclouds"

Non-Fiction

Lizzie Wade. "Native Tribes have lost 99% of their land in the United States." Science.org. 28 Oct 2021.

On the Rez Ian Frazier excerpt on Book Browse

Indigenous Land Acknowledgements. So you began your event with an Indigenous land acknowledgment. Now what? NPR. March 2023. 

Developer Abandons Keystone XL Pipeline Project, Ending Decade-Long Battle. NPR. 9 June 2021.

Dakota Access Pipeline - Treaties Still Matter. print

Documentaries/Videos/Audio

Voices of America "Understanding Indigenous Peoples Day." 3 min video.

The Reckoning: Native American Boarding Schools' Painful History Unearthed. NBC news. video 24 mins 

The Reveal: Buried Secrets Part 1. 50 mins audio

The Reveal: Buried Secrest Part 2. 50 mins audio

How the History of Leech Lake and Red Lake went down totally different paths. Code Switch Podcast. 50 mins audio.

RM PBS - Home From School: The Children of Carlisle. 55 min video but you mght need access to RMPBS.

Other resources

Native American Heritage month. PBS

National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian. 

Dystopian Literature, the Climate Crisis, and Our Future  (also the threat of AI)

Short Stories

We ate the Children Last - Yann Martel 2004

There is also a short film adaptation of this story - 

11 mins. 

The Minority Report by Philip K Dick 1956

Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn 2016

The Last Curiosity by Lucy Tan 2021

Just Do It by Heather Lindsley 2016

Peter Skilling by Alex Irvine 2004

Test by Theodore Thomas 1962

Chomping at the Lit Dystopian Short Stories list and summary of texts. (Use this link to find out about the above stories)

Non-Fiction - Climate

-Elizabeth Kolbert. It's Earth Day, and the News Isn't Good. The New Yorker. April 23, 2023. 

Any article you find by Elizabeth Kolbert would be good. 

-Asif Husain-Naviatti. "How Climate Negotiators turn national self-interest into global collective action."The Conversation. 27 November 2023. 

-Julia Rosen. "The Science of Climate Change Explained" The New York Times. 19 April 2021.

-"Climate Change Impacts". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 13 Aug 2021. 

-"Greta Thunberg: Who is the Climate Activist and what has she achieved?" BBC. 18 October 2023. 

Non-Fiction - AI

-Chris Vallance. Artificial Intelligence could lead to extinction. BBC. 30 May 2023. 

-Kelsey Piper. AI experts and increasingly afraid of what they are creating. Vox. 28 November 2023. 

-Oliver Darcy. Experts are warning AI could lead to human extinction. Are we taking it seriously enough? CNN. 31 May 2023. 

Film

Leave No Trace, 2018, Trailer, If you have HULU, you can watch Leave No Trace

Don't Look Up - available on Netflix, Trailer

Documentary

Breaking Boundaries The Science of our Planet. Documentary Preview (10 mins video)  Sir David Attenborough narrates. Watch in full on Netflix.

Climate Change and the Rich video. 27 mins.

Climate-Change Migrants video. The Economist. 10 mins.

The Tragedy of Deforestation. BBC. 6 min video.

Podcasts

Student Activists are Pushing Back against big polluters - and winning. From Code Switch. 38 mins.

8 Great Podcasts on Climate Change. 

Other Resources: 

The Global Goals - #13 Climate Action

Environmental Protection Agency Website.