In “Sharing One Skin,” Jeanette Armstrong, Okanagan, speaks on the importance of Identity. Identity through land, family, the four selves, and community. Armstrong explains her identity as heritage. It is all that surrounds her land. She explains her responsibilities as inherited from her Mother and Father. Furthermore, Armstrong also states that her identity is made up of four-selves; The physical self, the emotional self, the thinking-intelligence self, and the spiritual self. Armstrong reasons that all four selves need to be learned in order to truly be alive as human. This brought together, with relationships with the land, builds community. The land teaches language, and speaking that language ensures communal survival. In speaking that language with others, it strengthens the community as well as allows further generations to carry on the rights of the land and the people living with it.

In the article, Native American Oral Literature, by Emmanuel S. Nelson, the text focuses on the vast Indigenous history, specifically our oral storytelling. Referred to in the text as oral literature, Nelson explains that our oral stories, also called folklore or myths, are an important and central part to our indigenous cultures. Many of our stories deal with our understandings of nature, our creation, and encompass how things came to be. The many nations across the Americas all have their own traditional story of creation and nature, and it's because of this vast diversity that the topic of native stories is not fully understood and most contentious. Nelson adds that historically when ethnologist were sent to record the stories of the many Indigenous nations, captured through monographs, they approached the project as an “altruistic desire of the dominant culture to preserve (stories) before the Native culture vanished”, or before the US government made forceful assimilation efforts. It’s with this mentality that the notion of the “true” Native cultures are those that are pre-contact, labeling Indigenous peoples as something of the past. This fails to recognize that cultures are fluid and adaptable. So our stories were dismissed as quaint artifacts belonging to” a dead people.”

As we see today, that is not the case. Many Indigenous tribes are fortunate to still be passing on these stories, although their survival is threatened by modern times. Nelson analyzes native stories and presents a universal staple of many native tales, The trickster. The tricker has many forms. Being a Raven, Mink, or Blue Jay in the Pacific Northwest. A Rabbit in the Southeast. And a Coyote in and the Southwest. The trickster often serves to reinforce the boundaries of appropriate behavior by demonstrating an array of inappropriate, and often humorous, behaviors. Nelson’s final topic covered in the article is about Oratory, a genre of Native American oral literature. Orations were presented and enjoyed by ones who could effectively and fluently communicate. An oration was often political and a means by which “sovereignty was demonstrated diplomatically by challenging the rule of the dominant culture,” or U.S. colonial ideals. Nelson explains that no Native-language versions of the most famous 18th–19th century orations exist. When orations began to be printed, through translation and years after they were given, they were scrambled with ‘dominant-culture’ ideologies and perceptions of Native Americans, reinforcing damaging stereotypes. This is due to the lack of a primary source in the original language.

The article, “American Indian Children’s Literature,” by David Stirrup, explains and features the extensive volume of Native children's literature that exemplifies and encourages Native perspective, voice, language and teachings. Stirrup states that indigenous people today are still combating the conspicuous image, narrative, and stereotype that paints indigenous people as “lost in history,” under possession of, or as a burtish entity needing to be battled and conquered. Confronting this narrative are questions of authenticity and accuracy: Who tells the stories, how are they told, and whom are they told for, are all key questions when it comes to the representation of Indigenous peoples in literature and the lessons that are accompanied. Stirrup states that the majority of Native American works done by white authors play into the stereotypes and further maintain the “war-hungry and savage” imagery. These works draw much criticism today as we see an eruption of Native authors actively counter the stereotypes and emphasize multiculturalism and tradition. The steadily growing optimism towards Native children’s literature in the classroom gives an outlet for many works that promote and encourage readers to learn Indigenous linguistic patterns and languages. This differs from the "mainstream" language many children today are familiar with. The text mentions the works of Anishinabe writer,  Louise Erdrich (The Birchbark House,), Creek author Susannah Factor (Maskoke Unvkuce Cokv Enhvteceskv), and First Nations Canadian writer Larry Loyie (The Gathering Tree), as examples of Native Authors incorporating native language as a primary language for children's books. Erdrich's “The Birchbark House”, actually includes a number of Ojibwe words and a glossary at the back of the book. These bilingual works are supported by  a number of presses, such as Kiva and Clear Light, Cherokee Publications, Willowisp, and Press Pacifica. The interest in, and popularity of, this kind of publication, benefits communities as this literature explicitly promotes both verbal and written language that still hold traditional values. Stirrup describes the mission of these books in majority, as “teaching Native children about their heritage and the pride they can feel in their culture and its continuation and about exposing non-Native children, regardless of their backgrounds, to unfamiliar cultures, thus countering stereotypes and misrepresentations.” In this way, Native authors often appeal to both the culturally specific and the universal audiences, actively suppressing the damaging image of Indigenous people that we see throughout history, and creating a new narrative with perspective and accuracy.