Option 1, Excerpt from: “We Are Still Here”: Native Americans Win a Voice in Government

By Terri Hansen & Jacqueline Keeler

As a result of U.S. occupation of our homelands, Native Americans and, in particular, our national identities, have been hidden and shunted out of sight and out of mind. This shrouding of Native Nations’ continued political existence is understandable as a full reckoning with our nations would greatly alter the map of the most powerful country in the world. Honoring treaties would mean returning land and resources. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, most Native Americans live off the reservation as economic refugees from their homelands. It’s hard to understand why Native peoples are overlooked in the demographic analysis of urban areas when equally small populations are included. (Native Americans are usually relegated to the “other” category.)

“We Are Still Here”: Native Americans Win a Voice in Government by Terri Hansen & Jacqueline Keeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Option 2, Excerpt from: Guardians of the Galaxy and the Fall of the Classic Hero

By A. David Lewis

If audiences step back a bit, it’s easier to see how Guardians of the Galaxy might be a satire of the classic hero tradition. Villains are constantly interrupted mid-maniacal monologue, elaborate plans are impulsively overturned, and Quill, the movie’s closest thing to a hero, challenges the film’s protagonist to a dance-off. (Of course, there’s also the fact that two of the main characters are a tree and a raccoon!) This is not to write off Guardians of the Galaxy and claim it’s a goof on Campbell’s model. Instead, it could be seen as a reaction to just how predictable, how tired, and even how broken the monomyth is today. The Guardians, remember, are just as much rogues as they are good guys. As Quill asks his team of misfits, “What should we do next: Something good, something bad? Bit of both?”

Guardians of the Galaxy and the Fall of the Classic Hero by A. David Lewis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Option 3, Excerpt from: Education in the (Dis)Information Age

By Kris Shaffer

The oldest and simplest of internet technologies, the hyperlink and the “new” kind of text it affords — hypertext — is the foundational language of the internet, HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Hypertext connects all the disparate pieces of the web together. And it’s Sci-Fi name isn’t an accident. It’s hyperdrive for the internet, bending information space so that any user can travel galaxy-scale information distances with a small movement of a finger. The hyperlink still remains one of the most powerful elements of the web. In fact, I’d argue that the hyperlink is our most potent weapon in the fight against disinformation.

Education in the (Dis)Information Age by Kris Shaffer was originally published in Hybrid Pedagogy and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.