课前准备 Warm-up

Some people may have special racial identity. In this unit, you will see the history of Kiowa people, widening your knowledge of the Native American. Before you read the text, think about the following questions:

1) Did a member of your family immigrate here from another place?

2) What important myths or histories have been handed down in your family?

3) What was the most significant event in your family?

4) How much do you know about American Indians or Native American Culture?

本章概览 An Overview

The author of the essay is N. Scott Momaday. He is one of the foremost American Indian writers and the first American Indian writer to receive a Pulitzer Prize for literature.

“The Way to Rainy Mountain” first appeared in Reporter, 26 January 1967. With few modifications this piece is used as the introduction to his book The Way to Rainy Mountain, published in 1969.

This excerpt of essay on one hand told readers a story happened to Momaday’s grandmother to reveal the pictorial description of the landscape, and on the other hand discussed the history of Kiowas’ forefather and their traditional legacy to express the author’s strong homesickness and pride, in order to remind people that one should always remember his blood and root so that he can live with loyalty and without the feeling of being at sea.

学习目标 Objectives

Through textual analysis and learning, the students should

1) To appreciate the beauty of the prose (pictorial and lyrical description of the landscape, vivid depiction of grandmother at prayer)

2) To broaden the knowledge scope in American Indian history

3) To understand the common feeling of all human beings—to seek one’s roots

知识结构 Knowledge Structure

The text can be roughly divided into five parts, which can be subdivided into several sections.

Part I (paras. 1)

An outline of the author’s ancestral land.

Part II (paras.2-3)

Introduction of Rainy Mountain, on which his grandmother’s grave lie and summary of the history of Kiowas.

Part III (paras. 4-10)

Exploration of the three stages of the Kiowas’ culture—emergence, evolution and decline; Reasons to going back to Rainy Mountain and brief descriptions of the author’s grandma．His grandmother serves as a focus or a link by which the author moves his narrative from one stage to another．

Part IV (paras. 11-12)

Memories of his life together with his grandma.

Part V (paras. 13-15)

The author feeling changed on ancestral culture and compliments the active influence of the cultural heritage of Rainy Mountain.