ANTHROPOLOGY 146
NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS

Dr. James J. Sheehy
Office Phone (University Park) 814-865-1142
Voice Mailbox (altoona) 949-5300 ext. 6094
email: jjs1@email.psu.edu

109 Birch Complex.
My office hours will be from approximately 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday.

America's Fascinating Indian Heritage: The First Americans: Their Customs, Art, History, and How They Lived. Reader's Digest Association, Inc., New York, 1978

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

The subject of this course is the Native American populations that developed in North American, north of Mexico. Our focus in this course will be the period just prior to, during and after the contact of these groups by non-Indian explorers and pioneers. Utilizing a cultural ecological perspective, this course will expose students to the diversity and complexity of American Indians lifestyles and will examine some of the myths that have developed about American Indian peoples. Lectures will address general topics of anthropological interest in each of the major cultural areas of native North American as well as specific topics dealing with individual groups. Films and slides will be used to amplify and emphasize various aspects of the lectures and readings.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Looking at the course as a whole, and using the syllabus as a guide, you can see that the course material is divided into several sections, each of which concentrate on a different geographical and cultural region of North America. The first few lectures will provide an overview of anthropology, introduce students to the cultural ecological perspective, and discuss the various ways in which the Native American populations have been studied in the past.

The organization of the lectures and readings from the text will differ from the sequence of chapters in the text. Following the introductory section, I will lecture on the Arctic and Subarctic populations that are most closely tied to their natural environment. The Great Basin, Plateau, California, and Northwest Coast Indians will be discussed next. Finally, the agricultural and nomadic cultures of the Plains, Southwest, Southeastern Woodlands, and Northeastern Woodlands will be studied.

READING AND LECTURES:

Reading assignments are outlined in the syllabus presented below. All assignments are from the required text. Although the lectures generally follow the flow of the material in the chapters of the text, there will be additional materials that are presented in lecture that might not appear in the text. Students are responsible for the lecture materials as well as the readings. For this reason, it is advisable that students read the assigned material prior to coming to class.

In the past, students have asked how to best study for the course. The best answer I can give is that in the long run it would be advisable to read the assignment several times. A technique that I find helpful for better reading comprehension is to pre-read the assignment. For example, first page through the chapter that is assigned, noting the subdivisions of the chapter. Second, go back and study the diagrams, tables, figures that are found in the chapter. Frequently much of the most important information is summarized in these diagrams, tables, and figures. Third, then go back to the beginning of the chapter and read the first sentence of each paragraph. A good author will frequently provide a good bit of information in the very first sentence in order to attract the attention of the reader. Finally, go back and read the entire chapter. If you know how the chapter is divided, are familiar with the diagrams, tables, and figures referenced in the text, you will have a better comprehension when you ultimately read the entire chapter.

You should also be aware of the procedures for ordering books via LIAS from the main campus at University Park.

WEB PAGE AND THE WORLDWIDE WEB:

During the course of the semester, I will be constructing a web page for this course. The world wide web and the internet provide a rich source of information on a wide variety of topics related to North American Indians. On the web you will be able to access material dealing with the archaeology of North American cultures as well as connecting with many web sites maintained by modern Native American tribal groups.

In the early weeks of the course, I will be arranging with Library personnel to address the class with respect to using the world wide web and the internet via the Altoona computers. The Internet can be very important as a study aide, especially given the fact that the library on the Altoona campus is not very large and has a narrow selection of books on North American Indians.

EXAMS: There will be three exams in the course. Each exam comes at the end of one of the sections mentioned in the syllabus. The third exam is fact the Final Exam and will be giving during the normal Final Exam period. Each exam is worth 100 points. Additionally, there will be 6 short quizzes. The quiz with the lowest score will be dropped. Each quiz will be worth 20 points for a total of 100 points. The total number of points that you can accumulate for the course is 400.

Each exam will cover only the material presented in the texts and lectures up to the date of the exam. The second and third (final) exam may include some material from earlier sections. Some material and some exam questions cannot be understood without reference to earlier material.

The format of the three exams will be varied. There will be short answer questions, multiple choice questions, some true and false questions, some identifications or comparisons, and an essay. The object of this type of exam is to test you employing a variety of different formats. The format of the quizzes will vary and may take the form of matching, short answer, true and false, or multiple choice.

Since I am commuting from State College, it is difficult to arrange make-up exams. Therefore, I stress that each student should be sure to take each exam. I will give a make-up exam only for compelling documented medical or legitimate religious events. If one knows ahead of time that he or she will not be able to take an exam on a scheduled date, then you must inform me before the scheduled exam in order to set up a time for the make-up. For those students who fail to take an exam, and have not arranged a make-up before hand, they will receive no points for that exam

There will be no make-ups given for quizzes. If a person misses a quiz that quiz is may be dropped. Students frequently ask me at the end of the course "what can I do to improve my grade? The response is simple and will be "nothing". The point is that the time to improve while you are taking the course. If there are concepts or aspects of the lectures or readings that you don't understand, then use the class or office hours to clarify what you don't understand before you take the exam. If you miss a lecture and cannot get the lecture notes from a fellow student, see me during my office hours and we can go over the material. Since I have a late afternoon class on the same day, I will be found generally in my office at 109 Birch, most of the afternoon. If you have any questions at all, please take advantage of the office hours and come by and ask the questions!

GRADING:

As noted above in the section on exams, each student can accumulate a total of 400 points. The final grade for the class will be based on the percentage of 400 points obtained. For example, A=360-400 points; B=320-359; C=280-319; D=240-279; F=240. Depending on the distribution of total points after the final exam, I might decide to use a curve in which I will take the ighest grade in the course and base the percentage breakdown on that grade. For instance, assume the highest grade was 380. Then the corresponding breakdown of grades by percent would be A=(.90 x 380) = 342-380; B=(.80 x 380) = 304-341, and so forth. I stress that I will use the later only if the final distribution of grades are widely scattered. I also will make adjustments for dramatic improvements in a student's performance.

EXTRA CREDIT:

Students may pick up extra credit in the course by doing a voluntary research paper that should be 15 pages long, at minimum. If you choose to do the extra-credit research paper, you will have to adhere to a schedule of deadlines concerning the selection of topic, paper outline, development of a bibliography, and turning in the finished paper. I will provide a handout in the first few weeks that contains the relevant information concerning the possible topics, paper outline and deadlines.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:

"Academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly activity free from fraud and deception and is an educational objective of this institution. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, fabrication of information or citations, facilitating acts of academic dishonesty by others, unauthorized prior possession of examinations, submitting work of another person or work previously used without informing the instructor, or tampering with the academic work of other students." (Policies and Rules for Students, Section 49-20).

The penalty for academic dishonestly in less serious cases consists of a failing grade for the work or test where the misconduct occurred. This decision is made by the instructor and could result in a failing grade for the course. In more serious cases of academic dishonesty, the penalties are more severe (including automatic failure for the course, probation, suspension, or expulsion from the University), the formal due process procedures are available for the students and faculty involved. Section 49-20 of the Policies and Rules for Students provides the details on these procedures.

The schedule presented above is a tentative outline of the class schedule. Since I will also be showing films and slides, it is likely that there will be some variation in the time spent on any one topic. Nevertheless, the sequence of lectures and topics will not change. I will try to adhere to this schedule as closely as possible.