Research Plan Post

    For our research project my group has chosen to examine the tradition of Alaska Native Storytelling.  This is something that as a group we all seemed interested in and that should make it all the more fun.  I feel that this topic is extremely important given the decaying state of Alaska Native Languages and, as there is no current page on Wikipedia that defines this topic, I think that the information should be made available to the entire world.

    Of course, considering the subject, I have found myself asking many questions.
-Why is Alaska Native Storytelling so important?
-What life lessons or traditions are passed down and taught though these stories?
-What key significant factors are used in the creation and retelling of the stories?
I hope to answer these and many more questions before the conclusion of this project.

    As this is to be a combined research project my group decided to split up the research into pieces so that we would be able to effectively research all aspects of our topic.   In this situation I have been tasked with exploring the connections between life lessons in the stories, the origins of the stories, and whether or not the stories can be traced to a specific tribe.  These questions I think are extremely important if we are to get a full understanding of Alaska Native Storytelling.

    When it comes to actually creating our page, I think we will all work together on general planning and layout. Then as Tyler and I are more comfortable with computer use, the two of us will be working to get the information entered and posted to Wikipedia.

    At this time I have completed a lot of research on this subject online and by locating “classic” texts related to Native Storytelling. Shockingly I was able to find much more than my fair share in a relatively short amount of time.  As per our request, Lance Twitchell has agreed to meet with us next week and will provide information on our topic as well as answer questions for us. This should allow us to really achieve a deeper understanding of our topic as well as make it more thorough.

    For my time-line I will be sticking to our project guidelines and completing every piece as quickly as possible for, I believe that, by the time our research is complete we will have a vast amount of data to combine, organize, and publish.  As it just so happens, my working schedule has been rearranged and, I will be able to devote a considerable amount of  time to the successful completion of this project.  Also at my side I have a great group of people that will be assisting with nearly every step!  Thanks Guys!!!