Write about a time you felt connected to nature, like the kinship in Native American myths.

Prompt Response: A time I felt connected to nature, like the kinship in Indigenous myths, was when I took a trip deep into Tennessee in a rural area. The cabin I was staying in didn't have much light, air, or sound pollution, so you could hear most natural sounds; crickets, frogs, cicadas, and other creatures. That deep in the woods, those sounds are entirely normal. What locals will warn you about is when those noises come to an abrupt stop for an extended period of time, or when animals are fleeing all in one direction. I took a break outside at the dead of night one day during this trip, and it didn't occur to me that it was completely silent out since I had headphones in. It wasn't until I got a few missed calls from my dad and I looked out past the porch that I realized why everything had gone quiet. No more than fifty feet in front of me was a black bear and her cubs, two of them, wandering past the old gravel trail. They didn't see me, since the porch light wasn't on, but our neighbors had told my dad that the bears were nearby and to come get me inside. I didn't go back inside after that, though, keeping quiet and watching as they walked past. One of the cubs trailed behind a little further away from the rest and stopped to look in my direction, completely still, before going back to walking. 

Summary: During instruction today, we learned about the fundamentals of Indigenous (Native American) Literature, including the denotations of origin myths, myths, urban legends, and biblical allusions.

Reflection: This knowledge helped sharpen my note-taking skills, and it helped shed some light on my ideas of what Indigenous Literature represents.