JPME 3 (1) pp. 11–28 Intellect Limited 2019 Journal of Popular Music Education Volume 3 Number 1 © 2019 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jpme.3.1.11_1 www.intellectbooks.com 11 ABSTRACT This article chronicles a four-month facilitative teaching collaboration between a music education team from the University of Washington and youth enrolled in a Native American tribal school in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The collaboration embraced a creative process honouring student voices, community values, principles of indigenous pedagogy, and an earnest effort to support student expressive impulses that blend their Native American heritage with a pervasive interest in popular music. A collective songwriting process with roots in indig- enous practices from Chiapas, Mexico was employed as the framework through which students confronted social and cultural matters. The school is located in a community where language and ways of living are threatened – a concern upon which students reflected in writing a song partly in their endangered Native language of Sahaptin. The process is described as a pathway to the use of creative avenues that address social issues among marginalized youth towards artistic and sociomusical ends. KEYWORDS songwriting indigenous pedagogy cultural heritage Native identity testimonio popular music Red Pedagogy PATRICIA SHEHAN CAMPBELL, CHRISTOPHER MENA AND SKÚLI GESTSSON University of Washington WILLIAM J. COPPOLA University of North Texas ‘Atawit Nawa Wakishwit’: Collective songwriting with Native American youth