Week Four

I hope you all enjoyed the book.  It has been great blogging with you all.  I hope this book sparked some emotion about what our own students go through too!  Here is the last week's discussion question. 

In many ways, Junior is engulfed by the emotional realities of his life and his community. Yet his spare, matter-of-fact language and his keen sense of irony help him to confront and negotiate the hurt, the rage, and the senselessness of Wellpinit’s everyday realities. How does Junior use language to lead readers, whose lives may be very different from his own, to the kind of understanding that they will not necessarily get from other young adult fiction, whose writers do not have this same kind of lived experience?

Week Three

I hope the books has been a good, yet powerful read for you.  Here is week Three's discussions question?  Have a great weekend!

 

Junior refers to his home reservation as “the rez,” a familiar name for theplace in which he was born, the place in which his friends and relatives formany generations back were born and are buried, and the land to which he istied that, no matter how bad things get, will now and forever be called “home.”What would Junior think of a cultural outsider, such as Ian Frazier, who visits a reservation to gather material for a book and then calls his book On the Rez?

Week Two

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, lends itself to many discussion questions.  I hope you are all enjoying the book as much as I have.  Please continue to read the book this week.  The post idea is based on the idea of language both spoken and unspoken.


Think about this quote from the book:

“I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because
words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other
language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you
draw a picture, everybody can understand it”. 

As educators we want students to be able to understand how language shapes meaning and affects reader, whether that language is spoken, drawn, or written.  This book really plays on all three. This book allows one to see that just the simple idea of “self-portrait” can be interpreted and created in such a variety of ways they will hopefully realize that while language can seem so simple and straight forward it can quite often be complex and versatile, leading to a multitude of interpretations.

Question: How is this quote powerful learning tool for an educator?  How does this quote lend its self to the Essential Understandings with IEFA?

Week 1: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Welcome to another year of blogging!  I am so excited to be blogging again this year.  This will be the fourth year that Victor School educators will be blogging about IEFA books.  I hope you all find something meaningful and useful while reading this book club's book.  We will meet November 6, 2012 in the library to handout books.  This book is your personal copy.   We will post every Sunday.  I will give you lesson plan links and much more for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  

See you on the blogging trail!



Week One Discussion Topic: “How Do Internal and External Expectations Shape Our Lives?”  

 *Please answer by Sunday.  


Consider the adjectives “absolutely true” and “part-time.” What
concepts appear to be emphasized by the images and the title?
Does the cover make a reference to Junior’s internal struggle, or a
struggle between Junior and the white power structure, or both, or
neither?






Lesson Plan Ideas for  the Classroom Week One:

Written By: Jaclyn Ippolito

LESSON OUTLINE:

(Prior to the class meeting, students will have read the chapter “Why Chicken Means So Much to Me”)

Summary:

This is an idea that came from a story Sherman Alexie told at his reading at the Strand bookstore. When the book first came out, Alexie said that he visited a classroom that consisted of a mostly poor, urban population. One of the students’ assignments had been to create a drawing of whom their parents could have been if someone had paid attention to their dreams, an activity modeled after the illustration on page 12 of the book. Recounting the story, Alexie was almost moved to the point of tears, and I, too, could imagine that such an assignment could be quite powerful. In this activity, students would be asked to complete a similar task.

Materials:

       A copy of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

       Writer’s notebook, pens/pencils

       Poster board, markers, crayons, colored pencils

Steps / Procedure:

When students enter class, have the following “Do Now” on the board:

       Do Now: Think about when you were a little boy or girl. In your writer’s notebook, write about what you wanted to be when you grew up. Is this still true today? If not, what is it now? Do the people closest to you encourage this dream? Are there any obstacles that might get in the way of realizing that dream? (5 mins)

       Give students the opportunity to volunteer and share out what they have written with the class. (3 mins)

       Have students open up their copy of the book to page 13 and read it aloud. Why does Junior make that drawing? Why does he feel that his parents weren’t able to realize their dreams? Guide students to the passage where Junior says “It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it.” (13) Why does Junior feel so hopeless? (5 mins)

       Ask the class if they have ever heard of the term “self-fulfilling prophecy”. Brainstorm possible definitions, and then have students jot down the definition in their writer’s notebook. Ask students how someone could get into this mindset. What are the causes? Why might this play a role in the circle of hopelessness to which Junior is referring? (7 mins)

            Self-fulfilling prophecy – a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to come true.

       Review the drawing of who Junior’s parents could have been if somebody had paid attention to their dreams on page 12. Tell students that today’s activity is going to be modeled off that illustration and they, too, will be creating such a drawing. The teacher can let them know that it doesn’t have to be sad, or focusing on someone that they feel didn’t quite reach their potential, although it could be. Students will be given the freedom to choose whomever they would like, even someone famous. (5 mins)

       Model an example for the class, perhaps the teacher has a brother or sister who has a passion for music but is working in accounting. Or the teacher could mention someone famous; perhaps the teacher envisions that George W. Bush really wanted to be a rancher, not the President. The possibilities for the assignment are endless but students must be able to answer the following questions: why did this individual give up on his or her dream? What obstacles prevented them from being realized? Students will also be asked to write a short back story to describe the illustration. This should be no more than one page in length. The next day students will be given the choice of voting on whether they would like to present them to the class or engage in a gallery walk. (7 mins)

       Provide the remainder of class time for students to work on the assignment in class. In the last few minutes, review the homework and ask students to think about if they see traces of this in their own lives and the world around them. What could they do, and what could Junior do, to stop this? (23 mins)

• This lesson is planned for a 50 minute period