Adolescent Fiction: Absolutely True Story of the Part-Time Indian

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Absolutely True Story of the Part-Time Indian

In the novel Absolutely True Story of the Part-Time Indian Junior is faced with many difficult challenges. Junior is categorized as a dweeb into today’s society. He has a large head, thick glasses, a lisp, and a nervous stomach. For Junior it is not what’s on the outside it is what’s on the inside. Junior has a warrior’s mentality which includes courage, bravery, and heart. Throughout the entire novel Junior is constantly put in situations where he has to use his warrior mentality to battle through them. After courageously deciding to go to Reardon for high school Junior finds himself taking heat for his choice. No matter what Junior did he was always taking the heat from either side. The reservation would criticize Junior for being a trader and the people at Rearden would criticize him and ridicule him for being an Indian. He was bullied both on the reservation and at Rearden. Junior loses his best friend, struggles with being ridiculed by kids and adults and has to deal with the grief of close lost ones. Junior is a young man who has been through so much in life and even after taking so much heat and almost running out of hope he still finds joy. His warrior mentality helps him get through these tough times and Junior is able to make it through his freshman year at Rearden, while earning the respect of the reservation and his friend Rowdy. While I cannot relate to Junior’s life experience, I do admire his courage and bravery. Junior has all the chances to follow in his parent’s footsteps, but sees that as an unfulfilling life of alcoholism. Junior wants a better life, and not just one for himself, he thinks of his friends and family. We see Junior wants the best for his sister and wants his best friend to join him at Reardon. Junior is a courageous young man who takes diversity head on and ultimately succeeds.

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Post #9 Shakespeare Bats Cleanup (due MONDAY, 4/30 by class time)

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup explores a number of themes, among them grief, identity, coming of age (Bildungsroman), friendship, love, and others. Kevin, our adolescent narrator, shares his story with us as a poetic narrative which includes poems written in conventional forms and free-form poems. Choose one theme which the book develops, and show its development through the text. As you do so, be sure to consider and articulate how the book's structure (as poems) affects whatever theme you discuss.

Post #7 Warriors Don't Cry (due Sunday 4/15 by 8 pm)

Choices for responses:

1. The title of this text refers to warriors. How are the characters warriors? Are you comfortable with that depiction? Why or why not? Be sure to offer specific description as you explore characterization.

2. While it could certainly be argued that the author of our last novel does place himself in the text, that book is fiction. This text is not; rather, it's a memoir. How does knowing that the book is non-fiction shape your reading of it? Does it cause you to respond differently? If so, how? If not, why not? Consider characters, events, and the historical context carefully as you respond.

Post #6 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (due Sunday, 3/25 by 8 pm)

Post #5 Annie on My Mind (part 2) due Sun 3/11 by 8 pm

You have several different options for your response:

1. How is social transgression framed and treated in the novel? Do you as a reader find that the characters are affirmed or punished for stepping outside of social conventions?

2. We've talked a bit about parallel spaces in texts, spaces in which characters encounter very different experiences. After reading this novel, can we argue that those parallel spaces never intersect? What function might those separate (or not so separate) spaces serve?

3. The story is written in the epistolary (letter writing) tradition. How does that framing affect your reading? Your interaction with characters? Your response?

Post #3 Due by Monday's class (2/20)

For this post, you have three options:

1. Respond to some theme you identify in the novel. Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the book.

2. Apply the article's claims to the novel. Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the article and the book.

3. Examine the novel as science fiction. How is it both utopic and dystopic in its function? What might it be warning us as a society against? Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the text.

Post #1 Due by Thursday's class (1/26)

Ellen Raskin's novel The Westing Game is a detective novel, yes, but we can tease out many themes as we examine the text. A few we introduced and explored briefly in class today:

the Cinderella effect

the roles of women

identity construction

gaming and strategy

trust (as it relates to other themes or on its own)

oppressive/repressive (think Trites) parents

Choose from a theme on this list or choose a theme you've noted in the text, and write about the way the theme is introduced and developed through the novel. As you show how the theme works throughout the book, be sure to offer specific examples to support your ideas.