HI EVERYONE!


We hope you've all been celebrating this beautiful start to summer 2012! If you have any questions about the summer reading assignments or evaluations, please review the handouts we distributed at FMS (more available in the FMS office), or online at the FHS site on the dropdown menu, Summer Reading. Remember, you're each responsible for 6 thoughtful paragraph-length posts (8-10 sentences) to be completed by July 30, 2012. Further questions? Please contact Mrs. Nelson (snelson@fairview.iu5.org), or Mrs. Hurt (phurt@fairview.iu5.org). We're anxious to share your insights and enthusiasm about our readings...can't wait to see and hear your responses!


Post 1 Thematic Focus

PONDER AS YOU READ…THEN RETURN TO RESPOND! Four themes form the core of our studies in Honors English 1 and Honors American Studies : Struggle for Equality, A Nation of Innovators, The Pursuit of Liberty and Justice, and Revealing Character: The American Mosaic. As you’re reading Part-Time Diary, keep these topics in mind. Consider how Arnold’s life and his experiences relate to the semester’s themes. In your post, state a chosen theme, share a brief account of the book’s episode, include page citations (22-23), and share your interpretation. Feel free to react to the event, Arnold’s conduct,& your chosen theme.

Post 2  A Diary?


PONDER AS YOU READ…THEN RETURN TO RESPOND!  A diary is “a daily record, usually private, especially of the writer's own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc.” (dictionary.com).  As you’re reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, consider how Alexie’s book does / does not support this definition.  Respond by sharing & explaining an example of your choice.  Include page reference (4)!  Finally, consider what effect is created since this work is presented as a "diary".  You may also want to consider Sherman Alexie's life:     http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/authors/p/alexie.htm .

Post 3  Find your own path!

PONDER AS YOU READ…THEN RETURN TO RESPOND!  At a bookstore reading, Sherman Alexie said the one thing he would want students to take away from this novel is “escaping and confronting familial and tribal expectations.” Ponder the drawing Junior makes of his parents (12).  Why and how does he, unlike his parents, manage to confront and escape the cycle of despair? Don’t forget page references!  

Post 4:  Personal Put-downs

From the novel’s opening, Junior seems to cope with hardships by making himself the subject of jokes, some brutally honest and even hurtful.  Share an example of this self-deprecating humor throughout the story.  (Please include page references!). Why does the narrator choose this approach?  What do we learn from these revelations? 

Post 5  GPS for Life 

Arnold is blessed to find a number of guides along his journey to maturity.  Name two of these mentors (positive influences and helpers).  Then, briefly relate a relevant incident or example, and explain their impact on Arnold’s growth.  Please include page references!

Post 6 Artwork in the novel

How do you react to the images / graphics in Part-Time Indian?  How do the images expand your understanding of the characters and themes?  Evaluate:  so far, how do you rate the incorporation of pictures in a novel?  Are you upset Alexie didn’t share his own caricatures, even though he used this outlet as a youngster?  GRAPHICS:  Thumbs up / thumbs down?  Explain; please mention & cite any you find particularly significant, humorous, or meaningful.

Post 7 First person vs. Third person

In an interview for the National Book Foundation with Rita Williams-Garcia, Alexie reveals he worried that using first person narrative would turn his novel into a “thinly disguised memoir”; thus, he wrote an early draft in third person.  In this format, he recognized that he’d created “emotional distance” between Junior’s experiences – many of his own experiences – and his readers.  He adds “I was afraid of the first person because I was afraid of my own history.”  How would your responses to the novel change if it were written in third person?  Do you think Alexie courageous for using first person narrative?  Explain by citing examples that you’re impressed or amazed he’d share!  Support your insights with references and page citations!

Post 8 Chuckles J

Much of the content in this novel can be regarded as serious and thought-provoking.  As you’re reading, are there episodes that bring a smile to your face, or even make you laugh out loud?  Cite two examples  (and page references!) and explain why / how they tickle your funny bone.  Finally, what do these incidents add to our understanding of Junior, his culture, and the novel as a whole?

Post 9  How about reading?  How about Alexie?

Anna Quindlen is an accomplished writer – both fiction and non-fiction.  She’s authored a short (less than 100 pages!) gem of a book titled How Reading Changed My Life.  We’re big fans of her insight and artistry.  Following are a few of her observations from this title:

1.   “Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home."

2.      “In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.”

3.      “Those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers...”

4.      “How is it that, a full two centuries after Jane Austen finished her manuscript, we come to the world of Pride and Prejudice and find ourselves transcending customs, strictures, time, mores, to arrive at a place that educates, amuses, and enthralls us? It is a miracle. We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.”

5.      “I remember the first year after my second child was born, what I can remember of it at all, as a year of disarray, of overturned glasses of milk, of toys on the floor, of hours from sunrise to sunset that were horribly busy but filled with what, at the end of the day, seemed like absolutely nothing at all. What saved my sanity were books. What saved my sanity was disappearing, if only for fifteen minutes before I inevitably began to nod off in bed...and as it was for me when I was young and surrounded by siblings, as it is today when I am surrounded by children, reading continues to provide an escape from a crowded house into an imaginary room of one's own.”

6.      “While we pay lip service to the virtues of reading, the truth is that there is still in our culture something that suspects those who read too much, whatever reading too much means, of being lazy, aimless dreamers, people who need to grow up and come outside to where real life is, who think themselves superior in their separateness.”

Once you’ve completed The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, if you find yourself in any of Quindlen’s reactions to reading, identify which one seems to speak of you and detail your response to this work.  If not, share your reaction to reading and, especially, to your reading of Alexie’s work.  As always, support your response with details…and be honest…please!