5. Summary This is the diary of a young Native-American boy named Arnold who lives on a reservation. He is a smart kid and has an assortment of abnormalities: excess water surrounding his brain, a stutter and a lisp, and wears glasses because one eye is near-sighted and the other is far-sighted. Despite all these things, he's a pretty tenacious kid. At the suggestion of one of his middle school teacher's, Arnold decides he wants to attend an all-white high school outside of the reservation instead of attending the all-Indian school on his reservation for his freshman year. This decision leads him to be ostracized by his community for "selling-out" and also by his classmates at school, because he's the only Indian kid there. Things start to change for his family members and he fears that his decision to be different and make something of himself is causing problems. One thing that helps him deal with his day-to-day stuff is drawing. The book is filled with drawings that coincide with the story. Arnold is torn because he feels pressure to make a decision on his loyalty to one community. Arnold concludes that he is equally part of both communities and once he reaches that conclusion is ultimately accepted by both.
6. CA State Standards Met Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
7. Standards Continued Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. Analyze various accounts of a subject told in di!erent mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 9–10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
8. Themes and Ideas from the Text Issues of Race and Class Expectations: Familial, Social and Cultural Gender Issues and Gender Relations Coping Mechanisms
9. Scholarship Authors Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm of “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys” - Literacy in the Lives of Young Men argue that students show most understanding when they have background information or experiences that can be applied to a new text, “...if students can bring their learning from one text to the next, they can feel equipped to meet the challenges they encounter in their new reading” (page 51).
10. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is a great text to do just that. The students will be able to connect to it on many levels. In a place like the central valley where culture, race, gender and differences play a huge part, this book will teach the kids how to recognize these issues in their daily lives as well as in literature. Not only will they be able to identify these issues, but hopefully learn how to overcome these issues and not let stereotypes, history or other social pressures dictate the success of their lives.
