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Companion Novel and Brief Summary: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian"

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Companion Novel and Brief Summary: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian"

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Junior is a young boy who lives on the reservation with his family. He soon starts attending school in the next town over, which is all white. The novel details Junior's struggle between two different worlds that don't associate with each other and have negative views of the other. Junior must find his place in this world and cope with the demands and culture of each part of his life.

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Focal Novel and Brief Summary: The Outsiders

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Focal Novel and Brief Summary: The Outsiders

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This novel follows the story of Ponyboy, a 14 year old boy who lives with his two older brothers after his parents pass away. Together, with a few other boys in the neighborhood, they create a close, tight friend group. They look out and provide for one another. They call themselves "greasers". However, tensions run high when one of the greasers kill a Soc, a member from a rival gang, when he is tormenting another greaser. The two boys run off into hiding. Eventually, one of them passes away and it tests the group. They must learn how to cope with their loss as well as continuing to learn how to survive.

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For my text set, I wanted to center it around themes of family, brotherhood, and how human beings categorize the important people in our lives. I wanted to keep it very broad, and challenge some of the ways my students think about family. I also wanted to avoid them buying into cliches as answers, such as family are the people who you love and who you keep close to you.

For my focal novel, I chose "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton. This novel ties perfectly into my themes and essential questions. It focuses on a nontraditional family, and details not only how this family uses one another to survive hard times, but also how they interact with another family-like unit across town. For my companion novel, I chose "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian" by Sherman Alexie. This is a more diverse novel (yay!) and presents a different type of family unit, a tribe. It also talks about how Junior is conflicted between the two very different groups of people that he spends his time with. Both groups are important to him, but they do not interact with each other. This brings up the following question: Is it still considered a family if some of the members don't associate with one another? Both of these novels are coming of age stories and the narrators are about the same age as my students. I think my students would really like these. I have not included it here, but I think "Amina's Voice" by Hena Khan could also be included in this text set, which touches on community and religion.

Right after that, I included a still from The Outsiders movie as well as a movie poster to see if students could connect textual evidence to the visual pieces and make inferences about the situation, determining which characters were which. The movie trailer was provided so my students and I could discuss how we see the theme of family being portrayed to the audience in this video, if at all. I provided the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost as a supplemental text because it is an important part of the novel and to try and create connections between the message and the theme of family. Does our family have an impact on our loss of innocence?

Next, I found a great short poem about a group of young boys hanging out together. I included this to see what connections my girls could draw between the boys in the poem and the boys in the books. This would also include a discussion about friendship, time spent together, and how that influences or impacts our concept of family. What is the difference between a friend who is just a friend and a friend who is like family?

I included an informational article on herd behavior to problematize gangs as families. I want my students to decide whether they think the greasers are acting together as a family, or if they are going along with whatever happens because thats what they know and everyone else is doing. I also added an article about a new species of being that has some connection to humans, which could provoke discussion about whether or not similar genetic makeup defines who our family is.

I included a few video clips from Lilo and Stitch to challenge my girls to think about members of families that are not human. This would lead to a discussion on pets, and maybe even discussing domesticated vs. nondomesticated animals as family members.

There is a link to the dictionary definition of family. I would want to close my assignment or unit with this text and have students form an opinion on whether it was true and if it should be changed. This could be a summative writing assignment.

I added the spoken word performance of Knock Knock by Daniel Beaty to add a dimension of our understanding of family. Is our family still our family even if we are genetically linked to them, but they hurt us or aren't in our lives?

One of the last things that I included was a video about a black family that adopted white foster kids. I knew I wanted to include some sort of news clip about adoption, but I was careful in choosing which one to use because I want to be cognizant of the white savior complex and making sure I didn't embody that in this text. This video leads to conversation about whether family is determined by the color of ones skin or biological relations.

My themes and essential questions were very broad. However, with each text that was used, the essential question became more focused and specific, while still tying back to the original ones. By the end of this unit or assignment, I wanted my students to walk away with a very broad and specific understanding of the theme of family. I also hope they become more critical thinkers who are always challenging and questioning new ideas and concepts. Throughout the entire set, my students would be using textual evidence to support their answers.

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“When anybody, no matter how old they are, loses a parent, I think it hurts the same as if you were only five years old, you know? I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”

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“Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”

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Detailed Summary: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (SparkNotes)

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Detailed Summary: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (SparkNotes)

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the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian synopsis

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the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian short summary

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the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian plot outline

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SparkNotes: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: Plot Overview

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A short summary of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

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Free summary and analysis of the events in S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders that won't make you snore. We promise.

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“When anybody, no matter how old they are, loses a parent, I think it hurts the same as if you were only five years old, you know? I think all of us are always five years old in the presence and absence of our parents.”

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The answer to the question "what does family mean?" is both difficult to answer and highly subjective. The word has shifted its meaning considerably since it entered our language, currently contains many different senses, and in at least one of these senses may signify different things to different people. The earliest uses of family denoted "a group of persons in the service of an individual," a sense that is now archaic. Although this early meaning may seem far afield from the way that most of us use family today, it is not surprising when we consider that the word comes from the Latin familia, which meant "household," a designation that included both servants and relatives.

In modern use family may refer to one of a number of different groups of people or things collectively, such as chemical compounds, related languages, plants and animals, and people who may or may not share ancestry. Family is often encountered in legal use, but even within the jargon of the law it is not restricted to a single meaning. In many legal contexts family denotes "individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption," but in others the definition may be somewhat broader, encompassing groups of individuals not related by these things.

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The meaning of FAMILY is the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children; also : any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family. How to use family in a sentence. What is a family?

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Ohio couple expands their family by adopting 6 children

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Clip from Lilo and Stitch, Ohana means family...

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Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind... or forgotten!

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Extraí esta cena do filme "Lilo & Stitch" por ser uma das partes que me emocionou e por fazer parte de uma ótima fase que tive.

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News Article: Family Tree Grows (NEWSELA)

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News Article: Family Tree Grows (NEWSELA)

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Newsela | Family tree grows: Surprising details emerge on human-like species

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“I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms. And the tribe of cartoonists. And the tribe of chronic masturbators. And the tribe of teenage boys. And the tribe of small-town kids. And the tribe of Pacific Northwesterners. And the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers. And the tribe of poverty. And the tribe of funeral-goers. And the tribe of beloved sons. And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends. It was a huge realization. And that's when I knew that I was going to be okay.”

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Daniel Beaty - Knock Knock (Def Jam Poetry)

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"'Anybody home?' a familiar voice called through the front screen, and Two-Bit and Steve came in. We always just stick out heads into each other's houses and holler 'Hey' and walk in. Our front door is always unlocked in case one of the boys is hacked off at his parents and needs a place to lay over and cool off. We never could tell who we'd find stretched out on the sofa in the morning. It was usually Steve, whose father told him about once a week to get out and never come back. It kind of bugs Steve, even if his old man does give him five or six bucks the next day to make up for it. Or it might be Dally, who lived anywhere he could. Once we even found Tim Shepard, leader of the Shepard gang and far from hos own turf, reading the morning paper in the armchair. He merely looked up, said 'Hi,' and strolled out without staying for breakfast. Two-Bit's mother warned us about burglars, but Darry, flexing his muscles so that they bulged like oversized baseballs, drawled that he wasn't afraid of any burglars, and that we didn't really have anything worth taking. He'd risk a robbery, he said, if it meant keeping one of the boys from blowing up and robbing a gas station or something. So the door was never locked." p.93

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"The nurses wouldn't tell us anything about Johnny and Dally, so Darry got hold of the doctor. The doctor told us that he would talk only to the family, but Darry finally got it throught the guy's head that we were about as much family as Dally and Johnny had." p.90

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"In that second what Soda and Dally and Two-Bit had been trying to tell me came through. Darry did care about me, maybe as much as he cared about Soda, and because he cared he was trying too hard to make something of me. When he yelled 'Pony, where have you been all this time?' he meant 'Pony, you've scared me to death. Please be careful, because I couldn't stand it if anything happened to you.'" p. 86-87

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"I could have waited to go to the movies until Darry or Sodapop got off work. Rhey would have gone with me, or driven me there, or walked along, although Soda just can't sit still long enough to enjoy a movie and they bore Darry to death. Darry thinks his life is enough without inspecting other people's. Or I could have gotten one of the gang to come along, one of the four boys Darry and Soda and I have grown up with and consider family. We're almost as close as brothers; when you grow up in a tight-knit neighborhood like ours you get to know each other real well. If I had thought about it, I could've called Darry and he would have come by on his way home and picked me up, or Two-Bit Matthews-one of our gang-would have come to get me in his car if I had asked him, but sometimes I just don't use my head." p. 6-7

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The Outsiders (1983) Official Trailer - Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise Movie HD

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Informational Text: Herd Behavior (Common Lit article)

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Informational Text: Herd Behavior (Common Lit article)

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Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him.  She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again.  He spoke
Advancing toward her:  'What is it you see
From up there always--for I want to know.'
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time:  'What is it you see,'
Mounting until she cowered under him.
'I will find out now--you must tell me, dear.'
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see.
But at last he murmured, 'Oh,' and again, 'Oh.'

'What is it--what?' she said.
					'Just that I see.'

'You don't,' she challenged.  'Tell me what it is.'

'The wonder is I didn't see at once.
I never noticed it from here before.
I must be wonted to it--that's the reason.
The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight
On the sidehill.  We haven't to mind those.
But I understand:  it is not the stones,
But the child's mound--'

				'Don't, don't, don't, don't,' she cried.

She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm
That rested on the bannister, and slid downstairs;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
He said twice over before he knew himself:
'Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?'

'Not you!  Oh, where's my hat?  Oh, I don't need it!
I must get out of here.  I must get air.
I don't know rightly whether any man can.'

'Amy!  Don't go to someone else this time.
Listen to me.  I won't come down the stairs.'
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
'There's something I should like to ask you, dear.'

'You don't know how to ask it.'

					'Help me, then.'

Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.

'My words are nearly always an offense.
I don't know how to speak of anything
So as to please you.  But I might be taught
I should suppose.  I can't say I see how.
A man must partly give up being a man
With women-folk.  We could have some arrangement
By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you're a-mind to name.
Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love.
Two that don't love can't live together without them.
But two that do can't live together with them.'
She moved the latch a little.  'Don't--don't go.
Don't carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it's something human.
Let me into your grief.  I'm not so much
Unlike other folks as your standing there
Apart would make me out.  Give me my chance.
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.
What was it brought you up to think it the thing
To take your mother--loss of a first child
So inconsolably--in the face of love.
You'd think his memory might be satisfied--'

'There you go sneering now!'

					'I'm not, I'm not!
You make me angry.  I'll come down to you.
God, what a woman!  And it's come to this,
A man can't speak of his own child that's dead.'

'You can't because you don't know how to speak.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand--how could you?--his little grave;
I saw you from that very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man?  I didn't know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.
Then you came in.  I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.'

'I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.
I'm cursed.  God, if I don't believe I'm cursed.'

'I can repeat the very words you were saying.
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build."
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor.
You couldn't care!  The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretense of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.
But the world's evil.  I won't have grief so
If I can change it.  Oh, I won't, I won't!'

'There, you have said it all and you feel better.
You won't go now.  You're crying.  Close the door.
The heart's gone out of it:  why keep it up.
Amy!  There's someone coming down the road!'

'You--oh, you think the talk is all.  I must go--
Somewhere out of this house.  How can I make you--'

'If--you--do!'  She was opening the door wider.
'Where do you mean to go?  First tell me that.
I'll follow and bring you back by force.  I will!--'

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of-was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

A Christmas circular letter The city had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He sat and waited till he drew us out, A-buttoning coats, to ask him who he was. He proved to be the city come again To look for something it had left behind And could not do without and keep its Christmas. He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; My woods-the young fir balsams like a place Where houses all are churches and have spires. I hadn't thought of them as Christmas trees. I doubt if I was tempted for a moment To sell them off their feet to go in cars And leave the slope behind the house all bare, Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. I'd hate to have them know it if I was. Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees, except As others hold theirs or refuse for them, Beyond the time of profitable growth- The trial by market everything must come to. I dallied so much with the thought of selling. Then whether from mistaken courtesy And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said, "There aren't enough to be worth while." "I could soon tell how many they would cut, You let me look them over."                                     "You could look. But don't expect I'm going to let you have them." Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close That lop each other of boughs, but not a few Quite solitary and having equal boughs All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to, Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, With a buyer's moderation, "That would do." I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so. We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, And came down on the north.                                     He said, "A thousand." "A thousand Christmas trees!-at what apiece?" He felt some need of softening that to me: "A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars." Then I was certain I had never meant To let him have them. Never show surprise! But thirty dollars seemed so small beside The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents (For that was all they figured out apiece)-  Three cents so small beside the dollar friends I should be writing to within the hour Would pay in cities for good trees like those, Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools Could hang enough on to pick off enough. A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had! Worth three cents more to give away than sell, As may be shown by a simple calculation. Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter. I can't help wishing I could send you one, In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

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He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see From up there always--for I want to know.'

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Essential Question #1: What does it mean to be a family? Who determines it?

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Essential Question #1: What does it mean to be a family? Who determines it?

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Essential Question #2: Who are the members of our family? What are they like?

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Essential Question #2: Who are the members of our family? What are they like?