Naturally Nice Native-Americans

Reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie was so fun! I loved it!! I laughed and wanted to keep reading – it wasn’t just funny though. I felt like there were a  lot of good messages. Like when Mr. P was explaining about “kill the Indian, save the man” – that is such a key concept that I never even heard about until I was in college, so I feel like it would be very beneficial for middle school students to be made aware of this rough moment in our nation’s history. I don’t know how comfortable I would be with using it in my classroom, though, because of some of the violence and fighting and the whole masturbation section at the beginning. I just don’t know how that would go over – it would depend on my students, but I will certainly have it on my bookshelves and encourage students to read it. As for striking at the minority string, I felt like only his ethnicity made him an Indian – Junior went out of his way to make a new name for himself, no matter the cost. And that is another wonderful message for middle school students who are struggling with their own identity.

In Using multiethnic literature in the K-8 classroom, I loved how they started the article talking about Disney’s Pocahontas. I am a huge Disney fan and so I was instantly engaged with the article. As I read, I was interested in the following statement: “Non-Native writer in America have frequently been drawn to topics and themes related to Native Americans…[probably] because they believe Indians are more honest and brave than other peoples.” I was so taken aback by this statement for some reason…I don’t even really have an explanation for why, but I just kept reading those lines and mulling it over. Of course, the next part after this whole idea of those authors that are drawn to the Native American way, they said that often they just play into more stereotypes while writing because they do not do enough research or get bad secondhand information. I completely agree that true Native Americans need to get more of their own stories out and published by themselves.

In the article from Sports Illustrated, I could not believe that first little story. I understanding that you might not know if something would offend someone or not, but once they tell you it does, you STOP! I have heard of many different areas changing their mascots so that they will not offend anyone. To me, your average while female of an upper-middle class SES, I never meant doing the tomahawk at the Braves game offensive, but looking back now, I see how it comes across. That’s honestly what I think the biggest problem is. Not that everyone wants to be racist against Native Americans, or anyone else for that matter, but that was just the environment they grew up in and they never recognized how it could offend someone. Once we educate people, then I think their consciousness of other minorities would prevent many of the offensive things that end up happening.

Alexie, S. (2007). The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. New York: Little, Brown.

Harris, V. J., & Reese, D. (1997). Native Americans in Children's Literature. Using multiethnic literature in the K-8 classroom (pp. 155-185). Norwood, Mass.: Christopher-Gordon.

Price, S. (2002, March 4). The Indian Wars. Sports Illustrated, 96, 66-72.

Odd Octavian Observations

Reading Response #7

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traiter To The Nation: Volume I: The Pox Party was a very interesting book. It personified a different type of character than we normally read about. The diction and writing style was intriguing – it reads like a classic out of the Cannon. All that being said, I don’t know if I would use this book in my classroom. It just seems too advanced for a middle grade class as a whole, but I would recommend it to individuals perhaps.

The book starts with Octavian and his mother Cassiopeia, an African princess, living in a house full of philosophers and scientists in colonial Boston. They were doing lots of different experiments and research on pretty much everything! This first part has a couple of different sections that you could use for read alouds in a science classroom – about deeper thinking and reasoning. Like when Mr. Gitney, also known as 03-01, always asks Octavian what he is thinking and why.

Eventually, Cassiopeia angers the beneficiary of the Society and they are kicked out and have to go be a part of another experiment with Richard Sharpe.  In this situation, a group of businessmen, who own slaves, are appearing to rig the experiment with Octavian in order to prove that Africans are inferior.  This is a good section to discuss with the class about how this is not true, how no race is superior – you could do this in a social studies classroom and talk about African Americans in the Civil Rights movement or Hitler trying to make the perfect Aryan race.

After a nasty Pox Party (when I almost vomited!), Cassiopeia dies and is dissected in the house. This infuriates Octavian, so he runs away and joins the Colonial Army. Octavian's military adventures are narrated mostly in epistolary form by Private Evidence Goring, a private in Octavian's regiment who befriends him, in letters to his sister Fruition. This could be a good part to use in an English classroom – to discuss how that type of writing works and how it is and isn’t effective. There are several other source texts that you could use to tie all of this together.

All in all, this book has several useful points that I could use in the classroom, but as a whole, I would not teach this book. It is just too complex for the average middle school student – and even for me, at times. And I think some of the qualities I liked about this book, I could find in a more age appropriate text. Much like pieces in the Cannon, I am glad to say I read this book, but did not fully enjoy it as just a regular reader.

I would just like to finish with this quote by Dr. 09-01: “The pupil is black, and as large as a world” (p. 61). This is a very profound statement – which is very fitting for such a profound book (which it certainly was!).

Anderson, M. T. (2006). The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traiter To The Nation: Volume I: The Pox Party. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press.