Life on a Reservation: Native American Identity in Literature

Author and Character T-Chart

As you listen to the story, write what you have learned about the character, Arnold, in the left column. Write what you have learned about the author, Sherman Alexie, in the right column.

Language Identification Organizer

Listen closely and check off each phrase as you hear it.

• "I was born with water on the brain."
• The book is semi-autobiographical.
• So Arnold could've stayed on the reservation all his life.
• tells Junior that he has to leave the rez, that it's a trap
• to have a good life, he has to go to a place where there's more hope
• very visual dichotomy between white wealth and Indian poverty
• white school where he's viewed with suspicion and racism
• On my reservation, in my family, alcoholism was epidemic.
• he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons
• everybody's going through that, trying to figure out who you are
• He finds out that he belongs to more than one tribe.

Fill-in-the-Blank Organizer

As you listen to the story, fill in the blank in each sentence below with the word or phrase that fits best.

• “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is the story of a boy from the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington Arnold Spirit, Jr, endures poverty and teasing from his peers, and he yearns for a .
• The book is semi- .
• That comes from my own personal beliefs, of course, that the reservation was created as a , as a rural concentration camp where Indians were supposed to disappear and die.
• Then he walks into the white school where he's viewed with suspicion and racism, and so he at either place, so he's nothing.
• What that does come down to is the search for .