Narrative Mode, Theme vs. Plot- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

Continuing the Narrative Mode in AP Lang, and for the first time at my regular high school, I’m actually doing a creative writing unit.   I’m doing 3 days of “play” (read: exercises, plus freewrites, plus reflective writing on their own process- I refer to as their “meta” sheet) before sending them home over the weekend to try their hand at full narrative.  Friday we will be doing a collaborative fiction/postmodern fiction activity; Thursday we will be working with The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and today I read to them from Absolutely True.  I’m kind of working backwards.   Friday is intended to help the kids unlock their own linguistic potential; tomorrow, after we examine different domains of giftedness & creativity, is intended to help the kids find that even if their creative aspects don’t manifest themselves narratively, that their creative aspects can be directed that way.  More on this in the next post.    (Bear in mind that we’ve been working with narrative for about a week now; also having looked at Image as Text.)

Today, though, we examined using plot to present a theme, and, conversely, how to weave a theme into a plot driven text (at least, I hope we learned how to do this.  I’ve resisted looking at the kids results so far; I only hear/read their meta sheets).   The catalysts for this examination were the first two chapters of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.

I do love this book, and it was quite appropriate for my purposes in the class.  The first chapter is all about Arnold’s self image.  We see the pictures he draws of himself, we understand how his physical deformitie affect his self esteem- and his personal safety!  But when we read this chapter-long self examination, which could have been just one long expository essay, we find that he’s used the very same narrative technique as the beginning of Citizen Kane.  Arnold runs us through his life right up until the time the story starts, just as the newsreel in Kane gives his full life.  It’s now up to the audience to see how the pieces of his life fit together.   Arnold tells the story of his birth, surgeries, and how he came to be as self conscious as he is.   He does this by relating a chronological series of events- a coherent narrative.  I read the chapter, let the kids discuss it (but only for about 60 seconds), and then kids continue their freewrite, for about 5 minutes, at the conclusion of this chapter.

Next chapter I also read aloud.  It’s the inverse, rhetorically, of the first chapter.  The primary purpose of the chapter is to describe the events leading to the death of the family dog; however, the theme of what abject poverty means, runs throughout.  I’m glad the kids picked this up.  (One girl also commented that the use of/reference to Kentucky Fried Chicken served a specific and useful purpose- it gives the reader some context, some understanding, some connection to this boy’s reservation world, and yet also shows the reader that the boy’s reservation world is our real world, too.)  After I stop reading this, immediately upon the death of the dog & reflection on the cost of a bullet, I don’t let the (now depressed) kids discuss.  They go straight back to their freewriting.  After about 7 minutes, I have them stop, and we discuss the selection.

I don’t know if hearing the two chapters, which were quite different in theme and scope, caused them to consciously (or subconsciously) alter their writing, or if their freewriting was affected at all.  At the end, though, we returned to the meta sheet (actually we never left it), and the kids wrote upon how and if their writing was any different after hearing the selections.

Sherman Alexie is just wonderful.  Even one of my girls knew him from his appearance on The Colbert Report.  The book is one of the best young adult novels I’ve ever read, and boy does it flow out loud nicely.  By fourth period, I already had entire chunks of it memorized, and was half reading/ half speaking from memory during this performance.  It got me thinking about how to convert it into a one person play.  I never had that thought of a similarly narrator-driven story, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, but for some reason, I think the Alexie would work.  I’ve been thinking about it all day, and the three things I’ve come up with are- 1.)  It has to be multimedia, 2.) I would want to imitate, in performance, John Leguizamo’s multi-character juggling acts from Mambo Mouth and Spic-o-Rama, and 3.) In a perfect world where I got all the rights from Alexie and his publishers to do this, and a venue to do it in, boy wouldn’t it be a bitch that I’m a white guy doing it?

Read my earlier thoughts on the book here.

Read Alexie writing about Native American Porn and the defintion of an Orgasm (two separate discussions) with Dan Savage for “Savage Love” here.  (No, really.  Once the link opens, just scroll down to the second letter.)

See Alexie on Colbert here (at least until I figure out how to embed the video).

 

p.s. the kids loved the book, and want more of it!