Millan 1 Abe Millan Dr.

Medina CTW 1 25 October 2013 Realizations Throughout my four years of high school, I can only remember writing two narratives, and I clearly remember that both times I made up a story instead of writing a real narrative. As I reflect back on those two essays, I realize that there was two reasons why I wasnt able do the assignment honestly. The first was because my instructors never explained them well enough. It was as if they already expected us to know how to write narratives. They spent the majority of the year teaching us how to analyze things such as diction, symbolism or background information, but they didnt teach uswhat I now see as an important aspect of lifehow to analyze our past in order to better understand our present. My second reason, which comes as a consequence from the first reason and from the way my parents raised me, is that prior to my senior year, I never reflected on past experiences. My parents have for a majority of their lives been devout Christians, and this influenced the way they raised me. Not only was Christian doctrine forced into me as a child, but also I was restricted to only participate in activities that involved my Christian friends or were led by the church. To be clear, I am not saying that Christianity is bad, but I do feel that being forced to believe in Christianity as a childthe time in your life where you easily believe in everything you are toldhas resulted in a hindrance of my ability to develop an identity and a voice that I could call my own rather than the product of my parents beliefs. In the essay, Its Time for Class: Toward a More Complex Pedagogy of Narrative, Amy Robillard spends a lengthy amount of time arguing about how the use of narratives allow

Millan 2 for both readers and writers to analyze their pasts in order to learn more about themselves. Sherman Alexie analyzes his own experiences growing up in an Indian reservation through his novel, The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Although this novel is fiction, Alexies use of his own experiences to convey the larger themes of identity and class inequality make the novel genuine and generalized to the point were it becomes useful piece of information that can be further analyzed in order to make sense Alexies present. As noted before, Alexies novel deals with the issue of identity. Throughout the novel, Arnold Spirit is trying to figure out who he is, and during this process both Arnold and the reader observe how Arnolds character progresses. As he finally becomes accustomed to and accepted at Reardan High, Arnold introduces his identity crisis. He says that, Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other (Alexie 118). The question of whether Arnold is half Indian or half white preoccupies him throughout the rest of the novel. At one point in the novel he expresses, You probably think Ive completely fallen in love with the white people and that I dont see anything good in Indians. Well, thats false (Alexie 152). Although, he acknowledges that its better to live in Reardan than in the reservation, he mentions that being at Reardan has made him appreciate Indian parents because they dont ignore their children like the parents at Reardan do. It is these types of realizations that Alexie makes in his novel that exemplify what Robillard writes about. Robillard mentions that, we come to understand ourselves by crafting stories about ourselves (79). Once a story is told, it becomes a piece of history waiting to be analyzed and interpreted, and these interpretations help [us] explain how [we] got to the place [we] currently inhabit (Robillard 79). Although we see many of Arnolds realizations throughout the novel, the most significant ones happen towards the end of the novel when Arnold and his family go to clean the graves of

Millan 3 Grandmother Spirit, Eugene, and Mary. It is at this point where Arnold has been able to accumulate each realizationwhether it was the realization that he was truly smarter than most of the white people or the realization that he was actually good enough to make the A-squad in Basketball with the right motivation and expectations from his teamand use them to explain the questions about his identity. He comes to terms with himself when he realizes that he is not a person split in two, but rather he belongs to many tribes (tribe of Spokane Indians, tribe of cartoonists, tribe of teenage boys, etc.). This realization comforts Arnold because he knows that he was going to be all right, but it also reminds him of the people in his community that were not going to be okay. While Alexies novel primarily focuses on Arnolds discovery of his identity, there are many instances in the story that deal with the issue of class and how it has affected Arnold and his Indian community. A great example of this is seen when Reardan and Wellpinits basketball teams rematch. After being having brutally lost the first basketball game against Wellpinit, Arnold craved revenge during their rematch. When questioned by the reporters, How bad do you want to win?, Arnold responds strongly by saying, I never wanted anything more in my life (Alexie 186). Yet, after experiencing an amazing victory against Goliath (Wellpinit Redskins), Arnolds happiness quickly turns into shame as he realizes that his team, the Reardan Indians, was the real Goliath. He goes one to say that: All of the seniors on our team were going to college. All of the guys on our team had their own carsBut I looked over at the Wellpinit Redskins [and] I knew that two or three of those Indians might not have eaten breakfast that morningI knew that seven or eight of those Indians lived with drunken mothers and fathers. I knew that one of those Indians had a father who dealt crack and meth. I knew two of those Indians had fathers in prison. I knew that none of them was going to college. Note one of them (Alexie 195).

Millan 4 All of what Arnold describes is the result of class inequality, and according to his description, the Indians have it bad. Yet, to any other person other than Arnold, this fact may not be so trivial. Robillard states in her essay that social class is not fixed, and this becomes evident when examining Arnolds initial behaviors at Reardan. In order to fit in, Arnold would lie about how poor and instead pretended to be middle class. For a while this worked for Arnold since everybody in Reardan assumed that Spokane Indians made lots of money because they had a casino. But like all lies, Arnolds was short lived. It was during Arnolds winter formal where both Penelope and Roger found out that Arnold hitchhiked and/or walked to school because his parents could not always afford gas and that he could not afford to pay for his food for the winter formal dinner. To Arnolds surprise, Roger and Penelope were sympathetic and helpful to him. What makes Arnold different from the other Indians in the reservation is that he is able to reflect on his experiences through his diary entrees. The importance of using narrative lies in the fact that narratives and analyzing interanimate each other. If Alexie had decided to not write his story through the diaries of Arnold, who knows how the character Arnold would of turned out. Robillard answers this generally when she says, It is to ask students to dent their tacit understanding of class, to identify with the middle-class values of higher education (80). To apply it to Alexies novel, we note that the issues of class inequality are best explained and made heard through the use of storytelling, and we replace the middle-class values of higher education with the Spokane Indian values of predetermined defeat and failure. To relate this back to my experience, I would like to add that it was only when I started to think about my story and about my experiences in church that I was able to come to the realization that I never truly was in charge of my own beliefs; I was a product of what my parents believe. It was this realization that has led me to the present day, where I have decided to

Millan 5 take a step back and no longer identify as a Christian, but instead being open to other beliefs or disbeliefs. This decision has had its consequences. Just like Arnold, I am currently going through an identity struggle due to the fact that when Im with my parents, I am expected to be a Christian. Im part time Christian and part-time agnostic at the moment and I cant wait to know what realizations I will concoct as I analyze my story in the coming years.

Millan 6 Works Cited Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York [u.a.: Little, Brown, 2009. Print. Robillard, Amy. Its Time for Class: Toward a More Complex Pedagogy of Narrative. College English, Vol. 66, No. 1, Special Issue: The Personal in Academic Writing (Sep., 2003), pp. 74-192

Millan 7

Abe Millan Dr. Medina CTW 1 18 October 2013 Lens Essay Draft #2 English has always been my least favorite subject and therefore I detested every essay I have ever had to write. Yet out of all the essays I have written, narratives have been my least favorite. Throughout my four years of high school, I can only remember writing two narratives, and I clearly remember that both times I made up a story instead of writing a real narrative. As I reflect back on those two essays, I realize that there were two reasons why I didnt take those essays seriously. The first was because my instructors never explained them well enough. It was like they already expected us to know how to write narratives. They spent the majority of the year teaching us how to analyze, whether it was looking at symbolism or the heros journey, but they didnt teach uswhat I now see an important aspect of lifehow to analyze our past and present lives. My second reason goes along with the first in the sense that prior to my senior year, I never reflected or analyzed my life. This was mainly a consequence of the influence that my parents had on me. My parents have for a majority of their lives been devout Christians, and this influenced the way they raised me. Not only was I forced, and I say forced in the sense that as a child you really are subjected to the beliefs of your parents, to believe in Christian doctrine, but I was also restricted to doing only activities that were led by the church. To be clear, I am not

Millan 8 saying that Christianity is bad, but I do feel that being forced to believe in Christianity as a child has resulted in a hindrance of my ability to develop an identity. Today, I do not identify myself as a Christian, and I feel just like Junior does in the sense that Im living my life part time as a Christian and part time as a curious individual/agnostic. Alexie demonstrates Robillards idea that the use of narratives should be encouraged in academic writing because it provides an effective way of displaying human struggles whether it is an identity or a class struggle for the growth of the writer.

One of the main notable things in Sherman Alexies narrative is the fact that there is progress. As Junior writes about his transition to Reardan we see how he reflects on his selfesteem. He begins to realize that the reason why he was so self-critical and depress at the rez. Junior says, Id always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. And so I became good. It is this type of analysis that Robillard talks about in her essay. She disproves the theory that narratives dont allow for analysis, and she shows that contrary to popular belief, narratives provide a more a better form of analysis that helps to do away with the corrosion of character that middle class enterprise promotes. She supports this by saying, What if we said that we could see the narrative structure breaking down at the very edges of the story: the story becomes the analysis and the analysis the story, "everything interacting, exchanging ions." Not only does analysis come up in well-written narratives, but also the analysis is more worthy because you are allowed to grow as a person and figure out who you are in the process just like junior did. You dont get that kind of benefit with analyzing rhetoric papers.

Millan 9 Although Junior talks about all the positive things that happened to him at the rez, he stresses the fact that he hasnt completely fallen in love with white people. He talks about how he does not like the parenting at Reardan. He adds, Ever since Ive been at Reardan, and seen how great parents do their great parenting, I realize that my folks are pretty good. This shows Juniors struggle between being a part time Indian and being a part time American. In fact he says, I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didnt pay well at all. This situation is similar to mine. I feel like I am part-time Christian, in order to please my parents and my church community, and Im part-time agnostic when Im at school or by myself. Robilliard also mentions that in her own life she has an identity struggle when it comes to identifying middleclass and working class. She says, I am immersed (present tense) in the middle-class value system of higher education. But I come from a lower-class background. I hesitate to call mine a working-class. In all three of the examples there is something in common. We all have that urge to escape from our past. Robillard worked hard for her middle class position. I feel like I need to get out of my old beliefs for me to grow and explore new ideas. Finally, Junior wants to escape his class and his old life and it explains why he went to Reardan. He was striving for the top in order to get the opportunities he craved for at Reardan. Alexie explores the idea of identity through the medium of narrative and analyzing narrative and it reinforces the Robillards idea that narratives should be instilled into the curriculum of first year students. Although the tone of the way I described my parents sounds harsh, it is not meant to be. I have enjoyed the church life up until junior and senior year; I have made all my friends there, I found a community that loved me, and I was comfortable. But being comfortable meant that I was blindly living my life, and consequently whenever I had to write a narrative I never know

Millan 10 what to right about because my life was so dull and routine. (add something about how if I wouldnt have wanted to be a physics major if I didnt have a change in thinking)

Abe Millan Dr. Medina CTW 1 18 October 2013 Lens Essay Draft 1 English has always been my least favorite subject and therefore I detested every essay I have ever had to write. Yet out of all the essays I wrote, I would have to say that narratives were my least favorite. Throughout my four years of high school, I can only remember writing two narratives, and I clearly remember that both times I made up a story instead of writing a real narrative. As I reflect back on those two essays, I realize that there were two reasons why I didnt take those essays seriously. The first was because my instructors never explained them well enough. It was like they already expected us to know how to write narratives. They spent the majority of the year teaching us how to analyze, whether it was looking at symbolism or the heros journey, but they didnt teach uswhat I now see an important aspect of lifehow to analyze our past and present lives. My second reason goes along with the first in the sense that prior to my senior year, I never reflected or analyzed my life. This was mainly a consequence of the influence that my parents had on me. My parents have for a majority of there lives been devote Christians, and this influenced the way they raised me. Not only was I forced, and I say forced in the sense that as a child you really are subjected to the beliefs of your parents, to

Millan 11 believe in Christian doctrine, but I was also restricted to doing only activities that were led by the church. Although the tone of the way I described my parents sounds harsh, it is not meant to be. I have enjoyed the church life up until junior and senior year; I have made all my friends there, I found a community that loved me, and I was comfortable. But being comfortable meant that I was blindly living my life, and consequently whenever I had to write a narrative I never know what to right about because my life was so dull and routine. (add something about how if I wouldnt have wanted to be a physics major if I didnt have a change in thinking)

Although today I do not identify myself as a Christian, I feel just like Junior does in the sense that Im still part time Christian and part time curious/agnostic. Alexie does a good job of demonstrating and supporting the idea that Robillard writes about in her essay: the use of narratives should be encouraged more, because it provides an effective way of displaying human struggles whether it is an identity or a class struggle and it allows for those struggles to be made more aware and to be analyzed in order for people to grow.

One of the main things that are notable in Sherman Alexies narrative is the fact that there is progress. As Junior writes about his transition to Reardan we see how he reflects on his selfesteem. He begins to realize that the reason why he was so self-critical and depress at the rez. Junior says, Id always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. And so I became good. It is this type of analysis that Robillard talks about in her essay. She disproves the theory that narratives dont allow for analysis, and she shows that contrary to popular belief, narratives provide a more a better form of analysis that helps to do away with the corrosion of character that middle class enterprise promotes. She supports this by saying, What if we said

Millan 12 that we could see the narrative structure breaking down at the very edges of the story: the story becomes the analysis and the analysis the story, "everything interacting, exchanging ions." Not only does analysis come up in well-written narratives, but also the analysis is more worthy because you are allowed to grow as a person and figure out who you are in the process just like junior did. You dont get that kind of benefit with analyzing rhetoric papers.

Although Junior talks about all the positive things that happened to him at the rez, he stresses the fact that he hasnt completely fallen in love with white people. He talks about how he does not like the parenting at Reardan. He adds, Ever since Ive been at Reardan, and seen how great parents do their great parenting, I realize that my folks are pretty good. This shows Juniors struggle between being a part time Indian and being a part time American. In fact he says, I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didnt pay well at all. This situation is similar to mine. I feel like I am part-time Christian, in order to please my parents and my church community, and Im part-time agnostic when Im at school or by myself. Robilliard also mentions that in her own life she has an identity struggle when it comes to identifying middle-class and working class. She says, I am immersed (present tense) in the middle-class value system of higher education. But I come from a lower-class background. I hesitate to call mine a working-class. In all three of the examples there is something in common. We all have that urge to escape from our past. Robillard worked hard for her middle class position. I feel like I need to get out of my old beliefs for me to grow and explore new ideas. Finally, Junior wants to escape his class and his old life and it explains why he went to Reardan. He was striving for the top in order to get the opportunities he craved for at Reardan.

Millan 13

In conclusion, Alexie explores the idea of identity through the medium of narrative and analyzing narrative and it reinforces the Robillards idea that narratives should be instilled into the curriculum of first year students.