Class: Period: Time: Length: Teacher:

ENG2P 70 minutes M. Brewer

Date:
March 19th 2019
Unit: Lesson:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Introducing the text
Indian by Sherman Alexie
Copies/Materials Needed: Objectives & Expectations:
- Visual diary booklets - Reading a variety of texts
- Example visual diaries - Inferencing
- The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Evaluating texts
- Critical literacy
- Understanding textual forms
- Elements of style
Critical Question:
How do we use and interpret illustrations as a way of communicating?
Preparation Before Class:

Time Activity Materials

Before Daily Visual Diary Visual diary booklets
class |Prior to today ask the students to keep a visual diary Example visual diary
every day for a week – every day they have to make
one drawing to represent something that happened
that day
|Show an example of what that looks like from your
own life
|Do a daily homework check
| The images can be humorous, they can be about
positive events, negative events, or anything between,
generally school appropriate but not formal, you can
swear but no slurs
10 min Personal Reflection on Diary Visual diary booklets
|On the last page of the diary students will answer the
following question:
How does drawing help you express yourself?
20 min Diary Swap Visual diary booklets
|Swap diaries with one student
|Each student will choose three drawing from their
partner’s diary and answer the following questions:
What is this drawing about?
What’s one thing this drawing tells you about your
partner?
15 min The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Title The Absolutely True
Analysis Diary of a Part-Time
|Show students the cover of The Absolutely True… Indian
|Ask students to make predictions about the book
based on the phrase “Absolutely True”
|Use this to jump into discussions of Sherman Alexie’s
experience and a brief description of reservations
|Ask students to make predictions about the book
based on the word “Diary”
|As students to make predictions about the book
based on the phrase “Part-Time Indian”
10 min Introduce The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time The Absolutely True
Indian Diary of a Part-Time
|Give a brief summary of the book (read the back) Indian
|Hand out the books and ask students to flip through
|Discuss the literary strategy of including images in
this diary
|Relate this to the activity they just did, analysing how
images can be used as a form of communicating
feelings, and maybe even some tough subjects
15 min Read Chapter 1: The Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club The Absolutely True
|Students will independently read the first chapter of Diary of a Part-Time
the book Indian
Notes:
Sherman Alexie:
The Absolutely True… is based somewhat on his real-life experiences
He is a Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-American (The Spokane people are a Native American Plateau
tribe who have inhabited the eastern portion of the Washington state and parts of
northern Idaho in the United States of America; The Coeur d'Alene, meaning "The Discovered
People" or "Those Who Are Found Here") are a Native American nation and one of five
federally recognized tribes in the state of Idaho)
He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation
A reservation is a legal designation for an area of land managed by a federally
recognized Indigenous group
From the beginning of the European colonization of the Americas, Europeans often removed
native peoples from lands they wished to occupy. The means varied, including treaties made
under considerable duress, forceful ejection, and violence, and in a few cases voluntary moves
based on mutual agreement. The removal caused many problems such as tribes losing means
of livelihood by being subjected to a defined area, farmers having inadmissible land for
agriculture, and hostility between tribes.
TRC’s Calls to Action

# 7 – We call upon the federal government to develop with Aboriginal groups a joint strategy to
eliminate educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians

 Two ways to decrease the educational gap are to increase Indigenous students’
engagement and to incorporate Indigenous pedagogy
o The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian would be more relevant and
engaging to Indigenous students who may be able to relate to, empathize with, or
find some closer relation to the characters and their experiences in the book
 It is also an Indigenous novel that is modern (unlike a lot of other
Indigenous texts in school courses, which tend to focus a lot on residential
schools) so it may feel even more relatable to students (this is not to say
the aforementioned historical novels aren’t important).
o Keeping a personal visual diary, just as the character does in the book, is a form of
experiential learning, in which students learn skills through a relevant, personal,
real-life experience
 Namely the skill of expressing oneself and reflecting upon illustrations as a
form of communication

# 10 – We call on the federal government to draft new Aboriginal education legislation with the
full participation and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples. The new legislation would include
a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles:
Developing culturally appropriate curricula
Enabling parental and community responsibility, control, and accountability, similar to what
parents enjoy in public school systems

 Allowing students to (1) keep diaries about their own lives, (2) answer open-ended
questions, and (3) make their own predictions about the book is a way that the students
themselves can develop the direction of the curriculum towards their own cultures and
relevance

Experiential Learning
Principles of Experiential Learning
Learning by doing: Rather than passively receiving information on how the images in An
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian function as a literary device, students get to have that
experience themselves, without specific rules from an authority, and have it be relevant to their
own lives
Reflection: Students are able to reflect on their own experience, and reflect upon others’ during
the reflection portion of the class, to come to their own conclusions about illustration as a
narrative element
Community: Reflecting on a partner’s diary allows students to engage with the class community
and learn about and learn from their peers
Motivation/Engagement: Because their project takes the form of a diary, students have the
opportunity to write anything they want, about things that are personal and relevant to them
and their real-lives

Experiential learning is important for this lesson because it enables the students to become
content creators. Students experience the same role of the narrator, the role of expression your
story through illustration. This allows students to understand more deeply, and create their own
conclusions on, the process, motivation behind, and interpretation of this narrative form.
Relating to the character through copying his actions also allows students to form deeper
empathy with his plights and struggle to express them. This also allows them to experience
bigger picture ideas of communication as a whole, rather than focusing on one particular novel’s
communication, especially because they have the experience and reflection before they’re
introduced to the book.