Quick Look: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Author: Sherman Alexie

Genre: Fiction

Big Ideas (Themes): Colonialism, Culture, Coming of Age, Family, Identity, Loss

Book Size: Medium Read (200-300 pages)

World Categories - Setting: North America - U.S. & Canada

World Categories - Characters: First Peoples, Indigenous, Native American, North American - U.S. & Canada

World Categories - Author: First Peoples, Indigenous, Native American, North American - U.S. & Canada

Other Representation - Characters: Characters with medical issues

Reading Level Based on Difficulty: Middle School

Maturity Level Based on Content: Middle School, High School

Sensitive or Mature Topics Include: Abuse, Drug or Alcohol Use or Abuse, Violence

Notes on Sensitive or Adult Topics: Curse words, racial slurs and homophobic slurs. Allusions to domestic violence in which a father beats a son. Discussion of alcohol related deaths.

Series? No

Number of Books in Series: N.A.

Introductory Summary: In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, who is known on the Reservation as Junior, decides to attend high school at the wealthier white school about 22 miles away from home. While many people on the Spokane Indian Reservation, including his best friend Rowdy see it as a betrayal, his older sister finds his courage to leave the Res an inspiration. At first Junior doesn’t understand the rules and social norms of his new school and he feels like an outsider, but as the school year continues, he fights to make friends and succeed both in his home community and his school community.

What we like about this book: I love the rhythm of the book’s writing, the humor, and the very realistic nature of the friendships in the book. Alexie’s teenage narrator sounds like a teenage boy, as do his friends, which is to say they each have their distinct personalities, some tougher, some weirder, some geekier than others. I appreciated the themes of friendship and identity seeking.

3 Reasons Students Will Like This Book:

1. Relatable teenage characters 

2. The writing and language is very much in teenage vernacular and students love that it sounds the way a real teenager speaks in a completely unfiltered way. The kids also love reading it aloud, so they can say inappropriate words.

3. The kids love the subjects of romance, friendships, and competitive sports.

Check out the video as I dive into the reasons teens love this book!

Teaching Notes / Recommendations:

Pre-reading: You'll want to find out what your students already know about Indian Reservations - my 7th graders didn't know what they were before reading. I recommend a KWL chart and some video resources to explain what a reservation is and the stories of the Trail of Tears and Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce for context.

The kids love that this book has a lot of nasty insults, which is why I would start this book with an activity that addresses code switching and the use of vernacular - how kids speak differently among themselves then they do among adults. I made this a writing exercise in which students told a story as they would tell their friends and then tell the story as they would tell a teacher or a parent.

I focused a lot on character traits and character development for this novel. One activity I had students do was to look at Arnold / Junior's illustration of himself on the res vs. at school and use internal and external traits to label and illustrate a similar image of themselves at home vs. at school. This worked in particular for my kids attending a military academy, but will work best with kids who are multicultural as well and do have to code switch between languages and home customs vs. school customs.

Students also wrote about static and dynamic characters and which characters changed throughout the story. Students had to find quotes that showed how they differed from the beginning of the story to the end.

Lesson Plan Power Point for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Buy Now

Buy the Book and Support The World is My Classroom!

Click on the picture or link to purchase your book from Amazon. The World is My Classroom earns a commission on any purchases made through this link - allowing us to continue our mission of sharing diverse books.

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.