MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a text that explores a coming of age tale of young man on a Native American Reservation in Spokane who leaves his school on the Reservation to attend an all-white high school in a nearby town. Alexie’s tale explores the journey of a young man who straddles two cultures in an effort to get an education and find success on his own terms. Alexie’s use of the cultural divide or the idea of the “other” is the focus of our collaborative project.

The exploration of “other” made this novel relevant as a required text to stimulate class discussion and writing assignments for an international student population. The majority of these international students hail from China and other Asian nations. They are placed in a class that is one step below college level and is intended to instruct students on the basics of American college composition. The work students complete in this class is based on the rhetorical modes found in the traditional composition classroom, while also focusing on language skills as well as writing traditions and rules that are expected in a first-year college composition class.

The intersection of Alexie’s text, the learning of American composition, and the idea of “other” is where this project begins. It will explore the uses of the text, the student’s social and emotional connection to the text, the results of student projects associated with the text, and, of course, the benefits of using this text in an international classroom. Anecdotal evidence and student results will be collected from several sections of the class described above taught by three instructors to demonstrate how this novel or similar novels can achieve multiple goals of the second language classroom.