Diary of Part Time Indian - Discussion Director

We had to read the whole book in one lesson of "Diary of a Part Time Indian" as a group. My job was Discussion Director and I have to ask questions to my group. They did not do as well as I would have liked but not bad. There was a lot to memorize. The story is about an Indian who is poor and starts to rebel and goes to an all white.

Who is the main character and why did he rebel?

The main character is Arnold Spirit and he is rebelling because he does not want a meaningless life. He wants to go somewhere in life unlike other Indians so he goes to an all-white school.

Why was Rowdy so mad?

Because his best friend, Arnold, left him to go to a different school. Later in the book, Rowdy gave Arnold a concussion.

What was the new school Arnold went to called?

The new "all-white" school was called Reardan.

What was the girl in the school named?

Her name was Penelope and Arnold had an immense crush on her.

What were two main deaths that affected Arnold?

Arnold's sister died which left Arnold distraught because she was his role model. And Arnold's grandmother died because she was run over by a truck.

Connector

Anthony ran way from his town. This reminded me of the time that I ran away from home after I had a fight with my brother and was sick of fighting. At that time I slept in the parking lot for a few minutes and then ran back in to greet my angry father

Sherman Alexie and The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Vocabulary Enricher

Chapter one:

1.      Novocain – This is another term for procaine. Procaine is a synthetic compound derived from benzoic acid, used as a local anesthetic, especially in dentistry.

Sentence: His mouth felt full of novocaine, his tongue, merely stirred in his numb lips.

2.      Lisp – A speech defect that affects the pronunciation of certain letters, such as when saying s it is pronounced th in thick and z is pronounced like th in this.

Sentence: Having a lisp is more common than you might expect.

3.      Susceptible – especially liable or subject to some influence, mood, or agency. Capable of being affected emotionally; impressionable. Yielding readily or capable of.

Sentence:  I haven’t had a seizure in seven years, but the doctors tell me that I am “susceptible of seizure activity.”

Chapter four:

4.      Decrepit – Worn, broken down, or ruined because of hard use, neglect, or age. Or, a person that is elderly and infirm.

Sentence: A row of decrepit houses.

Chapter seven:

5.      Flinched – A quick or nervous moment of the face and body as an instinctive reaction to fear or pain.

Sentence: She flinched as he approached her with his hand high

Chapter twelve:

6.      Articulate – having or showing the ability of speaking fluently and coherently

Sentence: She articulated each word with great precision

Illustrator - The Chocolate War (Vishesh)

This is what I thought represented the chocolate war. There is a war in the book, hence the boy holding the sphere. The boy looks mad because he is a bully which played a huge part in the story. He is holding a chocolate bar with $$ signs on the wrapper which stands for the money which is received by selling the chocolates. There is a ball and the goal which is used for american football which was a major sport mentioned in the story. This was the summary of all the main part of the Chocolate War. 

Conector

Connector

My job is to find connections between the book my group is reading. This means connecting what we read with our own life. This was the second time we did this job and I'm really happy with my connections.

Finally, all the chocolates have been sold.

This reminded me of a moment in second grade when we had a chocolate Monday and we had to sell chocolate so we could plant a tree and that tree would represent teamwork. I also wanted to show this connection because the book had a lot to do with chocolate and how the main character sells it.

Emile also likes to insult kids in public, telling them they have bad breath, or asking them if they just farted.

Obie drank his milkshake.

This scene helped me remember the time when I was drinking one of the best milkshakes in the world. There is a place in New York that is called blake tap and the line is five hours long. I also made this connection because the main characters favorite drink is the milkshake.

The novel ends with Archie and Obie walking home together in the dark.

This reminded me of a moment when I had one of the most important basketball games ever. I unfortunately lost but what reminded me was that after the game I was so sad that I didn't want to go home with anyone. I also made this connection because it was some sort of the same in the book.

Chocolate War Robert Cormier Summariser (Final Lit Circles)

Lit Circles- Summarizer

The Chocolate War is a story told in very short scenes and chapters and is pretty easy to read. At the start of the book, Jerry, the main character is in football practice at the all-boys Catholic Trinity High School in the fictional town of Monument, Massachusetts. In the book there is a boy named Archie, the "Assignor". He is the brains of a secret organization called The Vigils. They are a group that write down assignments.

It is important to note that the assignments are cruel pranks and practical jokes that students are chosen to do. They have no choice but to obey The Vigils or face the consequences.

A man called Brother Leon is the acting headmaster of Trinity, and he and Archie had formed, somewhat of an alliance. They wanted to organize an annual chocolate sale. Leon overextended school funds for this chocolate sale to happen. He turns greedy and wants all students to sell chocolates.

Jerry's assignment is to not participate in the chocolate sale for ten days, and so he does. But after the 10 days, he decided still not to sell the chocolates. He was somewhat of a rebel. He decided to refuse to see the chocolates because of the cruelty around him, in Trinity. This leads to heavy persecution of Jerry by The Vigils who beat him up severely...

Leon is somewhat threatened by Jerry and he doesn’t want the other students to act like that. He felt as if the chocolate sale would “die” because of Jerry. Therefore, Leon and Archie organize a cruel boxing match in front of the whole school starring Jerry and Emile Janza, a school bully.

Janza and Jerry fight, but Janza stopped playing by the rules and was just too good for Jerry. Jerry is beaten so severely that he loses consciousness. Before he leaves he tells his best friend to go along with whatever Trinity and The Vigils want him to do in the future, or he may end up like him. What the book implies with the ending is that Jerry might of had died after the fight but that is not certain.

The main theme of this novel is defiance of authority. It shows how fear and manipulation can be very powerful and costly. So sometimes it's even better to follow bad orders of bad people rather than sacrificing your own life. Moreover there are no female characters, and the story is mainly about boys. It is very realistic and emotional.

Blog post #4- Discussion director

For this blog post we finished the book. It was a very interesting book and I was a discussion director.
Ther results:

Questions:

What's Jerry’s favourite drink?

Adam: Milkshake

Aleksa: Milkshake

Luka:Milkshake

Vishesh:Soda

What year is he in school?

Adam: Freshman

Aleksa:Freshman

Luka:Freshman

Vishesh:Freshman

What sport does he train?

Adam: Football

Aleksa:Football

Luka:Football

Vishesh:Football

What happens to Jerry that influences the book a lot?

Adam: Breaks his jaw(fight)

Aleksa:Fight

Luka:Fight

Vishesh:Fight

How does the story end?

Adam: walk in the dark

Aleksa:walked in the dark

Luka:walked in the dark

Vishesh:Walk in the dark

Literacy Circles- Chocolate War Illustrator

For our first meeting of Chocolate War, a book by Robert Cormier I had the job of the illustrator.

I illustrated how growing up influences what you do and what you buy. The main character, Jerry Renault went to a magazine store (chapter 3) where he bought a rather inappropriate magazine. He used all his budget to buy this magazine. This demonstrates how, at different ages, we all have different needs. Jerry Renault's is at a stage of puberty and buying an inappropriate magazine was something that he felt the need of buying.

Here is the picture that I llustrated-

Jerry Shopping at the Magazine Shop

Literacy circles- Connector

My connection was from chapter 23 when the goober wanted to quit playing football in the Trinity.  When i was nine years old i was playing soccer at a club for a few years.At the beggining everything was going really good we had good coaches and good players. One day the best coach of the club left and the one who came instead of him was not really good. Many kids did not like the new coach and they left the team and the things were getting worse by time. I also wanted to quit until i realised that a few good players were left and I was one of them so if we quitted one by one the club would turn out to be awful. So i stayed and the next reason the club did better. That is why the goober should re-consider about quitting the team maybe they need him more than he knows.

The chocolate War - Summarizer

The beginning of chapter 20 is based on a scene that happened earlier in the book. When the Goober unscrewed Brother Jacques’ room, the room broke down in the beginning of the chapter. Archie was satisfied with himself and felt triumph but the other students were not convinced. Then, at a different setting, a kid by the name of Kevin Chartier had gone to half a dozen houses to sell the chocolates but had sold only one box to his aunt, who had diabetes. So he called up one of his friends. His friend, Danny, hadn’t had any luck either. The two talked about how Jerry was doing well to annoy Brother Leon. How Jerry was rebelling against the school, the spirit of Trinity. The chocolate sales were not going well, obviously. The kids either did not have the spirit or just could not sell the chocolates. So Brother Leon complained about the sale to Archie, who was also very mad. But little did they know that something would happen to the sales. Then came the discussion between Jerry and Archie. It was a very long chat. Archie tried to tempt Jerry to selling the chocolates. But Jerry would not listen. He will continue declining the chocolate sale. A day after that, a junior by the name of Frankie Rollo was called to a chat with Archie. Archie asked for his name because it was ritual to call for the name but Rollo thought this was kind of joke and got all smart about it. And the two got into a big argument about it and Carter, Archie’s bodyguard, punched Rollo in the face and Rollo fell flat. He was ignored then because the bell rang. When Jerry came back from football practice, in his apartment, he got a call. But when he said hello, no one was there. He repeated. And then a small chuckle came out of the phone. Jerry was scared. But suddenly hung up. Later that night, he got the same call, but his father picked up. The same thing happened to his father but he regarded it has some sort of joke. But Jerry was not so sure. The next day at school, Jerry opened his locker and the locked was trashed. Everything lying in the wrong place, marks on the locker wall. Hours later, something miraculous happened to the chocolate sale. The numbers went up and Brother Leon was delighted. They had sold fifteen thousand and only needed five thousand left to sell before the sale was completed.

Chocolate War - Vocabulary Enricher

                                                           The Chocolate War

I was vocabulary enricher for the my group and were reading the Chocolate War. The words I chose were:

Resentful: Full of or marked by indignant ill will.

Buoyant: Characterized by liveliness and lightheaded.

Ravenous: Extremely Hungry

Tardy: After the expected or usual time.

Disadvantage: The quality of having an inferior or less favorable position.

I am satisfied with my group for telling me the definition of most of these words. They guessed four out of five. 

Adam Chocolate War- Vocabulary Enricher

villainous-relating to, constituting, or guilty of wicked or criminal behaviour.( Evil)

muss- messy

quarterback-  a position in American football. ( Main character in the team)

Swayed- a motion, movement

This meeting I was vocabulary enricher and I am very happy with the knowledge of my lit circle group. They knew all of my words. I also put these words because they seemed knew form me.

Connector - Vishesh

This time we started reading Chocolate War. I was the connector for this time and I made couple connections with the words and some paragraphs. Here are the connections I made.

Chapter 3 (18): Afraid his mother would find the magazine.

Once while playing with my friend I found one of my belongings at his house which was stolen so I stole it back and still hasn’t gotten into trouble.

Chapter 5 (37): Archie

At this point in the book I remembered comics in which the protagonist is a redhead called Archie.

Chapter 6 (42): Leon

One of my friend’s online aliases.

Chapter 11 (70): The racket was deafening

The festival of lights (Diwali) is always a deafening racket.

Chapter 12 (78): There was a legend in school that the coach does not accept you until he calls you a son of a bitch.

The swearing and the sport team tryout environment description sounds like something in the absolutely diary of a part time Indian.

Adam- Real Life Diary of a Part Time Indian- Connector 2

For the second blog post I was connector. I could connect with most of the happenings in our book. I expireinenced friend loss and getting the friend back. My fathers mom died when he was very young.
Lately my fathers brother died so I expirienced death of a family member.

I have competitions in sport so I feel his nervousness.

I never expirienced a near death expirience in a sport.

I have already been hit with a basketball in the face.

I also believe in certain myths.

I also experienced wild adventures.

I am happy with my connections and I am happy that I have a lot of similarities with his adventures and his experiences.( not all)

Discussion Director

My job is to write a list of questions that we as a group might want to discuss about this part of the book. The best questions will come from my own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about this section of the book. I also need to write my own answers to these questions.  I was very satisfied with my group members, they answeared the questions very well and they knew what the book is about very well. In conclusion my group members answered the questions very long and thorough.

1. Is Jerry courageous? Who's the most courageous character in the book? Explain your answer. "Yes" Adam
2. Could any of the novel's villains transform into good guys? If not, why not? If so, which ones, and why? "Yes, because there going to change" Adam
3. If you were Jerry, would you do things differently? If so, what? If not, why not? "Yes, I would keep selling chocolates" Vishesh
4. Is The Chocolate War realistic? Why or why not? "No" Vishesh

The chocolate war vocabulary enricher

1. askew: twisted to one side

2. adulation: hypocritical praise

3. intimidate: make fearful

4. exemplify: be characteristic of something

5. radiance: the quality of being bright

6. bedlam: the state of extreme confusion

7. shambles: a condition of many bad disorders

8. tenement: a run-down apartment house with minimal standards.

9. tumultuous: characterized by disorder

10. Lopsided: having one side lower than the other.

11. discrepancy: a difference between conflicting facts

12. fidget: move restlessy

The Chocolate War - Travel Tracer

                                                            The Chocolate War

The action begins in a room where an assembly is about to start. The assembly is about a chocolate sale at the school spring "fair". All of the boys have to sell each 50 boxes of chocolate and make money off of it. But a boy by the name of Jerry Renault is declining at every meeting to sell chocolates. Basically the whole part of the book takes place in the school. But the most major events happen in that same assembly hall, with everyday going by with Jerry rebelling against the Brother Leon's wishes. The end of our passage takes place also in the assembly hall, with Jerry wanting to say yes and to start selling chocolates but he, for some peculiar reason, he declines. 

The Chocolate War - Travel Tracer

The Chocolate War 

Jerry Renault declines the chocolates everyday. He is rebelling against the school spirit. I Had a major rebellious moment when it was against the school rules to dye my hair though I still did it.

Summarizer - Vishesh

This was our second literature circle rotation. I am Vishesh and I was the summariser whose job as the title may suggest is to summarize the section read. This was my summary of the section I read.  

This time the section started off with Junior lazy because he had no friend at the beginning of the section. He eventually made a friend possibly the nerdiest kid at school and also the weirdest kid at school, Gordy. Soon enough he met Penny once again and one thing had led them to another and then they ended up dating.

There was a dance in the school gym where Junior had to show up wearing his father’s suit from the 70’s with bell bottoms. He wasn’t a good dancer but people still got jealous because he was dating Penny. After the dance the group Junior, Penny, Arnold and his friends went to have dinner in a restaurant, when they find out that Junior is poor. Despite such a big secret being revealed Penny and Arnold did not tell anyone else, they gave Junior a ride home instead of being cross with him showing their true friendship.

On the other hand Junior receives several emails from his sister informing him that she was in Montana and she was safe etc.

A few days upon finding out about the poverty Junior tries out for the basketball team. He gets chosen and his first game was against his own old school Wellpint, even worse the match was in Wellpint’s gym in the rez almost everyone despised Junior. This showed when it was his turn to play but even before he had contact of the ball he was knocked out by a quarter that was thrown by one of the audience members, which drew blood. His team lost because Rowdy scored a lot of points. They played against Wellpint some other time as well. This time the whole team had the determination to win and the anger from losing last time. What made it even better is that this game was not in Wellpint, it was in Reardan with a white audience, this audience was a very calm one unlike the last one. This game they won, the main reason for them winning was because this time Junior was guarding Rowdy. He got lucky and blocked one of Rowdy’s dunks. This left him dumbstruck and unable to concentrate on the game properly. Since he was the team’s best player and he had lost concentration the team lost. When they defeated Wellpint Juniour couldn’t help but feel guilty because he knew that Rowdy would probably get beaten up because of him but even worse some of them had just this game to make them happy because they are going through the roughest of times.  

All the Karma and god believer now could say that karma hit Junior hard. Later in the book we found out that Junior’s grandmother died and so did his sister. His grandmother died in an accident prior to his sister. The grandma was hit by a drunk driver. Grandma’s last wish was for him to be excused for his mistake. His sister died due to drinking which was a very common cause of death in the rez. She was in a party where she passed out. Her trailer where the party took place had caught fire but Mary was so heavily passed out that she sleep through her own death.

Rowdy had blamed Junior for his sister’s death. After all this some memories of Rowdy and Junior were shared with the reader, at the end of the book we found out that Rowdy and Junior became friends again when they were playing basketball 1 v 1.

Luka Tarlac, Illustrator-Literature

Illustrator-Literature

          My job was to draw some kind of a picture related to what I read in the assigned chapters. I drew a small sketch of the last chapter where the main character played basketball and I choose this because it was very important in the book.  I also wanted to draw this picture because it also related to something I like. OverallIi was very impressed with my group members and specifically with the summarizer because he described my picture very well.

Vocabulary Enricher Aleksa O.

My job as the Vocabulary-Enricher in Literacy Circles is to search for unfamiliar and "exotic" words. It is important to write words down in order to learn more about the book and the author's writing style. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw how many peculiar and unusual words my group-members were able to answer using logic alone.

Discussion Director-Aleksa

Here we go, the first rotation of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel  by Sherman Alexie is over. I was the discussion director this time and I made 5 questions for our group to discuss. Here they are:

1. Who is the main character and what are some of his favorite activities?
The main character in this book called Arnold has a nickname of  "Junior."He is a fourteen year old kid going though puberty. His favorite activities include masturbation, and looking at naked women. We know this because of an equation that Junior wrote: "Naked women + right hand= happy happy joy joy."

2. What is Junior's favorite subject?
Junior is a kid who likes school and his favorite subject is math. His favorite part of math is geometry. Moreover, his favorite teacher is also his math teacher, Mr. P.

3. How does switching schools affect Junior?
Mr. P, his favorite math teacher told Junior to switch school because he was the only one in that school that had hope. He listened to his math teacher and this affected his life a lot. Junior left all his friends, specifically Rowdy. That made Rowdy mad! But, as he switched schools he also realized that if you do good things people are going to respect you. That's what happened when he punched the boy who made racist jokes.

4. Why does Arnold(Junior) include so many illustrations in his diary?
Drawing is something that Junior does as therapy. He uses his cartoon like pictures, to express himself, much like real artists. Through drawings he expresses his inner-emotions. Moreover, drawing is more interesting for him, rather than reading.

5. How does the author start the book and what's so unusual about Junior that we learned?
The author of the book started the novel by telling us about Junior's unusual birth. Once Junior was born the author described him of having water on his brain. This meant that he was born with too much spinal fluid. This disease is called hydrocephalus.

Note: All our group members had the same thoughts and answers.

Luka Tarlac, Vocabulary Enricher-Literature Cicles

                         Vocabulary Enricher

           My job was to look for some important words while reading. I was supposed to find some puzzling and unfamiliar words and than mark them down into my packet. I balanced out the words so I made a small mix from the bit familiar to some very puzzling and unfamiliar. I was really impressed with how my group members did.

1st Lit. Circle - Literary Luminary

This was the first rotation of the literature circle for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie. This time I was the Literary Luminary. 

The first paragraph I chose was on page 5. This paragraph talked about how he liked to draw cartoons because words were too unpredictable. This was quite a deep part of the book. It meant that he didn't trust words to convey his message as they weren't universal and the cartoons were. 

The second paragraph I chose was on page 13. This paragraph was chosen because the harsh truth of life in poverty. It was an extremely sad part of the book especially how he couldn't help his dog just because he is poor.

The third paragraph I chose to talk about was on page 53. This paragraph that was chosen talked about Rowdy and Junior's friendship ruined. This was very sad as well because friendship is a thing to treasure and they are usually strong unlike this one, but the special thing about this friendship despite being a fragile one it was important and possible the only good thing that happened to Junior in a long time.

The fourth paragraph was on page 64. This paragraph was about 1 or 2 sentences only and it was none other than one of the most racist things in the book. It was a racist joke about native Americans.
The fifth and the last paragraph was on  page 81 and it talked about how Rowdy and Junior might just be enemies instead of good friends that they had been almost all their lives that they lived through so far. Rowdy who was Junior's guardian will now be after his life.

This is it for now. New information will be posted on our next meeting on May 6th.

1st Lit Circle- Ilustrator

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie #1

         I am the illustrator and my job was to draw something that we read in 14 chapters. The main part was him moving schools so I drew a school.I drew a school because it shows how people had to go to school at that time and how Junior wanted to go to school to become famous. He also made friends and he saw that he likes mathematics and to joke. He also figures out that he likes watching various women in school. Junior loses his best friend Rowdy while moving schools but in his new one

kids respect him and he has a bigger chance of getting famous.