The quick scoop:
Genre: Fiction; Memoir
Author: Sherman Alexie
Background:
Sherman Alexie, the son of a Coeur d’Alene Indian father and a Spokane
Indian Mother, was born in 1966 and grew up on the Spokane Reservation in Wellpinit,
Washington, home to some 1,100 Spokane tribal members. A precocious child who endured much teasing from his fellow classmates on the reservation and who realized as a teenager that his educational opportunities there were extremely limited, Alexie made the unusual decision to attend high school off the reservation in nearby Reardon. While in college, he began publishing poetry; within a year of graduation, his first collection, The Business of
Fancy dancing (1992), appeared. This was followed by The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), a short story collection, and the novels Reservation Blues (1995) and
Indian Killer (1996), all of which have garnered numerous awards and honors. Alexie also wrote the screenplay for the highly acclaimed film Smoke Signals.
Summary: The author tells the story of his life through a small vignette from each grade that he attended school.
What is the author trying to convey?
The major theme in the short story is that no matter what life throws at you, it is important to persevere through your dedication to your own education. Throughout the story, Alexie faces many challenges by being seen as different from the other Indian kids (in the beginning of his education) to high school (when he is the only Indian student). These differences, along with his dedication to doing well in school, make him become the person he is. However, in the end of the story, he realizes that his dedication to his own education have made him separate from the people that he left in order to further himself because they are a community, whereas, he feels that he is left out of this idea of a “reunion” because he isolated himself early on in his education.
How does the author create meaning? What must a reader do to get meaning?
Alexie demonstrates this by using vignettes from each grade that he has experienced.
Using these vignettes he paints a broader picture of what
He also demonstrates this idea through a very unique text structure of sequential order because it goes in the order of the grades that one experiences their own education.
The characterization of the narrator that
Alexie uses also adds to the theme of the story.
Throughout the text structure the narrator begins to grow from a little child that does not know what is going on, to becoming a very selfreflective adult at the end of the story.
A reader must first be able to infer certain things from each of the vignettes and use those smaller ideas in order to be able to comprehend the larger meaning of the story.
Also, students need to be able to compare and contrast several things in the story in order to
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The differences between his early education and his later childhood education
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The similarities in the vignettes that he tells and their overall message and relation to the theme of the story
*Note: Students should make text to self connections in order to connect and build upon their understanding of the story. This is kind of a secondary thing that readers must do to make meaning; but it is super important that students be able to make these connections to their own education in order to really build

upon their initial understanding of the story
Culminating Focus Question:
In Indian Education Sherman Alexie uses a unique text structure to display how one’s education shapes their outcome. By using your own text evidence, please answer the following:

What text structure is at use in the story
Indian Education ?

How does the text structure lead to the characterization of the narrator in the story?

What does the narrator learn by the end of the story? How do you think the narrator feels about
Sample Student Response:
In his short story Sherman Alexie uses the text structure of sequential order in order to show how one’s education shapes their future. He uses this text structure to show how he grows up from being a little boy who does n’t understand the world to become a selfreflective adult throughout high school. When he mentions that he thinks he would “never breath again” in first grade it shows that he is naïve and doesn’t really understand what is going on around him. However, as he grows up, he becomes more reflective, especially when he says “tell me none of this is supposed to hurt me very much ” when he loses the basketball game in 11 th grade. This demonstrates that he is beginning to think critically and reflect on his accomplishments because he wants to be the best that he can be. He feels sad because he has not amounted to everything that he wanted to be.
With that being said, he learns at the end that his focus on the future is the most important thing to him. When he is in twelfth grade and the people are taking a picture of him, he “try[s] to remain stoic as [he] look[s] toward the future.” He is so focused on what is beyond school, but this is only an attempt because he is “trying” to do that. He recognizes that school has been what has allowed him to succeed in life. He recognizes this when the other Indian children are graduating and “cannot read” and that some “are just given attendance diplomas.”
Without the ability to go to a good school, he recognizes that that could have easily been him in the end.
Correlating Objectives:

Reading:
Day One – SWBAT explore and discuss the similarities and differences between life and education on an Indian reservation with their own life in the Mississippi Delta*
Day Two – SWBAT identify the text structure within Indian Education by Sherman Alexie
SWBAT initially characterize the narrator by discussing how he responds to challenges
Day Three – SWBAT explain how the author’s use of dialogue adds to both the characterization of the narrator and the sequential order text structure
SWBAT compare and contrast how the characterization of the narrator is beginning to change and what is making that change
Day Four – SWBAT explain how the sequential order text structure helps the reader understand the growth in the characterization of the narrator
SWBAT discuss the ending of the story by focusing on what the narrator learns about the differences in his own education with the education of his fellow tribesmen
Day Five – SWBAT track their CFQ’s and discuss what they need to improve on, why they need to improve on that, and how they plan on improving upon it
SWBAT explore and discuss the similarities and differences between life and education on an
Indian reservation with their own life in the Mississippi
Delta*
SWBAT identify the text structure within
Indian Education by
Sherman Alexie
SWBAT initially characterize the narrator by discussing how he responds to challenges
SWBAT explain how the author’s use of dialogue adds to both the characterization of the narrator and the sequential order text structure
SWBAT compare and contrast how the characterization of the narrator is beginning to change and what is making that change
SWBAT explain how the sequential order text structure helps the reader understand the growth in the characterization of the narrator
SWBAT discuss the ending of the story by focusing on what the narrator learns about the differences in his own education with the education of his fellow tribesmen
SWBAT track their CFQ’s and discuss what they need to improve on, why they need to improve on that, and how they plan on improving upon it