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

              I think that this text could be really valuable to use in a classroom, with not a lot of obstacles and having it be so relevant to the greater Spokane area I think Alexie uses his own experience well to construct a book with relatable themes and appropriate messages for students. This book is already used widely in schools and has found its way on the approved list for texts to use with teacher’s lessons. Since it is already so well received I don’t see this text having any issues as far as administrative approval or parental approval. This book works with topics that students by not know a lot about and explores them in an easy to read way that wouldn’t be difficult for students to understand. I personally love this book, I read it for the first time over the summer going into my junior year of college. I was exposed to this book because a program that I worked for was giving them to students entering college, and we all received one to read over the summer as well. I think that this book does have a lower reading level, I worked through it very quickly so with that in mind I would most likely use this text anywhere from middle school to high school keeping in mind that students in high school would get through it quickly. Scholastic rates this book as being used for grades 9-12 but if students in middle school were reading at a higher level I would have no doubt that they could handle this text. I appreciate that Alexie talks so much about life on the reservation, I think this is something that we need to talk more about, but it is not necessarily something that student who are not Native American would know anything about. I am not sure how I would use this text in my class unless we were reading other works of fiction, if we were studying local authors, analyzing writing style or technique, I love the content of the book but as far as lesson planning goes I would have to come up with a very intentional way to utilize this book with my students without just glazing over it.