Due on Friday!

Bring your graphic novel for the cantos and the rough draft of your paper for Friday.

Final drafts of the paper are due next Tuesday 12/23

The link to the full model article

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in

Homework for Tuesday

Be sure to bring your completed draft with you on Tuesday! 3 copies

Homework for the break

For Monday after break please bring the following:

1. Your revised inquiry question with a paragraph explaining the importance/significance of the question.
2. A working annotated works cited page with the sources you've read and "digested" to date.
3. Have a nice Thanksgiving!

On Thursday we begin our synthesis paper. Here is the assignment.

Come prepared to read and research your inquiry question!

Advanced Placement English                                                                                        Name

Synthesis Paper Metamorphosis

syn·the·size   verb \-ˌsīz\ : to make (something) by combining different things: to combine (things) in order to make something new: to make (something) from simpler substances through a chemical process

 

You have chosen an inquiry question concerning “Metamorphosis” to explore, and write a synthesis paper about your findings. The synthesis paper should be approximately 3-5 pages in length.

Your research needs to be scholarly in nature. So, although I encourage people to begin their research with basic sources (Encyclopedia Britannica is a good one), the point of the basic research is to be able to graduate to more sophisticated sources (JSTOR, books, primary resources, databases). Basic resources like Wikipedia should not find their way into an academic paper; they are tools for you to learn basic information about the topic.

Your paper will have an works cited page constructed through Noodletools. While there is any number of ways to conceive of a synthesis paper, what follows is an outline for the form I would like you to follow.

Section I.

In the first section of your paper (notice I did not say paragraph, you should use paragraphing to help your reader follow the logic of your writing) you need to do the following:

·        Explain your question and why your question is significant.

·        Identify the texts and writers that you have identified as critical to your project.

 

Section II

In the second section of your paper you will:

·        Give a brief summary of the source, and then analyze the significance of the source to your question.

It is possible to organize this section by source, or by topic or theme. You should consider the form that works best for your topic. As always, be sure to ask if you have questions.

Section III.

In the third section of your paper you will:

·        Explain the conclusion that you reached about your question, and provide sufficient discussion about both the strength AND the potential concerns/weaknesses of your position.

 

Grading Criteria

1.      Quality of the question

2.      Quality of the resources and analysis of the resources

3.      Level of insight of the synthesis

4.      Quality of the writing

5.      Correctness of Works Cited page and internal citations

 

 

 

Block 2 Post your inquiry question here by Sunday night!

Block 1 Post Your Inquiry Questions Here! By Sunday night!

Questions to consider for our initial discussion of "Metamorphosis"

Advanced Placement                                                                          Name

“Metamorphosis”

Discussion Questions

 

Directions: In your discussion group discuss the following questions. Record your ideas, musings and answers in complete sentences on a separate piece of paper. Be sure to provide specific examples and quotations from the text, analysis and reflections on each question. Although you can work in small groups, you are individually responsible for the questions. Please hand the responses to the sub before you leave class.

 

 

1. What is the nature of Gregor’s relationships with the society in which he lives? Carefully consider his relationships with his mother, father and sister. Identify what purpose each of the characters serve in Kafka’s story.

 

 

 

2. . What is the setting of the story? How does this contribute to the story?

 

 

 

3. The title of the story is “Metamorp           hosis.” Why is the story named as it is? Explain your answer.

 

 

 

4. What affect does the anti-realistic writing have upon the reader? How might this contribute to Kafka’s purpose?

 

 

 

4. What affect do art, music and beauty have upon Gregor? What comment do you believe Kafka is making through these details.

 

 

 

5. How is the story structured? How does the structure contribute to the overall meaning of the story?

 

 

6. Is Gregor an existential hero or is he an existential failure?

 

 

7 Apply one of the critical lens to the novella. Why did you choose this lens and what issues and readings of story does it open up?

                       

Remember for Friday

• Bring your play, "Existentialism" essay, and your notes on the BBC documentary in order to write the synthesis assignment.

• Bring your copy of Kafka's Metamorphosis too

Link to the electronic copy of Metamorphosis: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5200/5200-h/5200-h.htm

Reminders for Thursday

• Fabulous performances!
• Be sure to bring all your existentialist readings and notes to class on Thursday!

Questions to take notes on for the "Existentialism" reading due on Tuesday

Advanced Placement                                                                          Name

Existentialism

Notes

Directions: Answer each of the following questions in complete sentences. Be as complete, specific and detailed as possible in your answers.

 

1. What does Sartre mean when he says that “existence precedes essence?”

 

 

2. How does the existential view of the world differ from the god-centered (i.e. medieval) view of the world?

 

 

 

3. What are existential ethics? Explain what it means to behave ethically in an existential world.

 

4. What is forlornness? Anguish? (They are not the same)

 

 

 

5. What is an existentialist’ view of human nature?

 

 

5. What does Sartre mean when he says that “man is condemned to be free?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. What are the implications of an existential world view?

 

 

 

7. How does/could the philosophy affect the acts of  reading and writing? (Remember to consider reading and writing as more than literal...more like interpreting and constructing meaning in all circumstances).

 

 

 

 

 

Post Feminism notes here

Homework for Friday

• Post your resources in the appropriate place on the blog and STUDY for the quiz.
• Be sure to practice your scene from "No Exit"
• We will we preforming the scenes in the Little Theater. You need to know your scene and how to preform it inside and out.

Post your presentation please!

• Apparently, I'm not able to post the power point presentations that were sent to me. If you could post your own presentations to the appropriate blog entry that would certainly help your classmates study.

Psychoanalytic notes

Psychoanalytic Criticism

By Sara Bobok, Aaron Chan, Emily Downing, Danielle Rice, and Stephanie Tate

Historical Background and Context

Freud was influenced by

● Philosophy Tutor: Brentano possibility

of

the unconscious mind

● Eduard Von Hartmann

Philosophy

of the

Unconscious

● Charles Darwin major

evolutionary theory

writings

Quick Biography of Sigmund Freud

● Born in 1856 in Austria

● Founding father of Psychoanalysis

● Medical Degree from University of Vienna

(~1881)

● Sets up private medical practice in Vienna

(~1886)

● Died in 1939 from jaw cancer

Freudian Interpretations of Sleeping Beauty - Application

●

Id, Ego, and Superego: Maleficent, Aurora and Philip could be seen as Id, Ego, and Superego

because of their roles (unconscious immoral urges, conscious decisions, and moral values).

● Displacement:

The story could represent a parent’s fear of their child losing their moral direction.

Maleficent represents corruption, and Philip represents the sexual curiosity which a child should be

shielded from until they are older. They isolated her from the rest of the world to keep her innocence

and morality.

● Oedipus complex:

Both Philip and Aurora feel the desire to “replace” their father and mother by taking

their place as king and queen, thus seeking a princess and prince, respectively.

●

Transference: At some point in the past, Maleficent was denounced in some harsh way (i.e. affairs in

the kingdom). She redirects her anger towards the king by putting a curse on his daughter.

Fundamentals

Id, Ego and Superego:

Three distinct parts of the

mind: unconscious, conscious and conscience,

respectively.

Fundamental Tenet:

All present experiences and

beliefs are a product of past experiences and

events.

Implications

● The “urge” to write could be related to

various unconscious conflicts that feel the

need to surface.

● Context of the book plays an important role

in the interpretation of the text.

● Readers should try to extract the author’s

conscious

and subconscious message.

● Freudian interpretation is not always

applicable.

Terms

Repression:

‘Forgetting’ or ignoring unresolved

conscious conflicts by putting them into the

subconscious instead.

Transference:

Past emotions surface and are

directed at the analyst or others.

Oedipus Complex:

Male infant is determined to

eliminate the father and become a sexual partner

of the mother struggle

in patriarchal society.

Libido:

Energy drive associated with sexual

desire.

Dream Work:

A process where real events and

desires are manifested through dreams.

Displacement:

One person or event is

turned into a different but associated

person or event.

Condensation:

People and events are

combined into one dream symbol

New Historicism

New Historicism

Alex Carpenter, Anne Stoessel, Kevin Koste, Nick Lau and Aidan Strayer

The Four Tenets:

When applying new historicism to a text,

1. Juxtapose the literary and nonliterary texts; giving equal weight to each.

2. View the literary text independent from it’s previous academic interpretations

3. Focus interpretation on:

3.1. The power of government and how it is maintained

3.2. Patriarchal structure and its perpetuation

3.3. Colonization and its accompanying ideas

4. Give attention to post-structuralist views of literary theory

History

- Stephen Greenblatt’s Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980) is regarded as the beginning of New Historicism

- However, new historicist methods began to appear in the 1970s, such as J.W. Lever’s The Tragedy of State: A Study of Jacobean Drama (1971).

- These pieces and others like them are characterized as New Historicist due to how they interpret literary texts alongside non-literary texts ― not merely treating the non-literary as background information.

Guided Practice with Sleeping Beauty

“In a mossy glen, Briar Rose danced and sang with her friends, the birds and the animals. She told them of her beautiful dream about meeting a tall handsome stranger and falling in love” (Teitelbaum 12).

Advertisement of the 1950’s

Marxism Resources for quiz

Marxism Notes Sheet

Teddy, Rajiv, Rea, Jair, Sean

Theory (Beliefs and Purpose)

-context of literature must relate to the author’s class/social status, specifically Marxist struggles

-economic

-political

-class struggle

-People need to read literature in terms of the social period in which it was written in

-Authors are formed by social contexts, and are not inspired individuals

-influenced by social class conflicts

-Society creates the author, who pens the text

• the authors intent is considered irrelevant

-Literature should contain overt/covert marxist themes and ideals

-covert ideals always involve Marxist themes and are analyzed in regards to the social contexts of the creation of the texts

-Genre related to the time period that produced it

History of Theory

Founders of Marxism- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

-Wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848

Marxism to achieve a classless society such as with state ownership of property.

Marxism was a materialist philosophy- Requires concrete, logical explanations of the world

Because of its format, the ideas of the theory was easily used to critique literature

Marxism created by end of Industrial Revolution in Europe, where capitalism philosophies are taking control. Marxism see’s this centralization of power as enslaving the individual. He and Engels write about how history has emerged to show that power will soon be centralized in a very few. He says that needs to stop by a proletariat revolution where we get a classless society. He couldn’t organize that though since he’s not a political leader but his theories were picked up in the 1920’s alongside separately developed communism, well after his death. Literature wasn’t taught until the 1900’s, concurrently with proliferated understanding of Marxism, creating Marxist criticism for literature.

Implications of Theory for us:

While we don’t completely disregard the authors intent in writing as Marxist criticism encourages, we do endeavor to apply the social, political, and economic situations the text was written in to the interpretation of the text.

These aspects may influence the author and therefore their work, but does not define their literature. Authors have independent ideas from the average person within their socio-economic class.

We see Marxist influences in our classrooms as well. When reading literature, the teacher would require us to have some knowledge about the time period. Last year, when reading The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald, we had a class project aimed to acclimate us with the culture of the 1920’s. We always reviewed the historical background and author biases, such as in Nightby Elie Wiesel, before starting a text. That’s a very Marxist approach to reading, where we focus on the historical conditions the text was written in rather than the writing itself.

Sleeping Beauty (Interpretation with Marxist Tenets)

Main interpretation: Sleeping Beauty (text) is propaganda created by the upper classes to demean the gravity of the struggles faced by the lower classes.

• Sleeping Beauty is brought down with a spindle. A spindle is used for a means of production by the lower classes. As a high class member in society, a princess, a Marxist would be interested in her interaction with a “lower class” object.. The interaction of high and low classes is what brought down Aurora. That’s similar to the Marxist beliefs that encourage a classless society, which would have avoided this issue altogether.The lower classes also heeded the kings command to destroy all their spindles without opposition, showing the lower classes as mindlessly obedient and the king as powerful.
• Sleeping Beauty was born to the regal name Aurora, bestowed by her royal parents. She changed her name to Briar Rose to go in hiding. When threatened to die by her 16th birthday, the king and queen decided to hide Aurora in a remote part of the woods like a peasant. She lives in a modest cottage with three fairies disguised as old women. Aurora has a completely different lifestyle than she would have in the castle, as is content with the situation until she learns of her true status. From there on, many issues arise from her trying to return to her “upper” status.
• The genre of this text- created 1700s, developed late 1800’s, early 1900. Late 1800’s is where the middle class emerges. Upper class does not want social mobility where in the story, Sleeping Beauty seemingly turns from a peasant to princess overnight. As a peasant, Aurora is having a good time (picks berries, cute birds and animals, etc) which is unlike peasantry would actually be like in that time period. This therefore disregards all class differences because peasantry is actually much worse and social mobility brings much more problems. The novel is therefore a creation of its times: a propaganda. The message carried is demeans the actual class struggle to further empower the higher classes.

Now mass produced (language dumbed down, sold in cheap stores) which would interest Marxists. Most available to the middle classes and ready the younger generations with this ideology. Since this book was created with a bias towards the upper class (no class struggle, peasantry great, kingdom willings burns spindles, etc), the middle class that reads it will be influenced by its propaganda. Marxists would not sympathize with the oppressive class (upper classes).

Introduction to Sartre and Existentialism Resources

• BBC documentary on Sartre, his times and his ideas (the other episodes on other important philosophers are also very good): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G4R_iAZWbQ

• The electronic version of No Exit: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/Jean-Paul_Sartre.pdf

• The points to take notes on when you watch the videotape are as follows:

                                                                                           

Human all too Human: Sartre

 

1. Explain the connection between the historical moment and the philosophy of existentialism.

2. What are Sartre’s beliefs about freedom and responsibility?

3. Why was Sartre controversial in his time?

4. Why does Sartre believe that “hell is other people?”

5. What were Sartre’s political beliefs?

Presentation due next Thursday in class

Advanced Placement Literature and Composition                                        Name

Introduction to Literacy Theory Assignment

30 point presentation/notes assignment

 

 

An Introduction to Theories of Reading

 

      The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to a variety of the theories of reading that have influenced people’s reading and understanding. You have most likely been influenced by many of the ideas connected to these theories, but you probably don’t know the names and the implications of some of these ideas.

    You will need to cover the following:

 

• The history of the theory
• What these theorists believe, and how they understand the purpose of reading and writing
• How the tenets of the theory are applied to a text (We are using Sleeping Beauty as our common text)
• The implications of this theory for us (our class).

 

Step 1.  You and your group need to discuss the theory and compile notes pertaining to the questions listed above.

 

Step 2.  You will reread Sleeping Beauty and practice your theoretical approach on the text.

 

Step 3. You will organize and create your presentation for the class.  

 

     Your presentation will be graded on the following:

 

·       The depth of understanding of the theory

·       The quality and completeness of the interpretation of the text

·       The clarity and educational value of the presentation

·       How well the group works together and shares the presentation

 

 

     You may use the overhead, the Elmo, Googledocs, or a flash drive to present. Be sure to check and double-check the technology to ensure it works before class begins. I can not postpone or cancel presentations as a result of technological failures—so you might want to have a back up plan.

 

    
Students who are absent on the day they are to present must complete an alternative assignment within one week of the presentation date, or they will receive a zero for the assignment. See me for details.

 

Literary Theory Resources

This is an excellent source of information about the literary theories: http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/

Keep working on your notes and I'll see you on Tuesday :)

Parent's Night materials

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/common_core_standards/pdfdocs/p12_common_core_learning_standards_ela.pdf

Homework for Thursday

• Be sure to read the remaining chapters of Beginning Theory.
• Bring 3 copies of a college essay you would like to peer review during the second half of the block.
• I will assign the presentation and expert groups in class on Thursday.
• If you missed part of class because of a college visit, please complete the Liberal Humanism discussion.
• OWL has  excellent thumbnail sketches of a variety of literary theories. These overviews are an excellent way to prepare yourself for reading Barry.  Use the menu on the left to identify a theory. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/01/

Post your Descartes jokes here for us to share!

Homework for Tuesday

• We'll delve in Liberal Humanism through discussion
• Be sure you've read "Marxism" and "Feminism" in the Barry packet.

Homework for Friday

• On Friday we will have a graded discussion on "Liberal Humanism"
• The remainder of the packet "Beginning Theory" is due on October 7,
• Please be sure to bring your packet to class with you on Friday.
• On October 10, you will have about a mod to work with your peer review group on your college essay. BE SURE TO BRING 3 COPIES WITH YOU TO CLASS.

Homework for Wednesday

• Bring in 3 copies of your college essay DRAFT. If your handwriting is challenging to read, you may type your DRAFT. If you have concerns about sharing your essay in class please let me know that before class.
• Read the chapter "Liberal Humanism" in the excerpts I have copied for you from Peter Barry's book Beginning Theory.

Literary Theory: An Overview

We will be studying some of the different ways that literature has been defined, studied and read. This link provides an excellent overview that I recommend you read and consult before you read the Peter Barry selections I will hand out in class from Beginning Theory.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/722/

Homework for Block 1 and 2

• Be sure to revise and edit your literacy vignettes for class on Monday. I will collect the peer review sheet with your final draft.
• Remember to consult the model, "Indian Education" and the notes that we took on the model to help you with your "possibilites" for revision.
• Have a nice weekend :)

Homework Block 1 and 2

• Type your vignettes and bring THREE COPIES of your vignettes to class on Wednesday.
• Be sure that the copies of your freewrites (for college drafts) are in your writing folder.

This American Life: College Admission

If nothing else, these radio essays will make you feel that you are not alone in this craziness :)
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/504/how-i-got-into-college

Homework for Thursday

Your homework is as follows:

• Bring your literacy vignettes back to class with you!
• In twenty minutes, by hand, draft a college essay. Use a prompt from the Common Application, or any other college prompt. You MUST set an alarm and write the draft in one sitting, just get the draft on paper.
• Read Sherman Alexie's "Indian Education" (attached below) and anotate the text of the reading for answers to  the following questions:

1. What are the main ideas of "Indian Education"? How do you know?
2. How is the piece organized? Why?
3. Identify a specific vignette. What's the main idea (point) of the vignette? What specific strategies/techniques does Alexie use to create this effect?

Indian Education

(from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven)
Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie is a poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker known for witty and frank explorations of the lives of contemporary Native Americans.  A Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian, Alexie was born in 1966 and grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington.  He spent two years at Gonzaga University before transferring to Washington State University.  In  1991, Alexie published The Business of Fancydancing, a book of poetry that led the New York Times Book Review to call him “one of the major lyric voices of our time.”  Since then Alexie has published many more books of poetry, including I would Steal Horses (1993) and One Stick Song (2000); the novels Reservation Blues (1995) and Indian Killer (1996); and the story collections The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), The Toughest Indian in the World (2000), and Ten Little Indians (2003).  Alexie also wrote and produced Smoke Signals, a film that won awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, and he wrote and directed The Business of Fancydancing (2002).  Living in Seattle with his wife and children, Alexie occasionally performs as a stand-up comic and holds the record for the most consecutive years as World Heavyweight Poetry Bout Champion.

“Indian Education” – Alexie attended the tribal school on the Spokane reservation through the 7^th  grade, when he decided to seek a better education at an off-reservation all-white high school.  As this account of his schooling makes clear, he was not firmly at home in either setting.

FIRST GRADE

1.   My hair was too short and my U.S. Government glasses were horn-rimmed, ugly, and all that first winter in school, the other Indian boys chased me from one corner of the play-ground to the other. They pushed me down, buried me in the snow until I couldn't breathe, thought I'd never breathe again.

2.   They stole my glasses and threw them over my head, around my outstretched hands, just beyond my reach, until someone tripped me and sent me falling again, facedown in the snow.

3.   I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once, it was Cries-Like-a-White-Boy, even though none of us had seen a white boy cry.

4.   Then it was a Friday morning recess and Frenchy St. John threw snowballs at me while the rest of the Indian boys tortured some other top-yogh-yaught kid, another weakling. But Frenchy was confident enough to torment me all by himself, and most days I would have let him.

5.   But the little warrior in me roared to life that day and knocked Frenchy to the ground, held his head against the snow, and punched him so hard that my knuckles and the snow made symmetrical bruises on his face. He almost looked like he was wearing war paint.

6.   But he wasn't the warrior. I was. And I chanted It's a good day to die, it's a good day to die, all the way down to the principal's office.

SECOND GRADE

7.   Betty Towle, missionary teacher, redheaded and so ugly that no one ever had a puppy crush on her, made me stay in for recess fourteen days straight.

8.   "Tell me you're sorry," she said.

9.   "Sorry for what?" I asked.

10. "Everything," she said and made me stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with books in each hand. One was a math book; the other was English. But all I learned was that gravity can be painful.

11.  For Halloween I drew a picture of her riding a broom with a scrawny cat on the back. She said that her God would never forgive me for that.

12. Once, she gave the class a spelling test but set me aside and gave me a test designed for junior high students. When I spelled all the words right, she crumpled up the paper and made me eat it.

13. "You’ll learn respect," she said.

14. She sent a letter home with me that told my parents to either cut my braids or keep me home from class. My parents came

 

in the next day and dragged their braids across Betty Towle's   desk.

15.  "Indians, indians, indians." She said it without capitalization. She called me "indian, indian, indian."

16. And I said, Yes, I am. I am Indian. Indian, I am.

THIRD GRADE

17.  My traditional Native American art career began and ended with my very first portrait: Stick Indian Taking a Piss in My Backyard.

18. As I circulated the original print around the classroom, Mrs. Schluter intercepted and confiscated my art.

19. Censorship, I might cry now. Freedom of expression, I would write in editorials to the tribal newspaper.

20. In third grade, though, I stood alone in the corner, faced the wall, and waited for the punishment to end.

21. I'm still waiting.

FOURTH GRADE

22. "You should be a doctor when you grow up," Mr. Schluter told me, even though his wife, the third grade teacher, thought I was crazy beyond my years. My eyes always looked like I had just hit-and-run someone.

23. "Guilty," she said. "You always look guilty."

24. "Why should I be a doctor?" I asked Mr. Schluter.

25. "So you can come back and help the tribe. So you can heal people."

26. That was the year my father drank a gallon of vodka a day and the same year that my mother started two hundred different quilts but never finished any. They sat in separate, dark places in our HUD house and wept savagely.

27. I ran home after school, heard their Indian tears, and looked in the mirror. Doctor Victor, I called myself, invented an education, talked to my reflection. Doctor Victor to the emergency room.

FIFTH GRADE

28. I picked up a basketball for the first time and made my first shot. No. I missed my first shot, missed the basket completely, and the ball landed in the dirt and sawdust, sat there just like I had sat there only minutes before.

29. But it felt good, that ball in my hands, all those possibilities and angles. It was mathematics, geometry. It was beautiful.

30. At that same moment, my cousin Steven Ford sniffed rubber cement from a paper bag and leaned back on the merry-go-round. His ears rang, his mouth was dry, and everyone seemed so far away.

31. But it felt good, that buzz in his head, all those colors and noises. It was chemistry, biology. It was beautiful.

32. Oh, do you remember those sweet, almost innocent choices that the Indian boys were forced to make?

SIXTH GRADE

33. Randy, the new Indian kid from the white town of Springdale, got into a fight an hour after he first walked into the reservation school.

34. Stevie Flett called him out, called him a squawman, called him a pussy, and called him a punk.

35. Randy and Stevie, and the rest of the Indian boys, walked out into the playground.

36. "Throw the first punch," Stevie said as they squared off.

37. "No," Randy said.

38. "Throw the first punch," Stevie said again.

39. "No," Randy said again.

40. "Throw the first punch!" Stevie said for the third time, and Randy reared back and pitched a knuckle fastball that broke Stevie's nose.

41. We all stood there in silence, in awe.

42. That was Randy, my soon-to-be first and best friend, who taught me the most valuable lesson about living in the white world: Always throw the first punch.

SEVENTH GRADE

43. I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl who would later be raped by her foster-parent father, who was also white. They both lived on the reservation, though, and when the headlines and stories filled the papers later, not one word was made of their color.

44. Just Indians being Indians, someone must have said somewhere and they were wrong.

45. But on the day I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl, I felt the goodbyes I was saying to my entire tribe. I held my lips tight against her lips, a dry, clumsy, and ultimately stupid kiss.

46. But I was saying goodbye to my tribe, to all the Indian girls and women I might have loved, to all the Indian men who might have called me cousin, even brother.

47. I kissed that white girl and when I opened my eyes, she was gone from the reservation, and when I opened my eyes, I was gone from the reservation, living in a farm town where a beautiful white girl asked my name.

48. "Junior Polatkin," I said, and she laughed.

49. After that, no one spoke to me for another five hundred years.

EIGHTH GRADE

50. At the farm town junior high, in the boys' bathroom, I could hear voices from the girls' bathroom, nervous whispers of anorexia and bulimia. I could hear the white girls' forced vomiting, a sound so familiar and natural to me after years of listening to my father's hangovers.

51.  "Give me your lunch if you're just going to throw it up," I said to one of those girls once.

52. I sat back and watched them grow skinny from self-pity.

53. Back on the reservation, my mother stood in line to get us commodities. We carried them home, happy to have food, and opened the canned beef that even the dogs wouldn't eat.

54. But we ate it day after day and grew skinny from self-pity.

55. There is more than one way to starve.

NINTH GRADE

56. At the farm town high school dance, after a basketball game in an overheated gym where I had scored twenty-seven points and pulled down thirteen rebounds, I passed out during a slow song.

57. As my white friends revived me and prepared to take me to the emergency room where doctors would later diagnose my diabetes, the Chicano teacher ran up to us.

58. "Hey," he said. "What's that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young."

59. Sharing dark skin doesn't necessarily make two men brothers.

TENTH GRADE

60. I passed the written test easily and nearly flunked the driving, but still received my Washington State driver's license on the same day that Wally Jim killed himself by driving his car into a pine tree.

61. No traces of alcohol in his blood, good job, wife and two kids.

62. "Why'd he do it?" asked a white Washington state trooper.

63. All the Indians shrugged their shoulders, looked down at the ground.

64. "Don't know," we all said, but when we look in the mirror, see the history of our tribe in our eyes, taste failure in the tap water, and shake with old tears, we understand completely.

65. Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough.

ELEVENTH GRADE

66. Last night I missed two free throws which would have won the game against the best team in the state. The farm town high school I play for is nicknamed the "Indians," and I'm probably the only actual Indian ever to play for a team with such a mascot.

67. This morning I pick up the sports page and read the headline:  INDIANS LOSE AGAIN.

68. Go ahead and tell me none of this is supposed to hurt me very much.

TWELFTH GRADE

69. I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this farm town high school, and my cap doesn't fit because I've grown my hair longer than it's ever been. Later, I stand as the school board chairman recites my awards, accomplishments, and scholarships.

70. I try to remain stoic for the photographers as I look toward the future.

71.  Back home on the reservation, my former classmates graduate: a few can't read, one or two are just given attendance diplomas, most look forward to the parties. The bright students are shaken, frightened, because they don't know what comes next.

72. They smile for the photographer as they look back toward tradition.

73. The tribal newspaper runs my photograph and the photograph of my former classmates side by side.

POSTSCRIPT: CLASS REUNION

74. Victor said, "Why should we organize a reservation high school reunion? My graduating class has a reunion every weekend at the Powwow Tavern."