I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky
I absolutely admire the amount of courage and determination Alexie has. He was in no way going to let himself succumb and fall into the stereotype of being an indian that was expected to be “stupid.” I think this is a lesson we could all learn from this essay
I read the books my father brought homefrom the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletinsposted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anythingthat had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying tosave my life.
This really goes to show how one can learn so much from something that might seem so little. I would’ve never guessed that you could learn as much as Alexis did by reading the backs of cereal boxes, bulletin boards, junk mail, etc.
“There has never been a more important time for children to become storytellers, and there have never been so many ways for them to share their stories” (p. 3). Our students and their stories should be an essential part of our teaching. As educators, we need to encourage students to tell their stories and help build community. Each shared story has the potential of teaching us.
I think it is super important for storytelling to be apart of a child’s curriculum. The mind can develop to a great extent through storytelling. It is apart of daily life that I think is often overlooked or taken advantage of.
When students’ lives are taken off the margins and placed in the curriculum, they don’t feel the same need to put down someone else” (p. 7). Students need to feel that their voices matter, that they have a story to contribute or share and that their stories are a rich part of the curriculum
This is true. If we avoid stereotypes, it invites a more comfortable environment for students to share authentic stories. It relieves the pressures and ideas that certain people have to live up to a specific standard or act a certain way.
Students who search their memories for details about an event as they are telling it orally will later find those details easier to capture in writing
It can be hard to find the right words when telling a story orally. For me personally, I often struggle to find the right words to describe certain things, or often myself using the wrong words, so writing it out definitely helps me brainstorm different ways I can describe certain details. It also gives me an opportunity to expand on those details to make the story more captivating or interesting
“there has probably never been a human society in which people did not tell stories”
This is fascinating to think about. If you think about native traditions, you will find that all, if not most, come from story telling. A lot of them are from oral tradition/storytelling, so it’s definitely interesting to think about how far story telling dates back to.