October 26, 2010

Resilience

Written by: Ellen Kennedy, CITC Language Arts Teacher, Bartlett High School

I’m always looking for new, interesting books to challenge my students, so when I saw a new book by Sherman Alexie, I bought it right away. What a charming, poignant and humorous read! Reviewers in major newspapers and magazines sang its praises, and I began to see the possibility of using it in Language Arts 9, since Alexie was the same age in the text. Since the school year was about complete, I decided to use it with summer school students—the original curriculum had not worked for them so this new story might.

I handed out the books, we looked at the book jacket and read the kind words on the back; we read the blurb about Alexie on the back flap. Kids wanted to know if he was the writer responsible for “Smoke Signals,” now a cult favorite among young Indian/Native students. Yes, he is, I answered.

We began reading aloud—to get the kids interested. Wow! It is funny and heartbreaking, and surprising all at the same time. The students in my class LOVED it! Because the story is so engaging, they read on to see what was going to happen. They stuck with it; they found success; they passed—not just because of that story, but because they came, worked, and saw success.

Alexie shows resilience in his story. He might be isolated, alienated, alone, but he is loved at home, he triumphs over adversity by sticking with it. Our students learn these things while they read the book. Many of them come to believe that if they stick with it, they too, can be successful.

I hope all our students will be resilient in Anchorage in the Twenty-first Century.