This photograph, from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection, provides historical background for the young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The protagonist, Arnold leaves the Spokane Indian Reservation School for the local white high school, believing that he could not possibly receive a good education on the reservation. Students could gain an historical perspective on the novel by contrasting these old photographs with newer photographs of Indian reservations. Arnold does not seem to fit in the white world or the reservation world, a conflict that my students might not fully understand without examining the reservation system as it has evolved.
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