Friday, September 18, 2015

Thomas-Builds-the-Fire Discussion

Post your groups information from your discussion as a comment to this post.

Make sure you post these things:  your list of characteristics, your answers to the last three questions, and at least three important things you talked about

10 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Literature Characteristics: Animals, connecting to Nature, Darkness and Light, entertainment with previous stories told, stories passed down orally, four things were used to describe his view out the window.

    The purpose of this story is to show how badly the Indians were treated. To show the sadness of reality, the empathy deserved for the non-whites because of how they were disrespected by the whites.

    The author feels bad for Thomas because of how badly he is treated. His honesty should not cause him to be persecuted but since he is Indian, they feel as if they must be treated that way. He shows Thomas as a good person but bad things happen to him because of his race.

    He shows the government as a joke, as people that take control and only do what they think is justice rather than what is actually justice. Too many times this government has gotten away with treating these people like this and they feel as if they should keep going with that habit. The BIA is the same way, thinking they are more powerful than those who are different color of skin, a different heritage.

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    1. Group of Avery, Olivia, Nicholas, and Jordyn P

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    2. You are missing the last part, the three important things that your group discussed.

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  3. Maddie, Matt, Jared, Cohl

    Characteristics:
    -Hero/Trickster theme (Indians/BIA)
    -Good vs. Evil (Indians vs. BIA)
    -Metaphors (ponies)

    1, The Author's purpose of the story was to paint the BIA as being evil and justify the Indians in their actions during the 1800's. He did this by having Thomas Builds-the-Fire tell different Indian stories that happened in the tribal lands of Spokane, showing pain and difficulties the Indians had to face.

    2. The author's attitude towards Thomas Builds-the-Fire is that Thomas is a hero. The author views him as justified in his actions and innocent of the crimes he was charged with.

    3. The author's attitude towards the BIA was that they restricted the Indians rights and took away their land. The author uses the stories Thomas tells to show how corrupt the agency was since they treated the Indians so poorly.

    An important thing that our group talked about was that the stories Thomas Builds-the-Fire told were not about him, but about other Indians in the past. Another thing we talked about was why Thomas was actually arrested. We decided that he was arrested since he took part in scaring David WalksAlong's wife away. Lastly, we talked about how different characteristics of this story connected to those of the myths we read.

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  4. 1) Metaphors, symbolism, ordinary objects having powers, Native's relationship with nature, heroism, good vs evil, trickster, and sacrifice.
    2) The authors purpose to the story is to show Native American cultures are still being convicted from their ancestors' past, to show that they were treated unfairly in the past.
    3) The author's attitude towards Thomas-Builds-the-Fire is that he and his culture are unfairly discriminated against because of their ancestors defending their land. He views Thomas as the protagonist in the story.
    4) The author's attitude towards the government is that they are bad and wrongly accused Native Americans and punished them for doing things they didn't do.
    5) Discrimination, Stories set in the past, Unfair justice
    Austin Olson, Hallie Jensen, Paul MacKean, Nick Klemann

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  5. The purpose of this story is to show the world how the white men treated the Native Americans like animals, trying to move them all unto reservations or justify killing them in mass murders. Thomas is trying to show how the Native Americans were punished for things they didn't do by the more dominant, white race. The author feels that Thomas is innocent because he gives Thomas a lot of supporters in the court room, including the man he held hostage. He also makes Thomas look favorable when he says he feels bad about killing the white men, showing the Natives weren't just savage killers. The author also makes sure we know that everything Thomas says is the truth. The government in the authors eyes is very unfair, and corrupt. He shows this by having the judge treat Thomas unfairly and having Native American BIA members take Thomas's supporters out of the room. Characteristics: metaphors, similes, symbolism, hyperbole, white v.s Native Americans. One important thing we talked about was the pony metaphor and what it meant. We also talked about how innocent people died due to being Native American. The other important thing we talked about how the BIA were Native Americans and treated the other Natives just as bad the whites did.
    -Rhiana, Kajsa, Emily, Shayna

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  6. Myth characteristics
    -heroism
    -tricksters
    -symbolism
    -creation
    -used animals
    -a different telling of how things went
    -metaphors
    The author's purpose of the story was to show the struggles of Indians and kind of to fight against the Indian Removal Act by trying to turn the Indians into the white man and how they tried to fight back to keep the heritage.
    The author's attitude toward Thomas is kind of respectful by showing how he and his people tried to fight back and empathetic on how he felt bad for what he and his people had to go through
    The author's attitude toward the government was disgust because they were unfair to the Indians because it seems as though they made up stuff with the charges they were trying to pin on Thomas.
    We talked about how the characters' names add along with the story on how Thomas's name "Thomas Builds-The-Fire" adds to the metaphor on how he doesn't really build a fire but he builds up the people and how each story is like another log that adds to the fire. How racism in the story shows the unfairness to the people. How Thomas showed different points of views to the stories to add different emotions and build the people up.

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    1. by: Jacob, Dakota, Kayla, Tessah

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  7. The characteristics we saw were: metaphors, hyperboles, symbolism, and animal characteristics. We think the main point of the story was to show how the Native Americans are and were treated very unfairly by white people. The author seems to be on Thomas's side because he agrees with his argument of inequality. Sherman Alexie also seems to portray the government officials as unfair and disrespectful, leading us to believe that he disagrees with their motives. Three important things we talked about were: the racial inequality throughout the story, how all of the prisoners at the end were minorities, and how the ponies represent family to the tribe.

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