About

Study Guide for 

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Purpose: This blog is designed to help students study the plot, setting, themes, and symbols of the novel as they read. Groups of students from two sections of English 1A (32464 and 32469) will compile their contributions to the Study Guide for the next four weeks. At the end of the semester, every student will review the complete Study Guide in anticipation of the Final In-Class Essay.

Background: Sherman Alexie is a popular novelist, poet, and filmmaker who has received critical acclaim for his book of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). Published in 1996, Reservation Blues is his first novel. Set in the Spokane reservation, this novel mixes Magical Realism with themes of poverty, alcoholism, and family.

According to the Oxford Companion to English Literature, Magical Realism is described as fiction in which the "recognizably realistic merges with the unexpected and the inexplicable" and in which "elements of dreams, fairy story, or mythology combine with the everyday, often in a mosaic or kaleidoscopic pattern of refraction and recurrence.

Directions: In your weekly contributions to the Study Guide, you will upload submissions that study the plot, themes, symbols, and characterization for assigned chapters.

The Reading Schedule: The readings for the novel will be divided into the next four weeks of classes, as follows:

• Week 12
• Mon 4/6 - Read pages 1-52
• Wed 4/8 - Read pages 53-91
• WEEKEND HOMEWORK: Submit contributions for Chapters 1-3.
• Week 13
• Mon 4/13 - Read pages 92-129
• Wed 4/15 - Read pages 130-169
• WEEKEND HOMEWORK: Submit contributions for Chapters 4&5.
• Week 14
• Mon 4/20 - Read pages 170-195
• Wed 4/22 - Read pages 196-220
• WEEKEND HOMEWORK: Submit contributions for Chapters 6&7.
• Week 15
• Mon 4/27 - Read pages 220-244
• Wed 4/29 - Read pages 245-306
• WEEKEND HOMEWORK: Submit contributions for Chapters 8-10. Students review the entire Study Guide in anticipation of the final essay.