The Round House by Louise Erdrich

The Round House by Louise Erdrich explores a couple of difficult themes like rape, murder and justice in tribal reservations that students under high school level might struggle to follow. Considering the depth of these themes and how sensitive those can be with their students, teachers should be careful to introduce the novel to more appropriate, mature classes. An effective strategy is knowing student’s backgrounds, which helps teachers avoid trigger topics that diminish student’s trust in them. One possible way teachers could accomplish this task is to ask their student’s polling questions about how they feel about more difficult, mature content to see if it would be an acceptable learning tool. I don’t believe in sacrificing good content for accommodate  I appreciate philosophy of analyzing themes and how that perpetuates good learning. Using discussion to talk about how fair the inevitable consequences of Geraldine being raped, and John’s murder led to a shift in justice that may have balanced out in the end of the book with Cappy’s death. Another theme that could be discussed is the difference or similarities between cultures and how people act during certain moments. I’m not a teacher and I don’t know the boundaries of what I can use in my class or what I can “suggest” to students, but considering the amount of rape, murder and death this might be a book I would try to “suggest” to them. Avoiding backlash from parents by using alternative methods to giving out more mature content can assist in a reduction of stress by lessening the amount of time talking with student’s guardian’s. I think this novel could be compared to a lot of pop-culture that draws connections to adolescent’s current situations. Using the book and pop-culture as comparisons are great ways to motivate students to learn reading state standards without feeling like a chore.