Sandra K. Friday
Text rendering
The Killing of a State Cop
, a Native American tragedy
Objective: To text render the short story
The Killing of a State Cop
by Simon Ortiz. Students will
clarify the plot
, including the on-going
conflict
between Felipe and Luis Baca and how they change places: Baca who was, at first, victimizing Felipe becomes Felipe’s victim, and Felipe who was, at first, Baca’s victim becomes his victimizer. They will trace the
change in the character
of Felipe who expresses regret at the outset of the story because he has already killed the cop when the story begins, and then he backtracks and tells the reader how he was driven from anger to the rage that finally led him to brutally murder Baca. And now, as he tells his teen-age friend of the deed, he feels regret. Students will be asked to determine what lesson or lessons they think Ortiz had in mind when he wrote the story.
Each of these elements: plot including main conflict, character change, and lesson or universal theme, can be recorded on graphic organizers with students’ observations on the left side and evidence from the story to support their observations on the right. Studying these basic elements and recording one’s findings with evidence is one way to gain access to the text.
This story lends itself to
recording
, on a graphic organizer,
the plot or sequence of
events
that led Felipe to his brutal standoff with Baca. But it is not just Baca who contributes to his building rage. Felipe tells of an incident when he, in his marine uniform from the Korean War, is kicked out of a bar for ordering a beer. There was a law back in the fifties that Native Americans could not order alcohol in a bar. They could fight to defend the country but were discriminated against when it came to ordering alcohol in a bar. In tracking the sequence of events, it is possible to include when Felipe and Baca trade places: hunter and hunted/victimizer and victim change places.
We will probably read the story out loud, and as we do, I will ask students to highlight passages that get their attention with the idea that at a point in time, I will ask them to choose a quote they especially like and write about it. A quote that might help us understand how Felipe, a Native American, feels when Baca shouts at him when he is just minding his own business, standing in front of the movie theater, reading a movie schedule for the afternoon is, “Hey, goddammey Indio, get the hell away from there. Get out of town.”18 Relegated to reservation for a home, and not even allowed to stand in front of a movie theater in town without being the object of racist jeers from someone who is supposed to be an officer to keep the peace!
There are opportunities to ask students to
connect with
Felipe’s emotions and write about the implications from anger gone out of control. Anger is not an uncommon emotion among those who society has disenfranchised and marginalized. Anger stemming from frustration and helplessness! Many of my students say that they need help working on their anger. They probably have plenty to say about what happens to Felipe and about what happens to them when they experience anger.
As I said, Felipe does feel regret when he has cooled down and is telling the story to his friend, the other narrator of this story. Tracking Felipe’s
change in character
and the understanding he comes to can be done on a graphic organizer with observations on the left side and evidence from the story copied on the right. Unfortunately, Felipe comes to his regret too late. Anger and rage are like that!
After giving students time to think about and write down their thoughts on the lesson of the story, they might brainstorm their findings on the board, then pick the one they think most suits the story and copy evidence for it from the story onto their graphic organizer.
The text rendering of this story could culminate in a five-paragraph essay on the how Ortiz represents the plight of the marginalized and dispossessed Native American,
invisible
to the majority of our society. Felipe is disrespected in the bar when, as a marine, he tries to order a beer; he is disrespected in town one afternoon when all he is doing is reading the movie marquee and the town cop hurls expletives at him, telling him to get out of town; and he is further disrespected when he leaves, and Baca relentlessly pursues him out of town and onto his own reservation. Students might consider how the sum of these incidents affects Felipe.