Leah's Meaningful Texts: RESPONSES TO PRESENTATIONS IN CLASS AND ONLINE

Poetry by Shane Koyczan: Shoulders on you tube
* narrative poetry
* Collective consciousness
* sky and earth are one
* I to We movement
* activism
* cross curricular themes
* "be the change you want to see" Ghandi
Process: enter..extend..explore
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Professional Applications
*validate each student's ideas
*FNMI Elders
*the world is a village
*grade 10 Social Studies globalization
* précis
*literary devices
*protest poetry
* music choices
*mediate
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July 13
Connect to the 8 parts of speech
Literature review... Dreaming an Indian
Visual novels; Shaun Tan
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Literacy First document: July 15

In reading this document I was struck by two ideas presented:
The most common  reason kids don't graduate is due to literacy issues! I totally believe this. In the work I am doing at the alternative school, students struggle with language but more so math. I have a large percentage of First Nation learners. The legacy of the residential schools on the first nation people has been immeasurable! It is our responsibility to undo the damage done by being better at what we do. We have a motto at our school, "get her done and graduate". We do teaching that focuses on the individual students. Every teacher is a literacy teacher.
That is the second point made by the "Literacy First"  document. Gone are the days when you can say I am a science teacher.. All teachers are literacy teachers, with the changing landscape of Alberta's population, language learners, immigrants, and first Nations people, we have a job to do!
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Contemporary Realism: July 16

Teaching Canadian Literature in Secondary Schools: Website
What an amazing resource! Considering that we, as English Language Arts teachers are supposed to be using Canadian Literature/Texts and 1/3 of our study, this site is a goldmine of resources. I bookmarked this page and have returned to it several times to find resources for the English 30-2 site I am creating on weebly.com.
Margaret Atwood's poem "Death of a Young Son By Drowning" speaks to expectations, identity and sorrow. I will use this poem.
Douglas LePan "A Country Without Mythology" is an amazing visual romp through the themes of identity and nationalism. This will definitely add richness to the "My Identity" thematic unit;
The "Photograph of Me" by Margaret Atwood would be an appropriate poem for students to  use as a creation point for a poem that describes a photograph that they have. I also checked out Leonard Cohen's website for songs and poems. "Anthem" would be a great starting point for creating their own anthem.

CONTEMPORARY REALISM:

Social Justice: it educates and re-educates and challenges our assumptions
1. Contemporary Fiction acts as a mirror: what we are experiencing now
2. Historical Fiction acts as a window into what was "now" "then" and parallels to now.
3. Speculative Fiction acts as a magnifying glass to what is now
4. Graphic Novels and Picture books tell a story without a written narrative
5. Problem Novel: mirrors young people in contemporary society (problems: gender, family, multicultural,violence, injustice, illness, technology, social media etc.

Why Teach Canadian Social Justice Literature:

• outcomes
• relevant
• innovative
• critical/personal response
• make writing cool
• build community

Authors: Deborah Ellis

Glen Huser: Stitiches

Dede Cran: Poster Boy

Susan Juby: Another Kind of  Cowboy

CArrie Mac" the beckoners

Jamie Bastedo: On Thin Ice

Wendy Phillips: Fishtailing

Robert Sawyer: WAke WAtch Wonder

HOW TO CHOOSE THE TEXT

keep your students in mind

will they connect

are the themes relevent

characters engaging

language expressive

narrative compelling

CHOOSE THE AUTHOR

CHOOSE BY THEME;QUESTION

CHAPTER 2 "READING CANADA"

• a recognizable vision of the human condition: "Looking for x"
• "Stitches"  trailer trash
• "maestro" family dysfunction
• "Confessions of a Heartless Girl" teenage angst and drama
• gives a platform for discussion of "real issues and problems teens face"
• bullying
• poverty
• identity
• racism
• friendship
• multi culturalism (mennonites to aboriginals to immigrants to African-Canadian. Asian, gender) ALL CANADIAN!
• (Thomas King, Richtler, Culloten/ Drew Hayden Taylor) (Froggo,Nourbese-Phillip)
• HOW: scaffolding self-others-text-context, decode the narrative, 
• STRATEGIES FOR INSTRUCTION: free writing, research about authors, thematic discussions, participatory drama vignettes, thematic web page searches, become a children's author, debate, class anthology

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July 17
Being a Social Studies and English teacher, I would love to teach a Humanities course that covers all the curriculum objectives by using historical literature!

PHASES OF TEACHING LITERATURE

• enter" diagrams/think pair share/ interview/internet
• explore:reader response / interpretive community/ formal analysis/ critical synthesis
• extend: creative   projects/ real world research/real world community issues

(reminded me of video game language!)

Chapter 3 "READING CANADA"

• discussion of "What is the Truth"
• primary source evidence; whose truth?
• post colonial narratives: superiority vs inferiority\
• feminist narratives: voice and perspective and era of feminism
• the past is a foreign country and we are visitors
• knowledge of  history: pre-contact/exploration/settlement/ creation of Canada: where does the text fit in? (Ann and Seamus, The GRavesavers)
• United Empire Loyalists/Rebels/Africans/Metis/Asians (Meyers Creek, Underground to Canada, I've got a Home in Glory Land, The Book of Negroes, Louis Riel, A Comicstrip Biograhy, Tales from Gold Mountain
• Eastern European (Mennonite) Russian, (Your Mouth is Lovely) 
• Home Children (orphans prior to and up to the Great Depression) (Orphan at My Door)
• Internal Migration: Boomtowns and Cities (Frank Slide) (The Girl From Turtle Mountain)
• World War 1 narratives, diaries, poets (The WARS)
• Between the Wars: social and political realities: Postwar Immigration, the Great Depression (Concubines's Children, The Landing, Our Canadian Girl)
• Residential School (As Long AS Rivers Flow)
• World War 2, conflicts, evacuees children and communities (Looking at the Moon)
• Japanese Canadian Interment (Obasan)
• Public Health, Tuberculosis and Sanitoria (Queen of Hearts, The Crazy Man)
• Jewish Canadian Holocaust (Children of Fire, Margit, Book 1 Home Free, Turned Away, I was the Child of Holocaust Survivors)
• Postwar: Ideological struggles: Korea, Vietnam, Coldwar, (Pure Springs, The Way the Crow Flies, Gemini Summer)
• Mid Century Human Rights Pendulum (the right to vote, immigration, youth rights (Tin Angel)
• Aboriginal Voices  (Kiss of the Fur Queen, Green Grass Running Water)

Goals of teaching historical fiction

• historical thinking
• literary insight

How?

close reading strategies

(build analytical historical and critical thinking skills)

1. read observantly through the passage, annotating and highlighting as you go-comment in the margins. look for details, rhetorical devices, hisoricical or cultural references.

2. Look for patterns that emerge, imagery, repetition, contradictions,similarities, underlying connections philosophically, geographically, metaphorically, relationally?

3. Meta-cognition: So what? Ask questions about the patterns and information/interpretations and responses

My favorite quote from the chapter "Teaching historical fiction involves loss of innocence around what people are lik and w hat they do."
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Chapter 4 "Reading Canada"

Speculative Fiction
promotes readers' intellectual and imaginative growth
"nailing jelly to a wall: (Atwood 2004)
TEsseracts Fifteen: A case   of Quite Curious Tales (futuristic]
Myth Magic and transcendent Imagination
fear of extinction, ritual, extremity of life and kingdom adn storytelling along another plan of existance
high fantasy in norse myths (The Feathered Cloak)
giants, kings, dragons, princes   (Dragonmaster, Dragonseer)
fantasy adolescents between worlds, shape shifting, archetypal of childhood to adulthood
Hybrid Heroes