Enigmas and Laughter (Assignment 2:4)

Yet Lutz and Wendy Wickwire help us to see that, practically speaking, we’re not dealing with a simple static dichotomy of monomyth vs polymyth but with fluid, changing, constantly renegotiated contact zones, meetings of horizons in which different (but perhaps not wholly incommensurable) stories meet. Values and outcomes are always somewhat complex and unclosed to begin with: as with the adoption of pre-Christian stories and practices into instantiations of the Christian mythos, or the mixture of Christian and courtly values in medieval romance, or indeed the European elements in post-contact stories of North-West coast Indigenous peoples. These cases are not to be dismissed (as post-contact stories were by anthropologists) for not fitting the type, but rather valued as ambiguous places of intersection displaying the extraordinary complexity of belief.

Ambiguous or, to use King’s word, enigmatic. These are areas of imperfect understanding and (as Chamberlin would point out) constant contradiction (115). Perhaps they carry the good news that we don’t have to be—can’t be—entirely consistent. Can only one story really be sacred and true?

There’s a story about a little girl who asks her mother where they came from. The mother replies, “God made us on the seventh day of creation.” The girl, still unsure, asks her father the same question. His answer—“We evolved from apes.” Now she’s more confused than ever. She goes back to her mother and says, “You told me that God made us and Dad said we evolved from apes. I don’t understand—which one’s true?” “They’re both true, honey,” her mother responds, “your father’s just talking about his side of the family.”

A resolution and no resolution at all. Chamberlin would have us see that we can and do believe in both, and that this isn’t just a result of muddled thinking. In fact, sometimes it can be the result of humour and irony. Lutz notes that Indigenous storytellers often use humour and irony to “challenge and reorder hierarchies of power” (13). Maybe what King is doing is using humour to point out the radical contingency of the stories we live by, the telling of them, and even the analytical models we use to discuss them. They didn’t need to be this way. And changing the telling or the valuation can have genuine transformative power. Laughter, which may be as close to a cultural universal as it gets, may be a potent means of finding common ground. At least, being able to laugh at ourselves may have a certain value.

 

“Like Harry Robinson’s story about the stolen paper and the accounts of literate indigenous prophets, this suggests a prior history of literacy (a first fourteen chapters, if you will) among Salish peoples. It’s not that literacy (and thus history) was absent before colonization but that native traditions of literacy were different from those of the newcomers—and so unrecognizable to them. This conclusion is well borne out by Courtney MacNeil’s comments, which we read earlier this term, on how oral and literate practices are inevitably intermixed in a culture.”

I find especially poignant Carlson’s suggestion, quoted by Dr. Paterson, that “literacy is part of a broader genre of transformation stories” for the Salish peoples (61). This is not merely to say that transformation might fit into the category of literacy (significant though that is) but to propose that writing participates in a more expansive activity of transforming the world. The Salish Transformers, as I imagine, etched new and lasting meanings and forms on the face of reality—Transformers stories thus imply a powerful literacy in the enduring relationships between Salish peoples and their homelands (transformations being both written and readable). Our (and other) acts of writing, meanwhile, can represent comparable (if much more minor) transformative inscriptions.

And, finally the last quote from this most wonderful Blog:

“Perhaps it would be an appropriate revision to suggest that settler populations have historically displayed a certain illiteracy, one encapsulated in the mythology of the terra nullius, the empty land or blank page. The failure to recognize the presence of anything readable may be the most extreme act of illiteracy. Part of our task may become an awareness of alternative literacies, an awareness not geared toward decoding or explanation as toward mutual respect and acknowledgement.

***

2:4 – Dichotomous Thinking and Thomas King

f I had to come up with another reason, though, for King’s strange inconsistency, I might say that King is pointing out how easy it is to fall into these binaries, even after we have been told to be cautious of them. It is very difficult for us humans to ‘de-binarize’ our thinking; we need look no further than one of the most prevalent dichotomies – male/female – to see just how troubling these binaries can be and how difficult it has been for those who identify as non-binary to try to dismantle them. Thus, perhaps King is also demonstrating that no matter how aware we are, we are still prone to this kind of thinking: it is a process of unlearning that we must embark on consciously and over a prolonged period of time. I would add as a final comment that not every culture seems to tend towards binary thinking, but the one in which we find ourselves most certainly does, and so it is our duty to be critical of how we organize the world.

Blog 2:4 :: The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

King is doing a few things by setting these two stories at ends with each other. First, he is showcasing how these two ideologies have shaped history. He is, of course, representing beliefs that are in some way contrary with each other, because when we view how these two worldviews interacted with each other in our past, the result was one worldview assuming dominance over the other, and attempting to control them “for their own good.” The dominance of one group over another is not an idea that is formed in Charm’s story of creation, but is rather built on over and over again throughout the many stories in the Bible. Here, King is comparing the worlds of these two culture’s spiritualities and the world that makes up our history.

Second, King is breaking from the colonial norm of assuming one truth and embracing the complex nature of the world that lives outside of our minds. It is a colonial mindset that finds co-existence of opposing views discomforting. After all, where in the Biblical story all truth and all power points towards god, in the story of charm, life is permeated with cooperation and harmony.

Dichotomies are a colonial construct. Believing that there is an inherent, mutually exclusive opposition between states of being (rich/poor, white/black, strong/weak, right/wrong, etc.) is a way that colonial mindset boils down complex ideas into easy to understand bites that let us to make what feels like meaningful statements about the world. As King puts it “we trust easy oppositions. We are suspicious of complexities, distrustful of contradictions, fearful of enigmas.” (25)

We have ideas about how the world is black and white that we have been taught to embrace as soon as we start learning the English language. As young children we learn all about male and female, boy and girl, and yet there is no standard in grade-level education where students are expected to develop a broader understanding of the differences between gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, and sex, and how the many variations along the spectrum between boy and girl, male and female, are expected to fit in to what we know.

This is such an excellent example of a blog with GREAT hyperlinks!

For all you Educators out there – this is an excellent read: The First Peoples Principles of Learning: An Opportunity for Settler Teacher Self-Inquiry‘ by Kelly Hanson

Moodie’s Awareness of Her Stories

I think Moodie’s introduction demonstrates some limited awareness of the stories she carries with her in terms of her expectations of Canada and the opposing reality. She shows some understanding of how her story of a new Promised Land led her to believe this experience would be idyllic and how shocked she was to find her new life so challenging. I do not think, however, that this experience dispelled her story of a promised land and a gift from God, but merely adjusted it from gift to duty. Instead of this gift from God being given easily and perfectly (as perhaps expected based on the advertisements about Canada), through the toils of settler life she seems to learn that God has granted her and the other worthy ones a chance to fulfill a challenging duty – a sort of sacrifice – in the effort to build the new Eden for themselves.

In other ways I do not think Moodie was aware of her stories, as I think many people are not aware of the stories they carry with them that influence their actions. Her description of how empty this land is and how inaccessible common necessities are, reads as surprise. She does not not appear to be aware of her own stories or expectations of this land as a terra nullius and how these may shape how she perceives this new experience. In addition, I don’t see Moodie as a master-manipulator trying to write Indigenous people out of her history book on purpose. So much of her writing seems observational and biased, based on her own story baggage, but not overly calculated or self-aware.”

Before reading the following excerpt, I would like you to take a moment and think about how you would write a story about ‘homelessness’ – if I were ask.

There are all kinds of homes, and all kinds of homelessness – but like your stories of home we could find commonalities. What can you imagine would be the common feelings about homelessness? Or  “being homeless”, as different from our common experiences of “being at home”.

REFLECTIONS ON YOUR MANY STORIES OF HOME

“Finally, I thought about privilege as I wrote and read. I think our posts about home indicate some privilege within our class. The joyful and seemingly peaceful reflections on the idea of home are a privilege, as are easeful family relationships. Having a safe childhood home to reflect back on is an indicator of privilege. You could say there is also privilege simply in feeling like you belong somewhere.”

Life in the age of Covid 19

“‘Home’ was one place, ‘work’ was someplace else. But under work-from-home, the two places melded into one. Where I once had the security of knowing I could simply close my eyes to the world outside, strangely, the world outside was seeping in. I had to manage the space in my home so that work happened in a certain area, and home happened everywhere else. One of the hardest psychological affects of coronavirus during this period (other than the lack of certainty, the unclear yet overwhelming presence of danger, the changing expectations of what a functioning society was going to look like, and the knowledge that things were going to get worse before they got better) was the compartmentalization of everyday life.”

“Not everyone had a safe childhood like me, or moved to a new city like me. And not everyone was impacted by this past year the same way that I was. But to me, home is a mixture of a lot of ideas and emotions and events that are difficult to attach to one location, because, strangely, they go wherever I go.

Following is a list adjectives that describes our collective sense of ‘Home’ – thank you Zac! I would like you all to please read that list slowly.

• • • The following are a list of themes discussed in my peers blog posts on the same topic:

• • • Unique Space
    • Land
    • Independence
    • Freedom
    • Joy and Happiness and Love and Pride
    • Memories
    • Hope, Future
    • Security, Care
    • Family
    • Community
    • Belonging
    • Making Connections
    • Shared Experience and History
    • Knowledge
    • Learning

Take your time and engage with how each description relates to your individual sense of home – or, not.

Now, I would like you to imagine what life might be like if you were ‘homeless’ …. . What if people speaking a strange language began to arrive and told you that you and all your family must move, that your home is not really yours, that you do not belong because —

You are not civilized — like us.

***

If you have not read Magdalena’s story about Home – it is a beautiful story that deserves to be read in it’s entirety 🙂

****

Listening with your Eyes (Reading Robinson)

“In his article “Godzilla vs Post-Colonial,” Thomas King slots Harry Robinson’s writings into a category he terms “interfusional:” a blending of oral and written literature within Native literature (186). In other words, Robinson is using an oral voice, informed by elements of oral literature, in a written medium. This effect relies heavily on syntax: the same syntax that tripped me up. King concludes that “…by forcing the reader to read aloud, Robinson’s prose, to a large extent, avoids [the loss of the voice of the storyteller], re-creating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Perhaps this is what I found so challenging: I was being guided by Robinson’s prose to become the storyteller myself, for a story which I did not quite comprehend in a syntax that was not my own. I fell into the trap of becoming wrapped up in parsing the syntax, in attempting to follow the shifting pronouns from “he” to “they” and back again. I feared that, by leaning into Robinson’s syntax and thus imitating his speech patterns, I would be disrespecting his voice when, according to King, that may very well have been his intent.

 

A wonderful turn of words: “When reading silently, our brains frequently don’t take the time to examine each word, too busy cracking the code of the written language; as an example, consider this familiar internet meme. Listening to the story might let us take the time needed to better understand.”

 

Good Monday 372;

It is coming up to time to choose your three favorite blogs for Mid Term evaluation. Try to find some time this week, before posting your final Blog for Unit 2, to read through your blogs to date, including the dialogues and choose the three you are most happy with. You are free to edit and expand on your blogs, or to correct grammar or errors of expression. The better the expression of your ideas, the happier I will be when I read. So, please feel free to edit and improve as much as you like. When you have decided which three blogs you would like to submit for evaluation, make a new post with a small introduction as to why you choose these three, and provide links as well.  I will begin reading blogs and comments next Monday morning.

A note of evaluating Dialogues  – once I begin the process of reading Blogs next Monday, I will begin collecting comments and it will be too late for you to go back and add comments. So, please make sure you are all caught up before next Monday.

And please remember to — at the very least — acknowledge every comment on your blogs

Another thing you should reflect on while reading through your work and comments, is finding three other people to form a Research Team for our end of the semester online conference. Everyone should have a team of four – we will have Four research teams in total.

Please do feel free to post any general questions on our Facebook page – or email me if you wish. Thank you and have a great week.

 

Monday February 8th

Last week was an enjoyable week of reading through your blogs and following links, thank you all for a most enlightening week. This week I will be occupied with other courses, in the meantime I have pasted some of the many wonderful insights and passages and links from last week’s readings.  You can follow the links to find the blogs.

Last year, I read Dylan Robinson’s recent book Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies (here is an informative interview with Robinson about his book). In discussing perceptual attitudes within the context of colonization, Robinson also thematizes a certain turning aside. To him, “hungry listening” is a paradigmatic settler/colonial positionality, a programme of consumptive, appropriative, assimilating perception (50). His argument spoke powerfully to my background as a music student and to my history as a lifelong non-Indigenous inhabitant of Indigenous lands. What, Robinson asks, are the ethical and political implications of the very ways we listen, see, read, and create, access and circulate knowledge? What relationships do our perceptions form with the land and its co-inhabitants?

Often a story is composed of many words. Sometimes a single word contains a multitude of stories. Looking back on the “Words of Welcome” with which I launched this blog, I can see that “welcome” is itself a word of many stories: narratives of travel, customs of hospitality, stories of home. A speech act theorist might say it has a definite illocutionary force, calling into being a network of material and affective relationships. Or you might say that “welcome” is a word of magic, one that alters the world.

hIn If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?, J. Edward Chamberlin reflects on the intersections and contradictions between word and world. This relationship, like that between reality and the imagination (and any number of binary pairs), is not one of antagonistic exclusion. On the contrary, Chamberlin’s “world of words” brings us closer to “the world we live in,” providing imaginative structures with which to articulate our relationships and experiences with and within that world (1). Although considered to a certain degree arbitrary, words are no less real, no less “true” than our everyday material reality. Indeed, Chamberlin would suggest, that very reality is the creative product of discourse, of stories.

Recently, cognitive linguistics has allowed us to picture how language does not simply serve as a vehicle of communication but fundamentally underlies our most intimate experiences of thought and feeling. Metaphor—that tricky “hinge” of language’s strangeness (Chamberlin 162)—may be no mere poetic device but a crucial conceptual tool, one that allows us to imagine the immaterial but nonetheless real (love, value, sovereignty, progress, anger, understanding) in terms of the concrete and embodied (heat, movement, light, objects). (Here is a lecture from our very own UBC on the fascinating research being done in conceptual metaphor theory and embodiment.) What came first, the thought or the metaphor? The world or the story?”

***

 Additionally, hypertext is moving the entirety of the written world towards a potential singularity, as linked text leads to linked text until all works are connected. This is similar to what Project Ocean was trying to accomplish. Thus, hypertext plays a role in reconfiguring the relationship between reader and author, as well as relationships between different texts.

***

 In his (problematic) seminal work, Orality and Literacy, Walter Ong points out that “sound exists only when it is going out of existence” (Ong 70) and is thus inferior to the permanency of the written word. He also states that “when a speaker is addressing an audience, the members of the audience normally become a unity,” while “writing and print isolate” (73). Story-time YouTube videos do not conform to either of these facts. The video format makes sound permanent and fixed, but the oral story-teller is separated from their audience – they are speaking to a camera, and each individual audience member watches alone, breaking up the ‘unity’ of the audience. Thus, traditional boundaries between oral and literate cultures are obfuscated, meaning this hierarchy is no longer applicable. As our technologies advance even further, I would suggest that these distinctions will become even murkier.

***

Here are a couple of great links:

Long time ago by Leslie Marmon Silko

Making Connections – The Power of Oral Storytelling | Trent Hohaia | TEDxUOA

And finally, I highly recommend you read Leo’s story about how Evil Came into the World:

“I wanted to write a story where words left physical changes in the world, symbolizing the effects of storytelling on perception and truth, and literalize the common saying of how stories “shape” the world. This is Chamberlin’s musings on the “bear and the word ‘bear’” (132), of tracking and the significance of words. Through the bard “reshaping” old words, I wished to touch on issues of adaptation and narrative recontextualization; one need only examine the plethora of adaptations of Little Red Riding Hood, ranging from the childish to the most adult in Charles Perrault as adapted by Andrew Lang, to understand how we adapt and readapt the same stories time and again. In fact, LRRH has been so widely adapted in fact that its dark origins are news-worthy and treated as “unknown”.

Have a great week!

Good Monday Morning 372;

This week I will be enjoying my read through all your blogs, I can’t wait! I will send out comment sheets as I move along through-out the week, this may take longer then a week depending on how caught-up I get in your web of stories. As I read, I cut and paste some of my favorite passages here for everyone to enjoy. So, please expect a comment sheet in the next week, and when I have finished my first read through, I will send out a blanket email to let you all know.  Enjoy.

The following is an excerpt from Magdalena’s telling the story about how evil came into the world. Magdalena included a video of her telling the story, which is highly recommended, just follow the link:)

In fact, including Aesop’s fables as a method of relating this story to others I knew my family would be familiar with made me consider the ways in which stories rely on other stories. When I chat with my brother, our conversations are filled with references to stories we both love; quotes from Corner Gas, references to fantasy and sci-fi novels, or reminders of obscure family anecdotes. While this is delightful for us, it does have the effect of alienating anyone else listening to our conversations; my boyfriend was quite lost when he first met my brother and heard us talking together! The same principle applies to stories: if a story references another, or uses a metaphor regarded as so common in a society it does not need explanation, the reader may feel alienated or lost. This in turn reminded me of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode from Season 5 entitled “Darmok”. In this episode, Captain Picard must learn to communicate with a species that speaks entirely in metaphor: quite the challenge when you don’t know the history behind the metaphor!

And, Magdalena’s reflections on telling the story, are insightful, and important:

 … there was a noticeable shift in energy, for lack of a better word, when I told the story to different people. In other words, the identity of the listener affected me as the storyteller in some intangible way.

The following is from Zac’s blog and are reflections on the experience of telling the story.  I am particularly intrigued by Zac’s thoughts and feelings about telling the story over Zoom – these made me reflect on Laura’s Blog, and questions about the ‘pedagogy of place’ and the ecology of the spaces in which we teach/learn together. And, Zac  writes –“… how all these dimensions intertwine with our roles as educators — being accountable not just for what we are teaching, but how we are teaching it.” Here is the excerpt:

But the also story felt final and centred in the moment in a way that written word does not: there was no going back, and no editing. As I presented my story to family over Zoom, it created an artificial separation between the storyteller and the audience. Zoom has the feeling of speaking through a tunnel, and it made it a little bit difficult to gauge peoples’ reactions to what I was saying. But even with this barrier, telling the story felt like a form of meditation.

Here is a link to a great dialogue on Cayla’s Blog

That’s all for today.

 

 

 

Note: it is helpful if you indicate the question you are answering on the blog – posting the question at the top works well for me.

Note: It is helpful if you provide a sentence to introduce your source. For example, who is  Stuart Rudner? A scholar/ author/ professor? A journalist? A blogger?  A lawyer? Is there a reason your reader should pay attention to what he has to say?

Hello 301

Having passed the last couple of days reading through your Welcome posts, I want to say thank you all for such wonderful introductions to yourselves. I am so looking forward to working and learning together. What an impressively thoughtful and wonderfully small group we are – some semesters there are as many as 40 people in this course, so I am excited to have so much more time to work with you all — it is going to be a great semester.

I am commenting on your Blogs as I read through your introductions, exploring your links and enjoying coming to know your interests, academic pursuits, future aspirations and even your pets. I should be completed reading all your introductions by the end of the day.

** A little Business: Please ensure your Blog is set so that comments do not need approval. Thank you.

Hello 301 –

For some strange reason our course schedule page is stuck on an old edit  – I cannot edit it to continue working on the due dates. I am contacting a tech person this morning to work on this – in the meantime here is the correct schedule for you.

Assessment Scheme, Assignments, Instructions for Term Paper and Due Dates

Assessment Scheme

Students are assessed on their written assignments and their
online dialogues, which include student blogs with hyperlinks, online
commentary, sharing resources, and self-assessments. Students will also be
assessed on their participation in an online conference at the end of the term.

Students will be required to complete the following assignments:

• 30% Blog Assignments
• 20% Dialogues
• 30% Conference Presentation
• 20% Final Paper

Please Review the Guidelines for blog assignments

Assignments

ALL ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE before midnight

Note: There is NO final Exam for this course.

In place of a final exam we will be presenting an online conference at the end of term

Lesson 1:1 

Assignment 1:1  Due: Jan 18

Follow the instructions in this lesson to set up your blog and write a short introduction (300 – 400 words) that includes at least two hyperlinks and a visual. This introduction should welcome your readers and include a brief description of the course and some commentary on your expectations for this course. Place a link to your blog on our Group Facebook page.

Lesson 1:2

Assignment 1:2:  Due Jan 21

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box of each blog. By significant I mean; the comment offers a new insight or a question with some measure of complexity, or a criticism.

Assignment 1:3  Due  Jan 25

At the end of this lesson you will find a list of questions. Read each of the questions and select ONE that you would like to answer for your blog assignment.  Follow the blogging guidelines  and instructions in this lesson to write a 500- 800-word answer and post on your blog. Be sure to also respond to all comments on your blog.

Lesson 1:3 

Assignment 1:4 Due Jan 28

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box of each blog. By significant I mean; the comment offers a new insight or a new example from the text that will enlarge the original answer, or a question with some measure of complexity, or a criticism supported by evidence from the Chamberlin reading or another scholarly source.

Assignment 1:5 Due Jan Feb 3 

At the end of this lesson you will find detailed instructions for this assignment. Your task is to take the story that Kings tells about how evil comes into the world at the witches conference [In “The Truth About Stories” page 9 ] — and change the story any way you want — as long as the end remains the same:

“Once you have told a story, you can never take it back. So, be careful of the stories you tell, AND the stories you listen to.” 

Then learn your story by heart and then tell the story to your friends and family. When you are finished, post a blog with your version of the story and some commentary on what you discovered. If you want, you can post a video of you telling the story, in place of text.

Lesson 2:1

Assignment 2:1 Due Feb 6

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box of each blog.

Assignment 2:2  Due Feb 10

Write a short story (600 – 1000 words max) that describes your sense of home and the values and stories that you use to connect yourself to your home and respond to all comments on your blog.

Assignment 2:3 Due Feb 15

Read at least 6 students blog short stories about ‘home’ and make a list of the common shared assumptions, values and stories that you find. Post this list on your blog with some commentary about what you discovered.

Lesson 2:2

Assignment 2:4 Due  Feb  22

At the end of this lesson, you will find a list of questions. Read each of the questions and select one that you would like to answer for your blog assignment and respond to all comments on your blog.

Lesson 2:3

Assignment 2:5 Due Feb 26

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation with question in the comment box of each blog.

Assignment 2:6 Due Mar 5

At the end of this lesson, you will find a list of questions. Read each of the questions and select one that you would like to answer for your blog assignment and respond to all comments on your blog.

Lesson 3:1

Assignment 3:1 Due  Mar 8

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box of each blog.

Assignment 3:2 Due  Mar 12

At the end of this lesson, you will find a list of questions. Read each of the questions and select one that you would like to answer for your blog assignment, and respond to all comments on your blog.

Assignments 3:3 Due  Mar 15

It is time to find working partners for your research projects. You need to find 3 people to collaborate with for the end of term online conference.  Ideally a research group will have four members. To find your group members, read through the blogs that interest you the most and study the comments as well. Connect via your blog comment boxes and discuss your common interests. Equally important is a discussion on your working habits; procrastinators and over-organizers should self-identify. So, be clear with each other on your schedules and working habits before committing to a group. One member of the group should post a list with your names on our Group Facebook page.

Lesson 3:2

Assignment 3:4 Due Mar 16

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box.

Assignment 3:5 Due Mar 19

At the end of this lesson, you will find a list of questions. Read each of the questions and select one that you would like to answer for your blog assignment and respond to all comments on your blog.

Lesson 3:3

Assignment 3:6 Due Mar 22

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box of each blog.

Assignment 3:7 Due Mar 29

Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages you have chosen. Be sure to make use of Jane Flick’s reference guide on you reading list.

Lesson 4:1

Assignment 4:1 Due  Mar 31

Students are required to read two student blogs and post a significant and relevant observation or question in the comment box of each blog and respond to all comments on your blog. If you do not receive any comments on your blog – post two extra comments on your peer’s pages.

Assignment 4:3 Due April 2

Create an About Page that includes:

• A general introduction of your team’s area of research.
• Each team member should write a very short bio and introduction with a  general description of your individual area of interest and one or two reasons why you are interested in this area of research.
• A visual correctly cited
• A short embedded video of interest to your team

• Link your website on our Face Book page

Lesson 4:2

Assignment 4:4 Due April 8

• Each student should have two annotated bibliography posts. Please note: Use MLA style guide to format your Annotated Bibliography. Do not post by student name or by numbers.
• Each student should begin posting comments; I expect to see an ongoing dialogue grow on your Annotated bibliography comment box this week.

Assignment 4:5 Due April 12

1. Each student will have contributed to the conference dialogue at least four times; two comments on your Annotated Bibliography page and — as a team: two comments on another team’s Annotated Bibliography. 

PLEASE NOTE: You must select another conference presentation to dialogue with – as a team, and indicate on your Dialogue Summary which team you have partnered with, thank you.

1. See Conference Instructions for more details

Lesson 4:3

Assignment 4:6 Due April 17

Conference websites are complete and ready for evaluation

Term papers are Due April 21

Email your instructor a pdf file of your paper please.

erika.paterson@ubc.ca

THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM FOR THIS COURSE:

Hello 372 and welcome to our course of studies together.

Please begin with the welcome page where you will find a general overview of course expectations. And, I have made a video that you can follow along as I talk you through the course syllabus .

Please also take the time to cruise through the course site and get a sense of how you will need to schedule yourselves  — this is an interactive online course and timeliness is essential in order to fully engage with the course. The Course schedule page is a quick reference to due dates.

This is a challenging course that asks you to explore literature in a different context than the average English literature course, and requires assignments that are likewise “different’ than what most of you will be accustomed  to expecting in a Literature course. I hope you will enjoy the challenges and feel free to use of our Private  Group Face Book page ** to ask your questions. This Facebook page is for your convenience only and is not mandatory; if you do not like Facebook we also have a Chat function on our UBC site.

Thank you and enjoy.

** Please note: the private group Facebook page is NOT required. If you prefer, you may post your links on our canvas chat page . I like Facebook because you can share resources with ease – but, please do not feel obliged or as if you are missing necessary resources by not using this page. Every message I put on Facebook, I will also put on Canvas or email. Be sure to check your UBC email for my messages.

Please Note: This course was English 470 – but changed to 372 last semester, so  you may see references to Engl. 470 in earlier blogs or comments.