Please follow this Link to the Canadian Geese research team’s website presentation.

Find three examples of names that need to be spoken aloud in order to catch the allusion. Discuss the examples as well as the reading technique that requires you to read aloud in order to make connections. Why does King want us to read aloud?

There are many positives that come with reading a story aloud. It breaks that barrier of intimacy you have when reading in your head. I find that even when alone, reading something aloud feels as though I’m in front of an audience. It is a slight shift in the reality of reading, you have a different connection to the story you are taking on. With this being said, it may encourage you to immerse yourself, and be a part of the story, which is what King may have been inviting us, the readers, to do. There were a couple names that needed to be spoken aloud in order to catch their allusions, but the three I gravitated towards were, Dr. Joseph Hovaugh, Polly Hantos, and Sally Jo Weha. 

Perhaps the most obvious of the bunch, is Dr. Joseph Hovaugh. Admittedly I did not make this connection right away. It struck a chord with me upon reading it on the page, but it wasn’t until I read the name out loud that I realized the obvious allusion to the Bible. I learned that “Jehovah is God’s unique name in the Bible” (Who is Jehovah.)

In addition to Dr. Joseph Hovaugh, two other names I noticed were both Polly Hantos, and Sally Jo Weha. It is to my understanding that Polly Hantos is supposed to be alluding to Pocahontas. This is a character that has been adapted into the Disney universe. If I’m being honest, the film Pocahontas was a favourite of mine. There was something about the aesthetic of the film, paired with the soundtrack that made it so alluring to me. Thinking back on this film, it got me thinking of how effectively did Disney portray the young Indigenous luminary? The third name that stood out to me was Sally Jo Weha, which again, to my understanding, was an allusion to Sacagawea.

King has done this masterfully as it is not as simple as just reading the names aloud to clearly reveal their hidden identities. The reader must skip syllables, or even squeeze others together to uncover this language King has created for the reader. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the act of reading aloud to oneself, provides a “distinct stimulus of self-recognition” (Hendricks.) As Sophie Hardach puts it, nowadays “Reading out loud is largely reserved for bedtime stories and performances” (Hardach, 2020.) Perhaps this is another reason King is encouraging us to read aloud. Perhaps he is wanting this to be more than a standard reading experience, but more of a “performance” we are taking part in only to ourselves.

Works Cited

Stebbins, S. J. (2010, August). Pocahontas: Her life and legend. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm

Hardach, S. (2020, September 17). Why you should read this out loud. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200917-the-surprising-power-of-reading-aloud

Hendricks, D. (2020, October 06). The little-known truths about reading aloud. Retrieved from https://www.scilearn.com/little-known-truths-about-reading-aloud/

“Who Is Jehovah?” Jehovah’s Witness, jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/who-is-jehovah/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2021

The Story Seekers Website

“On the other hand, stories must rely on a literary canon, history, culture, etc., to uphold their believability.”

Hmmmm, so, you are implying stories depend on textuality to “uphold believability “This is a thought that I’d like to examine.  Why would the idea that textuality brings believability to a story –be so?  It is true that western cultures predominantly preach the believability and reliability of the written word over the spoken word, for all sorts of interesting reasons that we will explore through-out this course. However, there are cultures for which the spoken word carries far more weight in terms of believability because the spoken word has a witness. And, interestingly, in western cultures there is an exception to this notion found in our court rooms. Spoken testimony under special circumstances, the court room for example, is considered highly believable.

Thanks for the thought- provoking idea that the spoken word relies on the written word to uphold believability. Thinking about why this seems ‘logical’ or even ‘common sense’ is important in the process of unlearning and learning to listen. We are, all of us, dominated by one narrative or another, but we are able to ‘step into the intersections’ and see where the ‘other’ narratives lead and equally able to learn new ways of seeing and believing in the world.

Your concluding statement is equally thought provoking:

“Yet as one is hard-pressed to give up one form for the other, this duality serves no larger purpose, both forms work together and to separate one from the other seems counterproductive in terms of simple communication.”

I would say along with others, the purpose served was a colonizing purpose: to subjugate a people. We will discuss this further, for now I simply want to point out one of many colonizing strategies that we will examine in literature and the stories we tell ourselves.

https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/

Any film/ documentary enthusiast – Check this film out: https://www.nfb.ca/film/circle-of-the-sun/

. The point about this National Film Board film, if you have time to watch it, is how the outside narrator contradicts the visuals. As he speaks about a necessarily vanishing ceremony, that no longer includes young people – the final shots are of young people, hundreds of them, participating in the dance. It is really quite an ignorant film, but in 1975 – that was the narrative. Note how there are two voices, the Blackfoot man who returns to the Sundance and is filmed while in contemplative stances as his story is a ‘voice-over, and the ‘outside narrator – the film-maker is invisible as he ‘explains’ the significance of the story. It is as if the film-maker couldn’t see what he was filming. He was carried away by his ‘poetic’ vision of the story of the Vanishing Indian, he was blinded to the reality on the other side of his lens. Remarkable. As he tells a story of a dying ceremony, the truth is he is filming a ceremony on the brink of revival – and what a remarkable revival. This film is actually a good example of the kinds of story-telling about First Nations, Metis and Inuit that prompted the outcry against cultural appropriation and the telling of their stories by outsiders in the 1970s and 1980s and became a complex theoretical issue in the wonderful ‘post-modern’ 90’s … <– that is my sense of humour Enjoy the film if you have time, it’s an interesting break from work that offers insights into the ‘way’ we tell stories …

The Sacred Sundance: The Transfer of a Ceremony

https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-peoples-terminology-guidelines-for-usage

Good Wed 470! While you are all working away with your Conference teams, I am reading all your Unit three blogs with great pleasure. I hope to have evaluation sheets out to all of you by the beginning of next week – it is quite a reading and watching and following journey! Here is a good link to save: re – capitalizing Indigenous.

I realize the problem is that many of the texts we read do not bother to capitalize ‘Indigenous.’ Here is an interesting and telling experiment with your spell-correction function. Look at this sentence which I typed without using any capitals: The Canadian and European and mayan peoples, who are also indigenous, all live together in belize. My spell-correction automatically capitalizes Canadian and European, but NOT Mayan, nor Indigenous. Try typing a sentence — it has to be a sentence because a single word will be automatically corrected as if beginning a sentence – with a number of proper names of peoples, like australian, African, south American, Aztec, Indian, irish ….. very interesting to see which peoples automatically get a capital letter at the beginning of the word that describes their ethnicity, one more: Mongolian. hmmmmm.

Before I begin a discussion on the evaluation process, I want to ask you to consider what is wrong with the following list of names:

• Canadian
• European
• indigenous
• French
• Spanish
• first nations
• Montrealers
• mohawk

Let’s talk about this list on Face Book 

Well, well, we have reached the midway point of our studies and dialogues together and that means the time has come for me to speak up and join in with you all. Here’s how the process works:

1. On Mar 8th – Please post a Facebook post with three links  to the three blogs you would like me to respond to – and of course assign a number of evaluative points [please see our syllabus for the breakdown of percentages].
2.  I will read and respond to your blogs, and engage in your dialogues; this is my feedback.
3. I will also make up an evaluative grade sheet with comments for you, which you will receive as an attachment in an email message.

I expect this process to take me a couple of week. I will alert you when I have finished the process.

I am very much looking forward reading and responding to your blogs. Enjoy.

Here is a list of the books you will not find online, nor in the course pac, so you will have to purchase  or borrow:

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: AA. Knopf. 2003. Print.

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden; Essays on the Canadian Imagination. 2011 Toronto: Anansi. Print.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

– – Green Grass Running Water. Toronto:  Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books2005. (1-30)