Hello 470;

I have passed a wonderful week reading our blogs and following links. You have provided some good links, great stories and some excellent answers to my questions. The growing dialogue via our comment boxes is excellent. Thank you all.

Good Monday Sept 26 470;

I am happy to see so much enthusiasm among you all- and some rather remarkable stories on ‘How Evil Came into the World.’

Please be sure to reply to all comments on your Blog within a timely fashion. If you are too busy to engage fully, that is O.K. – just pause long enough to read and say thank you for the comment and you will try to return.

The contradiction that Chamberlin identifies at the heart of ‘home’ aptly speaks to the feeling of unease held by many Canadians of European heritage. How am I, as a Canadian of European descent able to reconcile the fact that my narrative of home, in all the ways in which it has come to define me, is implicated in the erasure of the home narratives of others? Querying narratives

The time has come to tell your story. Lesson 2:1  asks you to explore and express your values and the stories you use to connect yourself to your sense of home.

• Remember what Thomas Kings says, “we are the stories we tell ourselves.”
• Remember what Edward Chamberlain says, “stories give meaning and value to the places we call home.”
• And, take some time to reflect on the stories your grew up with that shaped how you value your home, reflect on the how these stories have shaped your sense of belonging, or not – to your home and your homeland.

In the introduction to this lesson I speak about examining our common assumptions and our diverse backgrounds in an effort to create an environment for learning and exploring difficult topics — together. My hope is that you will enjoy this process and that as a class we will create a more comfortable space to explore difficult questions with the knowledge that we do not all have the same perspectives because we do not all have the same stories. At the same time, we will discover some commonalties that will surprise us; and that always delight me. Write your story for your peers. Include the usual two hyperlinks and feel free to use visuals as well.

Enjoy!

Good Monday 470;

I have just completed my first round of reading your blogs; we are an eclectic and enthusiastic group this semester and I am very much looking forward to our work together.

I have a few comments for you about your blogging in general.

Every semester I begin with a conversation about capital letters and grammar, more specifically about the power of grammar as a tool for both oppression and liberation.

In terms of grammar, can you see what is wrong with the following sentences:

• In Canada, there are many thriving cultural traditions of thought and art: European, African, Latin, Scandinavian and more; the earliest cultural traditions are of course those of the indigenous people.
• The Europeans encountered different indigenous tribes as they traversed the nation.
• The British Empire colonized all the peoples of ‘Canada’ – the Europeans and indigenous people.

There was a time in the late 1980’s when students, myself included, began to mis-use, or you could even say we ‘abused’ grammar quite purposefully in an effort to expose the oppressive power of grammar. We have one student who is following suit with her blogging.

I will leave this with this: always capitalize Indigenous and Aboriginal and First Nations – just like you do Canada, and Canadians, and Europeans, and so forth.

I’d like you to take a moment and jump ahead to lesson 4:2 and read the sections on Dialogue, please pay particular attention to the differences between dialogue, debate and criticism – we are aiming to create dialogues – not debates and not criticism:

A dialogue is an exchange of ideas, never a debate; there are no right and wrong perspectives in a dialogue – rather differences are explored with the motivation of finding common ground. Dialogue is not about judging, weighing or making decisions though – it is about listening and understanding – you are allowed and expected to be open to perspectives and positions that are different from your own. Understanding and connecting with a perspective different from your own does not require you to change your position. It is possible to understand an issue from a number of different perspectives, without agreeing with all those perspectives.

We are not challenging each other’s perspectives, we are building from different perspectives. We are not finding ‘the’ answer, nor discovering a truth; we are exploring narrative terrains and pausing to examine intersections — or, common ground.

My engaement with your dialogues will be minimum. I will sometimes posts some phrases that are particularly enlightening for me – and sometimes raise my own questions on this blog in reference to an ongoing dialogue. But, for the most part, I leave you free to dialogue without my interruptions. I will of course continue to share hyperlinks that I find exciting or worth stopping to pause and consider in context with our course.

Lastly for this week: Switch it up! Be sure to visit as many different sites as possible – widen your range of discussions and engage with new blogs each week.

Thank you and enjoy.

Hello 470 and welcome to our course of studies together.

Please begin with the welcome page where you will find a general overview of course expectations. You can also take a look at the Student Blog page, where you will find a random sample of student blogs and web conference sites to give you an initial impression of expectations. And, I have made a video for you that will talk your through the course syllabus – you can follow along.

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 acustomed  to expecting in a Literature course. I hope you will enjoy the challenges and make good use of our Group FaceBook page to ask your questions and assist each other with answers.

Thank you, we will talk soon.

Hello 470;

The contradiction that Chamberlin identifies at the heart of ‘home’ aptly speaks to the feeling of unease held by many Canadians of European heritage. How am I, as a Canadian of European descent able to reconcile the fact that my narrative of home, in all the ways in which it has come to define me, is implicated in the erasure of the home narratives of others? Querying narratives

The time has come to tell your story. Lesson 2:1  asks you to explore and express your values and the stories you use to connect yourself to your sense of home. Remember what Thomas Kings says, “we are the stories we tell ourselves.” Remember what Edward Chamberlain says, “stories give meaning and value to the places we call home.”  And, take some time to reflect on the stories your grew up with that shaped how you value your home, reflect on the how these stories have shaped your sense of belonging, or not – to your home and your homeland.

In the introduction to this lesson I speak about examining our common assumptions and our diverse backgrounds in an effort to create an environment for learning and exploring difficult topics — together. My hope is that you will enjoy this process and that as a class we will create a more comfortable space to explore difficult questions with the knowledge that we do not all have the same perspectives because we do not all have the same stories. At the same time, we will discover some commonalties that will surprise us; and that always delight me. Write your story for your peers. Include the usual two hyperlinks and feel free to use visuals as well.

********

Hello 470;

I have passed a wonderful week reading our blogs and following links. You have provided some good links and a good answers to my questions and the growing dialogue via our comment boxes is excellent. Thank you all.

Good Friday Morning 470

I have posted all your blogs onto our student blog page – and have passed a most interesting weekend reading your introductions, thank you all. We are most certainly an interesting and diverse group of people, and I am most pleased with the spirit of enthusiasm throughout your posts, as well as the many dialogues that you have begun to shape; excellent.

Many of you have already begun the process of commenting and creating dialogues on each other’s blogs – and that is excellent as well.

Monday you will be commenting on each other’s first blog responses. Following the guidelines, you should comment on on at least two different blogs – and, be sure to respond promptly to all the comments you receive — even if you only have time to read and say thank you. This is a good time to double check to make sure your comment settings allow for comments without moderation.

I hope you enjoy the challenge of my questions for this week, and I look forward to reading your comments and your responses. Enjoy, and please do not hesitate to ask your questions on our Facebook page – or share interesting links. It is a good idea to post on FaceBook each time you post a new blog – this will help stimulate dialogue as well. Thanks.

Hello 470 and welcome to our course of studies together.

Please begin with the welcome page where you will find a general overview of course expectations. You can also take a look at the Student Blog page, where you will find a random sample of student blogs and web conference sites to give you an initial impression of expectations. And, I have made a video for you that will talk your through the course syllabus – you can follow along.

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 acustomed  to expecting in a Literature course. I hope you will enjoy the challenges and make good use of our Group FaceBook page to ask your questions and assist each other with answers.

Thank you, we will talk soon.

Hello 470;

As I read through all your blogs and dialogues, as you can imagine, many new insights come my way, and many times I would like to comment further, but time does not allow.

So, here are some of my thoughts for you as I proceed.

The term “Cultural Genocide”

Interestingly, most students over the many semesters since I designed this course, have been shy about using this term; despite the United Nations report and the Truth and Reconciliation report that clearly state that Indigenous peoples of Canada suffered acts of cultural genocide committed by the Canadian government:

On May 31 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) released a summary of its report on the history and legacy of the nation’s residential schools. The report concluded that Canada’s aboriginal policy, designed “to eliminate aboriginal governments … and cause aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada,” has caused unspeakable and enduring suffering that amounts to “cultural genocide.”

And, despite that fact that students will hyperlink contemporary and historical articles and news stories about the reality of the cultural genocide committed and suffered, still – when the term is used it is most often softened like this:

• “it was akin to cultural genocide
• “it was like cultural genocide
• “some people call it cultural genocide
• “sort of like cultural genocide

I am reflecting on this because the power of words is central to our course of studies and our dialogues.

Another word I think about a lot is the word ‘slave.’ I never use that word to talk about a person or group of people – not anymore – now I use the word “enslaved.” This means in my vocabulary, no person or group can be identified as ‘slaves’ – but we can talk about the experience people had being enslaved, which makes us recognize the action of enslavement; when I talk, the enslavers are complicit.

Here is an example of some excellent and thought-provoking dialouge:

Great blog this week. In regards to your comment about how people feel they are more entitled to call Canada home than you are, I think that many people here in Canada forget that we are all immigrants. I am caucasian from an British/Irish/French background meaning that if you go far enough back in my family tree you will find that I am technically from a settlers background, as all caucasians are. The problem is that this is not only forgotten but it is not taught to the younger generations. It is the story that the settlers have passed down for years and it takes education and time for people to realize that we are all immigrants. Unfortunately, many will never realize this and this is where racism and a lack of respect for other cultures stems from.

“I particularly enjoyed the Ted Talk you posted by Wade Davis. I enjoyed how he described that the fact that a young kid from the Andies sees a mountain as a guiding spirit will certainly have more respect for that land than a kid who looks at a mountain as a pile of rocks ready to be mined. Its the metaphor that counts not just the two different ways of seeing a mountain. His talk really solidified the idea that different cultures can create different realities and that both realities are true. This was a great choice of video to enhance Chamberlin’s idea of there being more that one truth.

As stated by Wade Davis, storytelling can change the world!!”

The above comment comes from a very interesting dialogue which you can read here.

I’d like to make on comment about this dialogue: Imagine if Susan Moodie and all the settlers had arrived with a different story? Imagine if, instead of arriving with a story about an empty land and God’s will or their own divine destiny, if the settler’s had arrived with a story about how this new land was cared for by the Indigenous peoples. A story about how they were going to be welcomed and embraced to join with the Indigenous cultures, to learn new and wonderful ways to live in harmony (with no taxes) and new and different types societies and ways to govern.

Stories are indeed powerful. So powerful, that on the eve of the most enormous global temperature and precipitation changes, people continue to question the truth of this story – is it really real, they ask – over and over. And we concern ourselves with details; is it caused by our activities? – that are irrelevant when faced with a melting arctic and reap idly expanding deserts. Your generation is indeed being handed a horrible and life-threatening mess, and my deepest hope is that together, you can change the story; imagine solutions and put them to work in reality.

Another interesting piece of dialogue that I would like to engage with:

Growing up in British Columbia I had absolutely no sense of being a not native inhabitant of this land. Looking back it is hard to believe but it was not until my later university years that I began to become aware of the fact that Canada’s indigenous population had faced, and continue to face, great injustices as a result of colonial rule and the lasting results. Even today school children lack general information about the impacts of colonization on the existing peoples and cultures.

I first designed this course, in the classroom, in 2005, for UBC — and, I have read the same comment now for the last ten years; ” it is hard to believe, but it was not until my later university years that I began to become aware.” For me, it is equally difficult to believe. Over the years I have seen some creative and exciting Team Intervention Projects that strategize how to change this situation. I look forward to seeing more this semester. Especially from those of you who are Education students.

Another intriguing dialogue:

 I really wanted to comment on that odd issue of identity. As a second-generation Korean born in Canada, I sometimes struggle with the same issue of being in “limbo.” I’m not entirely Canadian nor am I entirely Korean. I’m stuck in that space, trying to straddle both sides or at times, trying to relinquish them all together!

I find this sentiment often, and I always wonder — is it our epistological urge to separate and divide and dichotomize that makes it so difficult to identify as both? To accept the notion that a person can be neither this nor that – but both: neither fully Canadian nor fully Korean, but a new generation of peoples — hopefully with some new stories! What lies behind the resistance to allow peoples to ‘be different

Monday Feb 1st;

Hello 470;

The contradiction that Chamberlin identifies at the heart of ‘home’ aptly speaks to the feeling of unease held by many Canadians of European heritage. How am I, as a Canadian of European descent able to reconcile the fact that my narrative of home, in all the ways in which it has come to define me, is implicated in the erasure of the home narratives of others? Querying narratives

The time has come to tell your story. Lesson 2:1 asks you to explore and express your values and the stories you use to connect yourself to your sense of home. Remember what Thomas Kings says, “we are the stories we tell ourselves.” Remember what Edward Chamberlain says, “stories give meaning and value to the places we call home.”  And, take some time to reflect on the stories your grew up with that shaped how you value your home, reflect on the how these stories have shaped your sense of belonging, or not – to your home and your homeland.

In the introduction to this lesson I speak about examining our common assumptions and our diverse backgrounds in an effort to create an environment for learning and exploring difficult topics — together. My hope is that you will enjoy this process and that as a class we will create a more comfortable space to explore difficult questions with the knowledge that we do not all have the same perspectives because we do not all have the same stories. At the same time, we will discover some commonalties that will surprise us; and that always delight me. Write your story for your peers. Include the usual two hyperlinks and feel free to use visuals as well.

********

I have passed a wonderful week reading our blogs and following links. You have provided some good links and a good answers to my questions and the growing dialogue via our comment boxes is excellent. Thank you all.

One of the wonderful elements of working online is that you can go back and correct typos and small errors that you did not see while composing, and even better, I do not stop to evaluate your blogs until mid-term, so you have the opportunity to make these corrections before “official evaluuation” occurs.

Midterm occurs at the end of Unit 2. At that time, you will select your favourite three blogs for evaluation. You are ‘allowed’ to rewrite and edit to your heart’s content between now and midterm time.

My Instructor’s blog is responsive: I read your work and respond.

Reading through all your blogs can take a long while  because your hypertext and send me off to places like this , where I learn about new ideas and endeavours and have all sorts of new and wonderful insights to add to what I think I already know. Check it out: Wattpad.

After reading through all your blogs I have a few technical notes and general suggestions for you:

• In the future, link in your sources in your works cited when they are avalible online.
• Also, delete the sample page to clean up your blog
• Paste the question you are answering at the top of the post – and you are free to make introductory comments on why you chose this question
•  If you have any questions or comments about this lesson or the assignments in the next lesson, please do post on our FaceBook page
• If you can find the same article in pdf form – that is the best way to link
•  In order to encourage comments, it is a good idea to end your blog assignments with a question.
• Use MLA style for your citations: This is a great style guide: OWL

BE SURE TO READ THE GUIDELINES FOR BLOGGING AND HYPERLINKING IN THE SIDEBAR!

One more note, that I will probably make many times in different ways:

• can you see what is wrong with the following phrase:   “… the Western perspective and the aboriginal perspective– are equally valid.”

I want to encourage you to explore different blogs this week, even though you may have made a connection with someone you easily identify with, for the first couple of Units it will be more interesting if we explore beyond our comfort zones and engage with each other as widely as possible. Thanks.

I am looking forward reading about How Evil Came into the World, and am very much looking forward to my read. If you haven’t already done so – be sure to read this post: Taking the Story our of the Story.