Lesson 4.2

Topics

  • Dialogue, debate and criticism: collaborating with dialogue
  • Hyper-linking annotated bibliographies
  • Creating a web-dialogue with research annotations

Learning Objectives

At the end of this lesson students will be able to:

  • Describe the basic differences between dialogue, debate, and criticism
  • Create a hyper-linked annotated biography blog designed to stimulate dialogue around conference research
  • Begin participating in a web-dialogue focused on team research

Lesson Descriptions

This lesson offers a brief discussion on the art of dialogue and a description of the type of hyper-linked annotations expected on your blog, including examples and commentary. There are ‘step-by-step’ instructions on how to create a web-dialogue. These instructions include dates for completing certain tasks – so please take careful note.

Assignment 4:4 / Please see due dates on the Course Schedule

  • Begin your annotated bibliography blog.

Assignment 4:5 / Please see due dates on the Course Schedule

 Complete your Home page: welcome your visitors, summarize our course & conference goals, and introduce your research concerns. Each student will contribute at least two times to their research team’s web- dialogue by commenting on your bibliography page.

Required Readings

Research & Dialogue

Dialogue

Noun: A discussion between two or more people or groups, especially one directed towards exploration of a particular subject or resolution of a problem

Verb: Take part in a conversation or discussion to resolve a problem

On the Conference Instruction page and in lesson 4:3 you will find more detailed notes on how to present your team research. With this lesson I am going to walk you through the process of how to create a class dialogue around your research questions and findings. The dialogue will begin around your sources and resources. As each team proceeds with their research, they will post entries on their annotated bibliography blog – in other words, do not wait until you have found all your sources to create the bibliography. The purpose here is to create a dialogue: to share and discuss and make connections between your collective sources as you proceed. Accordingly, as well as building your team bibliography, your team is engaged in on-going dialogue with ONE other research team on their annotated bibliography blogs. To be clear, each research team partners with one other team

I use the word dialogue to indicate the kind of discussion expected. 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. There is much academic theorizing about dialogue and its capacity to increase understandings of multiple perspectives and possibilities for understanding. In this way, dialogue is about change and finding solutions. Mikhail Bakhtin and Paulo Feire are perhaps two of the best-known authors to theorize and celebrate the educational possibilities that dialogue opens up. When you engage in dialogue on your classmate’s annotated bibliography blog, your job is to expand the discussion, to contribute and to make connections with your own research. It is not your task to critique what others have discussed, but rather to observe and explain how those observations or insights connect with your team research, and in turn stimulate new insights – or, perspectives.

Hyper-linked Annotation

Below is a good student example of a hyper-linked annotation for engaging in dialogue. This is a good example because the student provides links that clearly indicate her perspective on the original source she is citing in her bibliography. In short, her hyperlinks lead to sources that indicate a common perspective: it is the continuing failure of the justice system that perpetuates acts of violence, sexism, and racism, by both the general public and law-enforcement agencies, against Aboriginal women. There are however, a few problems with this example, see if you can find what is missing as you read this:

Finding Dawn. Dir. Christin Welsh. National Film Board of Canada.
2006. Film.

Finding Dawn is a documentary that highlights the struggles of Aboriginal women in Canada and the hardships many of these women face on a daily basis. Reflecting on a recent Globe and Mail article “The National Shame of Aboriginal Incarceration,” and the disheartening statistic that one in three incarcerated women in Canada is of Aboriginal descent; the patterns of violence and abuse in this film are often, sadly, unsurprising. Finding Dawn is an attempt at putting a face on the (estimated) 500 Aboriginal women that have disappeared within the last 30 years (by many accounts, this estimate is far too low). This travesty has been highlighted many times over the years by many organizations, including Amnesty International, the United Nations, theNative Women’s Association of Canada, and numerous others. Struggles continue in the efforts to bring justice to this situation. Just a few days ago, two Aboriginal groups in British Columbia declared their boycott of the Missing Women Inquiry because the government is offering inadequate resources.

Nicola Einarson, “Research Weblog. ”Indigeneity, Technology and Education. MET Course Weblog. April 04 2013. https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec521may11/category/overview/

This could be an excellent example if the student had included some information on the filmmakers – and, most importantly, annotation should include some comments on how the source relates to research concerns. Following is an excellent example of the type of bibliographic annotation that opens up for dialogue. This example includes:

  • Details on the author
  • Brief summary of central concerns
  • Hyperlinks that connect to sources to create a common perspective (First Nations self-governance is a good thing) and links that enlarge the discussion by making interesting and relevant connections: government policies concerning First Nations in context with multicultural policies.
  • Concluding comments that indicate the usefulness of the source in context with the student’s research concern.

    The White Paper, 1969, is a government policy paper written by Jean Chretien, who was the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development under Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government. The “White Paper” recommends that the Canadian government should cease treaty negotiations with the First Nations of Canada and work toward assimilation of the First Nations into the fold of other Canadian “ethnic minorities.” Accordingly, First Nations issues would be passed into the hands of provincial governments.Ironically, the “White Paper” stated that this was ultimately anon-discriminatory policy. In 1970, the National Indian Brotherhood issued a rejoinder titled“ Citizens Plus,” more commonly referred to as the “Red Paper”, and a renewed First Nations political activism was ultimately successful in shifting governmental policy. “The Red Paper” laid foundations for directed efforts for First Nations policy and self-governance in a variety of arenas including land claims, educational rights, cultural and language retention, and more. Reverberations of the “Red Paper” have echoed through the past three decades, as evidenced in the increasing recognition and support of Aboriginal initiatives throughout Canada today. A study of the “White Paper” and its impact on First Nations’ self-governance policies is useful in two ways: 1) for understanding one of the major forces behind the creation of new alliances formed between the First Nations during the 1970s and most specifically the formation of The Assembly of First Nations in 1982, and 2) for understanding the relationships between government policies concerning First Nations and Multiculturalism.

Refer to the above example as you write your annotations. The sooner you post on your Annotated Bibliography blog, the sooner you will be able to begin commenting with each other and the sooner you will receive comments from your peers — to which you will respond, and the dialogue will grow.

How to Create a Web Dialogue

  1. Begin to comment with your team members in the comment box of your Annotated Bibliography – find connections between the sources you have posted, ask each other questions; engage with the texts in the bibliography together as a team
  2. Read a number of research blogs.
  3. As a team, choose one research team to partner with.
  4. You should choose a partner team based on the possibilities for creating connections between your research concerns and sources. Focus on finding an intersection where your ideas for interventions might meet. For example, Lee Maracle’s essay and her call to action: “We need to systematize our sense of knowledge acquisition in the service of our nations,” (97) along with description of First Nation’s literary nationalism, certainly intersects with Deanna Reder’s perspective on the value of Cree concepts of literature, and more broadly the idea of focusing on “specific tribal epistemologies.”
  5. Use the comment box on the Annotated Bibliography blog  of the team you have chosen to dialogue with. To begin your dialogue: exchange ideas, indicate connections, share resources, ask questions, answer questions, reflect – and stay focused on the goals of dialogue.
  6. Each student should contribute at least two times to the dialogue in this week. In total each student will have contributed four times: at least twice on your team’s dialogue and twice on the other team’s dialogue. Be sure to respond to all the comments on your team’s dialogue from your partner team. Even if you only have time to say ‘thank you’. 
  7. That’s it – for now.  In the next lesson we will focus on how to “re-create” your dialogues for the conference website.