For Assignment 3:2, I’ve decided to write about Question 6.  The question refers to a section of Lee Maracle’s text that says “In order for criticism to arise naturally from within our culture, discourse must serve the same function it has always served. In Euro-society, literary criticism heightens the competition between writers and limits entry of new writers to preserve the original canon. What will its function be in our societies? (88)”.  In my answer, I will be summarizing her answer to her own question as well as comparing Lee Maracle and Frye’s analysis of the role of myth in nation building. 

Summarizing Maracle’s Answer

To Maracle, discourse creates a constructive environment for herself and those in her Salish community to accept weakness and grow from it, developing new strength along the way.  Literary criticism is crucial in creating long lasting transformation myths. In Salish Society, when there is a new theory, idea, or story born, it is important for writers to come together to learn and adapt to it together.  There is a process that takes place particularly in evaluating an older story and the reason for this is “first to understand it; second to see oneself in the story; and then to see the nation, community, and our common humanity”(85). This process allows the Salish to pull parts of the story that they believe in and alter them to align with the modern day world of literature and storytelling. For Maracle and her nation, stories “point [them] all in the direction of the good life” (85). The continuation of stories from generation to generation helps people learn from their mistakes. It is every member of Sto:lo’s responsibility to go out into the world, take chances, and create stories of their own to avoid repeating history and getting stuck in a loop.

 Maracle speaks of the myth maker in a variety of contexts, referring to the nation becoming the “recognition body and this is the basis for interaction with the myth-maker, which can invoke the process for story creation from within the culture” (85).  From this, I take that the myth maker is viewed by Maracle as the nation that contributes to their story.  She speaks defensively about how she does “not consider” the fact that the Salish are an oratorical society. Additionally, defensively states that she also does not “believe that [her] stories are illegitimate little bastards because they follow the responsibilities, principles, and objectives of oratory and oral myth-making from a Sto:lo perspective. This was interesting to me because as I was reading and learning about Sto:lo’s literary criticism and creation of stories, this thought of undermining or belittling the process never occured to me. I believe it to be rather impressive and beautiful.  

Maracle & Frye Comparison

Frye focuses on cultural nationalism. While openly validating white privilege, Frye simultaneously disagrees with some British ideas and views them as colonial. Maracle views the Salish’s role of literary criticism as a way to not only create new stories for their nation but also to situate itself as a separate nation from Europeans.  Frye views nationalism as “the obvious and unquenchable desire of the Canadian cultural public to identity itself through its literature” (Frye, 218). Today, we speak both about nationalism and mythology but not yet how they tie together. Literature is “conscious mythology: as society develops its mythical stories become structured principles of storytelling” (Frye, 234) and therefore, nationalism roots back to the mythology of a nation, relying on myths to carry the cultural and national identity forward.

Both Frye and Maracle, although viewing themselves from different nations, recognize the importance of nationality and believe in national approaches. Maracle finds empowerment for the Salish people in creating their own nation through mythology and by creating their own history. Frye and Maracle see through the same lens from this perspective, intersecting theories of nationality. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and my thoughts.

Alex 🙂 

Sources

Frye, Northrop. The Bush Garden: Essays on the Canadian Imagination. Introduction by Linda Hutcheon. Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press, 1995. Print.

Maracle, Lee. “Toward a National Literature: ‘A Body of Writing.’” Across Cultures, Across Borders: Canadian Aboriginal and Native American Literature. Ed. Paul DePasquale, Renate Eigenbrod, and Emma LaRoque. Toronto, ON: Broadview Press, 2010. 77-96. Print.

Dolan, E. (2020, February 11). Online dating: how markets and demographics differ – GlobalWebIndex. Retrieved from https://blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-week/differences-among-online-daters/

About Stó:lō service agency. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2020, from https://www.stolonation.bc.ca/index.php?pageId=18

Assignment: Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice. Be sure to make use of  Jane Flicks’ GGRW reading notes on your reading list.

Hi all! I am very sorry that this blog is late. With everything going on, I just finished it today.  That being said, I am very excited to share it and greatly enjoyed writing it! The pages that I have chosen to discuss during Assignment 3:7 are pages 12-22. Picking up from a relatively random point in this book was an interesting approach to analyzing and researching the characters involved.  During this assignment, it was our responsibility to discover who the characters of Green Grass Running Water are, and what they symbolize in the first nations culture. First, I will discuss Ishmael, Lone Ranger, Hawkeye, and Robinson Crusoe.  These are the four Indians who escaped from Doctor Joseph Hovaugh’s mental institution. Next, I will discuss Dr. Joseph Hovaugh and Alberta Frank.  King uses a technique that portrays the four Indians telling a story, within the story of Green Grass Running Water. This section of pages begins with “A long time ago in a faraway land….” (King, 12). 

The Four Indians

Ishmael is, as mentioned by Jane Flick as the character that survives the destruction of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s American fiction novel, Moby Dick. During these 10 pages, Ishmael has minimal character development, chiming in occasionally to tell the Lone Ranger that “that’s the wrong story” (King, 14). The Lone Ranger consists of a similar history and personality traits across most fictions. The original Lone Ranger Character was John Reid, who was “born in 1850 and was the sole survivor of a group of Texas Rangers who were ambushed by outlaws” (Britannica). He is seen both historically and in King’s work as a heroic protagonist figure. In the pages that I have selected, the Lone Ranger is the trusted chosen character to tell the story. Lone Ranger begins telling his story in English, but the other three Indians better understood him when he began to speak their Native language (King, 15). Hawkeye is the third elder Indian in King’s intriguing novel about the middle ground between Native American tradition and the modern day world.   Jane Flick reminds us that Hawkeye is the nickname of James Fenimore Cooper’s Nathaniel Bummpo character. This creates an interesting symbol in King’s novel as Nathaniel Bummpo is the child of two white parents, unlike Native Indians. Similarly, Flick talks about Hawkeye being a “white woodsman and guide with knowledge of Indian ways” (141-42).  Robinson Crusoe is referred to as a “savage” by Jane Flick (142). He is an allusion to Defoe’s Hero, Robinson Crusoe,  a “shipwrecked mariner” that “survives through ingenuity and finds spiritual strength through adversity” (Flick, 142). His determination that led him to survival can be reflected into the Indians perseverance for recognition and freedom in the modern world. 

Dr. Joseph Hovaugh

The next two pages (17-18) go on to a dialogue between Dr. Joseph Hovaugh and his assistant, Mary. Mary exclaims that the Indians have gone missing again, and he is unalarmed, assuming why will return as they have before. I found it interesting that Mary described the four individuals as “the Indians” (17), as opposed to by their names. Dr. Joseph Hovaugh is a symbol of God in Green Grass Running Water. His name is a play on the name Jehovah, which is the name of God in the Hebrew Scriptures. King alludes to the authority and birds eye view that the Doctor has over the Indians in the institution. 

Alberta Frank

Following, King jumps to a classroom setting.  Alberta Frank is instructing a lesson about Fort Marion, which was an imprisonment camp for natives that seemed too large of a risk to be placed in residential schools. Richard Pratt was responsible for this decision and in a weak attempt to reduce boredom for these seventy-two individuals, “Pratt provided the men with drawing materials, ledger books, and colored pencils.” (King, 19) Instructor Alberta Frank’s name is not only an allusion to the province of Alberta but also to the town of Frank which had a large landslide that took place in 1903, known as Canada’s deadliest rockslide. 

Citations:

Admin. “The Fort Marion Prisoners.” Native American Netroots, 24 Feb. 2012, nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1269.

“Frank Slide: Canada’s Deadliest Rockslide.” Frank Slide: Canada’s Deadliest Rockslide | The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-slide-feature.

“Green Grass Running Water.” Scribd, Scribd, www.scribd.com/doc/122180578/Green-Grass-Running-Water.

Lohnes, Kate, and Vybarr Cregan-Reid. “Moby Dick.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Dec. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/Moby-Dick-novel.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Lone Ranger.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 7 June 2015, www.britannica.com/topic/Lone-Ranger.

For assignment 3:5, I chose question 2.  For convenience, I have copied it below.

Coyote Pedagogy is a term sometimes used to describe King’s writing strategies (Margery Fee and Jane Flick). Discuss your understanding of the role of Coyote in the novel.

Before I dive into this question, I want to inform my readers of what “pedagogy means”, as I was unfamiliar before doing research.  Pedagogy refers to “The art, occupation, or practise of teaching.  Also: the theory or principles of education; a method of teaching based on such a theory.” (Oxford English Dictionary). I could not have guessed this, but it makes sense because further along in this story, the coyote becomes a teacher, or a teller. As mentioned by our very intelligent professor, Erika Patteron, the coyote is a strong symbol utilized by King.  Margaery Fee and Jane Flick “describe King’s writing style in “Coyote Pedagogy” as a purposeful transition between different historical, cultural, and literary perspectives.” (Key Themes) We will soon talk about why. 

I want to talk about what Coyote means to me. I come from a very small town on Vancouver Island, and because it is indeed an island, the SPCA has declared that there are no coyotes that exist on it.  There are also no coyotes living on any of the Gulf Islands, as far as we know. Because of this, they were never a threat but more of what felt like a myth or a mysterious character that everybody talked about but nobody ever saw.  We would hear about the coyotes howling at the moon in scary movies or our favourite childhood book, but we would never hear them in our backyards. The BC SPCA talks about coyotes as being similar to dogs in the way that they are “smart, social, and playful, but they have a bad reputation for killing pets and small animals.” (BC SPCA). In this way they can be somewhat deceiving. My personal experience with and understanding of Coyotes came to life in King’s novel, “Green Grass Running Water”. 

In “Green Grass Running Water”, King speaks of Coyote as an animal initially, but as it turns out, Coyote alludes to something else. As mentioned by our instructor, Erika Patterson, the Coyote is a trickster, also known as the Transformer in traditional First Nations story-telling. A trickster is a “special, often very witty and humorous character that demonstrates the opposite characteristics to those that are valued in human beings.” (BC First Nations Studies Textbook). In this novel, both the Coyote and the narrator go back and forth between a mythical world and the reality of the Blackfoot Indian Reservation. King’s novel begins by describing a time where there was nothing except for water and Coyote. Immediately, we are introduced to Coyote as a protagonist. Coyote’s constant urge to begin the next story about the creation of the world, establishes a youthful, foolish character. Neither Coyote’s role or “Green Grass Running Water” are conclusive on their own to your average reader. This method of writing and character development intentionally represents what it is like to be a Native writer and to encounter unknown and controversial territory.  King deliberately wishes to leave room for interpretation and to portray Coyote as a symbolic character that ultimately plays for both teams, or sees both sides. 

The Coyote was an interesting character for me to understand and analyze but I enjoyed it greatly.  Thank you for reading my blog!

Sources

Grass, S. (2011, June 20). Trickster – A Definition from the BC First Nations Studies. Retrieved March 9, 2020, from http://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/trickster-definition-from-bc-first.html

How to protect pets & children from coyotes in B.C. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2020, from https://spca.bc.ca/ways-to-help/take-action/urban-wildlife/coyotes/?utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/

pedagogy, n. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2020, from https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/139520

Hello Erika! For my midterm review, I have linked my three favourite blog assignments below.  I hope that you enjoy them!

Assignment 2:6

For Assignment 2:6, I interpreted Allan McEachern’s words, “the map that roared”. Sparke’s “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.”, touches on the deeper meaning behind these words brought up in court. This reading taught me a lot about cartography and indigenous history.

The Map that Was Not Heard

Assignment 2:2

I truly enjoyed describing what home meant to be, both literally and metaphorically. In the following assignment, I found it very interesting to compare and find commonalities amongst my classmates’ concepts of home.  Especially because we all come from such diverse backgrounds and still have ample of common ground.

Assignment 2:2 – Home to Me

Assignment 1:5

Assignment 1:5 allowed me to create my own story about how evil came into the world.  This required a lot of creativity that I enjoyed exuding into my writing. I used symbolism to explain my version of this intricate and powerful story.

Assignment 1:5

For Assignment 2:6, I have decided to answer the following question:

3) In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468-470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

The section that we are required to read to answer this question refers to a court trial between both the Gitxsan and the Wet’suwet’en indigenous people and the federal government of B.C. In this case, titled Delgamuukw v. the Queen, atlas’ were used by both parties to explain the origin of their ascendancy. Upon being presented with this cartographic tool from the First Nations people, judge Allan McEachern stated that that “We’ll call it the map that roared” (Sparke). A cartographic tool is the result of cartography, which is defined by Webster dictionary as “the science or art of making maps”. This definition fails to emphasize the idea that any party can create a map based on their own beliefs, resulting in completely different maps from completely different parties of identical regions. We will use this understanding as well as Matthew Spark’s “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and Narration to Nation” to discover why the map used in this given case was described as roaring. Sparke accurately describes Canada’s past, or “our past” (Sparke), as “heterogeneous”. The origin of Canada’s history begins with different people, depending on who you ask. 

The meaning behind a paper tiger which is by Webster dictionary’s definition, “one that is outwardly powerful or dangerous but inwardly weak or ineffectual”. Sparke uses this description to describe how he believes that Allan McEachern viewed the presentation of the indigenous map. The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people used catrography not to try to prove superiority, but instead to try to create equality in historical perspectives and demonstrate their importance and rights. Chief Justice Allan McEachern approached the map in a belliteling way by acknowledging the power that it was intended to bring to the courtroom but by viewing it passively, minimally attempting to look past his own, European-rooted history. 

Additionally, Sparke touches on the possibility that Allan McEachern’s claim could have been “a reference to the 1959 Peter Sellers movie satirizing Cold War geopolitics, “The Mouse that Roared ””. (Sparke). The title of this movie indicates that when a small and arguably not very powerful country declared war on America, the superpower country, it became a mouse that could surprisingly, roar. Both references undermine the First Nations people involved pin them as a mouse, or as a timid and ineffective party. 

When I first read Allan McEachern’s words, I was impressed and excited by the credibility that the judge had given this first-hand evidence, brought forward by the First Nations people. When reading further and looking into the way that Sparke interpreted his words, I sadly see that “the map that roared” (Sparke), was more condescending than anything and it “simultaneously evoked the resistance in the First Nations’ remapping of the land”, a cartoonist working for the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en said. (Sparke) In the end, “McEachern ultimately dismissed the Gitxsan and Wet’swuet’en’s claims with a remarkably absolutist set of colonialist claims about extinguishment of aboriginal rights” (McEachern, 1991). This confirms my thought that unfortunately, in McEachern’s eyes, the map never truly roared at all.

Sources:

For assignment 2:4, I have chosen to answer question #3 as I was able to access “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Encounters on the North American West Coast”, via UBC’s online library system (thanks to the help of my classmate, Emily Homuth). In the past, I had never heard someone speak of Indigenous history the way that John Lutz does, as a charismatic and theatrical encounter between two unfamiliar parties. It sounds pleasant, and exciting. Unfortunately, not all of Europe’s encounters with Indigenous peoples have been.

On page three of the text, John Lutz makes an assumption about his readers, including myself.  He assumes that we will agree that finding the capacity to understand Indigenous performances is “one of the most obvious difficulties” (Lutz, “First Contact”, 32). As mentioned in the question posed in question three, this is because “one must of necessity enter a world that is distant in time and alien in culture, attempting to perceive indigenous performance through their eyes as well as those of the Europeans.” Naturally, the way that this assumption is states excludes the possibility of his reader’s being from a non-European descent or assumes that it is more challenging for someone of European descent to understand an indigenous performance than it is for someone of indigenous descent to understand a European performance. For starters, I will acknowledge that our instructor, Erika Paterson has made these assumptions about Lutz’s text and I do most definitely agree and believe it fair to do so. That being said, this assumption is correct for the majority of readers, most of which come from what could be characterized as a naive perspective and distant connection to the first encounters between the European and Indigenous people. I come from a Dutch background on my mother’s side and a Scottish and German background on my father’s side. I strongly believe that our European mannerisms and behaviour would have been, at first encounter, as unfamiliar and odd to the indigenous people as their ways were to us. At the time of first encounter, there was no common ground in terms of language and therefore the “natives and strangers engaged in plays” (Lutz, “First Contact”, 31) which acted as a familiar means that the two parties could communicate on. 

When students who have grown up in Canada think back to the initial relationship between Europeans and Indigenous persons, we often fail to trace back to the very first encounter on a foreign land. I think of the mistakes that we have made, particularly in land claiming and even more so, residential schools. In imagining myself in the position of a first encounter, I believe that I would attempt to be as accommodating in communications as possible to minimize alienation on either side. Lutz has done an excellent job in this piece of creating an elaborate visual for what this interaction would have been. It sounds more graceful and mutual than that of the interactions that began in the 1830s, before many horrible decisions were made. In a piece labelled “First Encounters in the Americas”, scholar Martha Minow “warns that difference always “implies a reference: difference from whom? I am no more different from you than you are from me”. She uses a tall and a short person to visualize this concept. I encourage readers of Lutz’ work to enter their reading experience with this metaphor in mind. 

First Encounters in the Americas. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-2/first-encounters-americas

Lutz, J. S., Binney, J., Dauenhauer, N. M., Dauenhauer, R., & Maclaren, I. S. (2014). Myth and Memory: Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Vancouver: UBC Press.

It brought me a feeling of warmth to read six of my fellow students’ perspectives of what sense of home means to them. For every person, “home” triggers different feelings and stories. I read Maya, Emilia, Jade, Gabrielle, Nargiza, and Megan’s blogs. To those whose blogs I did read, thank you for sharing your personal blogs and allowing me to peak into your unique upbringing. Some took a historic lineage approach while others spoke modernly about their family. Regardless, I found commonly shared assumptions, values, and stories across all blogs that I read.

Commonality 1: Home is a vivid and distinct memory

Although at a young age, memories are more difficult to retain, home is a strong and detailed image in everyone’s mind. Emilia talks about the sound of “coyotes yip(ping) in the hills, and a symphony of frogs croak in the wall”. Megan mentions the way she misses “the look of (her) surroundings and the feeling of being in (her) own bed. These smells, sounds, and touches that we grow up in are so vital to who we are today that the most particular images resign in our minds regardless of how much time passes. My great grandmother could never remember that her husband had passed away two years ago. She would ask when he would be home for dinner, but she could explain every detail of her childhood home. Nargiza describes a memory of her family dynamic, rushing to get to dinner and at the restaurant. A

Commonality 2: Home changes

Not only do physical homes and family dynamics change throughout one’s lives, but so does the people and feelings that create the meaning of home. Even having the most stable life at home, people come and go and so does our trust in those people. One of my classmates, Maya, admirably spoke about her mother’s substance abuse and her parents’ divorce as a child. That being said, she now feels that she “is at home when (she) goes home”. It took most of her life for her to feel this way. Megan actually begins her blog by saying that the assignment was difficult for her simply because of how much her definition of home has changed over the years. Although the thought of home not being a consistent, solid concept may be intimidating, I find comfort in knowing that if home is lost it can be found again. 

Commonality 3: Home is not a place, it is a person(s)

For many people, especially those who come from perhaps not the healthiest of physical home environments, home is a person(s), as opposed to a place. Most of the blogs I read touched on their physical home as well but focussed on the loved ones in their lives that provide the feeling of home. Gabrielle spoke about a distance between her and her family based on an unhealthy dynamic and because of this, home is “non-geographical: (she) is at home when (she) is with one or more of the people closest to (her)”. Home is not even necessarily the people within that physical home, they are often not even related at all. This allows a home to be something that can be found after it is lost, or found after years of not having one at all. Nargiza talks about the feeling of home, coming from doing ordinary, “boring” things with the people that you love. Every blog I read emphasized on the feeling that makes something home, before referring to home as a place at all. Maya described home very accurately in terms of the other blogs that I have read, as “safety, security, and having someone to turn to”. 

This assignment was very interesting to me and my favorite one yet. It allowed me to learn that although we all come from different families and backgrounds, we all share similar values that make something home.  Thank you for reading my blog and for allowing me to read yours!

Explorer Gaby’s Blog. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/gabyliteratureexplorer/2020/01/28/the-story-of-home/?fbclid=IwAR0cn6_GtccTYjtuKPZ7ZzhW3jf6obFea-m0_8DayHJ6KKScVtBd9x2Wb9g

Greer, J. (2020, January 29). Menu. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/jadegreer/2020/01/29/assignment-2-2/?fbclid=IwAR2uvTDGBlj9uWNexvBmHyhbWffHqHOpteB9y4Ni5V2ecG4f5K5t2s-C6FE

MeganCameron. (2020, January 28). Megan Cameron’s Blog. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/megancameronengl372/2020/01/28/assignment-22/?fbclid=IwAR3E2RzujtfO7OU72_Z8ktgkV-51Jv1jaAsPaq8Wdr_MA_GgQZ6USxlmk8A

NargizaAlimova. (2020, January 28). Engl 372: Oh Canada. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/nargizaalimova/2020/01/28/assignment-2-2/

OOH CANADA! (n.d.). Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/mayasumel/?fbclid=IwAR3ge2PIYqBNjf4MzGg-KTNxrT5bvSh3V4SCl1m4JAJH1Q5wIEW7bAgoV4o

Before I get into this assignment, I will say that home is a very solid concept in my head.  I have a set understanding of what it is to me, or I should say. Although I lived in the same home in the same small town for 14 years, I associate home with my family. In September, my parents sold our childhood home and moved to Vancouver. Without pausing for a second, when I am asked where my home is I now respond with Vancouver. Not because I don’t think of the 14 years of memories that I cherish on Vancouver Island, but because I know that the people that made it home for me no longer resid there. That being said, I want to talk about the home I grew up in as a second thought as it is where I became who I am today and. 

I grew up in a renovated World War I farmhouse in a small town called Mill Bay, home to only 3000 people. When my parents decided to renovate the home to make it ‘ours’, we placed our three-year-old fingers and toes in the cold cement that still today lay beneath the kitchen tiles. That home will always be ours. We were so dedicated to having a home that was built by us that during this tremendous and tiring process, my family lived in a 1950’s trailer at the end of our driveway. My home was not just within the walls of our Hamptons-style home but within the four acres, that stretched across rolling green hills overlooking the Brentwood Bay on the pacific ocean. Over the 14 years that we lived on Butterfield Rd., our dear dog Reba was always by our side. Being a Rhodesian Ridgeback, our backyard was nothing but paradise. Three cats (outdoor cats, I must specify) tiptoed through our strawberry gardens nuzzling their furry faces against the felted leaves. At one point, we even had four chickens, one for each of us. My chicken was white with widespread feathers, her name was Sasha. At some point, they became too much effort to take care of for my parents and they told us the chickens found a new playpen. Late we would find out that their new playpen was in someone’s stomach. Needless to say, my childhood was very recreational.

Our home was covered in burnt brown shingles, bordered with sharp white trim. It was beachy yet sophisticated. It was humbly beautiful with every inch designed by my parents. It was exactly who my parents are to me. Our porch stretched across the front of the house and on it was a ceramic tiled table and chair set. One of my most prominent memories at our home was Father’s and Mather’s day breakfast in our pajamas sitting around that table with cats in our laps. A gravel driveway stretched from the gardens to the street, the location of many tumbles and falls whilst racing my twin sister to the blackberry bushes. 

Home for me is my dad, my mom, and my twin sister. I was raised in a home where we were never looked down upon for honesty, regardless of how difficult the truth was to hear. My sister and I never felt the need to hide things from my parents because even the most horrible mistakes were approached as a learning experience. We were supported through our best and worst and particularly through anything we wanted to pursue. To date, my parents are the most in love two individuals I have ever had the pleasure of being around. Their love is iconic and inspiring and I can only hope to find what they have. I truly could not imagine a better family to call home.

I have a great story to tell you.

This is the story of how evil was created.  Many years ago, there lay a small village by the name of Innocentia, meaning innocence in latin. Since the beginning of time, not a word of evil had been spoken amongst the elders of Innocentia and consequently, neither had any of the other villagers. In Innocentia, the idea of evil was unfathomable and unspoken. For better explanation, it simply did not exist. Words spoken in regards of friends and family were nothing but of the most heartfelt intention, speaking openly and proudly in tones of kindness. There was nothing that one villager would not do for any of the next. 

In this pleasant village, there was one heart that shone brighter than any other. Actually, there were two. Emma Lou could uplift any soul she encountered with the help from her little pony friend; Penelope.  Emma Lou and Penelope were never seen apart and were never seen without a smile in reach. This pair visited every young member of the village every morning to start their day on a good note. Although Innocentia had never been visited by evil and did not know of such a thing, the villagers had felt heartbreak as well as love and loss, and some days were better than others. If there was ever a day where one villager began to lose their beloved faith or trail off their innocent path, Emma Lou and Penelope’s presence would change that in a heartbeat. 

One morning, just as the sun rose across the barley fields, Emma Lou woke up particularly early. She had an intuition that someone needed the help of her heart, but not without Penelope by her side.  She tip-toed past her sleeping family and crept outside her stone home but when she peered around the rose bush smile at Penelope, Penelope’s post was empty. Nobody ever saw Penelope again and therefore, Emma Lou was never the same. She could no longer bring joy to the village as she was no longer truly joyful herself. The day that Penelope disappeared was the day that Innocentia understood evil. There was no other world to describe the cruelty that took away joy. The story of Penelope and Emma Lou was told for the rest of time, village to village. Once this story was told, it could never be taken back.

Reflection: 

I genuinely enjoyed this assignment as it was very unfamiliar to me and challenging, in a fun way. I was entertained by the creativity that it required. When I told my story of how evil came into the world to my sister, mother, and father (all separately), I noticed that I altered it each time. I added intricate and essential details and found ways to make it further resonate with not only myself but my listeners as well. I can relate this process to how tales or more modernly, rumours are spread and told and how they snowball into different stories than they were originally told as. Sometimes stories become so different that they are not recognizable to the original storyteller. This Ted Talk by Elaine Lui touches on this topic. 

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

Lui, Elaine. The Sociology of Gossip. youtube.com/watch?v=oFDWOXV6iEM

Happy Friday all! For Assignment 1:3 I will be answering this question seven.  I am particularly interested and intrigued by this question because I have worked for digital marketing agencies and have crafted digital stories as a means of communication for a variety of different clients in different industries. The question is as follows: “At the beginning of this lesson I pointed to the idea that technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons.  I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) Hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. How do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?”.  

While literature and story take two different paths, there are areas of collision and this sometimes occur in the world of digital writing; a world that is still unfamiliar even if having existed for over two decades. Chamberlain’s book, If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories: Finding Common Ground discusses the importance of history and of stories as a method of recognition to land. In a time where government officials were in the process of claiming indigenous land, an elder asked “If this is your land, where are your stories” before switching to his traditional language in which he chose to share a personal and cultural story with strangers in front of him. This story allowed the government to suddenly understand the emotional ties and the belonging that this indigenous community had with the land. I am going to speak about how people can leverage social media and digital communications to tell stories and find common ground and/or understanding. 

Monica Anderson, Skye Toor, Lee Rainie, and Aaron Smith speak in “Public Attitudes Toward Political Engagement on Social Media” on how the internet has become a place for individuals to reach a large audience regarding important and sometimes controversial topics. This group describes digital literature platforms as a “key venue” for these conversations. These platforms allow people to listen to stories that they were not initially aware that they wanted to or were ready to listen to. Social media provides a place for people to stumble across personal stories and issues that otherwise would not have been seen unless being looked for. Readers tend to be more inclined to stories written by the source as opposed to by a third party. Individuals turn blind eyes to topics that they are uncomfortable with or have conservative stances on but with digital literature, naiveness is not an option.

To answer the second part of this complex question, hyperlinks are an optional contribution to a text that only those interested in enough will decide to click. They are virtually non existent beyond their underline until the reader cares to look further. Hyperlinks provide further context to literature and story and allow a reader who is uneducated on the particular topic to become otherwise and further understand. 

Thank you for reading my blog! I look forward to reading yours!