In reference to our discussion yesterday, I wish to pass along the most recent data from Statistics Canada in regards to Internet use. According to their 2009 survey, 80.3% of individuals age 16 and over in Canada use the Internet, accessing it from a variety of locations. 77.1% of those individuals have home Internet access. Access is 70% or higher for all income quartiles, with 76.2% in the lowest income quartile claiming they use the Internet.

Here are some tables:
Internet use by individuals, by selected characteristics (Canada): http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/comm35a-eng.htm
Internet use by individuals, by location of access (Canada): http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/comm36a-eng.htm
Internet use by individuals, by location of access (BC): http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/comm36k-eng.htm

Notably, British Columbia has the highest rate of Internet access across the country: 85.4% of individuals in this province use the Internet, accessing it from a variety of locations. 83% of those individuals have home Internet access. The only area in which BC does not lead Internet usage across Canada appears to be Internet use in schools. School Internet access is 15.3% for British Columbia compared to 16.6% for the nation.

The target population for the survey was 16 years and older, which is evidently a limitation in giving secondary school educators a clear picture of student Internet use. Significantly, though, we find usage by individuals under the age of 34 is highest–over 96%–and that 91.1% of single-family households with unmarried children under age 18 have Internet access.

As well, an article reporting figures from 2005 states that rural access is lower than urban access: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/070913/dq070913d-eng.htm. If this trend remained the same over the past four years, Internet access in the Lower Mainland may be higher than what is represented by province-wide numbers, while Internet access in remote regions may be lower.

The matter of the digital divide mentioned in class is a serious concern; however, we should recall that there has always been a divide in regards to information access. Just as we have long taught print literacy in classrooms knowing full well that some children do not have access to books in their homes, we likewise need to address the question of digital literacy in classrooms knowing that some children do not have access to computers in their homes. Ultimately, to omit or downplay particular topics of study because students don’t have equal access to resources is to head down a slippery slope. It’s true, some students don’t have access to computers at home. Some students don’t have access to collections of literature at home. Some don’t have access to books at all, or to any print materials. Others cannot practice the language of instruction in their homes. Our response to such discrepancies must be additive rather than reductive — that is, rather than omitting a worthwhile topic because students don’t have equal access to resources beyond the classroom, we must consider how we might modify instructional strategies and provide support to accommodate those who are less advantaged.

For many, digital technologies have replaced print technologies as the dominant method of access to text for reading. The question is, how will ministries of education and teachers of English language arts respond? Certainly there are no easy answers.

I would agree completely with the view expressed below that literature can act as a wonderful bridge between English, History, Geography, Social Studies and other school subjects. I would go so far as to say that literary texts should not and cannot every fully be separated from the historical and cultural moment in which they were created, and that they speak to, if they are not the same thing.
During my practicum I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to teach a class on The Book of Negroes, which I had just finished reading and absolutely loved. The class that was studying this text was Humanities 10, which fully integrates English and History 10 into one course, for which students get one grade and have one double block of class. I was excited at the prospect of teaching such a class, and this novel, as with Obasan, is ideal for such a lesson. Every part of this novel is steeped in the geographical, social and cultural history of the Atlantic slave trade, and woven into the beautiful and moving narrative are the stories of people who actually lived this reality.
For my lesson, I chose to focus on the theme of language in the novel, and deal with it first from a historical perspective, and then link these facts to the novel through close analysis and guided discussion. I introduced to the class the history of contact languages, showed them a short video that had people speaking the slave language, Gullah, that they had read about in the text, and then had them speak the language themselves. We then had a discussion about the role language would have played for people living in such situations as the slaves in the novel do, and this turned into a discussion of language in our own lives. To my delight, the students began on their own to make connections between this discussion and The Book of Negroes, connections I was planning on guiding them towards soon after. I asked them in groups to come up with brief statements that they felt summarized the role of language in the life of the novel’s protagonist, and to find evidence from the text to support their statement. In a follow-up lesson, we used these statements to do some work with thesis development.
Seeing how these students naturally made connections between the historical facts and the novel reinforced for me the belief that we as teachers need to promote and foster these cross-curricular connections whenever possible, and should work towards making it an integral element of our teaching practice. As Howard M. Miller said, “By providing historic, social and cultural information, we can lay the groundwork for helping our students move beyond understanding the most obvious aspects of the story to find deeper meanings embedded within it.”

I would not hesitate to teach Obasan to high school students. In fact, my first exposure to Joy Kogawa’s work was in my grade 12 English class. We read only an excerpt from Obasan and it was my – and many of my classmates – first exposure to the disturbing treatment of Japanese-Canadians during WWII. For many years I actually wasn’t aware that the text we had read in class was only an excerpt, so I admit that I was quite excited to read the full novel.

My personal enjoyment of literature stems not just from the stories that are told or the entertainment of going on journeys with the characters. In my mind, literature is a great teacher of social, cultural, and political history. I’m a big supporter of integrating subject areas and feel that Obasan is a wonderful text to use in this way.

Obasan can be studied not just from a literature viewpoint, but also from a social studies and social justice view. History becomes more personalized and arguably more accessible for learners when it is presented in a narrative form. If a person becomes invested in the story, they are more likely to become invested in the events that motivated the story’s conception.

Kogawa’s novel could also be an interesting piece to use when talking about fiction versus non-fiction. Though Obasan is fiction, it reads very much like non-fiction. I would enjoy using this text as the basis for a discussion on using life experience in a creative way, as well as examining what elements make it feel like a true, historical account.

On a practical level, this discussion could be related back to essay writing. I believe that Kogawa’s novel is so compelling because she provides details and does not leave readers guessing or trying to puzzle their way through. This concept could be applied to essay writing in the form of gathering supporting evidence to back-up any points that are made in the essay. By providing relevant information, the author’s authenticity and knowledge do not come into question.

Out of all the novels i have read so far in this course, I think the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Life of Pi are probably the ones I find my students will be able to relate to the best. I feel that these novels are relate-able to students in terms of that longing teenagers have to find some sort of identity and independence. The reader sees this longing or struggle for independence from the main character Christoper in the Curious Incident… Christopher is like every other teenager in the sense that he wants to be able to do whatever he wants and when he wants; but I think a lot of students, especially those with any sort of learning disability would be able to relate to Christoper very well.  Christopher’s autism does not stop him from seeking independence and achieving great success on his A level math test acts as a deeper trigger to pursue independence.- his acceptance into college.

What is interesting is how Christopher’s condition makes him so unique and I think it would allow students to not only empathize with him, but also emphasize the that diversity is unique and special.  Regardless, the students will most likely enjoy the murder mystery but I think they would find it interesting to see how the story moves away from the mystery aspect and focuses more on developing the character of Christopher. The relationship between Christoper and his father and learning about his mother would be a great discussion topic with students. I think a lot of social issues could arise from discussing the many themes of the novel. Not only the relationship with family, the longing for independence but also the whole notion of dealing with loss. It would be interesting to discuss how the novel opens with death and ends with death and then tie the themes together and ultimately come full circle with the text. I find the way that the author constantly shifts from the main story line to discuss other issues like physics, but eventually finds its way to the main storyline and links its together with Christopher’s diverse personality is not only engaging but a great example to show students the different ways of storytelling. I think it is also a great idea to show the students the reality that the author evokes in the novel. By this I mean that all the issues that the characters deal with eventually are solved to some degree, but their lives still remain complicated and disorderly. This shows that as humans we need to stay positive and also aide in our attempt to endure whatever life throws at us.

BC Ministry of Education Policy Document: English as a Second Language: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/policy/policies/esl.htm

BC Ministry of Education ESL Learners: A Guide for Classroom Teachers :
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/esl/

BC Ministry of Education ESL Standards:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/esl/standards.pdf

Graded Readers:
http://www.cis.doshisha.ac.jp/kkitao/library/student/esl/list/esl_list_high.htm

http://www.eslreading.org/resources/resources/aboutreaders.html

To take a slightly different role in this post than I did in the last one, I want to take the opportunity to place A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley within the context of the Shakespeare play that it is a reimagining of – King Lear.

This text retells Lear’s story from a feminist perspective, taking the perspective of the eldest daughter. A detailed list of the Dramatis Personae in King Lear and their counterparts in A Thousand Acres can be found here.

For those of us who have several years between our last Shakespeare course and this book, I’ll review the major plot point of King Lear. The old king of Britain decides to retire and divide his land among his three daughters – but before the daughters can receive the land, they must declare their love for him. Goneril and Regan both proclaim effusively how much they love their father, and they each receive a portion of land and marriage to a duke. The youngest, Cordelia, says only that she loves her father as much as a daughter should. This enrages Lear, and he leaves her with nothing.

This is mirrored in the basic premise of the novel – Larry Cook, a farmer whose family has worked the lands for generations, has a thousand acres of land. He decides it would be prudent to divide up the land before his death; if he passes the land contractually to his daughters now, they will avoid paying estate taxes if they inherit the land upon his passing. When he broaches the idea, his two older daughters Ginny and Rose, both of whom help to farm the land along with their husbands, embrace the idea and encourage it, while Caroline, a lawyer who lives in the city, expresses doubt. For her initial voicing of concern, her father shuts her out of the contract.

This exchange of land takes place under radically different terms than the way Lear’s story depicts it. Ginny, the story’s narrator, makes it clear that she and Rose have lived their whole lives trying to appease their father’s angry, tempestuous nature, and to divert his wrath and attentions from their young sister Caroline, whom they raised after their mother died while she was still very young. While Goneril and Regan are portrayed as scheming and devious, Ginny and Rose celebrate their father’s idea, not because they see in it an opportunity, but because they have never questioned their father’s iron rule. And Caroline’s ability to question her father’s actions comes, not from a purer love for him, but from a blindness to his true nature.

I’m going to insert a spoiler alert here, because I’m about to divulge a major plot point.

As the story unfolds, it comes to light that Ginny and Rose have also been sexually abused by their father – it is with that revelation (Ginny has concealed this truth from herself, and Rose makes her realize it) that their attitude towards their father changes, and it paints their dynamic in a radically different light. The scene when the father is chased out into the storm, in the play a tragic moment of a father’s loss of family, becomes Larry heaping abuse and sexually loaded denigration on his eldest daughters before heading out into the storm, deaf to the pleas of his daughters and their husbands to return to safety.

The book mirrors the play in the subplots as well, in the stories of the other characters, and their relationships. However, as I’ve already taken up more than my share of blog space, I shall hold some of that information in reserve for class discussion.

I want to compare The Lovely Bones with a book that I was thinking of quite often while reading it, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I feel as if the two books come from a similar intention: to explain what happens when we die and to comfort us.

The best way for me to quickly relate the relevance of the Book of the dead is to quote a documentary I recently watched,

‘Death is real it comes without warning and cannot be escaped’. (From the movie The Tibetan book of the Dead. The story about Ladakh is from this source as well. This is abridged) In what used to be Western Tibet, now Ladakh India, a man has died. His family cries as they await a Buddhist yogi to come to read the Tibetan Book of the dead.

The holy man will read the book every day for 49 days. According to Tibetan belief the consciousness of the man is able to hear and will linger for 49 days. The text’s message to the consciousness is, “that which is called death has now arrived… recognize the luminosity before you it the essence of your own mind, …both life and death are a flow of uncertain transitions … Now is the time for you to seek a path. You are not alone everyone who has come before you has died … now I will abandon clinging to this body to this world I will go forward and abandon fear and terror I will recognize whatever appears as a projection of my own mind.

At death we lose everything that is real. Unless we can let go of all the things we cherished in our life we are terrified.

Carl Jung called the Tibetan book of the Dead his life’s partner in whom he found the secrets of his own soul.

The Lovely Bones is a novel that also tries to answer for us what happens after death. It is the story of a girl who is murdered, and her first few years in the afterlife as she continues to follow the story of those in her family.

There are some basic assumptions about death that Lovely Bones makes. The first is that there is an afterlife. The dead person is able to travel anywhere on earth and can see and hear and cannot be seen or heard themselves; they can make themselves known by allowing their presence to be felt. There is a similarity to the Tibetan belief here.

In this afterlife there is a heaven. The book makes no mention of hell. The heaven that is mentioned consists of a first-stage heaven where the person who has recently died is able to construct their surroundings out of anything they can conceive and desire. They are not alone but instead have a couple of people who have intersecting conceptions of ideal environments and spend time together when and where these conceptions and environments intersect.

There is a second level of heaven described in the book as being one of more general comfort. It is a place the author describes as one where you could just enter a room and hold a stranger’s hand for and hour.

The process to move from one level to the next is the closure that happens in the dead person’s own heart as they come to terms with their own death and the closing of the gap left by the dead person as the people they knew on earth, their family and friends, finally are healed.

In the Tibetan Book of the dead the desire to hang on to the things we cherished in life, the people, places and possessions, is called attachment, as in Lovely Bones, it is an obstacle to moving on.

Stories about death have been around for as long as humans have had language.  I love comparative mythology, and though I am not an expert, I would like to thank you for indulging me on this Blog. I have always been fascinated by the work of Joseph Campbell and his study of the common parts of the stories we tell as humans and the most common, and in fact inescapable, of these is death.

I really enjoyed Eden Robinson’s novel, “Monkey Beach.” Something I particular appreciated was how Robinson seamlessly integrated First Nations mythology and supernatural elements into the text. Robinson weaves elements of the Haisla culture into the book without overwhelming the reader. He makes them completely relevant to the story and the situation that Lisa finds herself in. Also, most of the supernatural elements are never completely explained. Like Lisa herself, we never fully understand the implications of what is happening with her and how she can use her gifts. These elements tie her to a culture that is slowly being lost. There is no one left to guide Lisa and the rest of the young adults in the Haisla culture. This mythology takes on a darker and dangerous tone, in most cases, because Lisa doesn’t know how to control her gifts. When discussing berries, Lisa’s grandmother explains that certain berries should only be eaten carefully and by someone who knows how to handle them. This can also be said about the supernatural in the book.

In the classroom I think there could be many different ways one could handle “Monkey Beach.” There is an opportunity, in studying this book, to not only take a look at the First Nations culture but also have the students look at their own. In our modern society how much is the past important to our students? Do we need to form a connection with our past and, if so, who are we learning our culture from? After reading “Monkey Beach” we could ask the students to research their own cultures and bring these stories into the class. The students could then utilize them to write their own and integrate them into their back-stories. How do these stories impact the students? Are there any things that they can learn from their cultural stories?

I would also like to talk about “Monkey Beach” in the context of the literary circles we are currently doing them in. I have personally never taken part in one but was first intrigued by them, as a teaching tool, when introduced to them on my practicum. Now being in the middle of one, I have noticed that, by being given a task and then reading the book, I am much more conscious and sensitive to finding things that relate to the topic I am in charge of. It has certainly pushed me to take ownership of my given section. For example, I chose the jobs of Time Tracker and Timeline Developer. I am definitely having most fun with the Time Tracker role. Location is something I probably would not have any interest in, yet I have been meticulously keeping track of it while reading. “Monkey Beach” is full of locations. Though geographically the book doesn’t take place in a small area, Robinson describes multiple sites around Kitimat.

I think using a book like “Monkey Beach” in a literary circle can assist a class in taking a more in-depth look at it. The students are being forced to take charge of aspects of the novel that may not necessarily be analyzed in a larger group discussion.

I love reading white text on a black background.  Who knew?  As some of you may know I was assigned an apple ipad to use.  The ipad was loaded with a copy of Miriam Toews’ book A Complicated Kindness.  I think we are are somewhat familiar with the ipads touch interface from the extensive advertising that the company has put out there. I think that in a tactile sense the unit was as fun and easy to navigate as the adverts would have us believe.

I want to focus here on my experience of ‘reading’ on the ipad.  I found that I read faster right off the bat.  The way my eye scanned across the line and down to the next seemed faster to me.  I found the flick of a finger to turn the page to be not only quick and easy but for some reason satisfying.  I thought I would miss the touch and feel of a book, and if I read this way exclusively I think I would, but the ipad has touch and feel too.

Once I was about a third of the way into the book I found that I could experiment with the typography.  I think this is an essential part of reading a book that has never before been in the control of the reader.  These decisions have always been made for us by someone else.  Two simple variables, font size and font/background colour can have a huge impact on the reading experience.

Font size has traditionally offered readers two choices, regular and large.  The experience of reading on the ipad offers a much more fine gradation. There is a difference in reading at 10 pt and 14 pt.  I think the experience of certain books that bear a slower more considered reading could be reinforce by using a smaller font to cause the reader to linger on the page.  This kind of idea is taking reader response theory out of the mind of the reader and giving the reader concrete methods to construct the text for themselves, literally.  I am intrigued by this idea and would like to open it up to discussion in class at some point.  If the text’s meaning is created in the space between author and reader, what does it do to the dynamic to transfer the physical look of the text on the page from the author/creator side to the reader/creator side?

As an extension of these thoughts I found myself experimenting with reading white text on a black background.  First let me say that I was reading faster.  I found the contrast of the letters on the background made it extremely fast for my eyes to track from word to word and line to line.  I think this makes sense given that our yes are drawn to light, and that we rarely look into light looking for the negative space.  It strikes me as I write this that of course we do this every day on our computers, but I would like to know if there is a greater visual acuity and accuracy in picking up light against a dark background? I would argue from my limited experience and unscientific reflection that there is.

Lastly I want to suggest the font/background option as a future source of symbolism.  How long before a book is released where instead of the author telling you that it is night, they simply switch to a black background.  How long before night darkness black evil ….. as symbols are evoked in this way.  I don’t think it will be long.

Here is another soldier in the white text black background revolution. This is from the Blackle project.

How is Blackle saving energy?

Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002

In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy.

How can you help?

We encourage you to set Blackle as your home page. This way every time you load your Internet browser you will save a little bit of energy. Remember every bit counts! You will also be reminded about the need to save energy each time you see the Blackle page load.

Our groups discussion on Secret Life of Bees was quite interesting. We touched on many different topics and came to learn that not all of us felt the same way about the novel. Some of us highly enjoyed it, while other did not. Our discussion went in many different directions. We talked about if we thought male students would enjoy this novel. I particularly felt that they wouldn’t and it would be a struggle to engage them in this novel because it is very feminine. The story has a theme of the power the female community can have and almost a fantasy/storytelling aura to it that boys may just feel bored reading it.

We also found that we would not prefer to teach this novel to our students, we may teach it as a companion piece with To Kill a Mockingbird to demonstrate the very two different portrayals of the black characters. What I personally liked about this text was how Lily’s own prejudices of black people was changed over the course of the story. I would not go as far as saying that Lily is racist, but I do think at the beginning of the novel, we do see that she stereotypes Rosaleen in that she typically thinks that she is an uneducated woman who simply becomes a maid or housekeeper. When Lily meets August, who is this educated, caring, strong woman, her feelings change drastically. It is almost as if she could have never imagined a black woman to be so strong and unique. It would be very easy to relate a lot of social issues to this type of text as well and its sort of the only part I think you could engage the male students into. The novel does a great job in displaying the fact that it is human nature to possess some sort of racist feeling towards different ethnicities but we must recognize that as humans we all have very different personality traits and our skin colour should not matter because of it.

Another topic we touched on was the idea of family and what makes a family. This is particularly evident in the text as we see Lily longing for a mother like figure in her life. As a group we thought that it would be great to perhaps ask our students to discuss or write what they think constitutes as “family” Does family mean: a mom, dad, brother, sister, grandmother and grandfather? Rosaleen is a mother-like figure in Lily’s life but we still see her longing for her real mother. However when she arrives at the Boatwright house, she sees a strong female support system and by seeing the bond between the Daughters of Mary, she not only becomes a part of that female community, she starts to recognize that these women are her family.