Author Archives: alexander barrett

As a confirmed Xennial, raised on black-and-white print and (reasonably) at home amongst the colours of pixels, today’s session with Dr. Shoemaker was an eye-opener for me. Broadly speaking, my bookshelves at home are arranged around non-fiction and fiction. My … Continue reading →

A few years ago, in the UK, Cathedral City started using spoken word in its advertising campaigns. The Evening Standard followed suit. Then NatWest. Before long, spoken word was everywhere and poets like Hollie McNish (cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6nHrqIFTj8, probably my favourite … Continue reading →

There are as many ways of looking at SOGI education protests as there are people. Mine, for what it’s worth: The pendulum swings back and forth – progressive to conservative; conservative to progressive; progressive to conservative. Sometimes there’s a good … Continue reading →

At Tupper, for our HUM8 novel study, I used Touching Spirit Bear instead of The Outsiders (these were the class sets available – it was one or t’other). The kids loved it. Without giving too much away, the story involves … Continue reading →

As student and as teacher of literature, I don’t have a problem with the principle of there being a canon. I think canonization is less a matter of gatekeeping and more a matter of sedimentation – almost an inevitability, really. As … Continue reading →