I had the good fortune to teach Writer's Craft this past semester, which was one of my main motivations for wanting to teach in the first place. I've kept some running Quick Note files in my phone of the curriculum guidelines since August's end, highlighting and marking them up with ideas for lessons and summatives. The very cool part of teaching this single-section course for the foreseeable future is that I had the liberty to aggregate all resources and eventually decide the trajectory on my own. In this way, I wasn't inheriting someone else's course, but crafting it in a way that made absolute sense to me and wherein I could be certain that I was meeting all curricular expectations.
In order to catch some analytical skills that may otherwise not be accessed in other summative assignments, I included an independent study of a Canadian author, where students were required to study at least two different forms of text (i.e. poetry and a novel) by the same author, and make an analytical claim based on those chosen texts in tandem with biographical material.
I compiled a list of about 35 authors I had read, as I always find it easier to assist and to mark when I am familiar with the material. Owing to both personal investment and our 2D multicultural ISU, this inevitably contained quite a few indigenous Canadian authors. I made it a silent goal to chip away at more forms from authors who were known to me.
The first I was lent by a colleague (Hi, Imman!). It is a play by an author from whom I had only read one short story previously -- "A Blurry Image on the Six O'Clock News" (Drew Hayden Taylor). Taylor, half-Ojibway and half-Caucasian, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, but raised very traditionally, calls himself "a memorable Occasion". I saw him speak once at a Peel schools event. I did not know what to make of his humour and absence of niceties. This man does not mince words. I read his play AlterNatives on my December break, while incapacitated with the worst flu I've had in ten years. I had budgeted time for a crafting frenzy, but I was horizontal by necessity for four days. I had to keep my mind engaged. I bore easily.
I read the foreward, in which he wrote: "While writing this play, I was fully expecting to become the Salman Rushdie of the Native community, for I'm sure there is something in this play to annoy everybody." The rest followed suit. If I don't appreciate Drew Hayden Taylor's sense of humour fully - well, at the very least, I better understand it now.
The second, Thomas King's CBC Massey Lectures The Truth About Stories, I started immediately afterwards, but did not complete until just recently. I was propelled into a reporting cycle crunch and had to take a break.
What a narrative. Eternally quotable. It made me feel and think and write. Previously I had only read "I'm Not The Indian You Had In Mind". I was sure then I'd appreciate King, but waited quite some time to browse another form of his writing.
I was taken by a great deal of excerpts, but this quote meant especial much to me:
"For the reality of identity legislation has not simply been to erase Indians from the political map of North America, it has also had the unforgivable consequence of setting Native against Native, destroying our ability and desire to associate with each other. This has been the true tragedy, the creation of legal categories that have made us our own enemy."
Now, I am an "Eastern Métis". I descend, on the side of 3/4 grandparents, from Mi'kmaq and European heritage via the Gaspé coast of Quebec. I belong to The Métis Nation of the Rising Sun (<-- translation), as well as interact within many groups of Eastern Métis.
For the record, the word "métis" itself is a French creation, meaning "mixed blood". The iconic sash is also a Quebec creation. The east was the point of first contact before our people moved west with the fur trade.
I tell you this because there is a troubling divisiveness in the community. Red River Métis such as writer and intellectual Chelsea Vowel make claims that the Eastern Métis are not real - that, with regard to our identity, we are "self-indigenizing" and should "get over it". I worry, because her book Indigenous Writes is in our school system and sometimes given to educators and administrators -- and people without real critical awareness listen to words of dissent. I am pleased that there are Red River Métis such as David Bouchard who push back against those voices, but I worry that it is not enough.
I know who I am and I know what customs are the product of a fusion of cultures. I am proud to be of the generation where we can reclaim what was lost due to fear and racism. I don't want to be shamed into hiding again.
This quote shook me the most.
The last book is not by an author I had read before, although she is both Canadian and indigenous.
This past Thursday and Friday, I attended Toronto's "Reading for the Love of it" conference, and made sure to visit my favourite indigenous book supplier, family-run and Brantford-local Good Minds.
I picked up the youth novel Rez Runaway, as I have also been trying to find more LGBTQ2S+ resources. As a straight cis-gendered teacher, I think it's the best way to show that I am an ally.
I stayed at the Sheraton hotel, and read the entire book Thursday evening. It's interesting in the sense that it deals with very mature topics (self-harm, a suicide attempt, homelessness, homophobia/transphobia, underage prostitution, attempted murder, domestic abuse), but I would say it is targeted toward low-reading-level senior high school students. I think this is a niche, overlooked, and important target audience.
I think someday this book rec will matter to someone -- and that's a large part of why I read.
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