Glossary
Acculturate: To adapt to or adopt a different culture. Or, to become aware of a distinctive aspect of a
hitherto-familiar culture.
Advanced Placement (AP): The AP program for high-ability high school students, the equivalent of the
International Baccalaureate, covers a literature curriculum equivalent to the first year of
university. The AP curriculum focuses on American literature, and the IB curriculum on British
literature.
Aesthetic reading: Reading for pleasure, for meaning making, and for deep personal engagement.
Agency, agent: In theoretical, political, and humanistic discussion, the agent (the one with agency) is
capable of thought and critique, and is therefore capable of choice and action.
Archetype: A recurring symbol or motif in myth and literature, in Jungian terms, a primitive mental image
present in the collective unconscious.
Appropriation: Literary and cultural appropriation takes experience that is not one’s own, using it to
one’s own advantage. Such fiction is often constructed around the assumption of an exotic or
inferior Other (often indigenous or non-Caucasian) who functions as a foil to the (culturally
superior) protagonist.
Assessment: Authentic evaluation of the relationship between the goals of learning and what the
students actually perform and learn. Evaluation can be province-initiated, performance based,
teacher initiated, or self-initiated using a variety of assessment tools, criteria, and rubrics to
determine the success of teaching and learning. Formative and summative assessment related
to outcomes, both of and for learning are important in both processes and products of
educational activity.
Author studies: Planned units of instruction focused on a single author, their biography, written works,
reviews, texts, and related multimedia material.
Book of Negroes: A late 18th-century British military register documenting the Black people, both slave
and free, who were to be given passage to Canada following the American Revolution. It is the
first public documentation of Black people in North America, and the document upon which
Lawrence Hill’s novel of the same name is based.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: The Charter is a bill of rights that forms the first part of the
1982 Constitution Act, and guarantees certain political and civil rights of people in Canada from
the policies and actions of all levels of government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a
set of principles that embody those rights.
Canadian Children’s Book Centre: Founded in 1976, the CCBC is a national, non-profit organization
dedicated to the reading, writing, and illustration of quality Canadian literature for young
people. Includes wide-ranging programs and publications, library collections in five cities, and
provides online resources for authors and illustrators, educators and librarians, children’s
literature scholars and parents. It publishes Canadian Children’s Book News quarterly, and an
annual summary of Canadian publishing for young people.
Canon: (From the Grk. Kanon, ‘reed’ or ‘measuring rod’), originally an ecclesiastical term used to validate
theological documents. Later, a cultural and literary term intended to authenticate works of
literary merit, influential in shaping Western culture. In this book, a term used to denote a set
of shared, chosen durable texts that sustain multiple meaningful readings.
Case study: A thorough, qualitative, literary, scholarly study of an exemplary book or author.
Censorship: the authorized attempt to suppress printed matter, films, news, etc., on the ground of
obscenity or threat to security. It is also the impulse to prevent certain ideas and memories
from emerging into consciousness. Informal censorship also occurs in the personal selection
and rejection of educational material and the attempt to prevent the access of others to that
material.
Class anthology: A set of class writing produced by students and assembled for distribution to class
members and beyond.
Close reading: See Close Reading link above.
Code-switching: The shifting of dialects, styles, or registers, such as the linguistic sliding between dialect
and standard received English in Nalo Hopkinson’s (1998) Brown Girl in the Ring. Code-
switching also denotes the shifting from casual vernacular (e.g. among friends telling jokes) to
more formal registers (giving an academic paper).
Complicated conversation: A definition of curriculum studies offered by curriculum theorist William F.
Pinar (2004); it refers to curriculum in a larger context, including the lives of students and
teachers lived in the classroom, in addition to curriculum documents, policies, infrastructure,
and administration.
Constructivism — based on the work of the learning theorist Jean Piaget, constructivism is a theory
about how children learn by way of accommodation and assimilation as they integrate new
information, understanding, and skills into their existing cognitive and affective schemata
(internal frames of reference). They need to participate actively in social ways through
perceiving, engaging, and moving as they encounter new experiences to construct their
individual knowledge and meaning about reality and being. With literature, in a constructivist
approach the teacher assumes that each student will construct personal meaning and those
meanings may be very diverse within a class. There is no need to find and provide a right, exact,
uniform answer, but instead interpretations are encouraged with a rationale and personal
evidence for what is learned.
Contemporary realism (Canadian fiction): Realistic stories dealing with current issues and problems
facing children, adolescents, and adults today. In YA literature, the main characters in these
novels are teens themselves confronting personal, family, and social challenges as they struggle
for identity, autonomy, relationship, and experience that will contribute to maturing and
becoming a fully participating adult citizen. The settings, plots, and themes are set in current
time, with plausible storylines, and significant, relevant topics. This literature offers and invites
imaginative reflection on the concerns and dilemmas of contemporary life. Believable
characters suggest models for living well in the modern world and provide a safe place in the
imagination for exploration of diverse human relations and cultures.
‘Crossover’ fiction: Literature written for an adult readership, but with appeal to YA readers.
Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk fiction often combines ‘high tech and low life’: especially information technology
and cybernetics in the hands of corrupt or degenerate power. It is marked by extreme
breakdown of social order, often in a nihilistic, post-industrial near future.
Debate: Structured discussions in secondary classrooms where students develop written and oral
support (based on substantive research and thoughtful work) for opposing arguments to
support their thesis or choice for reading a particular book to make a strong case to persuade
others to accept their information, evidence, and conclusions.
E-book - (electronic or digital book) a personal device or portable computer that can download or
transfer textual information such as novels or textbooks without using paper or other materials,
and is read from a screen rather than a traditional paper page. Some new books by authors now
only exist in digital form. In the year 2011, e-book sales began to exceed print copies for many
publishing companies, and that rate continues to increase.
Efferent: A literary response that enables the reader to locate, observe, and remember information, and
read explanations and directions. Efferent reading is mainly focused on what can be learned
from the reading, as opposed to its pleasure or aesthetics.
ELA: English Language Arts which include reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually
representing.
Empathy: The humane, embodied capacity to identify with, and therefore to understand, the lived
experience of another. Empathy can enlarge insight and comprehension, deepen relationship
and meaning-making, strengthen moral foundations, and oppose oppressive ideological ways of
thinking.
Engagement with literature: Sustained involvement by students in motivated, interested, experiences in
reading and study, as they discuss, write, and represent literature, authors, and related
resources in a shared community.
Enter, explore, extend – an approach to teaching literature and English Language Arts by educators
Milner and Milner in Bridging English (2008, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson) that described
strategies for inviting students’ interest to engage literature, for studying and exploring in a
variety of exciting ways, and for creative extensions that arise out of the study that go beyond
the walls of the classroom and curricular expectations toward intellectual depth, personal
value, and creativity.
Fifth business: A person who is not a main character in a drama or story, but without whom the story’s
central plot could not take place.
FNMI: First Nations, Méti, and Inuit
Focal interpretive practices: Reading practices that create the conditions for literary insight, enhance
understanding, and cultivate narrative expertise in interpretation and meaning making. Based
on the work of Albert Borgmann (1992).
Genre studies: Literature studies based on a particular focused kind or category of literature such as
crime fiction, historical fiction, folklore, fantasy, or contemporary realism
Graphic novels: (from the Greek graphikos, denoting both ‘writing’ and ‘painting’). Novel-length
narratives conveyed through sequential images, either in traditional comic book format, or in
more experimental text/illustration designs.
Hermeneutics: A branch of philosophy (and qualitative research) focused on interpretation of texts.
Historically this field arises from scholarly debates and translations about interpretations of
legal, liturgical, and historical texts
Historical thinking: How we interpret and explain what we know of the past. These explanatory
narratives are shaped and limited by our own understanding, and by our own sense of what is
worth knowing. The crucial link between the past and our interpretations is provided by
primary source evidence.
IB (International Baccalaureate): See AP (Advanced Placement).::::
Indigenous literature: Popularly referring to literature by the aboriginal inhabitants of a region; more
recently a term used to describe literature characteristic of, or originating in, a region: e.g. this
book encourages familiarity with indigenous Canadian literature.
Illustrated book: Illustrations are subordinate to the text, which is the predominant carrier of meaning.
Although the illustrations may enhance or symbolize the meaning of the text, they are not
essential to its understanding (unlike those of the picture book), and there is no inherent
collaboration between author and illustrator.
Inquiry based units – teaching approach that is designed, developed, and implemented around main
research questions that are authentic to students or a group of students. Teachers and students
pose actual issues and questions that matter to them as they read, think and discuss what they
study. Inquiry units are often cross disciplinary, using many subject areas and sources of
information to inform their learning.
Instructional scaffolding: Thoughtfully planned pedagogy that supports students’ learning through
modeling, guided practice, independent application, and creative extension to develop
knowledge, skills, and attributes.
Intercultural: Taking place between cultures; belonging to or derived from different cultures. In
educational circles, this term is replacing the term ‘multicultural’, indicating a society consisting
of many culturally distinct groups.
Knowledge, skills, and attributes: These are focused education goals in cross-Canadian curriculum
outcomes for students in public education from kindergarten to the final year of high school.
These are fully described in the all the provincial and territory ministries of education public
documents. See ministries of education links under Canadian Literature links at the top of this
page.
Life-world; Philosophical concept (Husserl’s sense of our consciousness of the way the world is
experienced and lived), currently used more commonly in Sociology, Political science, Cultural
Studies, and Curriculum Studies. It denotes the overarching environment of the everyday life,
the cumulative experiences and practices of an individual, or group, or culture.
Literacy: Once thought of as the skills of reading and writing, literacy has come to include more complex
linguistic competencies of meaning making and communication, including the capacity and
skills to learn about the world in order to participate as a full citizen. Sub-categories of literacy
include language abilities in particular focused contexts such as family literacy, health literacy,
work literacy, or cultural literacy, connoting the ability to read, write, speak, view, and
represent knowledge effectively in life.
Literary devices: These are elements and techniques in English Language Arts and literature that
students learn that include concepts and terms such as metaphor, allegory, simile, allusions, and
point of view to advance a narrative in its characters, plot, setting, and theme.
Literary insight: Learning and understanding that arises and is produced from the experiences of
reading and studying literature
Metacognition: Is the capacity in students to develop an awareness of the strategies that they use to
think and complete learning tasks successfully. It includes the ability to talk about, write about
and represent themselves as consciously-aware learners. They are able to think about their
own thinking and learning processes. Metacognition involves reflection, critical awareness and
analysis, monitoring, and reconstruction of their knowing.
Métissage: Based on the Canadian word Métis, this refers to the active literary practice, political strategy,
and pedagogical praxis of braiding, blending, blurring, and merging genres, texts and identities.
See the work of Cynthia Chambers, Dwayne Donald, and Erika Hasebe-Ludt.
http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v07n02/metissage/metiscript.html
Mimetic: From the Greek memesis, imitation: The representation of the real world in art, poetry, etc.
Hence, mime, mimic.
Neuroplasticity: The capacity of the brain to change its neural activity and structure, based on its
experiences, including the experience of reading.
New literacies: Regularly changing practices in reading that are required by new technologies such as
gaming software, audio and video technologies, social networking technologies to establish
communities on the Internet, search engines, web page formatting, information aggregators,
and educational platforms.
Orbitals of narrative analysis: Based on the eight-part research frame for study and analysis of narrative
‘data’ developed by Leah C. Fowler. The orbitals include naïve storying, psychological de/re/
construction, psychotherapeutic ethics, narrative craft, hermeneutics, curriculum pedagogy,
poetics of a narrative teaching self, and restorative education. See the website for further
information. http://people.uleth.ca/~leah.fowler/Narrativefowler/Welcome.html
Other, othering: The process by which dominant groups identify those who belong and those who do
not, a process any teacher who observes high school in-groups and cliques will recognize. Also
used politically and socially to exclude those in an economic, gendered, ethnic, linguistic,
cultural, or sexually-oriented minority. In Lacanian terms, the Other signifies everything the
subject is not.
Persuasive essay: A tutored form of writing in school where students gatherinformation to prepare a
formal written argument with clear points, evidence from research, and substantive examples
to persuade a reader to accept the thesis of the argument.
Picture book: An illustrated book in which visual and print texts co-exist, integrated and interdependent;
each requires the other for the complete meaning to emerge. Reading picture books requires a
process of dual (text and visual) decoding.
Primary source evidence: Records created by people contemporary with the time being studied. They
are often written: laws, records, census reports, documents, official accounts, written
instructions, newspapers, diaries, journals, but also maps, drawings, photographs, portraits,
broadcasts, and artifacts. They enable us to contextualize events.
‘Psycho-geography’: Noah Richler’s (2006) term: ‘Any place is only a landscape until it is animated by the
stories that provide its identity…its ‘psycho-geography’.
Reader response theory: Both a critical and a pedagogical approach to literature. Reader-response
focuses on the reader’s unadulterated, felt response to the text, based on his/her own prior
experience, cultural history, knowledge of life, and experience of other texts. See the work of
literature educator and scholar Louise Rosenblatt for origins of this research.
Rhizome: Botanically, the rhizome is a branching stem growing along or under the ground. In literature
and cultural studies, it is a complex metaphor suggesting a de-centered alternative to the
unitary sense of ‘rootedness’ and centralized territory.
Social justice: Refers to a desired state in society based on principles human rights and egalitarian
values without fear of discrimination, bias, or personal harm.
Steampunk: Steampunk fantasy includes social and technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam,
the industrial revolution), usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion
against parts of it (the punk).
Syncretic: To syncretize is to fuse or unify differing or inconsistent schools of thought. In Canadian
literature, the term entails ‘the fusion of radical differences’ (Baker, 2001, p. 220), emphasizing
how SF dovetails with the socio-political reality of an increasingly diverse Canada.
Theme studies: Literature studies focused on large issues at the core of the narrative, where the
attention of the reader is not so much on character, plot, or setting but on the controlling idea
behind the story.
Underground Railroad: A network of safe houses and secret routes used by 19th-century fugitive slaves
escape to free states and to Canada, often with the help of abolitionists and allies.
Visual literacy: The capacity to ‘read’ and visually decode the artifacts of society, moving from close
observation and concrete description, to inferences and generalizations, to creative reflection
and insight.
Young Adult literature (YA): Young adult literature is written for, and marketed to the 12-18 year old reader.
YA fiction is often a variant of the coming-of-age story, with a strong plot line. It highlights
characters and issues that the YA reader can identify with, and that are represented
respectfully, without condescension. It is generally framed in accessible, contemporary, tee
friendly language, with characters a few years older than the intended reader, and told from the
young adult’s point of view. Teachers often select a YA novel as a ‘gateway’ novel to pair with a
canonical counterpart.
Zones of proximal development – in learning processes, this refers to what a child can do or accomplish
with help but could not do alone. This educational range is the main artful work of teachers,
supporting students in accommodating and assimilating new knowledge through strategic
guidance at the optimum time in an effective way. Readiness and appropriate assistance are key
qualities if a child is in the zone of proximal development. If learning situations that are too
difficult and untimely persist, the child becomes frustrated, retreats, and is not able to develop
well. Effective instructional scaffolding practices in teaching rest on this assumption of proximal
development in that there should be modelling, then guided practice, then opportunity for
independent applications and creative extensions for optimum intellectual and emotional
learning growth. [There is a lovely Japanese proverb that says: When a child stands in awe of a
falling flower petal, then is the time to teach the laws of gravity.]
hitherto-familiar culture.
Advanced Placement (AP): The AP program for high-ability high school students, the equivalent of the
International Baccalaureate, covers a literature curriculum equivalent to the first year of
university. The AP curriculum focuses on American literature, and the IB curriculum on British
literature.
Aesthetic reading: Reading for pleasure, for meaning making, and for deep personal engagement.
Agency, agent: In theoretical, political, and humanistic discussion, the agent (the one with agency) is
capable of thought and critique, and is therefore capable of choice and action.
Archetype: A recurring symbol or motif in myth and literature, in Jungian terms, a primitive mental image
present in the collective unconscious.
Appropriation: Literary and cultural appropriation takes experience that is not one’s own, using it to
one’s own advantage. Such fiction is often constructed around the assumption of an exotic or
inferior Other (often indigenous or non-Caucasian) who functions as a foil to the (culturally
superior) protagonist.
Assessment: Authentic evaluation of the relationship between the goals of learning and what the
students actually perform and learn. Evaluation can be province-initiated, performance based,
teacher initiated, or self-initiated using a variety of assessment tools, criteria, and rubrics to
determine the success of teaching and learning. Formative and summative assessment related
to outcomes, both of and for learning are important in both processes and products of
educational activity.
Author studies: Planned units of instruction focused on a single author, their biography, written works,
reviews, texts, and related multimedia material.
Book of Negroes: A late 18th-century British military register documenting the Black people, both slave
and free, who were to be given passage to Canada following the American Revolution. It is the
first public documentation of Black people in North America, and the document upon which
Lawrence Hill’s novel of the same name is based.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: The Charter is a bill of rights that forms the first part of the
1982 Constitution Act, and guarantees certain political and civil rights of people in Canada from
the policies and actions of all levels of government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a
set of principles that embody those rights.
Canadian Children’s Book Centre: Founded in 1976, the CCBC is a national, non-profit organization
dedicated to the reading, writing, and illustration of quality Canadian literature for young
people. Includes wide-ranging programs and publications, library collections in five cities, and
provides online resources for authors and illustrators, educators and librarians, children’s
literature scholars and parents. It publishes Canadian Children’s Book News quarterly, and an
annual summary of Canadian publishing for young people.
Canon: (From the Grk. Kanon, ‘reed’ or ‘measuring rod’), originally an ecclesiastical term used to validate
theological documents. Later, a cultural and literary term intended to authenticate works of
literary merit, influential in shaping Western culture. In this book, a term used to denote a set
of shared, chosen durable texts that sustain multiple meaningful readings.
Case study: A thorough, qualitative, literary, scholarly study of an exemplary book or author.
Censorship: the authorized attempt to suppress printed matter, films, news, etc., on the ground of
obscenity or threat to security. It is also the impulse to prevent certain ideas and memories
from emerging into consciousness. Informal censorship also occurs in the personal selection
and rejection of educational material and the attempt to prevent the access of others to that
material.
Class anthology: A set of class writing produced by students and assembled for distribution to class
members and beyond.
Close reading: See Close Reading link above.
Code-switching: The shifting of dialects, styles, or registers, such as the linguistic sliding between dialect
and standard received English in Nalo Hopkinson’s (1998) Brown Girl in the Ring. Code-
switching also denotes the shifting from casual vernacular (e.g. among friends telling jokes) to
more formal registers (giving an academic paper).
Complicated conversation: A definition of curriculum studies offered by curriculum theorist William F.
Pinar (2004); it refers to curriculum in a larger context, including the lives of students and
teachers lived in the classroom, in addition to curriculum documents, policies, infrastructure,
and administration.
Constructivism — based on the work of the learning theorist Jean Piaget, constructivism is a theory
about how children learn by way of accommodation and assimilation as they integrate new
information, understanding, and skills into their existing cognitive and affective schemata
(internal frames of reference). They need to participate actively in social ways through
perceiving, engaging, and moving as they encounter new experiences to construct their
individual knowledge and meaning about reality and being. With literature, in a constructivist
approach the teacher assumes that each student will construct personal meaning and those
meanings may be very diverse within a class. There is no need to find and provide a right, exact,
uniform answer, but instead interpretations are encouraged with a rationale and personal
evidence for what is learned.
Contemporary realism (Canadian fiction): Realistic stories dealing with current issues and problems
facing children, adolescents, and adults today. In YA literature, the main characters in these
novels are teens themselves confronting personal, family, and social challenges as they struggle
for identity, autonomy, relationship, and experience that will contribute to maturing and
becoming a fully participating adult citizen. The settings, plots, and themes are set in current
time, with plausible storylines, and significant, relevant topics. This literature offers and invites
imaginative reflection on the concerns and dilemmas of contemporary life. Believable
characters suggest models for living well in the modern world and provide a safe place in the
imagination for exploration of diverse human relations and cultures.
‘Crossover’ fiction: Literature written for an adult readership, but with appeal to YA readers.
Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk fiction often combines ‘high tech and low life’: especially information technology
and cybernetics in the hands of corrupt or degenerate power. It is marked by extreme
breakdown of social order, often in a nihilistic, post-industrial near future.
Debate: Structured discussions in secondary classrooms where students develop written and oral
support (based on substantive research and thoughtful work) for opposing arguments to
support their thesis or choice for reading a particular book to make a strong case to persuade
others to accept their information, evidence, and conclusions.
E-book - (electronic or digital book) a personal device or portable computer that can download or
transfer textual information such as novels or textbooks without using paper or other materials,
and is read from a screen rather than a traditional paper page. Some new books by authors now
only exist in digital form. In the year 2011, e-book sales began to exceed print copies for many
publishing companies, and that rate continues to increase.
Efferent: A literary response that enables the reader to locate, observe, and remember information, and
read explanations and directions. Efferent reading is mainly focused on what can be learned
from the reading, as opposed to its pleasure or aesthetics.
ELA: English Language Arts which include reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually
representing.
Empathy: The humane, embodied capacity to identify with, and therefore to understand, the lived
experience of another. Empathy can enlarge insight and comprehension, deepen relationship
and meaning-making, strengthen moral foundations, and oppose oppressive ideological ways of
thinking.
Engagement with literature: Sustained involvement by students in motivated, interested, experiences in
reading and study, as they discuss, write, and represent literature, authors, and related
resources in a shared community.
Enter, explore, extend – an approach to teaching literature and English Language Arts by educators
Milner and Milner in Bridging English (2008, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson) that described
strategies for inviting students’ interest to engage literature, for studying and exploring in a
variety of exciting ways, and for creative extensions that arise out of the study that go beyond
the walls of the classroom and curricular expectations toward intellectual depth, personal
value, and creativity.
Fifth business: A person who is not a main character in a drama or story, but without whom the story’s
central plot could not take place.
FNMI: First Nations, Méti, and Inuit
Focal interpretive practices: Reading practices that create the conditions for literary insight, enhance
understanding, and cultivate narrative expertise in interpretation and meaning making. Based
on the work of Albert Borgmann (1992).
Genre studies: Literature studies based on a particular focused kind or category of literature such as
crime fiction, historical fiction, folklore, fantasy, or contemporary realism
Graphic novels: (from the Greek graphikos, denoting both ‘writing’ and ‘painting’). Novel-length
narratives conveyed through sequential images, either in traditional comic book format, or in
more experimental text/illustration designs.
Hermeneutics: A branch of philosophy (and qualitative research) focused on interpretation of texts.
Historically this field arises from scholarly debates and translations about interpretations of
legal, liturgical, and historical texts
Historical thinking: How we interpret and explain what we know of the past. These explanatory
narratives are shaped and limited by our own understanding, and by our own sense of what is
worth knowing. The crucial link between the past and our interpretations is provided by
primary source evidence.
IB (International Baccalaureate): See AP (Advanced Placement).::::
Indigenous literature: Popularly referring to literature by the aboriginal inhabitants of a region; more
recently a term used to describe literature characteristic of, or originating in, a region: e.g. this
book encourages familiarity with indigenous Canadian literature.
Illustrated book: Illustrations are subordinate to the text, which is the predominant carrier of meaning.
Although the illustrations may enhance or symbolize the meaning of the text, they are not
essential to its understanding (unlike those of the picture book), and there is no inherent
collaboration between author and illustrator.
Inquiry based units – teaching approach that is designed, developed, and implemented around main
research questions that are authentic to students or a group of students. Teachers and students
pose actual issues and questions that matter to them as they read, think and discuss what they
study. Inquiry units are often cross disciplinary, using many subject areas and sources of
information to inform their learning.
Instructional scaffolding: Thoughtfully planned pedagogy that supports students’ learning through
modeling, guided practice, independent application, and creative extension to develop
knowledge, skills, and attributes.
Intercultural: Taking place between cultures; belonging to or derived from different cultures. In
educational circles, this term is replacing the term ‘multicultural’, indicating a society consisting
of many culturally distinct groups.
Knowledge, skills, and attributes: These are focused education goals in cross-Canadian curriculum
outcomes for students in public education from kindergarten to the final year of high school.
These are fully described in the all the provincial and territory ministries of education public
documents. See ministries of education links under Canadian Literature links at the top of this
page.
Life-world; Philosophical concept (Husserl’s sense of our consciousness of the way the world is
experienced and lived), currently used more commonly in Sociology, Political science, Cultural
Studies, and Curriculum Studies. It denotes the overarching environment of the everyday life,
the cumulative experiences and practices of an individual, or group, or culture.
Literacy: Once thought of as the skills of reading and writing, literacy has come to include more complex
linguistic competencies of meaning making and communication, including the capacity and
skills to learn about the world in order to participate as a full citizen. Sub-categories of literacy
include language abilities in particular focused contexts such as family literacy, health literacy,
work literacy, or cultural literacy, connoting the ability to read, write, speak, view, and
represent knowledge effectively in life.
Literary devices: These are elements and techniques in English Language Arts and literature that
students learn that include concepts and terms such as metaphor, allegory, simile, allusions, and
point of view to advance a narrative in its characters, plot, setting, and theme.
Literary insight: Learning and understanding that arises and is produced from the experiences of
reading and studying literature
Metacognition: Is the capacity in students to develop an awareness of the strategies that they use to
think and complete learning tasks successfully. It includes the ability to talk about, write about
and represent themselves as consciously-aware learners. They are able to think about their
own thinking and learning processes. Metacognition involves reflection, critical awareness and
analysis, monitoring, and reconstruction of their knowing.
Métissage: Based on the Canadian word Métis, this refers to the active literary practice, political strategy,
and pedagogical praxis of braiding, blending, blurring, and merging genres, texts and identities.
See the work of Cynthia Chambers, Dwayne Donald, and Erika Hasebe-Ludt.
http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v07n02/metissage/metiscript.html
Mimetic: From the Greek memesis, imitation: The representation of the real world in art, poetry, etc.
Hence, mime, mimic.
Neuroplasticity: The capacity of the brain to change its neural activity and structure, based on its
experiences, including the experience of reading.
New literacies: Regularly changing practices in reading that are required by new technologies such as
gaming software, audio and video technologies, social networking technologies to establish
communities on the Internet, search engines, web page formatting, information aggregators,
and educational platforms.
Orbitals of narrative analysis: Based on the eight-part research frame for study and analysis of narrative
‘data’ developed by Leah C. Fowler. The orbitals include naïve storying, psychological de/re/
construction, psychotherapeutic ethics, narrative craft, hermeneutics, curriculum pedagogy,
poetics of a narrative teaching self, and restorative education. See the website for further
information. http://people.uleth.ca/~leah.fowler/Narrativefowler/Welcome.html
Other, othering: The process by which dominant groups identify those who belong and those who do
not, a process any teacher who observes high school in-groups and cliques will recognize. Also
used politically and socially to exclude those in an economic, gendered, ethnic, linguistic,
cultural, or sexually-oriented minority. In Lacanian terms, the Other signifies everything the
subject is not.
Persuasive essay: A tutored form of writing in school where students gatherinformation to prepare a
formal written argument with clear points, evidence from research, and substantive examples
to persuade a reader to accept the thesis of the argument.
Picture book: An illustrated book in which visual and print texts co-exist, integrated and interdependent;
each requires the other for the complete meaning to emerge. Reading picture books requires a
process of dual (text and visual) decoding.
Primary source evidence: Records created by people contemporary with the time being studied. They
are often written: laws, records, census reports, documents, official accounts, written
instructions, newspapers, diaries, journals, but also maps, drawings, photographs, portraits,
broadcasts, and artifacts. They enable us to contextualize events.
‘Psycho-geography’: Noah Richler’s (2006) term: ‘Any place is only a landscape until it is animated by the
stories that provide its identity…its ‘psycho-geography’.
Reader response theory: Both a critical and a pedagogical approach to literature. Reader-response
focuses on the reader’s unadulterated, felt response to the text, based on his/her own prior
experience, cultural history, knowledge of life, and experience of other texts. See the work of
literature educator and scholar Louise Rosenblatt for origins of this research.
Rhizome: Botanically, the rhizome is a branching stem growing along or under the ground. In literature
and cultural studies, it is a complex metaphor suggesting a de-centered alternative to the
unitary sense of ‘rootedness’ and centralized territory.
Social justice: Refers to a desired state in society based on principles human rights and egalitarian
values without fear of discrimination, bias, or personal harm.
Steampunk: Steampunk fantasy includes social and technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam,
the industrial revolution), usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion
against parts of it (the punk).
Syncretic: To syncretize is to fuse or unify differing or inconsistent schools of thought. In Canadian
literature, the term entails ‘the fusion of radical differences’ (Baker, 2001, p. 220), emphasizing
how SF dovetails with the socio-political reality of an increasingly diverse Canada.
Theme studies: Literature studies focused on large issues at the core of the narrative, where the
attention of the reader is not so much on character, plot, or setting but on the controlling idea
behind the story.
Underground Railroad: A network of safe houses and secret routes used by 19th-century fugitive slaves
escape to free states and to Canada, often with the help of abolitionists and allies.
Visual literacy: The capacity to ‘read’ and visually decode the artifacts of society, moving from close
observation and concrete description, to inferences and generalizations, to creative reflection
and insight.
Young Adult literature (YA): Young adult literature is written for, and marketed to the 12-18 year old reader.
YA fiction is often a variant of the coming-of-age story, with a strong plot line. It highlights
characters and issues that the YA reader can identify with, and that are represented
respectfully, without condescension. It is generally framed in accessible, contemporary, tee
friendly language, with characters a few years older than the intended reader, and told from the
young adult’s point of view. Teachers often select a YA novel as a ‘gateway’ novel to pair with a
canonical counterpart.
Zones of proximal development – in learning processes, this refers to what a child can do or accomplish
with help but could not do alone. This educational range is the main artful work of teachers,
supporting students in accommodating and assimilating new knowledge through strategic
guidance at the optimum time in an effective way. Readiness and appropriate assistance are key
qualities if a child is in the zone of proximal development. If learning situations that are too
difficult and untimely persist, the child becomes frustrated, retreats, and is not able to develop
well. Effective instructional scaffolding practices in teaching rest on this assumption of proximal
development in that there should be modelling, then guided practice, then opportunity for
independent applications and creative extensions for optimum intellectual and emotional
learning growth. [There is a lovely Japanese proverb that says: When a child stands in awe of a
falling flower petal, then is the time to teach the laws of gravity.]