Teaching Canadian Literature in Secondary Schools

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START-UP ACTIVITIES

Some suggested start-up activities for:

Contemporary Realism:  The Beckoners and Stitches

Use students’ own knowledge and experience of bullying, fear, safety, aggression

Suggested questions:
  • Can you remember a time when you felt nervous and unsafe with someone?
  • If you think back to that time, how would you handle it differently now?
  • What do you think causes bullying or aggression?
  • Why are secrets and lies about danger and violence harmful?

Journalling, free-writing, pair discussions allow students to first process the questions with some privacy and safety prior to class discussions.

  • Explanations about bullying as externalization of fear
  • How to deal with anxiety and fear
  • How to confront issues of active and passive harm

Suggested Terms: empathy, social responsibility, moral action


Further discussion topics could include:

  • how characters develop inner ethics?
  • choosing good when no one is watching?
  • literary catharsis blended with interpretive reading: constitutional rights, models of care, becoming wiser and kinder citizens?

Drama improvisation: asking students to think of a time when they were mean to someone or wanted to hurt someone

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