Embedded Files
Stories matter. For me, as an avid reader and a scholar and teacher of (Indigenous) literatures, this has always been clear. As a teacher, it is my goal, duty, and honour to guide students to an understanding and appreciation of the power of stories as they permeate and shape our lives. In her collection of poetry Blue Marrow, Cree poet Louise Bernice Halfe refers to stories as "wîhkês," or "med-sins" in English: stories can wound, and stories can heal. Similarly, the stories we tell as teachers can harm or heal. For me, teaching thus comes with a great responsibility to care, to be respectful and humble, and to be intentional in what, how, and why I teach.
I teach because education has the potential to change a person and to catalyze social change through the alternative stories we tell. And I teach because sharing and creating knowledge with my students energizes me and makes my students and I grow as human beings. Inspired by my reading and researching Indigenous literatures and by the various linguistic, cultural, and professional settings I have taught in, my teaching philosophy and practice are thus deeply rooted in the values of growth and diversity. I aim to help my students grow by making stories come alive, by creating a safe, welcoming community of learning, cultivating academic and soft skills and metacognitive reflections among my students through mentoring, and by transferring knowledge in an accessible, embodied, decentered, and reciprocal way. This involves a deep commitment to principles of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity and decolonizing the curriculum.
Louise B. Halfe refers to stories "wîhkês," or "med-sins", agents of harm and healing. The stories we tell as teachers can harm or heal.
Teaching is making stories come alive. At the start of the semester in ‘C LIT 101: World Literature I,’ some students were skeptical about likely having to read stuffy stories by mostly white male authors. A skepticism I share based on my experience in a Western education system, and one I encourage students to explore to arrive at new understandings of world literature not as a canon of greatness determined by Western scholars, but as a world-wide body of literature that continually evolves and challenges Western notions of which stories merit our attention. For this course, I thus created a diverse reading list that includes text from across the world (see here). My students and I explored these older narratives to see what they can still teach us today. Being able to connect the stories we read to contemporary societal issues, including colonialism, feminism, and racism, is consistently identified by students as one of the most useful and engaging aspects of my teaching.
I firmly believe that people learn as whole human beings. From my research in Indigenous literary studies, I have come to understand learning as an embodied experience not only “achieved” (learning never stops) through intellectual reflection but also through doing and by attending to your emotional and physical responses. While all students learn as whole human beings bringing their beliefs, knowledges, and emotions to their learning experience, each student also learns differently. Therefore, I center variety and diversity in my course design (see ). Two examples of my encouraging students to learn as whole human beings are: 1. Flexibility in the type of assignment students can choose from (creative piece or academic response paper), and 2. The Treaty 6 black out poem assignment (see below). This assignment, that I adopt in several courses, asks students to engage with Treaty 6 in a well-rounded, embodied way: they are asked to read, think, reflect, do, and create. In this way, students learn about and engage with reconciliation, our understanding of what counts as literature, and the analysis of ‘non-literary’ texts from a literary perspective. Every time we do this exercise in class, students naturally talk with their neighbours about their poems, read each other's work, encourage one another: they learn together in reciprocal ways.
My students and I work together to create a safe comfortable learning community and environment. As an instructor it is my responsibility to create an environment where students are comfortable to express themselves, to make mistakes, and to grow. But I cannot create this space by myself. Students need to be involved in building their classroom community and therefore we come up with guidelines for the classroom together. Engaging students in these classroom building conversations also helps them develop soft skills and metacognition. It helps them become good communicators, build teamwork skills, and reflect on how they learn.
I also implement ‘skills blocks’ into my lessons to further cultivate soft and academic skills and metacognition among students. These skills include literary analysis & poetic devices, writing, and presenting (see sample course materials). The writing and analysis practice is particularly appreciated by my students . As one of them noted in an anonymous mid-semester evaluation: “the class portions dedicated to writing are most helpful as well as learning to analyze via presentations.” I also provide ample feedback on students’ assignments to help them improve their writing, analysis, and thinking for the course and next assignments, for their academic trajectory, and for whatever path they choose in life.
"People learn as whole human beings"
Image: Yvette DeChavez
Throughout my teaching, I am committed to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity and decolonizing the curriculum. Currently informed by Aubrey Hanson’s work and the special issue on teaching Indigenous literatures in Studies in American Indian Literatures, I continue to grow as a respectful and relational teacher. I continually develop my understanding of how (settler) colonialism and other forms of oppression continue to influence our society and education, turn my attention to knowledges that have traditionally been marginalized in academia, consider the diversity of my students, and ensure that the learning content and methodologies move beyond Western frameworks. Diversifying the reading list in my world literature course is one practical example. Diversifying alone, however, does not require the learner to engage with and confront racism and colonialism. Much of my literature teaching engages with rethinking Western literature theories (and canon) from non-Western perspectives, for example through work in global Indigenous literary studies, to explore how literature is a construct and how it can be decolonially re-imagined. It also involves decentering the teacher as the ‘authority’ in the classroom. I try to accomplish this through group work among students and student-led discussions. While I have started this work, encouraged by my wonderful students, I challenge myself to evolve in this area of teaching. Teaching, EDI, and decolonizing the curriculum are thus not only about what stories we tell but also how and why we tell them. The stories we read together, the ones we tell as teachers, and the stories our students tell us, all matter.
Find my full teaching dossier in PDF format here. In addition to the materials of the e-portfolio, the PDF includes further reflections on improving my teaching, selected sample activities, and so on.
Page updated
Report abuse