In this first year English class, concentrated on Canadian Literature, the students will be studying the history of the Indian Act, the role of residential schools in the Canadian education system, and ways poets, fiction writers, playwrights, and artists have responded to the long history of legislated racism in Canada. An early assignment for the class will require the students to actively engage with the TRC by either writing a) a review of the “Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools Exhibit” at the Belkin Gallery, b) a reflection on the ethics of witnessing and listening to testimony, or c) an analysis of Marie Campbell’s poem “Jacob” or Louise Bernice Halfe’s poem “Returning.” The students will then study Eden Robinson’s novel Monkey Beach as, in part, a fictional account of the legacy of the residential school system (as well as a coming of age novel set in Northern BC and Vancouver). The TRC provides an important context for the students to think about the variety of stories told about and in Canada as well the role of storytelling in the process of reconciliation and public memory.
