Canlit by law

36 comments on “Canlit by law”

1. Degen says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 8:37 am

   Well, there’s not a whole lot of truly free space in any curriculum is there? It’s pretty much all determined by committee for all sorts of good and bad reasons.

   I’ll file this one in the good reason column. It’s good for students to read the literature of their country.

   Hockey novels? — did they say anything about hockey novels?

2. Nicole says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 10:43 am

   As long as it’s not The Stone Angel or Fifth Business or The Handmaid’s Tale–I’ve been fighting to get these OFF the high school English curriculum for years. Sadly the newer teachers replacing the slowly retiring ancient ones are (usually) just as conservative and under-read as their dusty predecessors, so I’m not hopeful. Will they know any Canadian texts besides these? I knew a teacher who assigned The Shipping News in a grade 12 Can. Lit. course ’cause it takes place in Newfoundland. Poor students. Poor, poor students.

3. ZW says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

   Not surprisingly, if Degen’s going to file it under “good reason”, I’m filing it under “bricks on the road to hell.”

4. DGM says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

   I kinda like Fifth Business, actually. At least there’s humour in it, unlike most CanLit door-stoppers.

   So what books would people here recommend as additions to the curriculum?

5. Paul says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

   I agree that it is good and right for students to study the literature of their own their country. All the civilized countries are doing it, why not ours? When I was teaching in Poland, I was impressed with how well-read young people are there, and how interested they are in their own literature and culture and politics. Canadian students would benefit from a similar level of intellectual engagement with Canadian culture.

   That said, I agree with Nicole Dixon about The Stone Angel. Sixteen and seventeen year old boys should never be forced to read that book. They can’t handle the sheer old womanishness of it. Yes yes yes yes, it would a better world if they could, I know! But that book has turned so many young men off of reading for the rest of their lives. It would be better to give them material more relevent to their interests.

   And The Shipping News? For a high school class? Obviously the teacher never read it. I love Annie Proulx, but I think she’s often a little to edgy for young minds to engage with maturely.

   And DGM? Humour in Fifth Business? I guess so, but for high school students? I think maybe they’re not so much into the kind of humour that makes one briefly look up from the page and whisper to oneself (in a fake, pretentious accent, like Robertson Davies had), “Oh, now that was rather somewhat droll, wasn’t it, hey whot?”

6. John McFetridge says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

   We were just talking about Howard Engel, I’d put a Benny Cooperman on the list, maybe the first one, “The Suicide Murders.”

   And there should be a hockey novel.

   In fact, it might be good to get a little writing from different parts of the country.

   The books are there, we just don’t look very hard.

7. rr says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 5:27 pm

   I think everyone I know who didn’t go to my school read The Stone Angel in high school and hated it. I’ve successfully avoided it so far.
   We read Each Man’s Son and The Mountain and The Valley. I remember them being bad but I have a different opinion if I reread them now. There are books that could be avoided, like The Wars, because they land on university reading lists.
   The problem with forcing kids to read CanLit is we’ll then have a bunch of teenagers forced to read Margaret Atwood.

8. DGM says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

   Paul:

   Fair point r.e. the humour in Fifth Business, sarcasm notwithstanding. Mind you, when I talk to people about CanLit they read in high school in the eighties, the only book that anyone seems to recall with fondness was Fifth Business. Perhaps that sort of writing won’t fly with the younger generation. Come to think of it, I shudder to think what kids today would find funny (I just imagined a group of teens chortling over copies of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, writing out their book report in text-speak on their cellphones. Now I’m depressed…)

   So if not Davies, then what about something by Mordecai Richler? Perhaps What We All Long For by Dionne Brand or Ray Robertson’s Moody Food?

9. DGM says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm

   (I should mention that I was not thinking of “funny” books necessarily when I mentioned Brand and Robertson above. I’m just trying to come up with book suggestions that might appeal to the younger Canucks…)

10. Nicole says:
    July 30th, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    Paul, girls as well as boys should not read The Stone Angel. I wonder if the rash of victim-lit we have nowadays can be traced back to Hagar Shipley and her whining and self-pity.

    I teach Life of Pi to grade 12s and they love it. I’d love to teach Richler, DGM, but the Richler I’d want to teach (St. Urbain’s or Barney’s Version which are so much more interesting than the often taught Duddy) may not be kid-appropriate. Make that principal/board-approved–I think kids these days would love to read about adultery, murder, drinking and sex. And I’m sure they’d find it funny.

    I’ve also taught Coupland’s Terry, mostly ’cause kids have no idea who he was. Does it have to be fiction?

11. melanie says:
    July 30th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    As far as I can recall we always had a Canadian novel or story in our curriculum when I was growing up. I know we had to read Two Solitudes and I really liked it. Of course, I think I’m the only one who did. I think it is a good thing that they “have” to read one Canadian novel a year but I think they need to rethink the ones they are teaching. I mean, it is kind of like the Canadian Content laws we have for music – there is a reason many of us can sing along to Barney Bentall or Kim Mitchell and it isn’t because their music is good – it is because we have been forced to listen to it over and over again.

    Does The Hockey Sweater count as a hockey novel?

12. August says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 12:10 am

    Annie Proulx is edgy? Seriously? No wonder CanLit has a reputation for stodginess.

    That being said I’m perfectly fine with this. CanLit was a part of my high schoole curriculum in Ontario, and not just as an elective. I quite enjoyed The Stone Angel, Barometer Rising, and I suppose The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was alright. Fifth Business isn’t my favourite Davies book by any means, but it was an excellent introduction to his work, and I’m glad I was made to read it.

    I think I’d disagree with most of you about what would be good for a curriculum, though. I doubt I’d have continued reading CanLit at all if I’d had Nicole or Paul’s curriculum. (And a hockey novel? I had enough of that crap shoved down my throat as it was, being in the same high school as Chris Pronger. It’s enough to make me want to pass down my hatred for the game to future generations.)

    If I were to choose, I’d want Laurence and Davies to continue to be included precisely because they probably aren’t at all related to the contemporary students’ world view. The little bastards need to learn about things other than themselves. As for contemporary books, Life of Pi is a no-brainer because it’s light and entertaining and would probably keep them interested, but I can’t help but think that it’d too blunt an instrument to be worth teaching. If I were to include something contemporary, I’d want it to be Michael Helms’ spectacular In the Place of Last Things. It’s a challenging book, but it’s also got excitement and violence and all that other fun stuff.

    But this is probably why I continue to defy my parents and prefer the goal of teaching university to teaching high school. My attitude is very much one of “too hell with catering to their interests and hoping something gets through, teach them something worth learning”.

13. August says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 12:12 am

    Wow. I really need to learn to spell.

14. brian p says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 3:07 am

    How sad.

    Why is it that almost everyone decries CanCon on commercial radio
    (with good reason), yet seem excited about forced CanCon of literature
    in schools? At least one can turn the radio off — or switch the channel.
    The poor kids, on the other hand, get trapped with “The Handmaid’s Tale”
    or one of Coupland’s passionless ironic irrelevancies.

    Are there good and worthy Cdn novels, short stories to teach? Of course. But unless
    the teaching profession has increased in quality since I was in high school
    ‘69- ‘74, any legislated Canadian texts will more often than not mean
    the dispensing of popular novels, and then be even more repetitive since the pool
    of titles is much smaller. (”Lord Of The Flies” gets taught perennially not just
    because it’s cheap to buy, but because it dispenses a message which school
    administrators and teachers find in their best self-interest.)

    And of course, it begs the question: if an extra Canadian novel has to be included in
    the syllabus, what worthy novel will have to be dropped to make room for it?
    If a passionate and discriminating teacher could, depending on the peculiar
    needs and desires of her or his class, come up with eight good novels, all Canadian,
    and engage those students, encouraging to read and respond to it as literature (not
    CanCon), then I say “well done”. But what is more likely to happen is that a few
    prematurely (or incorrectly) enshrined Canadian authors will be read over and over
    and over ….. and over again for years. I think that’s sad for students, for
    Canadian literature, for discriminating teachers, and for Canadian writers, who
    have one more irrelevant marketing niche avenue in which to aspire.

    One more thing: what’s with the comments thinking that the only thing that matters
    is to keep the kids entertained (re “at least it was funny”, “one hockey novel”, etc.)?
    The teaching of literature should be challenging to students, not pandering to them;
    we’re not supposed to be competing with computer text and TV for the race to see
    who can attract their shrinking attention spans. The curricula should fight that,
    not throw in the towel and join in. (David Solway has many cogent things to say on
    that point in his “Lying About The Wolf”.)

15. Nathan says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 8:26 am

    The best way to get a young adult interested in a particular author or book is to not have a high school teacher teach it to them.

    Whatever books made it onto the syllabi would be selected by the most bloodless, literature-hating (but well-intentioned!) panel of dullards imaginable. And any school board would cave at the slightest whiff of parental approval.

    Piling CanCon regulations atop an already joy-killing educational system would do nothing but provide Penguin, some of the Random House imprints, and a few CanLit usual suspects with a steady stream of back-catalogue royalties.

16. Nathan says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am

    (Sorry: that’s “parental disapproval – though I’m sure there are school boards willing to cave in the face of either.)

17. Nicole says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Uh, are any of you high school teachers or students? Man y’all seem out of touch with 16-18 year olds. I interact with them constantly and still don’t quite “get” them but the books you’re recommending just would not fly with these tech-savvy, visually-stimulated teens. No, I don’t mean we need to have “fun” or “funny” books on the curriculum, but what kid nowadays wants to read about anything that happened prior to 1980? Ye olde small-town childhood? Snore. I also definitely don’t want to imply that these kids need “easy” texts–on the contrary they are (mostly) very bright, very socially aware and very frustrated that us adults think otherwise. Life of Pi is very teachable and that’s an important thing to consider when one chooses a book to teach. I’m glad some of you liked Fifth Business and Duddy, but they probably seemed a lot more relevant in 1974 or 1989 or 1992. It’s 2008. There’s been a lot written in Canada since 1970 when Fifth Business was first published or 1959 for Duddy. Perhaps someone who graduated from high school in 1974 would not like my curriculum, but my students are actually very happy.

    Coupland passionless? Have you read Terry, Brian?

18. Monica says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 10:05 am

    I have two kids in high school, and, as far as i know, they haven’t had and CanLit mandated in their cirriculum. Not even Stone Angel. I’d like it if they were able to choose their own Canlit book to read. They snored through Great Expectations.

19. Monica says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 10:05 am

    had “any”

20. Degen says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Oh, the drama — bricks on the road to hell, bloodless literature-hating panel of dullards.

    The schools are broken for sure. Is a bit of CanCon in the workings going to fix them? Nope. Will it break them more? Nope. But happy accidents do happen at school. One person’s lord of the flies is another’s Lord of the Freaking Flies, Man!

    I read the noble, tired, old Hockey Sweater to my kids and now, to my hogtown shame, they are Habs fans. They also learned some Canadian geography, and history, and asked me some really challenging questions about God and moths. Happy accidents on the road to hell, clearly.

    My special lady-friend (that’s the current term, right?) teaches university in the US, and always manages to get Running in the Family on her class lists. I like to think its because she took a CanLit course when she was at U of T. And of course in the US, Running in the Family isn’t CanLit. It’s just Lit.

21. August says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 12:49 pm

    I think there’s a fundamental difference between expecting Canadian literature to be taught in schools and the CanCon laws for television and radio. The argument against CanCon laws in commercial venues is always “if it’s good enough, people will buy it anyway”, which is not even remotely accurate. For starters, and this is more true with television than it is with music, is that they won’t have access to it. American production companies produce in such bulk, with such a large audience in mind, that they can often sell syndication rights at a significant discount and still make ends meet, to the point where it can be cheaper–substantially cheaper–for a Canadian broadcaster to purchase two American shows than even one Canadian show. The CBC may have a mandate to produce and promote Canadian content, but without the CanCon laws, does Global, or CTV, or any other Canadian broadcaster? Hell no. Their mandate is to make as much money as possible with as little overhead as possible. Which means they will buy two cheaper American programs over one expensive Canadian program any day of the week. CanCon laws have resulted in some stupid decisions and some poorly made material, but they have also kept Canadians in the marketplace in a situation where the quality of the product often has little to do with its success.

    Teaching Canadian literature in schools is something else entirely. Part of the point of schools, as I remember it, is to help students become knowledgeable, self-aware members of our society. Not just a society, but our society. I think that means that they should be exposed to the art that our society produces. In almost any other country, this would not be a discussion at all. It would be taken for granted.

    One of the major problems we have, though, is that we still don’t widely agree on which books are our mostly culturally significant, so there’s always going to be considerable debate about what books it would be best to expose students to. One thing I think, though, is that when they are younger, it is perfectly fine to teach books that would have obvious appeal (like Life of Pi) and be easy to break down into the nonsense that passes for literary study in high school. I think, though, that in order for students to become knowledgeable and self-aware members of our society, they’re going to have to suck it up and take a serious look at things that don’t have immediate appeal for them, but that our society has somehow still declared to have value. And I think that when they reach the upper grades (the few that still study literature, because after a point it does, in Ontario at least, become and elective) they should be made to confront those books.

    (And for the record, I have taught summer school for grades 4-7, and was a TA at the university level–1st year and 4th year classes–for two years.)

22. brian p says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 2:14 pm

    Nicole:

    I’m not recommeding ANY books in particular. That’s the point. There’ll be as many
    opinions as there are people for what should make the grade. But what happens with
    this new mandate is that many books automatically WON’T be taught because of time
    restrictions since they’re squeezed out of the syllabi.

    What kid wants to read about anything that happened before 1980? Now that is a funny
    thought. I suppose we should junk history classes, then, since no kid wants to
    (or should have to) read about those boring, inconsequential shocks (WW2, etc..) and the literature
    of the time which was inspired by those events. I interact with enough kids to
    know that they want compelling stories whenever they were written.

    And “The Life Of Pi”?? Ha. What’s particularly Canadian about that novel other than
    the fact it was written by a resident? It was set in India, on an ocean, and on a
    deserted, exotic island. I can think of hundreds of American and European novels
    which have more direct ties to the world of “today’s youth” than does Martel’s book.

    As to Duddy and Fifth Business (again I’m not recommending specific books here),
    their “relevance” is subjective, and I find it curious that you fail to argue
    your position on this. Again, opinions. Great, but I don’t want a busybody
    administrator who has dainty tastes or certain axes to grind to make the
    decision regarding what is or isn’t “relevant”.

    I’ll respond to the CanCon argument later.

23. DGM says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Nicole:

    In regards to Richler and age-appropriate literature… before I re-read Fifth Business a few months ago, one of my teenage memories about the book was that it included a lesbian sex scene. Obviously there’s a lot more to the book than that, but then again it wasn’t enough to get the book removed from the curriculum back then. Mind you, I also had a Grade Twelve teacher who showed the class the Polanski-directed version of ‘Macbeth’ including the nude scenes. Maybe I was just lucky to have teachers who respected the judgements of their students? These days, it only takes one parental complaint to get a book pulled from the school library, as we saw with The Golden Compass. I guess the real problem is finding a novel or story collection that won’t raise objections (and of course, any book that doesn’t rasie objections from anyone is probably worthless in the first place).

    /forty minutes to go before quittin’ time… mind wandering…

24. Nathan says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    I think students should be forced to read Kim Mitchell.

25. melanie says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 10:18 pm

    Nicole: How about William Gibson? You can’t get more tech savvy than that these days and he is Canadian although isn’t considered “Canadian Lit” since he doesn’t really write about the weather (as defined by Coupland in this article: [see link above]).

    Nathan: The musician? Do you mean read his lyrics? That’s taking the CanCon laws a little far if you ask me (which you didn’t). :)

26. brian p says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 12:21 am

    August says:

    “I think there’s a fundamental difference between expecting Canadian literature to be taught in schools and the CanCon laws for television and radio. The argument against CanCon laws in commercial venues is always “if it’s good enough, people will buy it anyway”, which is not even remotely accurate. For starters, and this is more true with television than it is with music, is that they won’t have access to it.”

    But I specifically used the example of music — not TV — didn’t I? The argument, with good
    reason, is indeed “if it’s good enough, people will buy it”. Radio programmers are in the
    business of selling ad space. To do that, you need listeners. To attract listeners, you
    have to give them what they want. Programmers regularly solicit listeners — at site
    specific tests for new music (as well as ranking of their existing playlists), as well
    as sending polls out to random listeners. If the public tells them they don’t like
    Canadian music, they listen, and program their shows accordingly. The public gets
    exactly what it wants, whether it’s good or bad.

    With classroom book lists, the powers that be in this new mandate think that CanCon
    doesn’t get enough respect — from teachers, students, and the general public. Two
    questions emerge: if they DO think this are they justified by certain rationale?
    if they DON’T think this, why the need to legislate content?

    Unlike the bottom line forces of commercial radio, school administrators can decree
    whatever they want with no danger of losing their jobs. Teaching can (and does) fall
    apart, ineffective course material is promoted, and if the students don’t like it …
    well, “hey, kids are just into video games and TV anyway, so at least we’re trying
    to do the right thing”. But against what some others here are saying (and against
    the commercial ethos), if kids DO like the books, that’s no guarantee, either,
    that the course load decisions were correct. The difficult task is to combine
    inspired teaching with challenging and worthy books (with merit over CanCon).

    P.S. Most commercial radio stations get around the CanCon restrictions by playing
    the majority of the 30% mandate in the dead hours of the night and morning, though I
    believe some of it must still be played in prime time. And, just as forced CanCon
    lit will devolve into a tight commercial band of Atwood and Ondaatje (with a few
    others thrown in), so too does radio play the same few enshrined pop Canadian hits
    over and over and over, since they know people will prefer Bachman-Turner for
    the thousandth time instead of a risky first-time indie act.

27. August says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 am

    I worked at a radio station for a year as a host (I’ve had so many jobs in so many fields, you have no idea), and though the licenses are all slightly different depending on the station’s format, the percentage was measured per hour, not per day.

    Other points I will address later.

28. hysperia says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 3:32 am

    Not sure why the hell it has to be a LAW, but it’s good policy. I went through high school without reading a SINGLE piece
    of Canadian literature. In fact, I didn’t know there was such a thing. My response, when finally I found it, was to read nothing BUT Can Lit for quite some time – not necessarily the best thing, but it was just amazing feeling that some part of “me” was reflected in a work of fiction. When I read Atwood’s “Edible Woman”, I was just thrilled to recognize parts of Toronto. This reflection of our race, nationality, age, gender and so forth, has deep psychological importance, almost, but not quite, regardless of the quality of the work.

29. George says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 6:58 am

    Hey all, just a reminder: as your posts get longer, you near the time limit for the captcha image, so once you finish typing a long response, it’s good practice to select it and copy it before trying to post it. This way if the post fails, you can just select comment again and paste the text in.

    As you were.

    This PSA brought to you by Bookninja.com.

30. Nathan says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 8:49 am

    “Wave Babies” would also make a good addition to any high school syllabus.

31. Degen says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 8:54 am

    Why do we get so hung up on the law? This is starting to sound a bit like the increasingly annoying copyright lecture, I mean personal vendetta, I mean ego-driven career build, I mean debate being sponsored by Michael Geist.

    Policy/law. Same deal unless you live in a police state, which we don’t (Michael Geist). Zed might disagree, but we live in a civil society. This is legislation designed to encourage, not punish (unless the kids have to read Vermeersch — ho, zinga!). I’m guessing no BC teachers will be spending time in jail for their brave resistance and refusal to teach anything but the “good stuff.”

    Paul — you know I love you.

32. ZW says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    Degen, it’s so neat how you use ridiculous hyperbole to dismiss reasonable concerns. Obviously, punishment in this context wouldn’t mean jail time. It could potentially result in disciplinary action against a teacher, however. I don’t think that’s terribly likely, tho, since the legislation will no doubt go unimplemented (due to lack of available funds) and unenforced when implemented (due to principals and dept. heads having way more important things deal with), rendering it effectively useless.

    But punishment isn’t the main issue. Yeah, we live in a civil society–see, I don’t always disagree with you–and most citizens in a civil society feel obliged to follow laws, even in many cases laws they don’t agree with. (There’s a crazy notion in civil societies that laws exist for good reasons.) And in this case, making a set percentage of Canadian content in ELA classes mandatory is in conflict with an existing, long-established and very important policy: that of a teacher’s autonomy in setting curriculum. This is a policy “designed to encourage” teachers to shape their courses in such a way that they suit the individual needs of their particular classes. Granted, there are obstacles to teachers doing this (aforementioned lack of funds, parental and school board interference), but the right in principle exists–and it is precisely that right that will protect dissenting teachers from punishment in the unlikely event that there are any grievances over the non-implementation of the Cancon policy.

    So, to sum up, at worst this law is prohibitive and incompatible with the BCTF CBA and at best it’s completely and utterly useless, a huge waste of time on the part of activists who would have been better off directing their time and resources to more constructive ways of fostering the teaching of Canadian literature in schools.

    I’d also like to address Paul’s earlier point about Poland. The principle difference between Poland and Canada, in terms of teaching literature, is that Poland HAS ITS OWN LANGUAGE, a language spoken and written by very few people outside of Poland. In Canada, we’re not simply citizens of a country, but speakers, readers and writers of the dominant grapholect. This poses interesting challenges, as we all know, but offers far more by way of opportunity, particularly since so much of the world’s literature is available translated into English. Were I a teacher and had the choice of teaching Atwood/Ondaatje or Laxness/Coetzee, it would be a no-brainer. Ideally, there would be enough books taught in high school classes that a fair range of world literature could be included in the curriculum, but in practice, maybe one or two books a year get taught in most public school courses. There are very very few Canadian novels that I would want to occupy my top two slots in a class.

    I wonder if anyone can shed light on this question, because I have no idea: In Quebec, do they have these sorts of inane “we should be reading Hébert, not Balzac” arguments. Much as I dislike the language policing in Quebec, it seems to me, based on my time in Montreal, that they have a broader fondness for francophonie–and less insecurity about their place in it–than we do for the bigger anglophone world.

33. Degen says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    Z, sorry, what was that about ridiculous hyperbole?

34. ZW says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Good one, dude, ya got me!

35. Roland says:
    August 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 am

    Damn, debates about Canadian identity issues read like Beckett plays whenever I’m out of the country.

36. Degen says:
    August 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm

    My favorite part is the summing up.

Discuss