Syllabus from Fall 2006

Here’s the syllabus from the Fall 2006 version of our course:

English 005 TAP:

The Great White North: An Exploration of Canadian Culture

From Canadian music (Arcade Fire, Neil Young, Nelly Furtado, Neil Young, the Barenaked Ladies, and Avril Lavigne to name a few), to Canadians in film and television (actors like Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Kiefer Sutherland, William Shatner and Keanu Reeves; directors such as James Cameron, Atom Egoyan, and David Cronenberg; and newscasters such as John Roberts and the late Peter Jennings), to Canadian literature (authors such as Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Rohinton Mistry and Michael Ondaatje), Americans hear, see, and read work by Canadians on a daily basis. At the same time, most Americans know virtually nothing about the country that is its largest trading partner and with whom they share a remarkable amount of history, not to mention the world’s longest undefended border. In this class, we will focus on Canadian music, film, and literature in order to learn more about our enigmatic neighbor to the north.

As this is an English course, there will be a strong emphasis on Canadian literature; the books we read will help to give you a sense of the broad diversity of the country’s peoples, history, and regions as well as of the richness of its literature. This will also be a technology-driven, writing intensive course that will see you writing, blogging, and even podcasting about your new discoveries about Canada. The course will include a mandatory class trip to Ottawa, Canada’s capital, during which we will visit Parliament, the National Gallery and Museum of Civilisation, and, yes, even attend a hockey game.

This class will be a Residential TAP course and most students will live in Living/Learning’s new Global Village Residential Learning Community. This will allow for a number of extra-curricular activities outside of class time and will enhance the course experience significantly. Those not living in the Global Village will still be required to participate in extra-curricular events connected to Canada House.

For the duration of the course, each student will also be loaned an iPod loaded with Canadian music, audio books, and lectures connected to the topics we will be studying.

Technology



One of the exciting things about this course is that it will be breaking new ground at UVM. For the duration of the Fall semester, you will all be loaned Apple 20 G color iPods and Griffin iTalk microphones to use in this course and, if you wish, for other classes. This project will allow us to test this technology as a teaching tool that, hopefully, UVM will be able to deploy on a wider scale in coming years for courses that would most benefit from access to audio materials. Texts we will be using the iPods to access will include a wide variety of Canadian music, readings or lectures from important writers and thinkers, and excerpts from Canadian radio with a particular focus on comedy programs like The Dead Dog Cafe Comedy Hour, the Vinyl Cafe, and the Vestibules. You will also be watching a lot of Canadian TV!

2006 schedule

August 29: Introduction; Canadian geography; why study Canada?
August 31: group organization, Canadian history
Sept. 5: Distribution of iPods, intro to podcasting
Sept. 7: Blogging workshop
Sept. 12: Library workshop
Sept.14: Cdn history (cont.); Canadian lit
Sept. 19: Reading: Richard Van Camp, Alootook Ipellie; (audio: Thomas King, The Truth About Stories pt. 1-3)
Sept. 21: Canada's North (Guest: Howard Norman) (audio: Thomas King, The Truth About Stories pt. 4-5)
Sept. 26: First Nations; Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach (FINISH reading book by this point)
Sept. 28: Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach
Oct. 3: Eden Robinson visit!
Oct. 5: Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach, presentation about the Writing Center
Oct. 10: The Prairies, Who Has Seen the Wind
Oct. 12: Who Has Seen the Wind
Oct. 17: Canadian political system, ottawa prep
Oct. 19: OTTAWA TRIP
Oct. 24: Ottawa debrief, Ontario readings TBA
Oct. 26: MIDTERM EXAM
Oct. 31: Atlantic Canada
Nov. 2: Atlantic Canada, readings: Alistair MacLeod, Lynn Coady
Nov. 7: SPRING ADVISING MEETINGS, George Elliott Clarke visit 4:00 PM, Marsh Lounge, Billings Student Center
Nov. 9: SPRING ADVISING MEETINGS
Nov. 14: Hockey and Canadian culture; readings Harrison, Carrier, Bidini
Nov. 16: Québec
Nov. 20 - 24: Thanksgiving Recess
Nov. 28: readings TBA
Nov. 30: Quebec film and music
Dec. 5: Canada/US relations
Dec. 7: Last day of classes, TERM PAPER DUE