Grade three students in the Ontario education system learn about "pioneers" to satisfy the requirements of the Social Studies curriculum. Historical fiction can be used as an addition to the curriculum, and may offer children a way to learn about, and perhaps even identify with, Canada's past. The purpose of this study was to problematize two works of historical fiction that have been used in an Ontario classroom: Little house in the big woods (Wilder, 1932), and Ticket to Curlew (Lottridge, 1992). These stories present racialized, colonial depictions of European resettlers (i.e. "pioneers"), and perpetuate preferred or dominant discourses about history (Hall, 1993; Furniss, 1999). Presented as a "micro-context" (Cohen, 1992), this discussion utilizes Snead's (1994) analytical categories (i.e. marking, mythification, and omission) to understand how these works of juvenile historical fiction are racialized through the use of "colonial narratives" (Furniss, 1999). As an alternative to colonial, dominant readings of history, Paul Yee's Tales from Gold Mountain (1989) offers a collection of short stories, which focus on the possible experiences of Chinese-Canadians. While the characters in Wilder's and Lottridge's books are implicitly and explicitly marked as "white," Yee's characters are Chinese, providing readers with non-European Canadian history. Providing alternative narratives is important because, as some literature has shown, students may emotionally or physically disengage from the educational system if they feel that they are not given, nor are they encouraged to seek, negotiated or oppositional (Hall, 1993) readings of history that might reflect their identity, or life experiences (Dei, Mazzuca, Mclssac & Zine, 1998; James, 1994/1995).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/6413 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | McKellar, Kyla. |
| Contributors | Stanley, Timothy J., |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 131 p. |
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