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CRI 560 Topics in Creative Industries:

Indigenous Peoples Storying

Meeting dates: September 4, 2019 to November 27, 2019 Location: International Living and Learning Center 100 (ILC100)

Meeting time: Wednesdays 3 pm to 6 pm.

Instructor: Dr. Michael G. Doxtater School of Creative Industries

Email: mdoxtater@ryerson.ca Office hours: By appointment

1. Course description:

In Indigenous Peoples Storying, the CRI 560 learning community explores a variety of styles of

writing that includes scholarship, philosophy, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction about Indigenous

Peoples by non-Indigenous Peoples. Themes includes the monstrous, noble savages, and the

vanishing race. We examine writers like Shakespeare, D.C. Scott, Mark Twain, Emily Carr, and

Isabella Valency-Crawford. Multiliteracies in human communication begins with two questions

that help understand peoples' cultural presuppositions. Do we think in words or do we think in

thoughts? How do we take in information through our eyes and ears, and the transaction that

produces spoken or written words? The course exposes course members to the multiliteracies

required to interpret signs and symbol of culture, and tand. he cultural presuppositions of the

various authors.

2. Course overview:

As an introduction to multiliteracies, CRI 560 gives learning community members opportunities to

collaboratively design and cooperatively inquire into the weekly topics. Each week the seminar

examines graphic, textual, and audio-visual materials. The central focus for seminar members is

reading or viewing materials, and describing their understanding of what is being communicated.

Seminar members become familiar with the nature of inquiry and accustomed to the discipline for

reading and writing. The collaborative design for the course with the seminar members includes

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the organization of the weekly reading lists, designation of rapporteurs and discussants,

assessment and evaluation.

(a) Specific intended Learning Community Outcomes

To complete this course, members demonstrate their ability to:

1. become familiar with meaning schema and concept mapping;

2. interpret, translate, and construct knowledge in their written work;

3. use critical pedagogy and critical literacy in the self-assessment of their writing;

4. compare, contrast, and critique ideas;

5. develop critical review, analysis, and writing skills.

It’s all about reading and writing.

(b) Textbooks/Readings

Shakespeare The Tempest*

Mark Twain “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians”

Emily Carr Klee Wyck*

Daniel Quinn Ishmael*

(*Available from the bookstore.)

Other readings and materials delivered in session or on Brightspace.

3. Criteria for excellence

Successful completion of this course depends on:

(1) Knowledge and use of all assigned materials;

(2) Completing all assigned written work;

(3) Handing in work when due;

(4) Participating in all scheduled sessions.

4. Evaluation Schema

The seminar involves weekly presentations by the seminar facilitator (Doxtater) to frame and

organize the meetings. Each meeting begins with a description of the agenda, facilitator remarks,

activities for the day, and involvement by seminar members in the delivery or tasks listed below.

Seminar member duties, responsibilities, and task ownership includes:

1. Critical reflection: four (4) thought papers on issues, discussions, presentations, and

readings. All thought papers will be completed in-class (10 marks each). 40 percent

2. Team Learning: using resources provided in-class, multimedia systems, and research

conducted by teams, this exercise in organizational-learning posits the locus of control in

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the teams to co-generate their findings through collaboratively designed exhibits for public

presentation in The Catalyst on November 20, 2019. 25 percent

3. Reading reports: two 500-word reports (not reviews) on reading resources from the

seminar; an exercise that provides seminar members with practice in writing synopses or

abstracts. Due October 9 and November 13, 2019. 10 percent

4. Final paper: based on a list of topics discussed and approved by the seminar, the essay

(1200 words) examines one (1) topic area examined in the seminar. To be submitted

November 27, 2019. 15 percent

5. Participation: a personal performance evaluation based on all completed work, seminar

leadership, and a collaborative assessment is be included in the seminar member’s final

grade. To be completed November 27, 2019. 10 percent

Late policy: delayed assignment delivery will be pre-approved for serious and extenuating life and

death circumstances. Simple requests for additional time to complete projects and/or

assignments for other seminars is not an acceptable reason. Late assignments will be graded

“zero” (0).

Grading Method

All components of this course will receive numerical percentage marks. The final grade you receive for the course will be derived by converting your numerical course average to a letter grade according to Ryersons’s Official Grade Conversion Scale:

Ryerson’s Official Grade Conversion Scale

Grade Numerical Course

Average (Range)

A+ 90-100

A 85-89

A- 80-84

B+ 77-79

B 73-76

B- 70-72

C+ 67-69

C 63-66

C- 60-62

D+ 57-59

D 53-56

D- 50-52

F and below

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5. Ryerson University Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity

This policy is premised on the commitment of the University to foster and uphold the highest

standards of academic integrity, the fundamental values of which are honesty, trust, fairness,

respect, responsibility, courage. These values are central to the development and sharing of

knowledge.

All members of the University community, including faculty, students, graduate assistants (GAs),

and staff, have a responsibility to adhere to and uphold them in their teaching, learning,

evaluation, research, and creative activity. This includes a responsibility to take action if they have

reasonable grounds for thinking that academic misconduct has occurred.

Academic Misconduct is any behaviour that undermines the university’s ability to evaluate fairly

students’ academic achievements, or any behaviour that a student knew, or reasonably ought to

have known, could gain them or others unearned academic advantage or benefit, counts as

academic misconduct. Included in academic misconduct are: Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism;

contract cheating; cheating; misrepresentation of personal identity or performance; submission of

false information; contributing to academic misconduct; damaging, tampering, or interfering with

the scholarly environment; unauthorized use of intellectual property; misconduct in re-graded/re-

submitted work. While this list characterizes the most common instances of academic misconduct,

it is not intended to be exhaustive. A more comprehensive list of inclusions can be found in

Appendix A within the Policy.

Suspicions of academic misconduct may be referred to the Academic Integrity Office

(AIO). Students who are found to have committed academic misconduct will have a Disciplinary

Notation (DN) placed on their academic record (not on their transcript) and will normally be

assigned one or more of the following penalties:

• A grade reduction for the work, ranging up to an including a zero on the work (minimum

penalty for graduate work is a zero on the work)

• A grade reduction in the course greater than a zero on the work. (Note that this penalty

can only be applied to course components worth 10% or less, and any additional penalty

cannot exceed 10% of the final course grade. Students must be given prior notice that such

a penalty will be assigned (e.g. in the course outline or on the assignment handout)

• An F in the course

• More serious penalties up to and including expulsion from the University

6. Ryerson University and Copyright

The university does not condone copyright infringement by students. Students who copy or

communicate copyright-protected works should either obtain the permission of the copyright

owner or be satisfied that copying or communicating the works falls under Ryerson University

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existing licences OR within one of the exceptions in the Copyright Act. The university is not liable

for any infringing copies made or communicated by students including such copies made or

communicated using copiers or scanners made available by the university or material that is

uploaded by a student to D2L or to the Internet.

For general information about copyright see: Copyright Basics

Existing Licences

Ryerson University is covered under some existing agreements and licences that have certain

terms of use or conditions of use for the communication and copying of covered works.

Ryerson already has existing licences that covers a wide variety of content:

A) Electronic e-books and electronic journals. Much of the material in the library collection allow

you to make use of the material for your personal research and your own private study and

download a single copy or portion of a work for your use only, however this is not always the case.

If there are digital locks or technological protection measures on materials you cannot circumvent

these to gain access to copies of material. Ryerson University Electronic Resources are covered by

various Terms of Use for each resource and it is your responsibility to read these terms of use

before copying material. See our general Electronic Resources Terms of Use statement.

B) For copying and communication of other published works please use the Access Copyright

Licence until Dec 31st, 2015. This licence covers the use of excerpts of certain works only. To

check if a work is covered under the Access Copyright licence please read these instructions. This

licence expires Dec 31st, 2015 and is not being renewed. Please see the Section on Fair Dealing

below after that date.

Copyright Exceptions

Fair Dealing

Fair dealing is a user’s right in Canadian copyright law which allows for short excerpts of a work to

the copied without permission for certain purposes such as education, private study, research and

criticism. Ryerson University has adopted the Ryerson University Fair Dealing Guideline which is

based on the Universities Canada (formerly AUCC) Fair Dealing Policy for Universities. The Ryerson

University Fair Dealing Guideline applies to faculty members, instructors and staff members of the

university. The guideline permits faculty members, instructors and staff members to communicate

and reproduce short excerpts of copyright-protected works for specified purposes without

infringing copyright.

Definition of Short Excerpt

Ryerson University Fair Dealing Guideline defines a short excerpt as:

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• up to 10% of a copyright-protected work (including a literary work, musical score, sound

recording, and an audiovisual work)

• one chapter from a book

• a single article from a periodical

• an entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map,

chart, and plan) from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works

• an entire newspaper article or page

• an entire single poem or musical score from a copyright-protected work containing other

poems or musical scores

• an entire entry from an encyclopedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary or similar

reference work provided that in each case, no more of the work is copied than is required

in order to achieve the allowable purpose.

Copyright Infringement and Exceptions

It is an infringement of copyright to copy all or a substantial part[1] of a copyright-protected work

or to communicate all or a substantial part of a copyright-protected work to the public[2] by

telecommunication without the consent of the holder of the copyright, unless copying or

communicating the work falls within an exemption from copyright infringement. One of the main

exemptions is the fair dealing exemption.

The Fair Dealing Exception

The fair dealing exemption in the Copyright Act (sections 29, 29.1 and 29.2) provides that fair

dealing with a copyright-protected work for one of the following eight purposes: research, private

study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire or parody, does not infringe copyright.

Any fair dealing for the purpose of news reporting, criticism or review must however mention the

source and, if given in the source, the name of the author or creator of the work.

Depending on the circumstances, a student may copy or communicate a short excerpt of a

copyright-protected work under the fair dealing exemption without the permission of the

copyright holder and without infringing copyright.

Ryerson University Fair Dealing Guideline and Students

Ryerson University Fair Dealing Guideline does not apply to students except to the extent that a

student is an employee of the university, e.g. as a teaching assistant or instructor. The university

does not condone copyright infringement by students. Students who copy or communicate

copyright-protected works should either obtain the permission of the copyright owner or be

satisfied that copying or communicating the works falls within one of the exceptions in

the Copyright Act, such as fair dealing. The university is not liable for any infringing copies made or

communicated by students including such copies made or communicated using copiers or

scanners made available by the university.

If you are using fair dealing in your course work for the purposes of research, review, criticism or

news reporting you need to cite the source and give a full citation of the work you are using. This

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is very important if you are publicly posting short excerpts of copyrighted material to the public

Internet for a classroom assignment, for example using a photo in a blog.

For information regarding the Ryerson University Fair Dealing Guideline and Canada’s copyright

law, contact Ann Ludbrook, Copyright Librarian at copyrt@ryerson.ca.

Open Access and Creative Commons Works

You might want to consider using open access or Creative Commons licensed material in your

assignments or when you are copying or communicating materials you have created, since under

an open access licence you may even be able use this material for commercial use, or remix and

adapt it as long as you attribute or cite correctly.

What is Open Access?

“In the most general sense Open Access refers to unrestricted Internet access to articles and other

works published in scholarly journals. Generally “open access” users have the right to “read,

download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles.” (Quoted from About

DOAJ) Increasingly there is a community of people that are releasing their music, video, images

and text under a Creative Commons licence that allow others to reuse their work as long as it is

attributed and the terms of the licence are abided by.

Open Access does NOT usually mean copyright-free, although it may occasionally do so. Open

Access articles and papers have been released to the public through a Creative Commons License

or other Open Content License that retains copyright for the creator(s). It is important you read

the wording of the license that is attached to the material you would like to use carefully if you are

considering commercial use, or want to adapt or remix the work to make sure that this is allowed.

Here is a search resource for finding text, images and music and videos that can be used without

copyright clearance for student assignments and sometimes even commercial use:

Creative Commons Search

For more information on finding images that you can use in your work, please see:

Open Access Image Resources

[1] For a discussion of what constitutes a substantial part of a copyright-protected work see

the Fair Dealing Policy for Universities: General Application.

[2] In general, a communication is to the public if the recipients are not restricted to individuals

that are purely in a domestic relationship.

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CRI 560 Sessional Weekly Schedule

1. Session One: September 4

Introduction and discussion of seminar schedule and organization of our meetings.

2. Session Two: September 11

How things came to be the way they are. Master Narratives and cultural presuppositions, codes of

ethics and honour, ultimate truths, the battle against death to preserve life, perfectionism,

conceptions on the Good Life. A critical review of how we know what we know, who taught us

that, and what we think about that.

For today’s discussion, let’s consider how signs and symbols of culture include slogans, proverbs,

and maxims that communicate a conception of the Good Life as part of cultural perceptions that go-

without-saying. Bring some slogans you can think of i.e. “It’s a dog eat dog world.” “Life’s a box

of chocolates.” “If you’re so smart how come you’re not rich.” Then we answer our own question.

GROUP ONE: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

3. Session Three: September 18

Drama and theatre as a liturgical act is transmitted in the craft of playwriting and screenwriting. .

Many times writers pose codes and value systems in their dramas to help people overcome their

fears worries and threats as redemption. The Tempest presents characters who live by codes and

value systems.

Fear and dread includes depictions of the monstrous. Sychorax. Leviathan. Demons. Serpents.

Satan. By the 1800s there are Frankensteins, Jekyls, Draculas creating fear of the unknown,

mimetic transference for death and the struggle against death.

After September 13, we finalize the seminar schedule and content, respondent and discussion

leadership schedule.

GROUP TWO: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

4. Session Four: September 25

Drama and theatre as a liturgical act that redeems the audience through tragedy or comedy. Many

times writers dramatize events and communicate values, ethics, and honour in their characters and

storytelling. We examine the craft of playwriting and screen writing. We’ll watch The Tempest as

screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s drama. Watching people performing the play in aspectual ways

greatly adds to an understanding of multiliteracies at work in theatre. Voicing. Expression.

Movement.

GROUP THREE: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

We’ll also spend some time writing the FIRST THOUGHT PAPER!

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5. Session Five: October 2

The era in the mid-1800s represents a dichotomy between an idea of “peace on Earth and goodwill

toward all men” and manifest destiny and the highest good. In Mark Twain’s novella Huck Finn &

Tom Sawyer Among the Indians, heading west shows codes of honour held by Tom and Huck, the

Mills family, and the Indians. We pursue this discussion to the end of Chapter 4. The code that

governs Brace, Huck, Tom and the Indians leads to concepts of motivations.

GROUP FOUR: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

6. Session Six: October 9

The conflict in codes of honour in Mark Twain leads to an unavoidable truth that stopped Twain

from writing the ending. The captivity narratives tell a different story about freedom and liberty that

remains in sharp contrast to the rule of law and indigenous rights.

Mark Twain left the novel unfinished. Conclusions could be varied and different. Yet there remains

the overall conflict in the writer about what is right and just, and what is the reality.

GROUP FIVE: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

We can wonder how it all could end in the SECOND THOUGHT PAPER

DUE TODAY: FIRST READING REPORT

7. Session Seven: Fall Study Week October 12 to 18

8. Session Eight: October 23

The has been a dialectical that goes without saying in Canada. There is the Social Darwinian view

of fittest. And there has also been the Social Gospel view. As we view Emily Carr, there are two

lenses we need to look through to understand what Carr was seeing. Klee Wyck gives Canadian

Literature a place in the discussion about codes of honour and ethics that center a distinctly

Canadian Conception of the Good Life.

GROUP SIX: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

9. Session Nine: October 30

With D’sonoqua a sense of witchery inheres in Carr’s view of the coastal Other, but also the

Washing of the Tears is described as important to the Vanishing-Not-So-Fast Race. In Klee Wyck,

there is a sense of timelessness, while at the same time suspended disbelief about change.

GROUP SEVEN: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

We ponder where we stand in the dialectical in the THIRD THOUGHT PAPER.

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10. Session Ten: November 6

The view of human development has a dialectical. One view is that the Law of Nature permits for

extinctions. Another view sees that view as corrupt, and contrary to what Nature really does. The

human who takes up the gun may win, but that doesn’t necessarily mean superiority over the

human who chooses discipline and adherence to a moral code. In Ishmael the Other is viewed

through the lens of reality that is not poured through truth created by the stained-glass window of

human cultural presuppositions.

GROUP EIGHT: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

11. Session Eleven: November 13

Signs and symbols communicate a society’s Conception of the Good Life, that aren’t culture but

media. We examined crosses, wampum belts, jargon, slogans, and maxims, houses, roads, modes of

transportation. We leave dialogical engagement by the road, preferring soporifics to enlightenment.

Ishmael poses a philosophical bind.

If the reality of life is constant change, this FOURTH THOUGHT PAPER poses critical reflection

as the foundational dialectical—dialogue with the self.

GROUP NINE: READINGS AND DISCUSSION 30 MINUTES

DUE TODAY: SEOND READING REPORT

12. Session Twelve: November 20

The Catalyst Poster Fair and Exhibit

13. Session Thirteen: November 27

Personal reflection, final meeting and FINAL THOUGHTS

DUE TODAY: FINAL PAPER

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CRI 560 READING LIST

Alfred, Taiaiake and Jeff Corntassel (2005). “Being Indigenous: resurgences against contemporary

colonialism” in Government and Opposition. Blackwell Publishing.

Atwood, Margaret (1995). “The grey owl syndrome” in Strange things: the malevolent north in

Canadian literature. Clarendon Press, Oxford. pp. 35-63

Crawford, Isabella-Valency (1884). Malcolm’s Katie: a love story. Editor D. M. R. Bentley.

Canadian Poetry Press, London.

Colorado, Pam (1991). “A native view of development” in Conflicts of interest: Canada and the

Third World. Edited by Jamie Swift and Brian Tomlinson. Between the Lines. Toronto, Canada,

pp267-274.

Court Document (1710). “The history and progress of the four Indian Kings” in A. Hinde, Fleet

Press, London.

Diamond, Jared (1999). Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. W. W. Norton and

Company, New York. pp. 35-52.

Doxtater, Michael G. (2004). “Indigenous Knowledge in the Decolonial Era” in American Indian

Quarterly, Summer; 28, ¾, pp. 618-633.

Doxtater, Thohahoken Michael (2012). “Indigenography for cultural educators: the case of the

Iroquoianist School and the Four Indian Kings” in Canadian Journal of Native Studies, XXXII, 2,

pp 171-189.

Dunbar, William (1800). “On the language of signs among certain North American Indians” in

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 6 (1809) pp 1-8.

Goodleaf, Donna (1995). Entering the warzone: a Mohawk perspective on resisting invasions.

Theytus Books. Penticton, BC. pp. 5-25.

Greene, Alma (1997). Forbidden Voice: reflections of a Mohawk Indian. Green Dragon Press.

Etobicoke, Ontario.

Griffin, Nigel editor (1992). “Theodor De Bry’s Illustrations for Bartholeme de Las Casas’s Short

Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Penguin Books, New York, pp. 15-21.

Harvey, David Allen (2008). “Living antiquity: Lafitau’s Moeurs des sauvages ameriquians and the

religious roots of the Enlightenment Science of Man” in Proceedings of the Western Society for

French History, Volume 36, pp 75-92.

Katsitsiaronkwa (2006). “Where the smoke rises”. Typescript. Ohsweken, Ontario.

Keazor, Henry (1998). “Theodore De Bry’s images for America” in Print Quarterly, Number 2, S,

pp 131-149.

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Langer, Susanne (1942). “Signs and Symbols” in Philosophy in a new key: a study in the symbols

of reason, rite, and art. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts.

Macedo, Donaldo P. (1993). “Literacy for stupidification: the pedagogy of the Big Lies” in

Harvard Educational Review; Summer, 63,2, pp. 183-206.

Muller, Werner (1989). American New World or Old. Verlag Peter Lang. Frankfurt am Main,

Deutschland.

Norman, Brian (2007). “The addressed and the redressed: Helen Hunt Jackson’s protest essay and

the US protest novel tradition” in Canadian Review of American Studies 37, no. 1, pp 111-134.

Parmenter, Jon (2013). “The meaning of Kaswentha and the Two Row Wampum Belt in

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) History: can Indigenous oral tradition be reconciled with the

documentary record?” in Journal of Early American History 3, pp 82-109.

Raman, Shankar (2011). “Learning from De Bry: lessons in seeing and writing the heathen” in

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 41:1, pp. 13-65.

Shannon, Timothy J. (1996). “Dressing for success on the Mohawk frontier: Hendrick, William

Johnson, and the Indian fashion” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Volume 53, No. 1, pp 13-42.

Smith, James (1799). “An account of the remarkable occurrences in the life and travels of Colonial

James Smith, during his captivity with the Indian in the years 1755, 56, 57, 58, and 59.” Lexington

Kentucky. PP 151-162.

Thohahoken (2018). “Living in the Freeworld” from Indigenous Human Ecology in the Decolonial

Era (manuscript in-press).

Yellow Heart Brave Horse, Maria and Lemyra M. DeBruyn (1998). “The American Indian

holocaust: healing historical unresolved grief” in American Indian and Alaska Native Mental

Health Research, the Journal of the National Center, Volume 8, Number 2, pp 60-82.