Scholarly Interests | jessicapiaeportfolio

CULTURAL STUDIES:

To question, explore, transform, listen, participate, deconstruct, represent, speak....to acknowledge difference, to seek understanding and to see the world through many lenses

Youth Culture, Education and Resistance: Subverting the Commerical Ordering of Life

I picked up this book during my Winter 2015 semester from the bookstore in my university because I am interested in learning about how to bring youth culture into the classroom as part of students' learning processes. I think that bringing youth culture into the classroom can help students connect what they are learning in their formal education to their world. It is important to help students see how what they are learning is relevant to their own lives and to engage them in ways that helps them practice both critical and creative ways of thinking.

Impactful article: Lund & Nabavi (2010) discuss the impact of engaging youth in anti-racism work in schools. Examples included collaborating to create an anti-racism video for a national contest and a refugee simulation project. I appreciated the article's discussion about youth perceptions of adult apathy in their communities. The findings underscore how important it is for teachers to model social justice conscientiousness.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

I began reading Paulo Freire's book in the fall of 2014 after learning a little bit about his philosophy of teaching in my literacy course when we were learning about critical pedagogy. I spent over half of my undegraduate degree developing a practice of interrogating identity politics and how different ways of knowing inform the private and public dimensions of individuals' lives. My passion for this kind of thinking made me immediately interested in Freire's vision of teaching to transform thoughts, beliefs, and actions of individuals and societies.

Favourite qoute: "human activity consists of action and reflection: it is praxis; it is transformation of the world. And as praxis, it requires theory to illuminate it. Human activity is theory and pratice; it is reflection and action." (Friere, 1970, p. 127)

The Night Wanderer: A Native Gothic Novel

I just picked up this book from the library at my Feild Experience II school in preparation for my upcoming practicum at the end of March 2015. I was very excited to learn that the Grade 10-4 class will be reading a novel that incorporates several of my interests: the gothic genre, coming-of-age issues, and contemporary Aboriginal representation in literature. As a firm believer in critical literacy, I think that there is so much potential in bringing in varied stories that centre on cultural groups in society that have been marginalized and stereotyped in the English language arts classroom, regardless of academic levels.

Thoughts post-read:

One of the central themes in The Night Wanderer is the theme of belonging and place—how people shape and are shaped by their communities. Hayden Taylor seems to almost use the double plot of the gothic genre to draw parallels between Tiffany Hunter's and the Stranger's conflict between longing for escape from the reservation and needing connection with their families and their heritage. I would have appreciated more exploration of the Stranger's past as I think the significance of their choices at the end of the novel would be more effectively conveyed. Apparently, The Night Wanderer is a novelization of a play by the same author. I think it would be really exciting to have students act out parts of the novel with Tiffany's and the Stranger's stories back to back to have them experience the contrast and similiarities more concretely.

Recent & Current Reads

References

Lund, D. & Nabavi, M. (2010). Renewing youth

engagement in social justice activism. In Portfilio, B & Carr, P. (Eds.), Youth cutlure, education and

resistance: Subverting the commercial ordering of

life. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

References

Friere, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York:

Continuum Publishing Group. Retrieved from:

https://libcom.org/files/FreirePedagogyoftheOppressed.pdf

References

Taylor, D. H. (2007). The night wanderer: A native gothic novel. Canada: Annick Press.

The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult Literature: Essays on Stories from Grimm to Gaiman

During my most recent practicum (November 9, 2015- December 18, 2015), I had the opportunity to work with middle school students in Grade 8 and Grade 6. At the beginning of my practicum, I had the students fill out interest surveys that I had created about their favourite books, genres, music, TV shows, movies and their hobbies. I was really surprised to see how many students cited horror as their favourite genre to read, and how many TV shows and films from the horror/gothic/fairy tale tradition they listed as texts that they enjoy. Towards the end of my English degree, I focused a lot on the gothic for my undergraduate honors thesis, and I suspect that there is just something about the way that the gothic explores our humanity that may resonate with my adolscent students—what is good, what is evil, how does good and evil live in each other? And where does our individual agency fit in all of the forces that are at work in our lives? I am very excited to share my passion for this genre and invite my students to voice their thoughts and how they are connecting to these types of stories when I return for my final practicum in February 2016. In the meantime, I just "picked up" this book (available online via the University of Calgary library) and am excited to read three of the essays in it that look at Coraline, Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely Series, and Ender's Game to gain some perspective on the gothic/fairy tale tradition in these popular reads for teens.

Review forthcoming.

The Anthology of Rap

I have mixed feelings about this book, which is not necessarily a bad thing—mixed feelings towards a work of art is a sure sign that it's challenging you to think critically! While this book is in no way the definitive guide to all things rap (and indeed, no book can claim to be such a thing) it did provide some interesting insights to the culture of hip hop and rap—where it began, its evoluition over the years and how it has shaped (and been shaped by) various political, economic and social contexts.

I think there is a lot of potential for bringing rap into the classroom as "text", since music is a form of representation and expression. Of course, incorporating it into a lesson depends on whether it is appropriate to the age and interests of the students themselves, as well as the learning outcomes (for instance, as part of a poetry unit for secondary students).