AJ28043 West Coast Writing

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2012
Extent and Intensity
0/20/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 3 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Theresa Kishkan (lecturer), Mgr. et Mgr. Kateřina Prajznerová, M.A., Ph.D. (deputy)
Mgr. et Mgr. Kateřina Prajznerová, M.A., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Supplier department: Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Prerequisites (in Czech)
SOUHLAS
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 10 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/10, only registered: 0/10, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/10
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 12 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
Please note that this is a full-credit, intensive course and that it will be held the week before the spring semester begins, February 13-17, five days, ninety minutes in the morning, ninety minutes in the afternoon. The course will be co-taught by British Columbia writers Theresa Kishkan and John Pass, tkishkan@uniserve.com, and coordinated by Katerina Prajznerova, 68450@mail.muni.cz. All readings will be available in ELF.
WEST COAST WRITING
West Coast (BC) Prose: Voices from the Salish Sea
(morning classes with Theresa Kishkan)
The Salish Sea is the official name for the bodies of water including the Strait of Georgia, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound and the connecting sounds, straits, channels and passes. It’s also a way of thinking about place – the long fjords and open waterways of coastal British Columbia as well as the languages and peoples collected there. In the morning classes of this course, we’ll be reading prose works written by writers from this area and we’ll be paying attention to the specificity of this writing, listening for its particular grammar and vocabulary. In what way does a landscape – or seascape – influence its writers? Is there also an obverse truth to be explored? We’ll consider natural, human and regional history as these influence (and inflect) the writing.
West Coast (BC) Poetry: Wave to Watershed
(afternoon classes with John Pass)
BC poetry is varied and multi-faceted. The course introduces work that qualifies first as excellent poetry, the fullest expression in language of human experience. Its second criterion is much more arbitrary; the poems selected embody distinctly West Coast references to seascape, flora, fauna and culture. Poetry is also an interior form, psychologically and geographically; tracing the river systems that flow through BC’s vast interior landscape from the Rocky Mountains to the coast, and the watersheds of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, are as useful a means of exploring the region’s poetry as they have always been for human migration, trade and settlement.
Syllabus
  • Monday:
  • Morning
  • “Geography” by Sue Wheeler, from Terrain: a journal of Built and Natural Environments; “Northward out of Tsehum Harbour, Sidney” by Beth Hill, from Seven-Knot Summers
  • Afternoon
  • Openings
  • ‘On The Trail To The Top Of The World’ Dale Zeiroth (Clearing, Anansi, 1973)
  • ‘St Anne’s Crossing’ Charles Lillard (Circling North, Sono Nis, 1988)
  • ‘Oolachon Grease’ Howard White (Ghost In The Gears, Harbour, 1993)
  • ‘Morning On Wickaninnish Beach’ Russell Thornton (The Fifth Window, Thistledown, 2000)
  • ‘Understory’ Sue Wheeler (Habitat, Brick, 2005)
  • Tuesday:
  • Morning
  • Chapter VII by Edith Iglauer, from Fishing With John, “The People of the Sea” by Hilary Stewart, from Indian Fishing: Early Methods on the Northwest Coast
  • Afternoon
  • Deep & Wide
  • ‘Old Scores’ Theresa Kishkan (Black Cup, Press Porcepic, 1992)
  • ‘Ripple Rock’ Sharon Thesen (Oyama Pink Shale, Anansi, 2011)
  • ‘Talking Dirty’ Gary Geddes (Falsework, Goose Lane, 2007)
  • ‘Love Is A Vast Geography’ Gillian Wigmore (Soft Geography, Caitlin, 2007)
  • ‘Great Blue Heron’ Tim Bowling (Dying Scarlet, Nightwood, 1997)
  • Wednesday:
  • Morning
  • “A Walk with the Rainy Sisters” by Stephen Hume, from A Walk with the Rainy Sisters; “Green” by Emily Carr, from Growing Pains; “August” by Roderick Haig-Brown, from The Measure of the Year
  • Afternoon
  • Song & Thought: Five Poems by Don McKay
  • ‘Twinflower’, ‘Song for Beef Cattle’, ‘Song for The Song of The Varied Thrush’ (Apparatus,McClelland & Stewart, 1997)
  • ‘Song of The Saxifrage to The Rock’, ‘Full Moon, Campbell River’ (Strike/Slip, M&S, 2006)
  • Thursday: A Taste of Our West Coast Theresa Kishkan & John Pass
  • Prose by Theresa Kishkan: two short passages from “Quercus garryana: Fire”; “Spirit Level, Plumb Bob” from “Thuja plicata: Nest Boxes”; and “Standing Dead” from “Arboretum: A Coda (Mnemonic: A Book of Trees, Goose Lane, 2011)
  • Poems by John Pass: ‘The Caledonia’, ‘Sea Blush’ (Water Stair, Oolichan, 2000)
  • ‘Notes On The One Note Of The Unknown Bird’, ‘Nestbox’ (Stumbling In The Bloom, Oolichan, 2005)
  • ‘A View From The Lonsdale Quay Hotel’, ‘Anthem’ (crawlspace, Harbour, 2011)
  • Friday:
  • Morning
  • “Oolichans” by Terry Glavin, from This Ragged Place, “Language, Names, and Site” by Judith Williams, from Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time. Judith Williams
  • Afternoon
  • New Voices
  • ‘At Roberts Creek’ Elizabeth Bachinsky (God of Missed Connections, Nightwood, 2009)
  • ‘As Water Is To Inlands’ Maleea Acker (The Reflecting Pool, Pedlar, 2009)
  • ‘West Coast’ Kirsty Elliot (True, Leaf, 2011)
  • ‘Perching’ Philip Kevin Paul (Little Hunger, Nightwood, 2008)
  • passages from Windstorm, Joe Denham, Nightwood, 2009
Literature
  • see the syllabus
Teaching methods
Participation (attendance and contribution to discussion) 15%
Daily Responses 25%
Students are required to read the prose passages before each 90 minute class and to prepare a brief written response, in note form if desired, to hand in at the beginning of each class.
Students are required to pre-read the five or six poems listed for each 90 minute class and prepare a short written response (of no more than 150 words per poem) to at least one of the poems daily. The written responses are due at the beginning of each session. We will likely have time to discuss no more than 3 or 4 of the poems per session and student selection will influence which poems we concentrate upon.
Graded Paper 60%
There will be one graded paper for the course based on a topic chosen from the list below and due at the end of the last class Friday, Feb. 17th. It’s strongly advised that students select a topic of interest and begin work on it before the course commences to best focus their thinking and make good use of the limited time available for writing. Enrolled students are welcome to contact Theresa tkiskkan@uniserve.com or John high_ground@sunshine.net before the course begins for further information on the writers or texts included or to clarify topic choices for the graded paper.
Graded Paper Topics:
Choosing work by at least two of the writers studied, and with direct reference to two or more of the works listed for the course, write a paper of 500 – 750 words on one of the topics below. You can choose to write exclusively on prose, or on poetry, or on selections from both genres, but whatever your choices you should be sure to support your opinions or arguments with specific references to, and/or examples from, the texts:
1. Comment on the writers’ attitudes towards plants and animals in the works you’ve chosen.
2. Comment on water as an element in BC literature.
3. How do the writers you’ve chosen employ aspects of landscape metaphorically to express specifically human concerns?
4. Which of the works studied speak most effectively to environmental issues?
5. In which of the works do you find the strongest affinities between the writers’ ideas or styles of expression?
6. Which of the works studied did you enjoy the most? Why?
7. In what ways do you find BC literature to be similar to, or distinct from, Czech literature. (Please include English translations of relevant passages of any Czech works you refer to)
8. Design your own topic. (Please have your suggested topic clearly defined and approved by Theresa or John by email before the course commences.)
9. There are strong lyrical elements in many of the works offered in the course. Does the lyric mode effectively engage the vast and varied geography of the West Coast?
10. Discuss the attitudes towards language of the writers you have chosen. Do they see language as a tool, a divine gift, a cultural issue, a problem, etc.?
11. How is humour used in BC writing? Is it effective?
Sources (prose) Sue Wheeler, “Geography”: http://www.terrain.org/essays/15/wheeler.htm Beth Hill, Seven-Knot Summers (Horsdal & Schubart Publishers, Ltd., 1994)
Edith Iglauer, Fishing With John (Harbour Publishing, 1988)
Hilary Stewart, Indian Fishing (Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1982)
Stephen Hume, A Walk with the Rainy Sisters (Harbour Publishing, 2010)
Emily Carr, Growing Pains (Clark, Irwin & Company Ltd, 1946)
Theresa Kishkan, Mnemonic: A Book of Trees (Goose Lane Editions, 2011)
Roderick Haig-Brown, The Measure of the Year (Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 1990)
Terry Glavin, This Ragged Place (New Star Books Ltd, 1996)
Assessment methods
Participation (attendance and contribution to discussion) 15%
Daily Responses 25%
Students are required to read the prose passages before each 90 minute class and to prepare a brief written response, in note form if desired, to hand in at the beginning of each class.
Students are required to pre-read the five or six poems listed for each 90 minute class and prepare a short written response (of no more than 150 words per poem) to at least one of the poems daily. The written responses are due at the beginning of each session. We will likely have time to discuss no more than 3 or 4 of the poems per session and student selection will influence which poems we concentrate upon.
Graded Paper 60%
There will be one graded paper for the course based on a topic chosen from the list below and due at the end of the last class Friday, Feb. 17th. It’s strongly advised that students select a topic of interest and begin work on it before the course commences to best focus their thinking and make good use of the limited time available for writing. Enrolled students are welcome to contact Theresa tkiskkan@uniserve.com or John high_ground@sunshine.net before the course begins for further information on the writers or texts included or to clarify topic choices for the graded paper.
Graded Paper Topics:
Choosing work by at least two of the writers studied, and with direct reference to two or more of the works listed for the course, write a paper of 500 – 750 words on one of the topics below. You can choose to write exclusively on prose, or on poetry, or on selections from both genres, but whatever your choices you should be sure to support your opinions or arguments with specific references to, and/or examples from, the texts:
1. Comment on the writers’ attitudes towards plants and animals in the works you’ve chosen.
2. Comment on water as an element in BC literature.
3. How do the writers you’ve chosen employ aspects of landscape metaphorically to express specifically human concerns?
4. Which of the works studied speak most effectively to environmental issues?
5. In which of the works do you find the strongest affinities between the writers’ ideas or styles of expression?
6. Which of the works studied did you enjoy the most? Why?
7. In what ways do you find BC literature to be similar to, or distinct from, Czech literature. (Please include English translations of relevant passages of any Czech works you refer to)
8. Design your own topic. (Please have your suggested topic clearly defined and approved by Theresa or John by email before the course commences.)
9. There are strong lyrical elements in many of the works offered in the course. Does the lyric mode effectively engage the vast and varied geography of the West Coast?
10. Discuss the attitudes towards language of the writers you have chosen. Do they see language as a tool, a divine gift, a cultural issue, a problem, etc.?
11. How is humour used in BC writing? Is it effective?
Sources (prose) Sue Wheeler, “Geography”: http://www.terrain.org/essays/15/wheeler.htm Beth Hill, Seven-Knot Summers (Horsdal & Schubart Publishers, Ltd., 1994)
Edith Iglauer, Fishing With John (Harbour Publishing, 1988)
Hilary Stewart, Indian Fishing (Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1982)
Stephen Hume, A Walk with the Rainy Sisters (Harbour Publishing, 2010)
Emily Carr, Growing Pains (Clark, Irwin & Company Ltd, 1946)
Theresa Kishkan, Mnemonic: A Book of Trees (Goose Lane Editions, 2011)
Roderick Haig-Brown, The Measure of the Year (Douglas & McIntyre Ltd, 1990)
Terry Glavin, This Ragged Place (New Star Books Ltd, 1996)
Language of instruction
English
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
The course is taught: in blocks.
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