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A good theory is useful. Drawing on my experience as a high school English teacher and my work with teacher-candidates, I advocate using Postcolonial theory to disrupt the whitesettler story of the heroic pioneer that permeates curricula and school culture in Western Canada. Ingrid Johnston (2003) writes, "In a critical Postcolonial pedagogy, the seductions of such stories need to be resisted as much as the longsilenced stories of the colonized need to be heard" (p. 51). Revising the story of our collective past may permit an authentic integration of First Nations and immigrant voices and perspectives in pedagogy and the school canon.
The desire to incorporate First Nations perspectives and content and to use Postcolonial theory in English language arts practices is congruent and complementary in both practical and theoretical ways. Indeed, given the history and social dynamic of the place where I teach in Canada, it is difficult to do one without the other. In this paper, I will review briefly: the use of Postcolonial theory in the classroom; white- setti er heritage and its effect on English curriculum; and contrapuntal reading as teaching strategy. Finally, I present a Postcolonial reading of Audrey Thomas's novel, Isobel Gunn. The novel could function as a counterpoint to a number of literary texts currently taught in Canadian schools; the fictionalized version of the historical figure Isobel Gunn offers secondary students not only a captivating "read," but also an entry point for some fundamental questions about whose version of the past and present is represented in school and society. Teachers from other former colonies will be able to suggest alternate selections from their literature to serve the same purpose, namely to challenge the received stories of our shared colonial histories.
Postcolonial Theory and Classroom Practice
Cherland & Harper (2007) write that "In education, Postcolonial theory has been useful for analyzing the ways in which western education and pedagogy operate in nonwestern contexts, placing some of the subjects of education at the center of discourse and relegating others to the margins" (p. 90). Postcolonial literary theory has nibbled the edges of high school curriculum in Canada for some time (Johnston, 2003; Singh & Greenlaw, 1998), partly through the efforts of teachers who have taught texts outside the canon...