In this culminating academic style paper, you will analyze Montgomery’s novel, Anne of Green Gables to consider how she, as a white European settler, engages with, reproduces, and reinvents narratives of childhood as it relates to discourses of settler presence on Indigenous land. You will extend your conversation to the academic literature to examine at least one salient theme pertaining to childhood such as innocence, ignorance, agency, and development to name a few. Finally, you will reflect autobiographically on how your understanding of childhood is changing, being challenged, or resisting transformation.
Guidelines
Thus far, you have engaged in some autobiographical writing (Assignment 1) which continues to serve as an exploration of the lens of the self to read and interpret both texts and the world. In this final assignment you will continue to read through this lens as you follow and analyze the figure of the child in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s novel, Anne of Green Gables. As such, in your introduction to the essay, you will revisit the autobiographical work you did in Assignment 1 to help me understand why you have chosen to fix your gaze or focus your reading on the aspects of the text you have selected. For example, my reading tends to focus on those childhoods that are absent from this canonical text such as Indigenous and arrivant childhoods. This emphasis stems from my personal journey leading up to this point as I teach and engage with this text. My awareness is shaped by the weariness derived from my traumatic passage from the postcolonial Caribbean to settler colonial Canada where I now occupy stolen and contested Indigenous land. Next, you will present your reading of the text with two (2) specific commentaries in mind. First, you will consider the settler colonial context from which Montgomery writes (See Kauanui, 2016; Tuck, E., & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013; Veracini, 2011). This means doing some historical background work and considering adjacent experiences and representations of childhood that we have discussed in class that are absent in Anne of Green Gables, including Indigenous and racialized arrivant experiences (i.e., Pauline Johnson’s 1893 writings and the history of the Black presence in Africville and the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children). Second, you will consider representations of childhood in Anne of Green Gables while thinking about how the child reproduces and resists normative discourses of childhood (such as innocence, agency, deviousness, impulsiveness, loving/happy/hateful, the good student, development etc.). Third, as you consider these configurations of childhood in the text, you will pay close attention to how this is part of a settler colonial discourse. For example, you might want to discuss how Montgomery’s children ensure and secures settler presence and future on land imagined to be native to settlers and where Indigenous people are disappearing to extinction (see Montgomery’s 1891, A Western Eden). Finally, in your conclusion you will close your essay with a short autobiographical reflection on how your thinking about childhood has changed through this course, again, beginning from your positionality.
Suggested Organization of the Paper
I. Introduction
Autobiographical Lens: Revisit autobiographical work from Assignment 1.
Explain the choice to focus on the figure of the child in Anne of Green Gables.
Personal context and positionality (i.e., for me it is linked to a traumatic passage from the Caribbean to settler colonial Canada).
II. Settler Colonial Context in Montgomery’s Writing (Lec 6)
Historical background: Understand the context from which Montgomery writes.
Consider adjacent experiences and representations of childhood absent in Anne of Green Gables (Indigenous and racialized arrivant childhoods).
Reference scholarly works from weekly readings.
III. Representations (reproductions/resistances) of Childhood as it Relates to Settler Colonialism
Analyze how the child is portrayed in the novel.
Identify normative discourses of childhood (innocence, agency, deviousness, impulsiveness, desiring, imaginative, developing etc.)
How are these reproduced and or resisted? How do her actions both reproduce and challenge normative expectations and configurations of childhood?
How do these discourses of childhood secure settler presence on contested Indigenous land?
V. Conclusion: Reflecting on Childhood
Autobiographical reflection: How has your understanding of childhood evolved during this course?
Acknowledge personal positionality and growth.
Consider the complexities of settler colonial narratives and their impact on representations of childhood.
Literature Requirements & Reminders
You will need to cite a total of ten (10) scholarly articles/books. Seven (7) of these can be from the course readings while three (3) must be new scholarly articles from your own research that are relevant to your reading and analysis. You can reference additional, non-scholarly references (websites, videos, blogs), or other artistic works (i.e., A Red Girl’s Reasoning; Tannis of the Flats), but they do not constitute scholarly articles.
Paper should be at least 3000-3500 words, approximately 10-12 pages double spaced, NOT including references.
References should be formatted using APA both in-text and for the reference list
As a reminder, a well-organized paragraph should:
open with a thesis statement that is then,
supported by scholarly literature which gets further support from,
textual evidence from the novel that illustrates the thesis statement, then,
return to the scholarly literature to extend the argument and insert your own interpretations.
Transition to the next paragraph and its thesis logically.
Artificial Intelligence, Chat Bots, and Large Language Model Use
Generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI or GenAI) is a category of AI systems capable of generating text, images, or other media in response to prompts. These systems include ChatGPT and its variants Microsoft CoPilot, Bing (built by OpenAI) and Bard (built by Google), among several others. Other Generative AI models include artificial intelligence art systems such as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL – E.
Any use of GenAI systems to produce assignments for this course is not permitted. All work submitted for evaluation in this course must be the student’s original work. This is not to say do not use AI in your research and help with writing, rather, I am interested in knowing you, your voice, and your experiences in writing. The submission of any work containing AI-generated content will be considered a violation of academic integrity (“Use of Unauthorized Materials”).
I will be using GPTZero to evaluate the AI content of your writing. I will randomly select a few passages from your text and plug it into the chat box. I encourage you to do the same. Up to 25% of your text can be AI written. This generally means that if you use AI and other tools such as Grammarly to help with grammar and to revise your own writing, it should still fall within an acceptable range of original content. As a guide, remember I am more interested in hearing your voice. I am not checking for correctness/accuracy per say, but rather how you intellectually grapple and struggle with concepts through your own, autobiographical, meaning making processes. In short, I want to learn from your very unique and idiosyncratic readings as I conduct my own research on Lucy Maud Montgomery and her writings
