Abstract
We conceptualize Indigenous literatures as integral tools for supporting teachers on their journeys toward truth and reconciliation. As such, we intentionally offer our work as a pedagogical guide for introducing Indigenous Children’s and Young Adult Literatures (ICYAL) in secondary level English courses, asserting that the delivery of such works must be taught in ways that align with anti-racist praxis, acknowledge varied experiences of racism, sexism, and gender-based violences, and promote liberatory thinking. Indeed, while Indigenous literatures are excellent pedagogical tools to engage conversations about social justice and anti-Indigenous racism, they must be paired with key lessons that dismantle harmful, disrespectful and racist narratives. We consider the pedagogical possibilities highlighted through the relationship between anti-colonial literacies and Indigenous futurities by focusing on a relational analysis of Vermette’s novels The Break (2016), The Strangers (2021) and The Circle (2023). These novels bring to life fictional experiences that may resonate and offer what Dian Million (2009) refers to as a felt sense of familiarity for many Indigenous readers. For non-Indigenous readers, Vermette explained her intention is to promote empathy by sharing experiences through stories. We see this as a call for a relational reading praxis that moves from writing as witness to reading as witness. Vermette’s statement “I realized I could write what I see” (Hanson, 2020, p. 56), demonstrates the power behind giving voice to what she sees in her Winnipeg hometown and Métis community as a way to promote social change.
Author Biography
Jennifer Brant
Dr. Jennifer Brant belongs to the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk Nation) with family ties to Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Jennifer is the founding director of the Indigenous Literatures Lab and an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, where she teaches courses on Indigenous maternal praxis as well as Indigenous literatures and methodologies. Jennifer is co-editor of Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada (2016) and Rematriating Justice: Honouring Our Missing Sisters (2024).
Erenna Morrison
Erenna Morrison (she/her) is a Curriculum and Pedagogy doctoral candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Erenna has an undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education and a master’s degree in Teaching. Her PhD research focuses on reconciliatory education, specifically concerning the elementary religion curriculum in Catholic schools. Erenna is also a member of the Indigenous Literatures Lab at OISE and works to support the developing “First Voices” research project.
Jasmine Rice
Jasmine Rice is an emerging scholar at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) whose research focuses on Indigenous Language Reclamation and Cultural Identity. Her work is grounded in her experiences learning Kanien’kéha, the ancestral language of her family’s community, Kahnawà:ke. Jasmine is also a passionate educator with experience teaching at the high school and university levels. Her teaching areas include language learning, Indigenous studies, and education.
Gayatri Thakor
Gayatri Thakor is a doctoral student in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include anti-colonialism in education, Indigenous education, and Black, Indigenous, and decolonial feminisms. Her current research explores how Indigenous pedagogies and an anti-colonial praxis of spirituality can support Black, Indigenous, and racialized teacher candidates to foster communities of healing from spirit injuries inflicted through experiences within formal education systems. This space serves to disrupt the ongoing hegemony of Whiteness and modernity in education. Gayatri is interested in creating critical spaces of learning, centered in interconnectedness, joy, accountability, and radical love.
Recommended Citation
Brant, J.,
Morrison, E.,
Rice, J.,
&
Thakor, G.
(2025).
An Indigenous feminist reading praxis for imagining anti-colonial futurities: Honouring the spirit and intent of Katherena Vermette’s writings.
Occasional Paper Series,
(54).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.58295/2375-3668.1564
Included in
Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Educational Methods Commons