Graduate works to build a bridge

Page 11

Janice Acoose, a graduate student in the PhD program in English who also teaches at the Saskatchewan Federated Indian College (SFIC), uses her Indigenous roots and teaching abilities to build a bridge between the university and the community at large. Her approach to teaching is to point out that "there is no truth: the students become their own authorities and I act as a conduit toward their self empowerment. Whenever possible, I make the classroom alive through story-telling, and each student takes his or her own truth away from that."

Acoose, an Indigenous woman whose roots stem from the Sakimay-Saulteaux First Nation and the Marival Metis Communities in Saskatchewan, completed an undergraduate degree in Native Studies and English at the University of Saskatchewan in 1989.

As she reminisces on those early years, Acoose describes a time when the images of Indigenous people were misrepresented, both in literature and in the classroom.

"I made up my mind there and then that my peoples' ways of knowing would be given a voice through me," she said.

And to that end, she completed her Master's degree in English, also at the University of Saskatchewan, under the supervision of Dr. Susan Gingell, in 1993. She later turned her Master's thesis into a book titled, Iskwewak Kah Ki Yaw Ni Wahkomakanak: Neither Indian Princesses or Easy Squaws. Acoose is excited about the book, which is gaining in popularity across Canada.

"In the book, I took a critical approach to the way that prominent writers like Margaret Lawrence and William Patrick Kinsella represent women in their work," she said. "In Lawrence's The Bird in the House, for example, women fall into the traditional Native trap of being in a dysfunctional relationship. Kinsella also reinforces this image. There is so much more to a Native woman than being unemployed, alcoholic or in an abusive relationship."

In her teaching, Janice wants to expand these images to include those from works of other Saskatchewan and Canadian writers, like Louise Halfe, Richard Wagamese, Emma La Roque, Howard Adams, Maria Campbell and Marilyn Dumont.

"By giving these new writers a voice," she said, "we can immerse the students in other ways of knowing, ways that encompass other Indigenous people's lives. Only then will students become empowered to believe in themselves in ways that far surpass traditional belief systems."

Meanwhile, Acoose has exceeded expectations: As the first Aboriginal student to graduate with a Master's degree in English from the University of Saskatchewan, she is well known in literary and journalism circles. Besides her book, published by Women's Press, Toronto, Acoose has several articles published in Gatherings, Playmaking and Canadian Women's Studies. She has also written for numerous publications, including New Breed Magazine, Windspeaker, the Star Phoenix, the Leader Post, and the Saskatchewan Native Women's Association.

Today, as she works on her PhD dissertation, predictably on works by Indigenous writers between 1960-1990, she takes them to take on her reliance on the 'Native' construct and peculiar colloquialisms. Her research focuses on a selection of Cree, Ojiboway and Metis authors.

The journey has been simultaneously exhausting and stimulating: "I have had to earn the right to speak," she said. "I have also let go of some of my own baggage, particularly things that influenced me when I was growing up in residential schools. In many ways, I feel like Emma La Roque, a Metis writer from Manitoba, who says she knows from a place of knowing that is not documented. I am finally beginning to understand myself."

Acoose's long-term goals are to spend more time on creative writing.

"I feel there are so many stories inside me that I want to tell."

Until then, the classroom will resound with her own story telling as well as those by other Indigenous writers that encourage students to become stronger intellectually, spiritually and emotionally.