Wednesday, May 16, 2012

O'Dell's ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, in Prezi

As regular readers of AICL know, I'm working on a Master's in Library Science at San Jose State University. This semester, I learned how to use Prezi. It is all-the-rage in presentation-land, but my final assessment is that I doubt that I'll use it for presentations. While it may be more engaging, it also fails to meet accessibility standards for special needs populations. In order to make mine as accessible as possible, I didn't use all the toys in Prezi. My presentation is as straightforward as I could make it.



9 comments:

  1. Very interesting, Debbie, and a lovely presentation. A couple of thoughts: isn't "Juana Maria" almost as fictional a name as "Karana"? Most teacher's guides seem to use a similar title when discussing the true story of a fictionalized character; I don't think this can be construed as an insult. And on the subject of what might make better reading material: fiction is a great way for kids (and adults) to learn and connect with historical material. How about some fictional alternatives, suitable for 4th-5th grade? (I think this book is really meant for slightly older children, but that the book is often used in those grade levels.)

    I think I did understand as a child, at least on some level, that the Aleuts were at least working under the thumb of the Russians. How it would have changed the story if I'd thought of them as "enslaved" is an interesting question.

    I look forward to your more detailed writing on this book. Is this the first time you've read it?

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  2. Yes, both names are fictions. I'll revisit what I said about the use of Juana Maria. I didn't think it is insulting to use Karana instead of Juana Maria.

    In a way, it is kind of like what happened when Scholastic first published the Dear America diaries. They were fictions, written by authors, but the packaging suggested that the character was a real person. In those cases, it was all fiction. In this one, there was a real person, and her name wasn't Karana. She was called Juana Maria. Using Karana instead of Juana Maria (in my view) takes readers down a slippery path in terms of knowing who Juana Maria was... Does that make sense?

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  3. One of the things I will ruminate on is that in choosing to write about her, or historical stories in general, O'Dell chose to ignore the struggles of Native people all around him. It would be interesting to know why he made that choice. Course, he wasn't really interested in Juana Maria.... from what I read, his major concern had to do with slaughter of animals. As such, she was a convenient device for him to write about how people destroy resources, and to contrast that with the Indian who, in stereotype-land, didn't destroy any resources at all.

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  4. I think I see what you're getting at with the use of Karana vs. Juana Maria in the teacher's guide, but I don't think that's clear in the presentation (just my opinion, of course).

    You might be interested to know (if you didn't already) that Scott O'Dell created an award to honor the best historical fiction set in the Americas, because he thought it was important that American children know the history of the place they inhabit--surely a worthy cause, even if the way we think about this has changed over the years, and even though we no longer have a real dearth of American historical fiction (well, OK, of United States historical fiction, except for books about Latino, Asian American, and well-depicted American Indian children...). While I'm definitely not an O'Dell apologist, I want to note that his books seemed to be some of the few in my childhood (1980s) that depicted strong women of color. My Name is Not Angelica was the first book I read about slavery that made it seem real (and cruel). That doesn't mean I don't think we should read his books critically--I do; I think it's even more important to read well-written and well-known books critically--but it's interesting to examine where he was coming from. (Which was a different place later in his career than it was when he wrote Island of the Blue Dolphins, which he didn't originally intend for a children's book.)

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  5. Yes, I know about the O'Dell award.

    One way to read something like his books and the award is that it deflects attention from the racism, anti-Indian attitudes, homophobia, etc. of the present. Far easier to talk about things from a long time ago than the present...

    It is vitally important we know the past so, the saying goes, we don't repeat our errors. One of those errors, however, is a blind embrace of nostalgia for things that never were.

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  6. Debbie, I find that frankly bizarre. Are you saying that you are against the whole concept of historical fiction? That writers should not be encouraged to write good historical fiction or honored for doing so? That writing contemporary novels or non-fiction is somehow a more honorable or important accomplishment?

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  7. No, Wendy, I'm not saying that at all. My observation is that overall, American Indians appear more frequently in historical fiction than in fiction. And in that historical fiction, they are (more often than not) depicted inaccurately or in biased ways by people who mean well... By people who seem to be mourning an existence that went the way of that "end of the trail" notion, when in fact, that imagined existence being mourned never-was-as-imagined.

    There's some historical fiction I absolutely love. Erdrich's BIRCHBARK HOUSE... Sterling's MY NAME IS SEEPEETZA...

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  8. On the subject of Prezi.. I've had serious issues with it. Every time I try to access presentations it freezes my Macbook. No matter what I do, whether it's the website or the downloadable app. It's been literally impossible for me to use it!

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  9. That is a very interesting question about the perception of the Aleuts. I am thinking not so much of our perception of the Aleuts, but Juana Maria/ Karana's. I wonder if you would feel differently about a group of people who slaughtered your entire family if you knew that they were in turn enslaved by someone else, or if you would only care that they slaughtered your entire family.

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