Other snow books available often concentrate strictly on the
technical information. This book, with its interactive approach, will
appeal to a variety of grades and would be a useful addition for
elementary schools. It could be used to enhance the curriculum and would
also interest leisure readers.
Highly recommended.
A. Edwardsson is in charge of the Children's Department at a branch of
the Winnipeg Public Library. She has a Bachelor of Education degree and a
Child Care Worker III certification, and is a member of the Manitoba
branch of the Canadian Authors' Association.
Book Review
Journals in the Classroom.
Judith Ann Isaacs and Janine S. Brodine.
Winnipeg: Peguis Publishers, 1994. 124pp, paper, $17.00.
ISBN 1-895411-69-6.
Grades K - 6 / Ages 4 - 12.
Review by Harriet Zaidman.
excerpt:
. . . go slowly, introduce one idea at a time, and allow both the
children and yourself to become comfortable with journaling. Keep
thinking of how those basketballs bounce off the backboard and expect to
see as misses as scores.
The sub-title of this book is ``A Complete Guide for the Elementary
Teacher," which sums up the contents of this clearly written and
practical guide to teaching journal-writing in the elementary school. The
authors are both highly experienced in teaching writing, literacy skills,
and everything related, and this book is the product of work done for a
course they developed on teaching journal-writing to teachers.
Writing in a journal (or log) is a common practice in schools
nowadays, but many teachers find the pressures of the daily school work
leads them to neglect the journal-writing activity.
So the sports analogy in the excerpt above is appropriate. Without
trying over and over, without coaching, one might have all the natural
talent in the world, but it would never be refined and developed to its
peak. The same holds for reading and writing; they are skills that
improve with practice.
Journals in the Classroom provides step-by-step
analysis of the theory behind journal-writing, types of journals,
different techniques that can be used (free-writing, listing, altered
point of view, and unsent letters, to mention only a few), how to
introduce journals (including a section on parental involvement),
journals across the curriculum, lessons, activities and unit plans, and
more. It includes a question-and-answer section, pointers on using
journals in different learning situations, and advice on the evaluation
process.
The authors stress that successful journal-writing must take place
on a daily basis, and that it takes two to three years for teachers to
fully develop their skills in teaching journal-writing. Using the myriad
hands-on suggestions provided here as a guide, teachers have ample opportunity to
find the teaching style and type of journal that suit them and the needs
of their curriculum.
Journals in the Classroom is an excellent resource to
have on hand through an entire school year, from kindergarten to grade
six. It also has many ideas applicable to secondary grades.
Highly Recommended.
Harriet Zaidman is a Winnipeg teacher/librarian.
Video Review
The Last Harvest.
Harvest Productions, 1994. VHS, 48 minutes.
Distributed by Moving Images Distribution
606-402 West Pender St., Vancouver, BC, V6B 1T6.
Voice/fax: (800) 684-3014.
Grades 9 - 13 / Ages 13 - Adult
Review by Duncan Thornton
excerpt:
In the first function that I ever saw them was the first of July
celebration, and the Ohamas were all there, and they were shy, and I
guess we were shy, but they were also different, and the surprising thing
to me was, the reason they were different was because they were city
people and they were very well dressed, and we were not. And we just
weren't used to looking at people that were dressed as well as what the
Ohamas were at that time.
-- A farmer describes getting to know the Ohamas, a
Japanese-Canadian family.
The Last Harvest is a documentary that tells an
unfortunately familiar story: a prairie family forced off their farm. But
the Ohamas' story is also a peculiarly Canadian one; for the Ohamas are
Japanese Canadians who have been farming in southern Alberta since they
lost their fishing business and were expelled from British Columbia as
enemy aliens during the Second World War.
So the film is also about the multi-cultural identity that has grown
in this country. The Ohamas are certainly Japanese -- the film begins
with footage of them laying paper cranes in their fields as part of an
annual harvest ritual -- yet also typical Western-Canadian farmers, down
to accent and tractor caps. The soundtrack reflects the Ohamas' own cultural
mix: the evocative background music is played on Japanese instruments;
the theme song, ``Great Plains" is by Ian Tyson.
Visual artist Linda Ohama, part of the third generation of her
family on the land is also the film-maker and narrator. She begins by
setting the scene for the occasion of the film -- their last harvest --
and introducing her family. Then we dip back into time, as she tells how
the Ohamas came to farm the land, a story fleshed out with archival
photographs.
Throughout, The Last Harvest is a little too
expository. For example, we have enough shots of Ohama's father, George, sitting in a lawn chair staring over the fields that we don't
need to be told that he's ``the quiet reflective one." Many of the
visuals are similarly unimaginative; although there are haunting shots of
family figures in Japanese costume striding through the dusty plains, in
country whose land and weather exist on an immense scale, there are
disappointingly few shots that realize the epic potential of the setting
or story.
But the story is remarkable. That the family struggled through the
persecutions of the War and pioneered potato farming in a land considered
too arid to support it -- becoming champion growers in the process --
suggests their strength of will and determination. In this case, it's a
quality that was passed down from the grandmother, who immigrated to
Canada as a ``picture bride," to marry a man she had never met. It was
she (already widowed) who preserved the family by establishing them in
Vancouver after a first, unsuccessful attempt at farming during the
depression, and she who led the family for the first decades after the
war forced them out of Vancouver and back onto the land.
As farmers, the Ohamas faced not only the challenges of farming in a
harsh land, but also substantial prejudice. When they began, no one in
the cities would buy produce from them, and Alberta law did not allow
anyone of Japanese descent to lease land. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it
was their neighbouring farmers who were first ready to defy regulations
and buy the Ohamas' produce, and who first learned to treat the Ohamas
with the respect they deserved. One of the nicest sequences in the film
is a harvest gathering where the Japanese Ohamas and their Scotch-, Irish-,
and English-descended neighbours dance together to a
country band.
But the film is about the last harvest, and the story finishes with
a brief account of how for all their skill and perseverance, high debt
and low income have driven the Ohamas off the land, like tens of thousands of other Canadian farm
families in the last few years. The family's mixture of grief and acceptance
(``For fifty years my family have been stewards of the land; now it's
time to pass it on," Ohama says in voice-over) is moving.
So it seems rude in light of a tragedy borne with so much dignity to
carp, but the film-maker leaves the larger issues unexplored. For example, it
seems to be a given for Ohama, who ends theLast Harvest
with a plea for support for the family farm, that farmers should get
higher prices for their produce and more support from the government, but
is the issue really so clear?
There is plenty of profitable potato-growing country in Canada, but
also a great deal of marginal farmland that shouldn't have been under
cultivation in the first place -- and we aren't given information to know where
the Ohamas' pioneering operation fits into that picture. And perhaps the traditional
family farm, like the old corner grocery store, is simply an economic
unit that is no longer efficient compared with larger operations
modern methods make possible. Or perhaps not; but the film-maker begs the question.
On the whole, however, the Ohamas' story leaves you feeling both admiration and a sort of vicarious pride in their having overcome the
adversity of both the land and the culture of this country.
The Last Harvest has won many awards, including:
- Alberta-Quebec Prize, Banff Television Festival
- Golden Sheaf Award, Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival
- Silver Plaque Award, Chicago International Film Festival
- Silver Cup Award, Philadelphia International Film Festival
Recommended.
Duncan Thornton is the editor of Canadian Materials.
Copyright © 1995 the Manitoba Library Association.
Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is
maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.
Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364
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