 Welcome to our presentation, Reading Guide OER for Moon of the Crested Snow, a collaborative story. We're excited to be presenting at the 2021 Open Education Conference. We are Drs. Caitlin Watson and Dr. Anna Rodriguez. We will start our presentation with a land acknowledgement and then discuss our positionalities as the authors of this OER. We will also discuss the purpose of this presentation, provide a summary of the book used in this OER, and the background of the project. This presentation will also provide an overview of the context within which this resource sits and describe the collaborative story behind the creation of it. Viewers of this presentation will have an opportunity to see parts of the actual guide and we will also model how it could be used in a classroom by engaging the audience in an asynchronous activity which can further be discussed during the live chat afterwards. We'd like to start our presentation with a land acknowledgement. Ontario Tech University, where both Anna and I work, acknowledges the land and peoples of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. We are thankful to be welcomed on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered under the Williams Treaties and the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples. These lands remain home to a number of indigenous nations and people. We acknowledge this land out of respect for the First Nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we remember the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who called them home. This history is something we are all affected by as we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future. I'm Anna and I'm a settler of Portuguese descent who lives on the traditional and treaty lands of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg. I'm an interdisciplinary educator and visual artist. My research explores how underserved communities amplify their voices through creative acts of resistance, whether it be in the form of art, literature or media production. Currently, I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in the Faculty of Education at Ontario Tech University. I'm Caitlin, a Euro-Canadian settler living on Anishinaabe homeland, Williams Treaty Territory in Ontario, Canada. I am currently a faculty development officer in the Teaching and Learning Centre at Ontario Tech University. I'm also a secondary school qualified educator licensed by the Ontario College of Teachers, and I regularly teach Bachelor of Education in graduate education courses at universities across Ontario. Overall, my pedagogical and research interests focus on Indigenous settler histories and decolonization. Indigenous literature in Canada continues to grow in popularity with Indigenous-authored books and other resources increasingly taught in high schools and post-secondary classrooms in Ontario. Based on my positionality as a high school educator, as well as the conversations Anna and I have had with other educators, we realize that sometimes there is apprehension when adopting Indigenous-authored resources due to a variety of concerns, including having enough background knowledge to contextualize the resource, having to create new lesson plans, and finding appropriate accompanying resources. Given the Eurocentric biases in education, it is important that educators are prepared to include these literatures in ways that do not perpetuate colonialism. In our presentation, we describe the collaborative approach we have taken to develop an open educational resource related to supporting Indigenous literatures and educational spaces. By the end of this presentation, you will be able to assess the usefulness of this OER or some of its specific elements for your teaching and learning contexts, identify other Indigenous resources from the OER that you can implement in your context, and reflect on potential collaborations you can develop based on your own contexts. With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south, soon after others follow. That is the synopsis that can be found on the book of the dystopian novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, written by Wabgisha Grice, a First Nations author. This story details how an Anishinaabe First Nation copes with an unknown global event that leaves the reserve without power or a way to communicate with the outside world. The story delves into a variety of social and political themes in response to the challenges the community faces as they fight for survival during a bitterly cold winter. In November of 2018, I was reading Moon of the Crusted Snow and also doing research into OERs through my work as an instructional designer at York University. Being interested in issues of equity and education, I did a search for OERs tied to books written by Indigenous authors, and at that time I couldn't find even one for a Canadian book written by an author who is Indigenous. This led me to wonder if a lack of readily available resources such as a reading guide might hinder the adoption of a particular book in an elementary, high school, or post-secondary classroom. A 2017 study looking at the use of Canadian books in grades 7 to 12 English departments in Ontario seemed to support that idea, noting that Canadian books are not being taught in Ontario schools. The study also found that teachers will often look only at readily available resources when considering adopting a book as a class reading due to lack of funding and time to create new materials. It occurred to me after reading Bates' research that creating an open educational resource for the novel Moon of the Crusted Snow might be useful for educators. Shortly after, I contacted the novel's author to get his thoughts on this idea, and he was very enthusiastic about it, soon after we began collaborating on this project. I felt that this novel in particular would work well for this project for a number of reasons. I had worked with Wab on two different projects in the past, so there was an established relationship with the author. As well, the themes covered in the book make it an attractive one for high school or post-secondary classrooms, as dystopian themes are quite popular with youth and young adults. The book is without a doubt a satisfying read in terms of speculative fiction, however it educates as well. The story imparts information on the shared Indigenous settler history in Canada. Lessons on the impact of colonialism, land displacement, intergenerational trauma caused by the residential school system, loss of language and culture can be found throughout the book as it narrates the struggle of a community living through a global event that is unknown but has devastating consequences. The book also provides an alternative narrative to mainstream depictions of First Nations peoples by showcasing the importance of community, family and traditions throughout. In terms of the timeline for the development of this OER, the author and I began discussions on what to include in the guide in late 2018. In April of 2019, the guide was launched online as a collection of webpages and a downloadable PDF. It was well received by educators across Canada and, aside from its use in classrooms, we also heard that book clubs and adult literacy programs were making use of the guide as well. In November of 2020, Wab and I discussed updating the resource by expanding on the original themes and adding a new section connected to real-world events, as Wab had been interviewed about the similarities between his book and the global pandemic. At that time, I was working at the Teaching and Learning Centre at Ontario Tech and in December of 2020, I approached my supervisor about updating the resource and transferring it to press books, which would be a better platform for the guide. In February of 2021, I joined the Teaching and Learning Centre at Ontario Tech University. Anna shared the OER she had developed and invited me to join her in revising it. I hadn't yet read the novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, so I very quickly finished the book and started reviewing the resource Anna had developed. We met with members of Ontario Tech's Open Education Lab to discuss how they could support us in turning our work into a press books resource. Anna left the Teaching and Learning Centre not too long after I started. However, we kept in close contact and continued working on the resource. Between March and August of 2021, Anna and I used Google Docs to collaboratively develop the resource. We regularly sent sections to the Open Education Lab so they could add the content to the press books resource. Students in the Open Education Lab at Ontario Tech come from different academic and cultural backgrounds. The director of the lab has shared with us the interest that the students brought to this project because this was content they had not encountered before. And this speaks to the opportunities associated with having people from diverse backgrounds involved with the development of OERs. Over several months, we reviewed, sent edit suggestions and reviewed the content again. After the first section on land was complete, we sent it to the book's author to review. He provided a few suggestions which we forwarded to the Open Education Lab. We continued the review and revised process over several months as the Open Education Lab students came and left their summer contracts. Once complete, we gave the entire resource to the author for a final review with no edits necessary. The resource was released at the end of September 2021. And now about the OER. Users can choose to use this resource as a thematic guide based on the subject or course they are teaching, or use the guide to accompany a chapter by chapter analysis of the novel. Each theme includes an introduction which links the novel to the theme and includes a relevant creative commons image. Each theme also includes curriculum connections. The themes of the resource include the first land, which includes two sub themes, treaties and land as provider. The second theme, colonialism, includes a sub theme on residential schools. The third theme, community, includes sub themes on family and band councils. The fourth theme is gender. The fifth theme is language. The sixth theme is traditions and culture. And finally, the seventh theme is a new one we've developed, real world events, pandemic. Quotes from the author include interviews with the author where we have drawn out excerpts and linked to the source material. Quotes from the novel include short passages from the novel related to the theme. Resources include websites, videos and other materials we've collected linked to the theme. We've also developed discussion questions that can be used for class discussions or as writing prompts. We've added proposed activities. And finally, each section includes an additional reading list. At this time, we'd like to share with you an overview of the guide. From the content section, you can see all of the main themes and then our sub themes. Each theme and sub theme includes an introduction with a creative commons image. Each main theme includes curriculum connections. And then all of the themes and sub themes include different configurations of quotes from the novel quotes from the author discussion questions resources and activities. This example of land includes some quotes from the novel where we identify the page from the physical text. Discussion questions which can be used for large group small group discussion or even writing prompts. The sub theme of treaties has its introduction quotes from the novel resources where we link to websites and texts. Discussion questions and activities. We'll return to this one shortly. Land as provider as another sub theme has its introduction. Here we have relevant quotes from the author where we link to the source material and include a written transcription. You quote from the novel resources where we've even embedded videos. The end of each theme also includes an additional reading list. In some examples we have the resources divided by youth readings or adult readings in our subsection on residential schools. We've also included a much more extensive reading list. At this time we're going to turn to an activity. You can access nativeland.ca from our reading guide or by typing it into your browser. This website allows you to look at the traditional territories or treaty land you live on all over the world. You can type in your address and it zooms in and shows you the treaty land you live on from our land acknowledgement at the beginning. You'll remember that we are on Williams Treaty territory and this is also the land of the Inishinaabe and specifically the Mississauga. This resource includes lots of historical information and acknowledges that this is also the traditional lands of the Honoshoni and the Wendat. We welcome you to type in your address and look at the traditional indigenous territory you live on from anywhere in North America, many places in South America. They also have resources for Africa, Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. For those joining the live session you'll have the opportunity to share in the chat. Now that you've seen the OER we hope you have a better picture of how it could be used in a classroom. In Ontario, many school boards and schools are shifting the grade 11 English classes to ones that are focused on indigenous authors and indigenous literatures. Moon of the Crested Snow would be a great resource to use in this type of classroom. This reading guide may also facilitate the adoption of Moon of the Crested Snow in undergraduate and graduate courses. As Caitlin mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, we've heard from instructors who want to include books by indigenous authors on their reading lists. However, they are worried about teaching a book that is different from their own life experiences and as well having the time to create activities, discussion questions and other materials for a new reading. This guide may assist as the materials included are ready to be used or adapted. As well, the materials included have been vetted by various individuals which include the author of the novel. We feel this OER provides a template and we hope it inspires others to create reading guides for books not only from indigenous authors, but also other underrepresented groups that are missing from post-secondary reading lists. An important piece as well is how the collaboration that occurred during the creation of this reading guide has provided an opportunity for diverse voices and perspectives to be included in the final product. That collaborative aspect continues as we welcome feedback from users of this guide and hope to hear how it has been used in diverse teaching contexts. To see the complete reading guide for the novel Moon of the Crested Snow, please go to the following URL. We invite you to get in contact with us. You can contact me, Dr. Caitlin Watson at Caitlin.Watson at OntarioTechU.ca. And you can contact me, Dr. Anna Rodriguez at Anna.Rodriguez at OntarioTechU.ca. This concludes our presentation. We want to thank you for your interest in our project. We look forward to your comments and questions in the live chat.