In this curriculum there is always room for new stories, for narratives that allow for the power of the imagination to break through the 'taken for granted' metanarrative of nation, that present new realities and provoke questions that allow for new learning. This absence becomes visible when students are introduced to literature by previously marginalized writers and have opportunities to discuss different ways of understanding the world. Much of this literature opens up the question of citizenship and national identity. Canadian students who read texts such as Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye , Wayson Choy's The Jade Peony , Anita Rau Badami's Tamarind Mem , or Pauline Johnson and Rudy Wiebe's Stolen Life can begin to question what it means to be a Canadian citizen in the twenty-first century. They can begin to challenge linear historical views of Western literature as the special provenance of white male writers and begin to see Canadian literature as more than a portrayal of the perspectives of Loyalists on the Canadian Shield or pioneers on the frozen prairie.
Literary texts operate within culturally-specific contexts.
There is always a convergence between the textual and extra-textual in literary representation. Today's English language arts classrooms can move beyond the historical view of subject 'English' as a civilizing force that promotes unity and shuts out difference. Literature study today offers the potential for a creative re-reading of past 'classic' works and an exploration of contemporary texts in ways that expose their ideological nature and allow for dialogue on the multiple ways we understand ourselves as citizens and members of a democratic community. References Applebee, A. 1993. Literature in the Secondary School.