ABSTRACT
The mirage of Canada as a nation that values and embraces multiculturalism and multilingualism has and continues to shadow a shameful history of displacing Indigenous people from the lands and languages that carry the stories of survival and thriving that predated settler presence in Canada. Literary monsters weave their way through and across English language arts curricula: Cyclops in The Odyssey and Beowulf’s Grendel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Balrog in Lord of the Rings, Gollum in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Kraken in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The figure of the monster is indeed a disruptive force, which through its radical difference defies social and cultural norms. Like many other nations, in recent years, most Canadian provincial ministries of education have embraced evidence-based education and performance-based funding to schools and universities. A commonplace book or location is a gathering place that provides a record of a reader’s engagement with a particular text.
