It is with the goal of increasing the literacy skills of Aboriginal learners and providing a tool for literacy practitioners that this “Indigenization Framework for Aboriginal Literacy” has been developed. This Framework covers much ground. First of all, it gives the reader a brief overview of the literacy and pedagogical challenges facing Aboriginal learners along with an important list of learning outcomes for Aboriginal literacy programs. It then explores and attempts to set out a holistic model of Aboriginal education. The Medicine Wheel, principal Indigenous values and virtues, a set of curricular streams grounded in the notion of Aboriginal community, and the revitalization of Aboriginal languages are all used to establish this holistic educational model. It then runs through a comprehensive collection of indigenization strategies for teaching literacy to Aboriginal learners. Along with every teaching model or strategy, the reader will be helped along by illustrative examples and real-life cases. The second half of this Framework goes beyond singular teaching approaches and stresses the importance of indigenizing the whole educational process. That is, literacy practitioners must be prepared to develop an Integrated Program of a Holistic Ecology of Aboriginal Literacy. ‘Ecology’ here refers to a whole way of life, a complete environment comprised of a variety of elements that coexist in an interdependent web of relations. It is only when we have created such an integrated program that we hope to have successfully indigenized literacy. And finally, because the Holistic Ecology for Aboriginal Literacy is designed primarily with adult learners in mind, this Framework concludes by proposing some literacy teaching strategies for Aboriginal children.
Eric Ostrowidzki, Ph.D. Author & Editor
