Hello and welcome to the session in which we'll discuss SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is a framework that helps evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threat. And this is where the SWOT comes from of a business idea, a business itself or a person. Now in our situation, we're going to perform SWOT analysis on a business. And it does allow us to do what? To assess, to evaluate the business internal capabilities, how well they are doing from an internal perspective? What are their strength? What are the resources? What is their competitive advantage? Strength and their internal capabilities also they may not be good. They could be considered weaknesses. So strength and weaknesses are internal capabilities to the business and external environment, looking at the external environment, which is represented by opportunities and threats. And this is going to help us to do what? It's going to help in strategic decision making and maintaining a competitive advantage in the market. So the first thing we're going to do in explaining SWOT analysis is explain what each term is, strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. And we're going to work a series of examples. Specifically, we're going to be using Tesla as an example to illustrate the concept of various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and how do they relate to the real world? Let's go ahead and get started by defining each term separately. Before we proceed any further, I have a public announcement about my company, Farhat Lectures dot com. Farhat Accounting Lectures is a supplemental educational tool that's going to help you with your CPA exam preparation as well as your accounting courses. My CPA material is aligned with your CPA review course such as Becker, Roger, Wiley, Gleam, Miles. My accounting courses are aligned with your accounting courses broken down by chapter and topics. My resources consist of lectures, multiple choice questions, true, false questions, as well as exercises. Go ahead, start your free trial today. Strength, what are the strengths? Those are characteristic of a business that give an advantage over others. Somehow you have some unique characteristics, something unique to you. You are good at it that relative to others, you are better. It gives you an advantage. Weaknesses, for example, strength, for example, Farhat Lectures. Farhat Lectures, what I pride myself on is I teach you the material. That's my job. That's my strength. Weaknesses, characteristic that place the business in a disadvantage relative to others. Now, it means I have a shortcoming in a certain aspect. Obviously, I'm not going to tell you what's my shortcoming because I'm perfect, right? Everyone's perfect. Just joking. So this is what our weaknesses are. Opportunities, elements that a business could exploit, could take advantage of to grow. Businesses will have many opportunities. Businesses also will face threats, elements in the environment that could hinder, that could cause trouble, that could not help you grow, that could help you shrink or lose market share. So those are strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threat. As a business, we're always going to use our strength to leverage opportunities and improve our weaknesses to address risk or threat to the business. Now, I'm going to go over Tesla using the SWAT analysis, starting with the strength. What are some strength for Tesla? Now, when I say Tesla, those strength could apply to many other companies. But if I just showed you the generic of them, it's not a good idea. It's just it doesn't make any sense. It's not interesting. So I'm going to tell you innovative technology. Now, many companies could be innovatively technological. They could have technological innovation, but I'm going to be specific about Tesla as a result of research and development. So also research, research and development by itself is considered a strength. But at the same time, if you lack innovation and technology, if you lack research and development, those will be weaknesses. So anything that's a weakness could be a strength. Anything that strength could be a weakness. I don't want to keep repeating myself every time I mentioned something. But every time I mention a strength, think if we don't have it, it's a weakness. Think about weaknesses. If we have it, it's a strength. So, for example, Tesla is a known for its cutting edge electric technology, electric vehicle technology, including advanced batteries and auto autonomous driving features. That's strength to Tesla. Brand reputation in Tesla. Strong brand, strong brand reputation. Tesla has established itself as a leader in the electronic vehicle market known for its quality, performance and sustainability. Excessive, extensive charging infrastructure. Simply put, extensive infrastructure to support the business. The company has developed a network of supercharger station providing convenient and fast charging option for Tesla owners. So when you provide an infrastructure for your customer, that's a strength. First mover advantage, that's always a strength when you are the first in the market. Tesla was one of the first companies to focus on mass producing electric vehicle, giving them a head start. And when you start early, you are going to learn from your mistakes. You're going to accumulate knowledge. And as you accumulate knowledge, you're going to use this knowledge to improve and gain a competitive advantage. Other strength, clarity of the vision. Tesla vision encourages innovation. Tesla, Tesla vision is to change the world to achieve sustainable transport. Tesla has pushed boundaries in electric vehicle technology, battery storage, charging infrastructure and even self driving technology. And this is in turn, it's going to attract talents because people appeal to that clarity of vision and it's also an appeal to investors as well. Marketing effectiveness, they're good in marketing. They have that direct to consumer sales. They bypass traditional dealership model. And that's a strength. They're cutting down their cost and allows them to control the customer experience, pricing and service quality. They have effective communication with their stakeholders and they have a heavy engagement on social media. For example, Elon Musk has a following on Twitter and other social media where he shares update about Tesla products and plan. That's effective communication with stakeholders. And this helps generate excitement, engage with consumers and maintain a high level of brand awareness, brand loyalty. And the loyalty with Tesla is like a cult like following. Tesla has built a strong and passionate community of fans and customers who advocate for the brand, further amplifying its marketing reach. So they all feed on each other, those strength. Management competency and its influence, specifically Elon Musk. His vision and influence is a significant asset to the company. You get a large social following that can shape public opinion and perception and those people, they open their wallets for Mr. Musk. Now, I'm going to look at weaknesses. Specifically, I'm going to start with the first weakness, Elon Musk, not Musk, Musk, Elon Musk. And notice here, I said Elon Musk under strength. And we can say Elon Musk could be a weakness on the flip side, just like any strength could be a weakness. They're heavily relying on his image and that poses a risk. What if he left the company or become unable to continue his role, especially that he's busy with many other companies? Due to personal reasons, health issues and legal or legal trouble. He always get into trouble with regulatory agencies like the SEC. It can lead to significant instability. His departure would cause a loss of investor confidence, a drop in the price of the company stock price and maybe disruption in the strategic planning. As I mentioned, he gets into trouble with the SEC. That's a risk. That's a weakness for Tesla. And he wanted to run several companies like Twitter, Boring, SpaceX, well, Space, not Sebax, SpaceX. So this is a weakness when it comes to Elon Musk. Also, Tesla, the company has high production cost. Manufacturing electric vehicle at scale can be expensive. It could impact profitability because there's a high cost. Production capacity constraints. Sometimes it's not only about cost. You cannot find enough parts. Meeting the high demand for Tesla vehicle has been challenging due to production bottlenecks and supply chain limitation. That's always, always the case. Other weaknesses is this service and support network. They do have a vast infrastructure relative to other electric vehicle companies, but not large enough. Tesla rapid growth and increase in number of its vehicle on the road has put strength on its service infrastructure. Customers reported long wait times for servicing and lack of parts. And that's not good. Although Tesla has been working to improve these issues, these services and support network is still developing and does not match. So relative to the traditional automakers, they don't have this vast network support. Again, since this is a weakness, this could be turned into a strength. Quality control issues. Tesla has faced criticism about quality control issues with its vehicle. That includes inconsistent fit and finish. Problem with paint, trim and electronics and the new vehicle. Well, these issues can be addressed under warranty, which is Tesla says will fix them. They could affect the perception of the overall brand quality of Tesla, potentially damaging its reputation and customer satisfaction. Again, great. This is a weakness. Any weakness is a potential strength and any strength. Well, if we lose it, it becomes a weakness. Opportunities. What are some great opportunities for Tesla? This is external factors, growing demand for electric vehicle. As the word transitioning toward cleaner transportation, there's a significant opportunity for Tesla to capture a larger market share. Also, they can expand into new market. Tesla has the potential to expand into the international market where electric vehicle adoption is still emerging, a.k.a. China. Diversification beyond automobile. Remember, we are moving toward cleaner transportation. We're moving over cleaner technology and Tesla can explore opportunities for energy storage, solar power, other renewable technologies leveraging its expertise and brand. Again, energy storage. It's a big one. Tesla's advancement in battery technology has potential beyond cars such as grid storage. Dependence on government incentive. That's an opportunity. Although it's a dependence, but it's an opportunity. We're going to see it's also a threat. Tesla's shares have benefited from government incentive and subsidies. For example, the government gave people who buy electric vehicle tax credit of seven thousand five hundred dollars, which could change over time. So this is an opportunity. But also this is could be listed under a threat. Dependence on government incentive because the government can change their mind. Another threat could be intense competition, especially from traditional automakers because they have the infrastructure. They have the know how they have the labor. They are moving into the electronic vehicle, increasing competition and potentially challenging Tesla market share. Tesla market share. Remember, we talked about porters, five forces. One of them was intense competition. It was that was a big one. Well, there is an intense competition in this in this market. Although Tesla still a lead, the lead, the leader, but they could lose that lead any time. Regulatory changes. Again, regulatory changes could be a threat. Regulatory changes could be an opportunity here. We listed it under a threat. Just to illustrate the point shift in government policies regarding emission standards, subsidies and incentive that could impact the business. There could be a threat, could be an opportunity for them. Supply chain risk. That's always a risk unless you have a really good supply chain. You're in control of your supply chain. Dependence on key supplier and potential disruption in the supply chain can affect production and delivery schedule. Any economic or political instability for this is and this goes across the board for any business. Macro economic factor like trade wars, economic impact of pandemic or something like COVID can influence material costs and overall demand in summary, in summary, SWAT analysis by analyzing those factors. We want to leverage our strength, wherever our strength are to capitalize on opportunities. We have to address our weaknesses to mitigate the threat. What should you do now? Go to Farhat lectures, work MCQs in order to be able to answer multiple choice and essay question, be able to explain this on an essay or answer any MCQ or true false question. Invest in yourself.


Hi there, my name is Ken Mayer. I'm going to be your instructor through this entire course on the CISA. Now, I've been working in the field of IT, since the very early 80s. And over that time, I've worked a lot of different corporations, a lot of consulting work, consulting work, full-time work. I've received my certifications through Novell, through Microsoft, through Cisco, through Juniper, through CompTIA, through, you know, just kind of goes on and on and on with all sorts of certifications and different equipment, different vendors, different circumstances. And all of that has really led into getting a good understanding about a lot of the different areas that we have in the world of information technology. A lot of things I can share with you as I get you ready to take this course and to get prepared for your exam. Now, this module is designed to cover the domain that is called the Process of Auditing Information Systems. Now, this module is going to focus on the process of auditing your information systems to make sure that you're covering the entire practice of IS auditing. That would be all the procedures, making sure you have a thorough methodology designed to let the auditing team be able to perform an audit on any given IT area and do so in a professional manner. Now, the objective of this particular domain, this module, is to ensure that you have the knowledge necessary to provide these audit services that are in accordance with the IT audit standards and designed to assist the organization with protecting and controlling their information systems. Now, there are several tasks that we're going to see as we go through this module. Number one, you're going to work at learning how to develop and implement a risk-based IT audit strategy. One that's in compliance with the IT audit standards to cover all of the key areas. The second one is you're going to be able to plan specific audits to determine whether the information systems are protected, controlled, and to be able to provide value to the organization through the use of this audit. We also want to make sure that we can conduct audits in accordance with the IT audit standards to achieve planned objectives and to report audit findings and make recommendations to the key stakeholders. And finally, we want to be able to see how to conduct follow-ups and prepare the status reports to ensure that the appropriate actions have been taken by management in a timely manner. Now, what's important to know is we're not going to tell you step-by-step every single thing you should go through in the process of auditing, but rather we are creating a framework and guidelines. There's actually a series of guidelines, standards, and procedures that you can follow and use to be able to implement your audit plan that's going to be in accordance to whatever contracts you have with the organization that you're doing the audit on. This lesson is designed to talk about management's role of the audit function. Now, if you think about management, I am talking about management of the auditing team, not necessarily the upper management of the organization that's being audited. Now, when we look at it from the management perspective, the auditing should be managed and led in a manner that makes sure that all of the tasks that you are chartered to do are performed and accomplished by that audit team. In fact, management should make sure the auditors maintain independence during this function as well as maintaining their competence in the auditing process. Now, we'll talk later about them having the competence in what they are auditing, but right now it's important that they understand really what is involved in conducting an actual audit. And as those guidelines and procedures change, they need to be up to date in their competence about that process. The audit function should have something that's value-added as a contribution that the senior management can use. In other words, senior management needs this information to be able to, number one, understand where risks are and what they might be able to do to mitigate some of their risks or to have an assurance that the controls they have in place are doing the job that they're supposed to do. And a lot of this goes to some high-level types of certifications to maintain laws and regulations. So yeah, there's a lot of value-added contributions that senior management will get as the results of the audit. And of course, the audit function should also achieve the business objectives. And again, those objectives I talked about could be to maintain certain types of regulatory laws or certifications that are required by the company to do their business. Now, when we look at the organization of the IS audit function, we know that the audit services can be what we call external or internal. Now, internal means that the audit should be established by a contractor, a charter, and have the approval of senior management. Now, this can be an internal audit. It can function as an independent group. And remember, that is important. The auditor should function independently as they're going through this process. The audit committee integrated within a financial and operational audit can provide IT-related control assurance to the financial or management auditors. So those are types of internal-based audit services. Now, the external types would be audit services that are provided by an outside firm, meaning not people that are employed by the company. Now, the scope and objectives of these services should be listed in some very formal contracts between the organization and the external audit team. In fact, I like to tell people that when they go in to do these auditing, that depending on what they're doing, this contract and these permissions that they have, these agreements that we have that said what we can do, are their get-out-of-jail-free cards. Because if you think about it, as you're going through some of the auditing requirements, you might find weaknesses. And in the attempt to test those weaknesses, may come across information that might be of kind of high-level top-secret information that the organization doesn't want to get out. And if you were just kind of doing your audit, and you said, ooh, let's check on this control over here, and you go after and check on something that you're not under contract to even be looking at, that's where you have problems, right? So it's kind of a fine line between auditing sometimes and some people might think of hacking into systems, right? It's important that you remember just to keep in accordance with your contract and it should very specifically spell out what it is that you're auditing and that's part of that agreement that we have, especially with an external firm. Now, whether we're doing either internal or external auditing, there should be an independence of that auditing team, as I talked about. I don't want them to necessarily, you know, I guess I look at it this way. You know, in auditing, let's say, a bank type of situation, if I'm working for the bank manager and the results of my auditing could embarrass that bank manager, there might be some sort of pressure on me from the person responsible for my job to keep some of that information quiet and secret. And I don't want that kind of pressure. I want to make sure there is true independence so that when I go in there, I'm doing an objective job knowing that the results I'm going to report on them fairly and honestly, accurately and not have to worry about the potential of another person putting that undue influence to kind of hide things or to sugarcoat the results. So we want that true independence and we can achieve that internally. It's just a matter of who we select as a part of our team. Anyway, we know that they should be independent and, of course, their goal is to report to the higher levels of management. Now, one of the things we have to look at in managing audits is our resource management. Now, technology changes and it's important that as management, we ensure that the auditors are up to date with their skill sets. I kind of hinted at that already. That means that there's going to be required training that should be directed to new auditing techniques and training into their updates of the knowledge of technology. The ISACA, which I'm just going to pronounce it, the ASACA standards require that the auditing team be technically competent in what they do and that makes sense to me, right? Because how can I adequately audit something? I have no clue how it operates. And so we want to make sure we actually know what it is that we're auditing as far as the technology so that we can adequately be able to say if it's functioning the way it should. Now, management should consider the auditor's skills and knowledge when they plan the audit. In other words, you need to know what that person is capable of doing so that you can plan to put them in the right location to do the right part of the auditing plan. Now, when we talk about audit planning, we have to look at that it has both short and long-term goals. Now, your short-term goals should take into account the issues that are going to be covered, say throughout the next year. Now, your long-term auditing goals are going to take into account issues that are going to regard about changes to the organization's IT strategic direction. And we see this happening all the time, especially when we're looking at future purchases or future needs as far as what the IT organization might, part of the organization might be needing. There may be a plan to bring in a whole new vendor's worth of equipment, new firewall capabilities, new voiceover IP or something that we're seeing is going to be in the long-term effect. So that's kind of where we're looking at beyond the current year at the short-term level. All right, both your long and short-term issues should be reviewed, at least annually, to make sure that what your audit planning had at the time you created these short-term and long-term plans that they still match the direction that the business is going. Some of the other planning considerations, of course, would be to do periodic risk assessments. And again, we're talking about the planning of when to do the audits. You should have plans in place to do the audits if you have a change in technology. Again, that could be maybe bringing in a new vendor firewall or upgrading to the latest and greatest Windows Server technology. When that happens, we're going to have to have changes or have plans to do audits to make sure that these changes in technology are meeting whatever our standards are. Of course, laws change, regulatory requirements, new ones might be coming out, changes to existing ones. I remember when I first saw HIPAA, it was contained within one binder as far as when we talked about privacy issues for patients. And now it's like three or four binders in size. And so as those requirements change, we should have plans to do audits to make sure that we are staying within those requirements. And of course, there might be, like I said, new system implementations or upgrades that we're going to work with future technologies that we might not even know about right now when we're making our plans for auditing. So that means that we have kind of this idea that as we see new technologies coming in, we're going to have to have plans to include those into our audits. And we need to also plan around our resource limitations. And again, some of the resources, if we look at the auditors themselves as our resource, they might not have the training they need for these new technologies or these changes. And so we want to plan for that as well so that we can make sure when we're ready to do the audit that we have the resources available or if we have to look at an external type of resource to be able to perform these audits. Part of your audit planning should be about the information gathering. Now, what do we need? Well, first of all, we need information about the environment that we're auditing. I just don't want to walk in blind to an organization and start poking around at different things saying, oh, I wonder what this does. I want to know how it all works. At least I don't need to have the in-depth, complete design, but I have to have a good understanding of the environment. As an example, I worked with a bank that has several data centers across the country. And it's important for me to understand how they are related to each other. What was the purpose of all the data centers? Obviously, it was for high availability that if they had one in the Midwest, one in the Southwest, and one in the West Coast. Their goals, of course, were to be able to survive anything going wrong with one city, complete devastation of a building through fire or natural disaster. They wanted to have enough distance so they weren't even on the same power grids. So if I walk in to start an audit, it'd be kind of good if I had that understanding of that big environment so I understood how they all work together. I also want to make sure we know and gather the information about the business practices and the functions that are relating to the audit. We should have the information, the documentation on the type of information systems and technologies that are used to support the business. As well as all of the regulatory requirements that are covering that particular business. Now, when we look at the ASACA's IS auditing standards, they do require that the auditor address the audit objectives and to comply with professional auditing standards. That is kind of what we're about here is to make sure that we have standards in place so that we are able to conduct these professional audits rather than just taking a guess or a stab at what I think I should be looking at. Now, the auditor should have basically a plan that considers the objectives of the organization and see how those are relevant to what's being audited in the technology infrastructure. That plan should include an understanding of the organization's IT architecture and their technological direction that they're going to go. Again, going back to looking at the future, what is the ideas that they have as far as where they see their business in a year, in a couple of years, and which direction are they going. That's part of what I talked about with the information gathering. We use that information as a foundation for the actual audit planning. Now, the guidelines that we use that an IS auditor should follow are things like reviewing the background information such as industry publications or annual reports. They should look at prior audit reports to see what issues were brought up in the audits that were done before this one. Understanding the business and IT long-term plans is a very important part of this. We need to remember that IT and IS is not the center of the business. We're there to support the business. If this business makes widgets, the purpose of IT and IS is to help support that business to make widgets, because that's how they make their money. We need to make sure we understand what the business needs are and what those long-term plans are. That means we should be talking with managers to learn about the business issues. We should be researching the specific regulations that apply. Every organization has some type of regulation or certification that would cover the type of business that they're in. Obviously, we heard of regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA and many of those. It's important that you understand what those regulations are, how they apply to that organization, because that's a part of what your goal is or your plan for the audit is to make sure that you're within those regulations. You should know if any of the IT functions are outsourced. For instance, it's not uncommon for some companies, especially smaller ones, to have an outsourced web presence or outsourced email types of presences. What else is outsourced? Do they have contractors, consultants that come in to do specific high-end types of implementations of maybe third-party applications that they've bought and purchased and are using in that company? You should have generally, as a guideline, a walk through the entire facility of the organization. It's kind of like the idea of having the plans about how the entire organization is laid out and how it is functioning. Now, as a part of what we look at in the management and the planning process of our auditing, we have to remember that there are those laws and regulations that are going to apply to almost every organization. They could be in compliance to government rules or maybe other external requirements, maybe contracts they have with some of their other, not competitors, but companies that they're working with. As an example, I know that one company that did credit card processing, they managed the little boxes where you swipe your cards. Every time they go to another bank and say, we'd like to be able to process your cards, they would go through an audit to make sure that the credit card processing met the level and requirements that banks' responsibility. The bank would say, okay, we have this type of regulation. We have these requirements of security and if we're going to work together, you need to be able to meet those standards and so it could be, like I said, external requirements, something that's related to the computer system practices. Now, a lot of these, as you look at these different regulations, often are going to include information about how data should be processed, transmitted and stored. Even duration of storage in some organizations, they're required to keep email for at least seven years. Special considerations should be given on the issues for the highly regulated industries. These considerations should include all of the countries in which the organization operates. Now, that's an important statement. Imagine if you're an internet service provider and you, of course, have laws and regulations you have to follow as an ISP within the United States, but if you also are working with customers in other countries, you have to also make sure you're in compliance with their set of laws and regulations. And when you consider how many countries are still in the developing stages, especially catching up in the internet technology, those are things that could be constantly undergoing change. So you need to make sure that you are, again, back to something I said already, knowledgeable about the laws and regulations that you have those skills that understanding is a part of the information gathering and you use it in the audit planning. All right, what are some of the other effects of the laws and regulations? Well, privacy issues. As an auditor, you need to take into account any of the requirements of privacy laws and regulations. As an example, the Safe Harbor in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, what they call the OECD, and by the way, there's a lot of alphabet soup throughout the auditing process, right? Lots and lots of acronyms. Anyway, they have the guidelines that govern privacy and trans-border flows of personal data. So again, we need to understand what those regulations are, how they apply to that organization, if at all. Now some of the regulations that you should consider could be things like the establishment and organization of regulatory requirements, the responsibilities that are assigned to the organizations, any financial, operational, and other IT audit functions that would fall underneath those regulations. Now there are two major areas of concerns when we're talking about these regulations. One, of course, is the legal requirements for us, the people doing the auditing, the auditors. There are laws and regulations and contractual agreements that we have to follow under. There's also legal requirements for the auditee. That would be requirements for their systems, as we said, their data management reporting. And those two areas are going to impact the scope and objectives of the audit. Again, if you think about examples, Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA are perfect examples of regulations that do affect how we are going to conduct the audit and the requirements that the auditee has to undertake. Now we can look at some steps that you should follow as the IS auditor to determine the organization's level of compliance. One of them is identification of requirements that are dealing with things like electronic data, like personal information, copyrights and e-commerce information, computer system practices and controls, and how they store information. You should also be looking at the documentation of the applicable laws and regulations, determining if the organization is planned to support those regulatory requirements, make sure you know if the organization has addressed any adherence to the applicable laws, and if there are established procedures that they use to follow those requirements.


You know, when we're first getting started in making changes in our lives to find ways to live better, there's a whole world of carrots and sticks that we can hold up to encourage us to make the change because that's the biggest and hardest point of the change is the very beginning. How do we start to move down a good path? How do we take the very first step? I think of it like turning a wheel, like getting a wheel moving. Once that wheel is turning, it has some momentum and it can continue to go. But when that wheel has been fixed, solidified, almost petrified into stone, that wheel is going to be very difficult to move. So you can really go through every trick in the book to get that wheel moving, to get change started. There's the whole arsenal of little tricks to encourage us to trigger us to change mindset. The carrots of all the life that we want to live, the stick of where we can imagine our lives going if we don't make changes. So we build up this whole system of tricks, but after a while, tricks only work for so long. Even calling them tricks, once they've kind of played out as tricks, they've had their day, now they're predictable. The next time we feel discouraged, they don't have the same strength. So I am going to talk a lot in the future, here I'm going to talk a lot about these tricks. I love these tricks. I love the toolbox of ways to shift our mindset in any possible way. Sometimes it needs shock treatment and sometimes it just means throwing everything at it. Every possible way that we can shake ourselves out of our conditioned mindsets that are holding us back. But after a while, those tricks expire and without those tricks, we're really just left in the open to be in a place that can be very difficult, a place where there's no comfort, there's no solid answer, there's no easy or clear way. And we can look at our lives and see, yeah, things are much improved and so much better than they could have been had I not taken steps to change things. And yet, life will always be difficult, life will always be unclear, will be frustrating, inconvenient, uncomfortable, challenging, painful. Those things don't go away, no matter how much self-improvement, no matter how much self-development, changing mindset, all the work that we do, it doesn't fix our lives in that ultimate sense. Being alive is still always going to be this very messy, difficult business. There is no fix, there is no final point, there is no cure for life except death itself if that can be called a cure. So my thought is not to say that it's not worth it because we only have to compare what our lives could be if we did not do personal work, self-improvement and mindset work. Our lives, I feel my life would be so much worse. The path that I moved away from would have taken me far down. So I have no doubt that this work is bringing me closer to meaningful life. But some days like today it just really hits me that life is not something to be fixed. This challenge is here all the way through and it seems like our only choice, our path is to find a mindset that embraces that challenge, not seeking a fix, a solution or a cure, but finding a mindset that can be a part of this life, this experience in all that it is, not try to make it something else and be okay and simply say, this is life.


Thanks for checking this video out. Your mountaintop news video is coming up in just a minute.  Why is it your ad here? Call me. While shopping at the Prestonsburg Wal-Mart, Courtney Crichter spotted Paintsville native Chris Stapleton buying supplies for flood survivors. Crichter had been trying to reach Stapleton for years as her disabled daughter, Etta, had been listening to his music since she was three. So, Etta, about three years ago, we noticed that she loved Chris Stapleton. She was diagnosed with autism, and she has a few other specific needs, such as epilepsy, and she is hard to calm down sometimes. She doesn't really love for us to hold her to comfort, and so my husband took her for a ride in the car, and she was crying, and he put Chris Stapleton's CD on, and she calmed down, and so we started using that, and it changes her whole spirit. I mean, there's certain songs that make her super happy. There's certain songs that calm her down, like if we're doing an EEG, I will put that on, and she'll let me hold her to put her to sleep, because she has to be sleeping during her EEGs.  When Crichter told Etta who he was, Etta immediately began laughing and smiling. Some of Etta's favorite songs by Stapleton are Fire Away, Parachute, Traveler, and Starting Over. So she doesn't really know him by his face. She knows him by his voice, but I had always wondered if she ever met him what she would do because she loves beards. So it's a very sensory-seeking thing for her, and of course one of the first things she did was she kissed him, and I did not get that because I didn't know how he would feel about that, but then also she reached out for his beard, and he was super, super sweet, and he said, yes, maybe that's my beard. Stapleton's Outlaw State of Kind fund will be donating to the Red Cross and the Appalachian Crisis Fund. Stapleton is also buying supplies and volunteering in the area to further aid flood survivors. And so, you know, I didn't want to bother him too much because he was buying for the flood victims, and that's obviously the more important thing that was happening yesterday, but I didn't know when we would ever get this opportunity again. I felt like it was God sent to us, and we're thankful because we've been trying for a long time. I've been putting videos out for him to see, and he never did see them, and so I'm thankful that yesterday, whenever I went into Walmart to buy diapers, he was there. If you would like to donate to the flood survivors, the East Kentucky Dream Center is open from nine to three Monday through Friday at their downtown location in Pikeville, Kentucky. For Mountain Top News, I'm Breanna Robinson.


My colleague Karla and the moderator from last week, Siobhan Murphy, were thrilled to be able to access Kerry Atkins expertise in delivering a learning opportunity about the way that she's made use of this resource, the Literature Resource Fatty Lakes. We're looking forward to having Kerry involved today. We'll archive the information that you can access at another time and we know there are some people that couldn't come today. Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium is one of seven consortium. The logos are represented on the page. And I know that we look forward, we found out that Michelle's here from Bonneville. We look forward to finding out where everyone else is coming from. And again, we're thankful that you're here today. So without further ado, we'll turn it over to Kerry and Karla will get her slides set up. Karla's role today will be as a moderator, I'll be a background support in terms of learning. We look forward to your teaching of Kerry. Let it, I'll turn it over to you. All right. Well, thanks very much. So yeah, I am Kerry Akin and I work in Grand Cache City School. I teach grade seven and I'll talk a little bit more about how I got into using the book and whatnot a little bit later. So this is on using Saddy Lakes in your classroom. Okay. So the agenda for the next hour, I'd like to find out who you guys are, what you do. I want to talk a little bit about residential schools. I'll tell you about my introduction to Saddy Lakes and how I first started using it, using it in the beginning, maybe taking it a little bit further, looking at the art, novel study, other uses like book talks and other books about residential schools if you're interested. So as I go, if you have questions, please let me know. You can use that text tool. You can type in a little chat, but also please feel free to just talk. The only thing is like video conference. I always feel like there's that little bit of a glitch with the time. So please forgive me if I cut you off if you're asking a question. It's probably just my little glitch in time. So on that note, thanks for being here with me today. I'm really excited to share with you. I'd like to do some general sharing. So this would be a really great time if you could use your mic. And I don't know the best way to go about getting you guys here. I'm going to look down. First thing I see, I guess, is Janet. So Janet, would you mind just telling us beyond your name is Janet what you teach? And I'd also like to know if you guys have used Saddy Lakes before. And then we can talk a little bit about ideas in the classroom. So your name, what you teach, and have you used Saddy Lakes before? Please, Janet. Thanks. This year I'm teaching grade four. I have not used Saddy Lakes before. I've had it for a while, but I'm only halfway through it. Halfway through it. Oh. All right. Thanks. Michelle's name is next if you don't mind, Michelle. And if you notice the echo, Carrie, when we both have mics on, at the same time we often get a bit of an echo. So we just switch it off and then we don't have that echo anymore. So Michelle, if you're able to click on the talk button and share in those questions, that would be great. So your name, what you teach, and if you've used Fatty Lakes before? I'm sorry, I missed the next name. And Pay Lake? Hi, it's Pay Lake. I teach in St. Albert. I have a grade six class. I teach French immersion. So I'm hoping to, well, I will be using Fatty Lakes in the classroom in French, which is called the Le Bugs de Paciana. We looked at it a little bit last year towards the end of the year when I had just received the books in the classroom. So I wanted to use it for a novel study, but we ran out of time. So we did an introduction, looked at the book. A few kids did end up reading the book. And I'm hoping to delve into it further this year because we're really, really interested about it. It prompted some really interesting discussions in the classroom. Thanks so much. Is there anybody else that's with us that's teaching that can share? It just will kind of help me out in what I'm saying to you. I mean, if there's a group here that's mostly a lower end group with your grade, so I can kind of try to address it that way. Go ahead, Sandy, if you want to click on that talk button above our names. And then when it goes blue, you can talk and we can hear you. You know what? It's not a really super big deal. I can move on without knowing too much. If you have any specific questions, just make sure you let me know, and I'll make sure you have my email. So we will move on. Pardon me. I just wanted to address the social studies and Aboriginal perspectives and experiences. As in my content is basically a must in your curriculum. And if you look at the front matter of a lot of your curriculum, you're going to see where the government is talking about French Francophone perspectives, but also First Nations perspectives. And so it's really important for teachers to have the background. So I just put in a clip there from the social studies curriculum since the session was advertised at sort of social studies. Sorry, I'm a hand talker. But I just wanted to mention, I presented a session at teachers, my teacher's convention in February. And it was about using FNMI literature to enhance student success on all subjects. And a teacher came up as I was setting up and she said, well, what's your session about? And I told her FMI and she looked at me and she said, what's FNMI mean? And I was really surprised because as teachers in Alberta, that's actually something that we're required to include. So just another slide looking at the social studies, program of studies, providing learning opportunities to contribute to the development of self-esteem and identity in Aboriginal students. Some of those key things that I like to highlight is encouraging, strengthening individual capacity, honoring and valuing tradition. Also confidence. And that's just some things that really stand out to me. So one of the things that you're going to see in some books about residential schools is just that question about imagining a community without children. That was a reality for most First Nations communities. Christy mentioned if you were in the first part of the webinar that some children were actually kidnapped from their homes. Some families did send their children willingly because they thought they were giving their children an opportunity to have a step up in the world. If they attended those schools, they didn't realize that their kids were basically going to school. So none about menial work. That wasn't going to help them at all. When it came to their day-to-day jobs, in their real life, if they returned to their communities, in Margaret's case, running a slide dog team and hunting and that sort of thing. So most didn't go willingly. So just important to realize that there were people, communities that didn't have children in them and that was because of the residential schools. So I took this right out of a document I'm going to talk to you about here in a moment and it really just stands out to me. In order to educate the children properly, we must separate them from their families. Some people may say that this is hard but if we want to civilize them, we must do that. So one of the things that I really try to get my kids to understand in social studies especially is historical context. The idea of how your values, your beliefs, your attitudes all shape the decisions that you made and that in history at different times people feel different ways. And so Hector Langevin, he wasn't saying that to be unkind. He really truly believed that. And so that was a real big guiding premise behind the residential schools. So next you can see an important resource regarding residential schools. When we were preparing for this session, we met with some people from, we being Bell and another lady Sharon and myself, met with some people from Alberta Education, the FMI branch, they really wanted you to understand and anybody really when you're looking at residential schools that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada had a report out called They Came for the Children. And there's a link there that you should be able to access that. It's a 124-page document. It can be downloaded as well as printed for free. And I just wanted to talk to you about the reason for that document. So they publish this as history as part of its mandate to educate the Canadian public about residential schools and their place in Canadian history. And this quote really from this report really, really sticks with me. For the child taken and for the parent left behind, we encourage Canadians to read this history to understand the legacy of the schools and to participate in the work of reconciliation. So I'm just going to read to you a little bit of the other background in the document. The commission was established by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. And that was reached in response to numerous class action lawsuits that former students of residential schools had brought against the federal government and the churches that operated the schools in Canada for over 100 years. The Truth Reconciliation Commission had been mandated to inform all Canadians about what happened in the schools. And it got a process of national reconciliation. Pardon me. I really think that if you want to try to get any kind of grasp about teaching First Nations children or learning about First Nations communities, you need to know about residential schools. And again, when you look at the history where there were so many people that didn't have parents. And then they were expected to parent, sometimes for a year or two, sometimes for longer stretches of time. So we had generations of people that were parenting without having any parenting experiences. So I just highlighted some of the contents of the document. To Christianize and Civilize, Canada's Residential Schools, the Taining of the West, Non-Education, Civilize and Christianize. Also, the School-Based Residential School Experience thing that really stands out to me here is that arrival. Now you are no longer an Indian. And so that was the goal, was to take the Indians out of the child hunger, the first and last thing I can remember. Now I also think it is important to recognize that there were certain accomplishments. My experience at the Residential School was good. Now Margaret, who is the character, the real person in the story, her sister I believe is one of the first nurses in the Western Arctic. And she became that because she did have an education at Residential School. So there weren't all horrible stories, but there were a lot of really, really painful stories. Now I almost reorganized this, but really I'm somebody who would reorganize and organize. So I'm just going to kind of look at some of my favorite parts. But before I do that, did anybody have any comments or questions at this point? You could type it into the chat. You could raise your hand, click talk. I'll give you like five second wait time to drink a ginger ale. Okay. Sorry, I just finished teaching right at 3.30, so I'm sure you guys know how it is where you're talk, talk, talk, talk. So I would like to just look at some of my favorite parts here. The word choice is absolutely brilliant. The imagery is beautiful to me. The images are powerful. They're beautiful. One of the things I love about this book is that it's a story of triumph and survival. And it's very easy to look at all of the negative aspects of Residential School because there were a lot. But it also introduces a topic in a way that's not scary. It shows the injustices without a focus on the abuse. Also the illusions to Alice in Wonderland, which we'll look at here in a moment. I've ranted and raved about Residential Schools for years. And my husband kind of just listened and nodded his head, which spouses tend to do when you talk about work or things that you're really passionate about that maybe they don't really know too much about. And so when I was working to prepare a presentation with ERLC in May, when I was putting my novel study actually together in paper, I wanted to read the book aloud just to see how long it would take. And so we go on a lot of road trips to see concerts.  But I forgot that I hadn't quite gotten all the way through. And so I read about three quarters of the book. He didn't say too much about it. We didn't really talk about it. And then a little while later, we were down in Red Deer for a family visit. And he started getting into an argument with somebody about Residential Schools. And somebody was basically saying, well, you know what, just get over it. And it was really interesting to see that this book triggered that in him. And he really had a better understanding of something that he didn't ever grow up knowing about. And then it was kind of funny a while later because when I was reading the book with my kids and I said to him, oh, they're going to die when they find out Margaret went back to the school. And he looked at me and said, what do you mean she went back to the school? You didn't read that part to me yet. And so that was really cool because he is in his 40s and he was really connected to the book. So I think that's pretty neat that it can grab any audience really. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is, as I mentioned, a reference to it. That was the reason I really wanted to go to the Residential School. She wanted to learn about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She wanted to learn how to read. It was magical for her. So I pulled up some quotes from the book where she's speaking with her half-sister Rosie.  You don't want to go. They're going to be really mean to you. And so I love this. What's a rabbit? I asked Rosie. It's like a hare. Oh. Well, why did Alice follow it down the hole to hunt it? No, Ulimon. She followed it because she was curious. I tried to imagine being out. She was brave to go to that long dark tunnel all for curiosity. So I just kind of, if you want to chat about it or post, you could use the text box. If anybody had anything to say about maybe what this sort of quote, what these quotes look at in terms of First Nations perspective. In particular, the why did Alice follow it down the hole to hunt it? Because she was curious. Because Ulimon didn't really understand that. So did anybody have anything that they were willing to share about where I'm going to try to see if I can do this myself now? OK. I was going to try to do a text box to show you what I was looking for. But so looking at. Yeah. So you can click on that A. And then you get the little tool beside it. And then you can type on the page. I tried to just do a cooperate with me. Technology. I know. One of those. But please feel free to type into the chat window. Or like we said, if you click on that little A. And then you'll get sort of another A. And then you get a little box. And you can click. And then just start typing. I should type correctly. So does anybody have any thoughts or comments? If not, I'll just move on. Well, for me, Carrie, and I haven't read the book. But now I'm keen to read it. I'm interested in it. Yeah. Obviously, from the First Native's perspective, hunting was the first instinct. Yeah. So why would you follow a rabbit other than to hunt it? So yeah, that's something that most children in our class wouldn't really connect with. So it's a really good thing to point that out. Yeah. Thanks. So this next part here, I'm sort of on the same idea. Pardon me. Again, what does this have to offer in the First Nations perspectives or difference in worldviews?  So I love this where she says, Rosie, you've been telling the truth. Alice has not been hunting the rabbit at all. I would have brought the pelt back for my father. So again, it's just one of those kind of eye-opening things that these are the things that I really like to pull out to my students. Because again, if we're looking at perspectives during grade 8 social studies, you're looking at different worldviews. So I just really think it's really interesting and quite an important point to bring out to our students. Any other thoughts? Anytime, please. Just jump in. So just to look at my introduction to Fatty Lakes. I'm really passionate about native studies and residential schools in particular. I grew up in Grand Cache. That's where I live and I teach now. And we have a lot of nature, a lot of free people here in our community. And I've never heard of a residential school until I went to the University of Lafbridge. And I was blown away. And I'll talk to you a little bit later about the book that got me sort of interested in residential schools. Then I've also presented some workshops on using literature to enhance FNMI perspectives, as I mentioned, in K-9 and literature to promote social studies in K-9. So I was looking for different books as well just to give us that extra little bit. You know, beyond the textbook or whatever, it's really cool to give them the book. They love pictures, right? Even if they're older kids, they love pictures. Yeah, I appreciate that. I was blown away that I didn't learn about residential schools. So thanks for the comment down there. I didn't see the analogy, so I need to scroll up here. Yeah, about Uli Man was entering a new world of experience by learning how to read in a school in a different culture than our own. Yeah, really, really great point. Thank you so much for bringing that up. And I love this book. So I found Fatty Legs in Scholastic after I started doing these workshops. And I saw it, and right away I said, Fatty Legs, like I told the kids, I have to leave, right at 3.30, I'm sorry, because I'm doing a webinar. And I said, what's it on? I said, oh, this book we're going to look at later in this year called Fatty Legs, and they all start laughing. Fatty Legs? Well, yeah, it gets your attention. And so, pardon me, so I ordered the book and I just fell in love with it. And so I got in touch with our video conference guy, Gord, in Grand Yellow Head. And I said, Gord, you've got to find me, Margaret. You've got to find me, Christy, because they live here. They live in BC, not far from where I am in Alberta. And so Gord tracked them down, and I think they were one of the first groups that had a video conference presentation with Margaret and Christy. And it was really, really interesting. One of the things that I didn't think about when we did that presentation, and if you're familiar with the book, The Raven, there are two characters, really two key teachers. One of them is The Raven, and the other is The Swan, a system of quilling. She names The Swan. And The Raven is kind of a combination of a number of different teachers. There was one teacher in particular who was particularly cruel to Margaret. And so we were doing this video conference session, and one of my kids very innocently put up his head, and he said, well, what's The Raven's name? And Margaret burst into tears. And she looked up, and she said, Sister LaFlamme. And I just about died, and I just felt sick. I was like, oh my gosh, I should have told the kids, oh my gosh, that's that question. And since I've spoken to Christie and Margaret, and Christie has said that Margaret now very openly says Sister LaFlamme's name as The Raven, and that was the first time that she's ever spoken it out loud, ever. And it was in my class. So that was a really moving experience. But I mean, these are real people, contemporary people. The last residential school closed in 1996. And I also really love that you can get Margaret and Christie. You can have a video conference with them and your kids. And that's pretty cool too. All right. So in the beginning, I used it as a read-aloud. The first time, I only had the one copy, and I had to share it with my kids. And so I was teaching social studies to three groups of kids, but I only had LA for my home room that year. So I couldn't use it as a novel study. But I wasn't prepared to do that yet anyway. And so what I did is the first 15 minutes or so of my social studies class, I'd read a little bit. It's a very short book. It doesn't take a lot of time. What I would do, and I'll talk about the art in a little bit, is I would scan pictures that were particularly powerful. And I'd scan into email. I'd put them up on the smart board and share with the students. So I used it as a read-aloud. I had one copy. I used Face Something, and I'll mention those a little bit later. And as I mentioned, I scanned some pictures. And we would just ask questions as we go. And the kids loved it. Now, I added this in here because I really feel that Sadi Lake takes it a little bit further, even though it goes back and it kind of starts things off. But I thought this is like taking it from history and stop photos to beautiful words, pictures, and a real person. And as I mentioned, your kids can meet Margaret. So many of us have seen this famous stop photo of Thomas Moore before and after residential schools. But it still makes the story feel very historical. And as I said, Margaret is into peace of history. She's a real life person. All right. So social studies uses works great to look at citizenship. Again, being a social studies nerd, and I say that with pride, I always tell my kids, we have to focus on citizenship. Being a citizen is who you saw as belonging to society. So again, that really ties into historical context as well. You could use it as a mapping activity, exploring the Western Arctic, a Google map journey of the places in the novel, research activities that we'll have a look at here. And I've got some of these listed. I think that Carla will be posting some things for me after the webinar or maybe during researching whether hours of daylight in the Arctic or which groups of people worked in residential schools as the brothers and the sisters. A couple of different things that I like to look at what Uli Montes on page 18, where she mentions going to the settlement, our own great-grandfather Old Man Polkiak had found it as a trading post. So I've bought a link as well for a website on there. And yeah, that'll be in the Wiki space. I can't talk about this book without talking about the art. Liz Amini Holmes is the artist, and she's at a San Francisco. Now, she got the copy of the book, and she read it, and they worked pretty collaboratively. But Liz had some really fantastic creative license. And I'll tell you what I mean when I show you a picture coming up here. But I really think that she captures the feeling. And so I put a quote in there. They were not family. Like owls and ravens raising wrens. Yeah, and the art brings it to life. Like the comments on the side there, it brings it to life. And so I'm just, I'm hoping that you guys might be willing to type some comments about maybe even what you think about this particular picture, if there's anything that you see in here that stands out to you or any comments. Because there's a couple of things that I'd really like to share. So I'm just going to mute my mic for a moment and you don't either click, as Carla mentioned, on that text box, on the side, that A. Or in the chat room, or also just talk, please, if you have anything you'd like to say. You know, just reading Payleague's comment about being intimidated by the art and looking at the artwork here, too. It does just, you know, in any story, the artwork really brings the story to life. The children knowing as well that this is, you know, based upon true experience and how, you know, it really puts them in that situation as well. They can identify so much more with the characters and they can see the pictures. Carrie? Hi, Carrie. I'm not sure if you're talking right now, but we couldn't hear you. Your mic's not on. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Technology, boo. Sorry. I didn't, you didn't miss too much. Thank you. So Liz is, as I said, Liz is just amazing. And as I was getting in touch with Margaret and Christy and learning a little bit about it, when I was trying to put together this presentation, I just looked online. I Googled Liz's name and I found sort of a portfolio and there was an email there. So I sent her an email and I just said, you know, I've talked with Christy a lot. Just wanted to say, you know, like, I love your art. It's beautiful. It's haunting. I love that you said intimidating. And it's really moving. And she replied to me right away. So, I mean, I'm not sure what everybody's teaching, but I bet you you could get a video conference with Liz fairly easily as well, Google her and send her an email. And sorry about that, you guys, with the sound. Please forgive me. Again, the word choice and the pictures to me are so powerful.  And Rosie, her sister said, they think the little ones can't cut their hair. And I don't, I mean, that's what the kids saw as, or sorry, can't do your own hair. And Margaret said, but I can fix my own hair. And Rosie said, but they don't care.  One of the things that I really like, and I've never really thought about before, Christy mentioned a couple of weeks ago, is that lateral violence, where you saw these older girls, for example, the British girl Catherine, who had likely been really poorly treated by the nuns. And then she sort of ended up getting literally kind of taken under their wing. And then she kind of helped. I like how Oolimann called some of the hatchlings. The girls that were basically following along. I love the imagery in here. So that's really interesting for me. But the words sever. I'm a really, really big word choice fanatic.   What a powerful statement to make. So any comments about why the girls' hair was cut? And I'll remember to turn my mic back on. Okay. If you're typing, I'll make sure I pay attention. I keep looking in the bottom corner here. I think we talked about a little bit for those of you that were there with Christy. You know, about taking away their power, taking away their individuality, also taking away that part of their culture. Okay. This as well is really powerful to me. Do you see this rock? This is when Margaret is talking, Uli Monat this point is talking with her father. And he'd gone to the residential school and he was very strongly against her attending. So when he said, do you see this rock? It was once jagged in full of sharp jutting points. But the water of the ocean slapped and slapped at it, carrying away angles and edges.  That is what the outside of school will do. Sorry, that's what the outside of school will do to you. I might have put an app of school there when I shouldn't have. I apologize. But father, the water did not change the stone inside the rock. Besides, I'm not a rock. I'm a girl. I can move. I am not stuck upon the shore for eternity. So that was really, really powerful. And I appreciate that. Yeah, I liked the comment story that I didn't read it when I had no mic about the children as the rent and the helplessness and that dependence. And they did want to make them feel dependent, which again, isn't what they should have been to be any kind of member of society, but certainly not a member of a First Nations community. Now this next one is for me just so powerful. I had a nightmare. I dreamed I was locked beneath the Ravens' Habit with many other children. She cackled and laughed as we tried to break free, straining against its weight, knowing we would never see our parents again. That's so powerful for me. And I think they said that this almost made the cover of the book. Now the thing that's so interesting to me about this is that Margaret had a lot of horrible dreams and she doesn't remember most of the dreams. She blocked them out. So this particular dream isn't one that Margaret has. This is a vision that Liz, who is the artist, had. So I think that's really powerful. That Liz had such a connection with this book that she was able to come up with this. So I, again, I used to scan it to email and put it up on my smart board, but you could have the kids look this up. It's in Liz's portfolio. So just to sit and spend some time looking at it. The children, the cages, and the helpless looks on their faces. You can also see that it's winter and they don't have proper clothing, which if you've read the book, there's one part where at Christmas time the children were basically herded over to the radio station to make some fake message home. And they didn't have proper winter clothing on. Margaret's types are referred to as like onion skin types. So these poor children who must have been frozen and terrified, even though the school is small in the background, it's still an imposing looking structure. And so with any book that is a picture book, I think it's so powerful to spend time talking about the pictures and the feeling that the pictures convey. And again, it's so powerful in this book. Again, if you have any comments or questions, I don't mean to barrel through you, please at any time just jump in. So to use this as a novel study, it's easy to do a novel study without a package. And I never thought I would have said that a couple of years ago because one of the more common reasons that people would do novel studies is because there were a whole bunch of copies of them in the back room. If you've got a bunch of novels, you might as well teach that novel study. And if you have a teacher package available, even better. When I was doing some preparation for my own classes this summer, I came across book talks that I'd never heard about book talks before. And I've got a link for you to check out after the session here about book talks. And I'll talk about them a little bit more later. Novel studies are also a really great way to engage students. And again, as I mentioned before, help them to learn in a different way beyond a textbook. Now I have an example there, Sister to the Wolf. I won't spend much time talking about that because it's not related to residential schools. But as I said, I teach grade 7 ballet and social studies. And I came across the novel, Sister to the Wolf by Maxine Trocce a number of years ago. And when my kids have to learn about people in places and new friends, there's nothing that teaches them about the way things were back then better than this book. And the kids buy into it. They love it. They talk about it outside of class. I've had kids come and say, oh, my sister told me to make sure that Mrs. Aitken reads Sister to the Wolf you guys this year. Boys that are saying that as well. So it's pretty cool for a for a novel study to have that kind of impact. It's also easy to go up beyond the read and regurgitate, which is what I kind of just call those basic recall questions. Now the novel study, well, I went ahead of myself. Sorry. I did put together a novel study. And it will be available for you on the Wiki space when I'm done here today. Please feel free to use it. Remember that it's not something that's been professionally reviewed even remotely. And so I believe it will be available for you as a PDF file. When I put those questions together, I did questions for each chapter. And I did everything from those basic read and regurgitate sort of recall questions. And I also have some higher level thinking questions. So if you use it, please realize that it's not intended to just be printed off and then given to your kids. It's something you're going to have to review. Have a look at and just decide what's going to work for you. Use what you'd like. Don't use what you don't want. I also have an answer to that will be posted for you. So please use it. I spent a lot of time putting it together. There is also going to be a link or a PDF file with extensions and imagery. And so basically what I did is I went through the book. And a lot of those things that were really powerful statements that I found, I just pulled out. For example, some of the things that you saw when I mentioned about Alice. So to talk about book talks, which is so easy to do. You don't have to have an auto study package to do a book talk. I've got a link that will be available for you if in the PowerPoint to look at these after this session. And I got it from a Montessori school website. And it has a hundred different book talk ideas. So these are just six that I just caught and pasted from that list. So doing a costume presentation of the book, dressing up like the characters, writing a letter from one character to another, a new conclusion, a new beginning, you know, if it's a journey draw on that. So here are some book talk links. The first one is the one I mentioned that has a hundred book talk ideas. When I was doing my planning this summer, I also saw an introduction of book talks with lesson plans. There's a book talk rubric as well as an assignment with rubric. I certainly wouldn't say just, oh, open these up and use them tomorrow. I'd say open these up and use them on Thursday after you've had a chance to look at them and see what works for you and what doesn't. But I think it's pretty easy to adapt, and it's a good start for sure. Some other uses. Say somethings, which is a strategy from Kylie and Beers. And they're basically stem starters that prompt students to make a prediction. Ask a question, clarify, make a comment or a connection. So I'm just going to mute for a second to see if anybody has anything they wanted to say, questions, before I move on. Okay. So have a look at those. And again, if you have any questions, please absolutely let me know. So to say somethings can really get students thinking about what they're reading. So they basically have some simple stem starters like, oh, at first I thought this, but now I think this, or oh, now I think it means. It's a great strategy to use with any kind of reading, even a textbook. And there's a PDF copy available at that link there. Please check it out after if you'd like. It also kind of helps the kids to think because a lot of times they know what they want to say. They're just not exactly sure how to start getting it out. So it's a really helpful way to get them thinking about what they're talking about. Literature circles. Really easy to do with books, but they're student driven. I've seen some mixed reviews. Some people feel they're a little bit dated. I definitely see some value. There's different roles for students. And you can adapt them. The connector, for example, the discussion director, literary, luminary, travel chaser, vocabulary, and richer. So here's a sample job description here for a connector. So the kids would be in groups. And you might assign people to do your different jobs. And it's cool as well because if you've got a student that's a little bit weaker, you don't assign them something like the connector, which is more of a higher level thinking skill. So your job is to find connections between the books you're reading and the outside world. So this means connecting what you read with your own life to what happens at school or in the community, to similar events at other times and places, or to other people and problems. Once you've shared your connection to this selection or story section of the book, each member of your group to relate their own connection, although they may refer to a different package. So next I've got literature, circle, PDFs, and activities. So the first is a PDF link. Well, there's a link with a bunch of different PDF files. So you can access those and modify them as you choose. And also one of the Alberta Assessment Consortium, Grade 7 tasks. I suspect other grades too is literature circles. And so there is a link to the AAC Grade 7 literature circle assignment. And your division should have some login information for you to access that. Questions, comments? Okay. So I've got some other books here about residential schools. Obviously, as I mentioned, preview the books for appropriateness with other kids. My kids really like these, which would be great for as low as Grade 4. So we have Shih Shih Echo and Shin-Shih Kanu. So the first one is a young girl who's basically collecting her memory prior to going to the school. And the second is the follow-up book, when Shih Shih Echo and her little brother go to the school. Nicola Campbell is the lady who wrote these books. She's a main key author. My grade 7s loved it. And when I read Shih Shih Echo, they ask me if we could read the second one. The pictures are very beautiful, kind of poetic. There's, I'll share a couple more with you. There's one that I'm going to mention because I've seen it. It's called Cookham's Red Shoes. I didn't really like it though. RSNMI liaison likes it though. So again, review and use at your own discretion. One of the things I didn't like about Cookham's Red Shoes is that in the historical notes they say that First Nations people in Canada were on reservations. So I have reservations about somebody using terms and not really understanding where they should go. So I didn't like Cookham's Red Shoes. I also felt like it kind of was a little copycat on fatty legs. That was just me personally. But again, feel free to check it out if you're interested. Now this next section here is from a book that I'll show you on the next slide. So Mama spoke quietly. Cookham keeps hearing that children are being taken from their families and are being put in a school far away. She looked at Lawrence and lowered her voice even more. He could only hear part of what she said. It was something about prison. What are they going to do to us next, Grandma said? Lawrence didn't understand. What was the school? He didn't want to leave home. He played with the other children all day. He was learning to hunt and fish to help feed the family. And he was already pretty good at it too. And so that's as long as the river flows, by Larry Lee. And so the first book is about his last summer at home before he went to residential school. It takes place in 1944. Something that's really cool about that book is that it takes place in Slave Lake. And it is a true story. Some criticisms about it, some people feel that it's a little bit disjointed because basically it shows Lawrence kind of receiving an education in a more traditional way and a natural way from several family members. And so basically it's sort of just pieces. It's not going to seem like a really put together book, but I think it's a great book. And when he finally went home at age 14, he felt like a stranger. He tried to recapture the feeling of freedom. He felt when he lived with his family in the bush he was never going over the same. So it's a great, great book. The second one is good by Buffalo Bay. And that's a true story of life in a residential school and moving on. So those are both Larry Lee stories. Now this is the book that I mentioned with my introduction to the topic of residential schools. This is not something that you want to share with your kids. It offers some pretty graphic descriptions. And there's the experiences of Mead My Children in Shubhanakini, Nova Scotia. That's a great background for teachers. So if you don't know about residential schools, as I mentioned, please check out that Truth and Reconciliation document that came for the children. But I'd really also strongly suggest that you check out this book out of the depths by Isabel Lockwood. Again, it's really, really disturbing. And so read it, check it out. But I wouldn't share it with your kids. But I did see it on a grade nine literature list. I would be hesitant to use it with grade nine, but it's a wonderful, wonderful introduction background for teachers. I also need to mention the sequel to Saddle Eggs, which is called A Stranger at Home. And this is about Margaret's return home and adjusting to life back at home. It also offers a brilliant look at different perspectives of love, like with the dooblacks who's a black stranger. And Margaret feels that Nyer has been really fit in. Christy and Margaret are also writing a picture book I need to mention to you as well. And I believe it's for Saddle Eggs. But this is a great follow-up to Saddle Eggs. Now, I also need to mention this to you. Please keep in mind the topic of residential schools is very sensitive. Many people are still trying to cope with in many different ways. There's a lot of healing. They call residential school children survivors. So that really gives you an idea of how some of these people felt. So please use caution, because if your kids are super excited about Saddle Eggs or any other book on this topic, be careful. Because we don't know, and they might not know, if they have a family member who attended the school and may not be in a place where they're able to share. Some other things before I move to the last slide here about Saddle Eggs, too. I'm a mother. I have a four-year-old son. And looking at that book as a mother also just kind of rips my heart out in certain sections. For example, we have a section in the beginning where Margaret goes to the Hussein Bay company trading post with her mom. And her mom's trying to get her set up for her school.  And it's a brilliant scene, and I just love it. And the kids go crazy for it. But her mother also bought her these stockings. And the Raven wouldn't let her wear her own stockings. And instead, she'd wear these onion skin tights. And her mother, Margaret's mother, bought her some toothpaste, what she thought was toothpaste, and she tried to be shaved and cream. So everybody was laughing at her. And so there are a lot of things for me now as a mother as well as a teacher that really just ripped my heart out. And I think this is a really, really great book, again, as I said, to introduce. But please do keep that in mind. And that was something that the people with Alberta Education wanted you to be aware of as well. So I wanted to close the slideshow with this quote that I love. My curiosity had led me far away. And now here I was after two years, satisfied that I now knew what happened to girls who went down radicals. And so I think that's a really powerful way to end it. So again, please, does anybody have any questions or comments or anything that I can share with you? That's the last slide that I have. Thanks very much, Carrie. I wonder if we could go through the list of participants here to bring forward any of your comments or thoughts, including ideas of how you think you could use this resource. And I know some of you have used the resource as well. Janet, would you be willing to share any final reflections or comments? I don't have too much to say at this late in the evening after a full day of teaching, but I would like to use this book, and I'm wondering is Grade 4... I have a Grade 4 class this year, so I'm just wondering could I use it at Grade 4 or leave it for 5 or 6? I think you could use it at Grade 4, but I mean, again, it really depends on your particular group of students. I think if you're interested in using it with them, I would go with Shin Chi's canoe and Shishieko first, kind of see how they respond to that. There's also some wonderful historical notes and thoughts in the back of those two Nicola Cabell books that, you know, if your kids kind of get that, then I'd say give Fatty Lakes a try. Otherwise, you know, go with those two and maybe try it for higher levels. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Kerry. I have used those two books before in previous years, so I'm very familiar with those two, so that's a good idea. Thanks. Thanks for sharing, Janet. Lily, do you have any comments to share? Well, I sure appreciate some of the comments you've shared throughout, Louie, because I remember last time as well, you had some really cool ideas. Oh, is that you on the side there? I'm not teaching presently, but we'll recommend it here at Upward Education. That's great, Louie, and thank you very much. Thanks, Louie. Michelle? I probably would use it as a read-along for Grade 5. Yeah, and it's great, too, because Grade 5, you know, it ties fairly easily in with the Grade 5 social studies curriculum. Thanks, Michelle. Paylick, thank you for your comments in the chat box as well. Anything to add or to bring voice to your comments? Well, I also recommend teachers to watch The Eighth Fire to feel more comfortable with the wider issues relating to Aboriginal people in Canada. Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm not familiar with it, so I'll look it up for sure. Muffins for Granny is a movie as well about residential schools, so it's something that, as a teacher, it's definitely something that is worthwhile checking out. Thanks, Paylick, and perhaps we can add some of the links to the Wiki after we get to post that information. Sandy, thanks for the comment about Cary's expertise, and we definitely agree with you there as well. Unless there's other comments, I'll wrap up the session. Cary, thank you very much for sharing your experiences using the resource, and I also appreciate that you acknowledged the sensitivities that have been brought to our attention and that we are aware of, obviously, that Alberta Education is highlighted. So thank you for bringing voice to that.  Cary, would you like to bring any last comments? Yeah, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be able to share with people, and so thank you so much for taking time at the end of the day, and again, please forgive me for not being so tech savvy. So I'll just post... Sorry, I don't want to post it badly or wrong. There's my email that I just posted, careacheatgypsd.ca. Please feel free to contact me. If you have any questions or any suggestions or ideas for me, please, please pass those on. I'd be really grateful for anything that you have to share. And if you're looking for any resources or whatever, please let me know because I love to help. So I'm so grateful for your time today. Thank you guys so much. Yay. Thank you. And virtual... Real applause. I guess I can clap to you guys. Thanks. Thank you. We can all also put a smiley face up or clapping. Thank you for adding those icons. Thank you very much, Carter, for helping us moderate. We'll also... And Carter, I'll also put the link to the WikiSpaces where the information will be posted. We'll also send a follow-up email to all the participants that were registered. We know some couldn't attend today to the follow-up information and the archives. So thank you very much to everyone for attending. There should be a survey come up that pop up into your screen and we appreciate you taking the time to provide us with any feedback so that we can ensure that we can continue to provide learning opportunities that meet your needs. Thanks again, Kerry, and everyone have a great evening and a great day to work tomorrow. Thanks. Good night.