This Discussion Guide is based on a Capilano University Centre for Teaching Excellence Book Club selection for Spring 2020, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott (2019). The book club engaged members in deep, thoughtful, and sometimes difficult conversations. This resource is the result of these conversations and explorations. The Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) Spring 2020 Book Club offers this resource to you, our colleagues at Capilano University, to encourage you to create opportunities in your courses for important conversations around the many themes that this book presents.

The author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Alicia Elliott, a Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River, offers compelling narratives that prompt the reader to ponder, examine, discuss, and address the many challenges facing Indigenous peoples today. She also celebrates the survival of Indigenous Peoples and revival of their culture with this book being one example.

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground (2019) is published by Penguin Random House, Doubleday Canada and is available at the Capilano University Library and the CTE. Alicia Elliot has a presence in the Twitterverse and can be followed @wordsandguitar

This resource is organized by chapters – each chapter includes the themes that are present in each narrative, offers a suggested list of disciplines that naturally align with the narrative, and provides a list of guiding questions to engage the reader.

We, the contributors to this resource, welcome your suggestions, additional guiding questions and/or activities to include in future iterations of this resource. We are also eager to receive your feedback on how you used this resource. Please forward your suggestions and additions to Mary Giovannetti mgiovann@capilanou.ca and David Geary davidgeary2@capilanou.ca.

Contributors to this resource:

Eduardo Azmitia Pardo

Bettina Boyle

Trudi Diening

David Geary

Mary Giovannetti

Abigail Kinch

Barry Magrill

Jules Smith