Below are the responses received to date:
 

I am a student at Penn State University, in the Secondary English Education program.  As part of an assignment we (LLED412 class), under Jim Albright and Jamie Myers, were to view the web site that your class had created as a reference to the Shipping News web site that we are in the process of making for our own class.  I have had the chance to browse through your web site and have found many interesting links and ideas that the class has come up with.  The aspects of the site that I like best are the Terms and Concepts section and the Teaching Ideas section.  I truly enjoy the terms section because it gives the viewer definitions and meanings to words in the book by Newfoundlanders themselves.  It is an unique way of grasping a better understanding of the terminology used in the text.  I think that this section could be very beneficial to a reader of the Shipping News to view before he/she actually reads the book.  The Teaching Ideas section is valuable to me as a future educator.  I have found many interesting ideas in this section, like the activities that M. Power has shared dealing with the novel.  These could be fun and interesting activities to implement into a classroom to keep the learning fresh and responsive.  All in all, this site has been very creative and informative in helping me come to better terms with what I want for my section of our web page.  Your students have shown many different links to the novel and it is wonderfully orchestrated together.  I can only hope that our page comes out as excellent as yours.  Chris Spanos

Greetings from the US,         I am writing to you at the request of Jim Albright, a Canadian and teacher educator who taught one of my classes this semester. During the class, we have occasionally discussed new technologies and their potential as instructional tools in a classroom.  I believe that the web site your class has constructed demonstrates that these technologies can have a significant role in the classroom, and in bringing the classroom to the outside world.  The materials that are posted on the page offer a unique perspective on The Shipping News, and this perspective could (and would) have been hidden from the rest of the world if it were not published.  I am certainly glad that you have chosen to share your interpretations with us.         My interpretation of The Shipping News are colored by the fact that I chose to approach the novel with the intention of enjoying it.  At that time I was assigned to read the novel, I was very busy planning instruction for the classroom, and really didn't want any more responsibilities, such as the responsibility of reading a book, and responding to it for a class.  I became very upset when I learned that I would have to read a novel that I had never heard of as well as all of the other work that I had to do.          However, I quickly changed my turn.  Before I began reading The Shipping News for the first time, I decided to enjoy it.  I had very little time for reading novels, and it would do me some good to relax, and get back to enjoying reading, and not becoming stressed out because of it.  So I did some yoga breathing, and started reading.  Surprise! I loved reading the novel.         The point of all this rambling, is that I did not think about how Newfoundlanders would respond to the book being taught in high schools until Mr. Albright so kindly breached the matter with our class.  In the United States, we are deathly afraid of discussing sex in a public forum (must be our Puritan roots), and so I felt that the book would not be permitted to be read is school due to it's sexual content.         I was surprised to find that some Newfounlanders object to the novel because they feel that it does not depict the culture accurately.  I personally felt that the culture of fishing was greatly romanticized in the novel, and believe the constant references to sexual abuse to be a comment on human relations, and not an indictment of Newfoundland.         I hope that my response has provided some food for you brain to chew on.  Best wishes from the United States!!  Benjamin Brigham bsb128@psu.edu

I just examined your wonderful web site and am very impressed with what I saw. I taught  The Shipping News several years ago to an AP English class at Highland Springs High School, student population 1,300 and part of the Henrico County school system which borders the city of Richmond, VA.  We had read Wuthering Heights earlier in the year, and my class found that Quyole was such a great character to compare with Heathcliff.  All of them really enjoyed the quirkiness of The Shipping News and had a great time focusing on a book set in a part of the world that many Americans know little about:  Canada!  It was their favorite novel of the year. I'm sorry I did not have the luxury of your web site at the time. Sincerely, Linda Nicholson Highland Springs High School Highland Springs, VA