This Web site was constructed in 1999 by secondary English language arts education students at Memorial University of Newfoundland as part of their course work. The course is Education 4142, sections 01 and 02, taught by Dr. Barrie Barrell and Dr. Roberta Hammett in Fall 1998.

In this World Wide Web site, students are sharing their readings of E. Annie Proulx's novel The Shipping News, while at the same time learning about teaching literature, especially novels.  Thus some of the pages will contain lesson plans or teaching suggestions; other pages will explain concepts or terms in the novel; still others will share the unique perspective and personal response of Newfoundlanders who are reading and reacting to one person's representation of their home, lifestyle, and history.  Some of the readings are resistant; some fill gaps and silences in the text. Some pages show you scenes similar to those described in the novel, while other pages describe additional texts (e. g. , novels) with which readers make thematic connections.

The pages also represent different approaches to the teaching of a novel.  Common here are personal, aesthetic responses of the kind theorized by Louise M. Rosenblatt.  Other approaches include formal analysis (of theme, style, etc.), literary criticism, and deconstruction. Still other pages illustrate critical literacy approaches like resistant readings (as theorized by Nick Peim and Marnie O'Neill).  Some of the pages in this site provide further explanation of these various teaching approaches.