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Grade 11 English students at the Ottawa Catholic School Board are ditching Shakespeare and Margaret Atwood in favour of studying literature by Indigenous authors like Richard Wagamese and Tanya Talaga.

The board has approved a change from the traditional course to an offering called “English: Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Voices.”

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Five secondary schools already offer the course and within two years it will be the standard in all the board’s schools.

A similar change has been adopted or is underway at several other boards across the province as they try to increase the diversity of literature being studied and implement recommendations of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board began doing the same thing a couple of years ago. It now offers an English course featuring Indigenous authors for Grade 11 students in the majority of its secondary schools, with the remainder to switch by September 2021.