Lesson plan

The Diviners

The Diviners is a novel by Margaret Laurence. Published by McClelland & Stewart in 1974, it was Laurence's final novel, and the last in her five-volume Manawaka cycle. It is considered a classic of Canadian literature and won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1974. While the tone of the novel is spiritual and life-affirming, it also deals with issues of race, sexuality, class, poverty, and abortion, and contains strong language. As a result, challenges by religious and/or conservative groups have been constant, but these disputes galvanized authors, librarians, teachers, publishers, and booksellers to champion the book, and led to the formation of Freedom to Read Week.

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Article summary

The Diviners is a novel by Margaret Laurence. Published by McClelland & Stewart in 1974, it was Laurence's final novel, and the last in her five-volume Manawaka cycle. It is considered a classic of Canadian literature and won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1974. While the tone of the novel is spiritual and life-affirming, it also deals with issues of race, sexuality, class, poverty, and abortion, and contains strong language. As a result, challenges by religious and/or conservative groups have been constant, but these disputes galvanized authors, librarians, teachers, publishers, and booksellers to champion the book, and led to the formation of Freedom to Read Week.

Key claims

  1. publication date: 1974 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the publication date is "1974". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1338260432

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.