Philip Mead

Brenton Doecke

Larissa McLean Davies

Lyn Yates

Wayne Sawyer

At a time when knowledge is being 're-valued' as central to curriculum concerns, subject English is being called to account. Literary Knowing and the Making of English Teachers puts long-standing debates about knowledge and knowing in English in dialogue with an investigation of how English teachers are made in the 21st century. This book explores, for the first time, the role of literature in shaping English teachers’ professional knowledge and identities by examining the impacts, in particular, of their own school teaching in their ‘making’. The voices of early career English teachers feature throughout the work, in a series of vignettes providing reflective accounts of their professional learning. The authors bring a range of disciplinary expertise and standpoints to explore the complexity of knowledge and knowing in English. They ask: How do English teachers negotiate competing curriculum demands? How do they understand literary knowledge in a neoliberal context? What is core English knowledge for students, and what role should literature play in the contemporary curriculum? Drawing on a major longitudinal research project, they bring to light what English teachers see as central to their work, the ways they connect teaching with their disciplinary training, and how their understandings of literary practice are contested and reimagined in the classroom. This innovative work is essential reading for scholars and postgraduate students in the fields of teacher education, English education, literary studies and curriculum studies.

The Role of Literature in Shaping English Teachers’ Professional Knowledge and Identities

Literary Knowing and the Making of English Teachers

Graham Parr

Affirming the professional knowledge, practice, and engagement of teachers in the face of recurring media attacks on their profession, this examination of the role of writing in various teaching and learning contexts by English teachers provides richly reflective perspectives on the relationship between the writing and learning of both students and professionals.

Writing = Learning

Piet-Hein van de Ven

Literary Praxis: A Conversational Inquiry into the Teaching of Literature explores the teaching of literature in secondary schools. It does this from the vantage point of educators in a range of settings around the world, as they engage in dialogue with one another in order to capture the nature of their professional commitment, the knowledge they bring to their work as literature teachers, and the challenges of their professional practice as they interact with their students. The core of the book comprises accounts of their day-to-day teaching by Dutch and Australian educators. These teachers do more than capture the immediacy of the here-and-now of their classrooms; they attempt to understand those classrooms relationally, exploring the ways in which their professional practice is mediated by government policies, national literary traditions and existing traditions of curriculum and pedagogy. They thereby enact a form of literary ‘praxis’ that grapples with major ideological issues, most notably the impact of standards-based reforms on their work. Educators from other countries then comment on the cases written by the Dutch and Australian teachers, thus taking the concept of ‘praxis’ to a new level, as part of a comparative inquiry that acknowledges the richly specific character of the cases and resists viewing teaching around the world as though it lends itself unproblematically to the same standards of measurement (as in the fetish made of PISA). They step back from a judgmental stance, and try to understand what it means to teach literature in other educational settings than their own. The essays in this collection show the complexities of literature teaching as a form of professional praxis, exploring the intensely reflexive learning in which teachers engage, as they induct their students into reading literary texts, and reflect on the socio-cultural contexts of their work.

A Conversational Inquiry into the Teaching of Literature

Literary Praxis

Gary Simmons

Pam Macintyre

Natalie Bellis

Scot Bulfin

Kelli McGraw

Lisa McNeice

Karen Moni

English for the Australian Curriculum Book 1 privileges student experience, creative engagement with texts, moments of reflection and deep thinking. Drawing on an inquiry model of learning, it provides opportunities for students to write and create their own texts. Written for the Australian Curriculum, English for the Australian Curriculum Book 1 provides a fully balanced and integrated approach to the study of language, literature and literacy. It actively engages students with texts at a variety of levels: • Develops language skills at word, sentence and text level, with activities in reading, writing, viewing, creating, listening and speaking • Encourages student writing across a variety of contexts, for a variety of purposes and for a variety of audiences • Underlines the importance of visual literacy • Provides opportunities for students to create their own multimodal texts

English for the Australian Curriculum

This volume brings together teachers, teacher educators, creative writers and literary scholars in a joint inquiry that takes a fresh look at what it means to teach Australian literature. The essays assembled in this volume transcend the divisions that have sometimes marred debates about the place of Australian literature in the school curriculum.

From Classroom Conversations to National Imaginings

Teaching Australian Literature

Brenton Doecke

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