TATE Workshop

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TATE Workshop

• English
• and the Essential Learnings
• Statewide workshops
• August 2005
• 4.30 5.45 pm

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English in Australia

• key learning area
• domain
• field
• subject
• discipline

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Changing English?

• English is always subject to the laws of
  recontextualisation it takes on different forms
  in different contexts.
• No one can claim to have the one true doctrine of
  English.
• Nick Peim - National Association
  Teaching English, 2003

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Changing English?

• There are now many versions of English.
• English - an umbrella term for the many Englishes?

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Versions of English?

• literature/literary study
• communication
• language
• literacy
• cultural studies/media studies
• l(IT)erary l(IT)eracy

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English in Tasmania

• language skills
• personal growth
• cultural heritage
• functional/genre
• critical literacies
• critical multiliteracies?

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English

• English constantly leads outside itself into
  other fields of study.
• English is about nothing in particular but also,
  therefore, about everything.

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English

• Despite some uncertainties around subject
  English, there are common practices and familiar
  content in our English classrooms.

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Senior Secondary English

• English Studies
• English Communications
• English Writing
• English Applied
• English 2-4

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English Communications

• the power of language in society
• exploring how communications work in the modern
  world, particularly in Australia
• an inquiry approach into relevant issues and
  contemporary texts
• producing original and authentic texts

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English Studies

• the study of texts that emphasise the use of
  language to create and interpret experience
  imaginatively
• how literary texts - both print and film -
  represent experience
• texts and their contexts
• reflection on the nature of text, self and
  society

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English Writing

• exploration of ideas and issues through writing
• producing a significant body of original work
• crafting writing through workshop processes and
  investigating others writing
• personal reading and viewing

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English

• English provides us with the capacity for making
  meaning and reflecting on texts, language, people
  and the world.
• Learning, Teaching and Assessment Guide, 2005

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English

• English is about the textual rendering of the
  human experience.
• Wendy Morgan - AATE Conference, 2005

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English

• English is about how we represent ourselves in
  our world and how we make sense of
  representations for us in our world.
• Gunther Kress, 2005

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Essential English

• What does English essentially concern itself
  with?
• What does it do that no other area of the
  curriculum does?
• Wayne Sawyer University of Western Sydney,
  2005

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Essential English

• Essential English is about
• the study of language
• reflection on language
• the critique of language
• the creation of language

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Essential English

• In texts of the
• imagination
• personal
• aesthetic

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Essential English

• In
• print
• electronic
• oral and
• visual forms
• Wayne Sawyer University of Western Sydney,
  2005

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Essential English

• The central concern with language for its own
  sake.
• The equal valuing if the critical and aesthetic
  domains of language.
• The valuing of imaginative and personal uses of
  language.
• Wayne Sawyer University of Western Sydney,
  2005

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The Essential Learnings

• The ELs Framework aligns
• Curriculum i.e. what we teach.
• Pedagogy i.e. how we teach.
• Assessment i.e. how we provide feedback to
  students and make judgements about learning.
• Reporting i.e. how we recognise and communicate
  judgements about learning to others.

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The Essential Learnings

• five essentials central to contemporary life
  and work
• a seamless curriculum guaranteed for all students
  K-10
• concept-based, inquiry-driven
• world-related
• clear outcomes and standards

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The Essential Learnings

• Interrelates discipline knowledge, conceptual
  understanding, processes and skills to ensure
  connectedness and coherence in learning.
• English constantly leads outside itself into
  other fields of study.

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The Essential Learnings

• Provides a lens through which to identify and
  select critical content, key concepts, processes
  and skills from the fields of learning such as
  English.

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The Essential Learnings

• Discipline and subject knowledge will be
  strengthened through the Essential Learnings
  curriculum.
• ELs Parent Community Pamphlet, 2005

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Essential English learning

• We have to get better at the disciplinary to make
  the transdisciplinary work.
• Professor Peter Freebody - TATE State Conference,
  2005

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Shifts in approach

• Moving our thinking from teaching a subject
  called English towards the notion of English
  learning within an Essential Learnings
  curriculum.

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Shifts in approach

• From teaching a subject called English towards
  learning about, with and through the critical
  content, key concepts, processes and skills of
  the field of English

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Shifts in approach

• From teaching the book Looking for Alibrandi to
  inquiring into how the book represents family,
  loss, relationships and identity.

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Mending Wall

• Something there is that doesnt love a wall
• That sends the frozen ground-swell under it
• And spills the upper boulders in the sun
• And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
• Good fences make good neighbours
• Robert Frost

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Transdisciplinary English?

• Does English connect to other fields of study?
• Do teachers of English spend time in the domains
  of history, philosophy, social sciences,
  geography, aesthetics?

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Animal Farm
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Transdisciplinary design

• Transdisciplinary learning connects two or more
  disciplines through a conceptual lens or focus to
  explore complex, life problems or issues.

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Transdisciplinary design

• In transdisciplinary learning the interactive
  synergy of the disciplines enables students to
  develop greater understanding of the problem or
  issue.

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Transdisciplinary design

• In transdisciplinary learning, disciplines
  maintain their integrity, informing what students
  need to know, (factual knowledge) understand
  (conceptual understanding) and be able to do
  (skills and processes).

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Key key elements

• Being literate
• Inquiry
• Being arts literate
• Reflective thinking

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More key key elements

• Valuing diversity.
• Building and maintaining identity and
  relationships.
• Being information literate.
• Being ethical.
• Understanding the past and creating preferred
  futures.

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Being literate

• working with the codes in which texts are
  constructed
• participating in making meaning of texts
• using texts
• critically analysing and transforming texts

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Key concepts

• Core concepts within Being literate
• communication
• text
• language
• meaning

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More concepts

• Symbol, word, image, message, code, register,
  Standard Australian English, language mode,
  multimodal text, text form, text type, genre,
  text structure, language feature, audience,
  purpose, context, strategy, representation,
  deconstruction, construction, point of view,
  positioning, ideology, aesthetic appreciation,
  media, non-verbal communication, print text,
  spoken text, visual text, multimedia text,
  intertextuality

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The process of inquiry

• asking good questions
• defining problems
• gathering information
• thinking about possibilities
• making decisions
• justifying conclusions

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Literary inquiry involves

• enjoying texts
• exploring texts
• analysing texts
• critiquing texts
• appreciating texts
• valuing texts

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Literary inquiry

• Students ask questions about
• how the book is made
• the narrative form

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Literary inquiry

• Students ask questions about
• the structure of the text
• the ways in which the text relates to life

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Literary inquiry

• Students ask questions about
• how does the implied author operates
• how might we read the text

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Literary inquiry

• Students ask questions about
• the literary techniques and devices operating in
  the text
• ways in which texts relate to each other

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Designing a task

• Working in pairs, read the scenario and explore
  the questions that follow. Be prepared to share
  your responses.

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A learning sequence

• Whats new and/or different in the learning
  sequence?
• Whats simply good English teaching practice?

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Ways forward

• literary inquiry into texts and language for
  critical, personal, social and aesthetic purposes
• literary inquiry and reflective thinking around
  significant ideas and issues represented in
  different texts
• investigating texts, their contexts and
  relationships

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Ways forward

• applying English learning to communicate in
  public, life-related ways
• extended negotiated learning
• ongoing elements language processes,
  strategies, skills, conventions

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Contact details

• Steven Figg
• PEO English/Curriculum Support Team
• School Education Division
• steven.figg_at_education.tas.gov.au