Disciplinarity and the case of school subject English

1
Disciplinarity and the case of school subject
English

• Frances Christie and Mary
• Macken-Horarik

2
Subject English

• Unique in the curriculum
• Series of models
• Review (i) developmental growth in language
  (ii) history of subject
• Propose a renewed model of English using SFL
  theory to give coherence and direction across the
  years of schooling

3
Developmental growth in control of language

• Textually emergent control of theme and
  reference
• Ideationally emergent control of nominal group
  structure, verbal group structure, prepositional
  phrase, adverbial group enhanced range of
  conjunctive relations and clause types
• Interpersonally emergent control of modality and
  attitudinal lexis
• And of course grammatical metaphor.

4
Some Broad Developments in Schooling Late 19th
century early 21st century
5
Mid to late 19th century to end of WW1

• elementary schooling mainly for the poor
  secondary education for the privileged few
• Basic Skills
• Object of Study Language as spelling, phonics,
  sentence grammar.
• Subject Position Apprentice to expert
• Semiotic practices Mastery of discrete language
  skills

6
Late 19th to 20th century

• elementary schooling made compulsory. After WW II
  some expansion of types of secondary education at
  least to the junior secondary level
• Cultural Heritage
• Object of Study Language as Art as civilising
  cultural artefact.
• Subject Position Novice to mentor
• Semiotic practices Language of artistic and
  symbolic control

7
1960s- 1980s 2nd half of 20th century

• secondary education for all expanded. After the
  1950s emergence of comprehensive secondary
  education, involving notion of common education
  for all students

• Functional Language Studies
• Object of Study Language as system and as text.
  (Phase i register dialect Phase ii register
  genre)
• Subject Position Linguistically informed user of
  language to expert
• Semiotic practices Language to engage with texts
  in contexts

• Personal Growth
• Object of Study Language as instrument of self
  expression
• Subject Position Personal responder to trusted
  adult
• Semiotic practices Language as personal self
  expression

8
Latter years of 20th century into 21st century

• comprehensive secondary education maintained but
  often under challenge, causing emergence of
  selective (academic) secondary schools and/or
  specialist secondary schools e.g. arts,
  technology. A splintering of different types of
  schools

• Cultural Analysis/ Multiliteracies
• Object of Study Language as infinite number of
  texts
• Subject Position Analyst to critical friend
• Semiotic practices Language for critique and
  subversion

• New Literacy Studies
• Object of Study Language as situated in
  diverse literacy events
• Subject Position Investigator of literacy events
  to mentor
• Semiotic practices Language for localized social
  events

9
A distinctive disciplinary structure?

• Some kinds of knowledge (or KoKs) are preserved
  in all models of English - to do with mastery of
  literate textuality. This means that verticality
  is generated through textuality.
• Two questions
• (i)What purview of literate textuality is
  offered in each model (from point of view of
  semiosis each makes possible)?
• (iii) Can the gazes made available in each model
  be made pedagogic?

10
Multiliteracies the semiotic economy of
contemporary English

• A diverse range of multimodal texts to interpret
• - a centrifugal expansion in curriculum
  possibilities
• Increasing stratification of teacher-examiner
  readings of students response texts
• - the centripetal pull of assessment regimes
• Hierarchies in diversities
• (all models are equal but ...)

11
Multimodal offer, literate response

• In answering Q 50, students must identify and
  explain the contrast between two frames. The
  literate response is what is evaluated, not the
  multimodal reading.

12
A visual text, an open question the gap

• What kind of journey is represented and how?

13
A visual metaphor open questions
What impressions are we given by the drawing on
the opposite page? And what is suggested by the
drawing? (from trial Australian Scaling Test,
ACT, 2007)
14
The potential of each model for enhancing
verticality?

• The open question requires recognition of the
  contextual demands of the discipline. Students
  responses are linguistic manifestations
  (realizations) of their acts of recognition.
• What do their responses to stimulus texts and the
  grades these earn have to teach us about the
  consequences of different models?
• Use SF grammatics to read KOKs embodied in
  students texts - SFG as meta-model.

15
Dimensions of each model and associated code

• Knowledge - different ways of construing language
  in texts (object of gaze)
• Knower - subject positions adopted in relation to
  text (gaze)
• Semiotic practices - particular uses of language
  that generate the gaze and its object.

16
Text as springboard - Personal Growth

• Knowledge code
• arbitrary
• (speculating about what
• the text could possibly
• mean)
• Logic of aggregation-a
• series of things about text
• Knower code voicing
• students thoughts
• feelings
• Semiotic code a local
• orientation to task - a
• scatter of impressions.

• Example 1 Yr 10 School Certificate What is
• the story The Red-Back Spider really about?
• The effective part of the story to me was at the
  beginning
• When it explained what they were doing there in
  that point of
• time. To me it had a few things the story was
  about. How
• the father is away from his wife and son and
  telling us how
• the wife is surviving with her son and then it
  goes near the
• end of the story how Mrs Burnett reacted x when
  she saw
• the horse in the pocket and it sounded like she
  didnt care if
• they got hurt. She only cared about her work
  being done..
• But I think the story was not about the spider
  x because it
• was killed straight away. The main thing that
  caught my
• attention was when Mrs Burnett asked about the
  toy horse
• and told him not to play with toys. That was the
  most
• confusing part of the story X when it doesnt say
  why she
• acted like that. X So there must have been
  something with
• those toys that he was playing with. D range

17
Text as window - Basic Skills

• Knowledge code Mimetic -
• looking through text to
• experience and its significance
• Logic Retelling story
• identifying characters reactions
• Knower code voicing
• characters thoughts/feelings
• and identifying the message
• Semiotic code global
• empirical orientation to task.

• Example 3 The story is about a mother and a
• young boy who migrated here. They live in a
• migrant hostel, the mother works on a farm as a
  
• domestic servant for Mrs Hunter who recommended
• her to Mrs Burnett. Mrs Burnett hired her to
  cut out
• all the weeds around her house. Mrs Burnett
  didnt
• seem like a very nice and trusting lady X
  because
• she would always lock the door after her X when
  she
• returned to go inside. The mother would work
  for
• Mrs Burnett on the days between she worked for
  Mrs
• Hunter. Her son would come along with her and
  
• play with his toys, X but one day he found a
  suitcase
• with toys in it X so he decided to play with
  them, X
• whilst doing so he heard a cry from his mother
  she had
• found red-back spider, she feared for her sons
  safety
• X so she burnt the spider along with its large
  nest of
• eggs, X as she knew they were poisonous.
• C range

18
Text as prism Cultural Heritage

• Example 5 The story is made effective because
• of the spider. The spider is like a comparison
  of
• the boy and his mother. They are treated in
• the way the spider is they are seen as if they
  
• are poisonous. They are kept outside and the
• boy is made to put the toy back, like he is
• poisoning it. The spider is like something
  foreign
• and dangerous, just as the migrants are seen
  as.
• The description of the spider laying its eggs
• hidden away is a comparison of how the migrants
• must be. The womans son is seen as a hindrance,
• she has to protect him from those who look
• down on him and accuse him unfairly,
• like when she stands up for him when he is
• found with the horse. This is just like the
• spider who hides her eggs for protection. .
• A range

• Knowledge code symbolic -
• interpreting meanings refracted
• in text(s) analogic reasoning.
• Logic semiotic reframing
• Knower code voicing the text
• and what it teaches
• Semiotic code global and
• abstract orientation to task.

19
TEXT AS KALEIDOSCOPE - Cultural Analysis

• Knowledge code theoretical
• how particular readings
• render meanings differently
• Logic (, x) semiotic
• explanation.
• Knower code voicing
• different ways of reading
• with and against text(s)
• Semiotic code Abstract and
• reflexive orientation to task.

• Example 7 Transformations of Shakespeares
• plays pop up a lot. Everyone seems to know how to
  
• change the story to make it better. Some people
  try to
• make it easier to understand, some try to
  modernise it
• and some want to make it more accessible to a
• particular audience. Romeo and Juliet has been
• transformed many times, but this time, the
• transformation is so massive that its ruined the
• story.
• Thats all well and good, but what Luhrmann has
• created is not just a modern transformation of
  Romeo
• and Juliet. He has created a foul film out of a
• beautiful play. Hes changed the context of Romeo
  
• and Juliet from 15 Century Italy to a mixture of
• modern day Mexico City and California. This
• disgusting mix changes the story to focus on
  guns,
• brawls, drugs, and sex. Shakespeare would be
• alarmed...

20
What kind of textuality is valued?

• According to the 2001 examiners, students in the
  upper range of achievement produced
• a synthesized response
• a strong line of argument about the theme
• demonstrated the ability to sustain a thesis
• with judicious reference to various texts
• and an ability to integrate material,
• and write confidently on each text in turn.
• NSW Board of Studies,
  2002 8

21
Verticality its preferred KoK

• Synthesis symbolic abstraction
• Strong line of argument rhetorical
  organization
• A sustained thesis . coherence
• Judicious reference to text .... meta-awareness
• Integration .. A global orientation to
  textuality
• So, what students generate through literate
  know
• how can become the basis of our knowledge
• about disciplinarity. We move from realization
  back
• to recognition, construing the codes via analysis
  of
• semiosis and its fate.

22
But heres the dilemma ..

• Just as language construes the social order
  without referring to the system it is
  constructing, so likewise language construes the
  natural order - through the unconscious,
  cryptotypic patterns in the grammar, which create
  their own order of reality independently of
  whatever it is they may be being used to
  describe. The question is whether we can use it
  to think with consciously. It may be impossible.
  I dont mean that it is impossible to understand
  the cryptogrammar of a natural language, but that
  its reality-generating power may be incompatible
  with explicit logical reasoning.
• Halliday, 1993 113

23
Thinking with grammatics widening the purview

• How to use the grammatics to widen students
  purview of literate textuality?
• How to develop a metalanguage adequate to the
  different KoKs valued in the discipline?

24
The deictic I, puzzling over text
I think/feel
25
The difficult text and its internal voices
26
The symbolic construct and its significance
27
Readings and what they generate
28
(No Transcript)
29
Disciplinarity development

• Gaze is a creation of a particular form of
  literate textuality. Interpretation is a task
  that appears to invite a range of readings (What
  kind of journey is represented and how? What is
  the text really about?). Here is the dilemma of
  the open question Whose social is speaking?
  (Bernstein, 1999). But the grammatics can reveal
  something of the supervenience hidden in each
  model. If we look closely at the texts generated
  by students, cultural analysis generates a form
  of literate textuality supervenient on earlier
  forms. How to turn the insights into pedagogy
  good enough for development in a complex
  disciplinary structure?
• A quick look at one site - the romance unit
  taught by Bill Simon at Wiley Park Girls.

30
Making it pedagogic - return with a difference
Producing an essay about dubious messages in
film
Discussing gender discourses in film
Producing a romance narrative
My view of the film