Quality dialogue and interactions in the classroom are crucial for creating effective learning environments and reducing inequalities from an early age. Dialogic reading interventions are known to be beneficial in early childhood education, but there is still much to learn about creating the most conducive interactions in the classroom. This…

This paper investigates the language demands of creating texts in the English classroom, which involve transformations in context. In particular, it focuses on the tensions inherent in tasks which require more traditional textual analysis to be presented in ways other than traditional 'essay' format. These tasks are interpreted differently by…

The novel, it has generally been assumed, was from its very beginnings a literary form designed to be read by solitary, silent individuals. One consequence of this assumption is that the class novel, read amid all the noise and sociality of the classroom, tends to be treated as a preparation for more authentic, private reading, or even as a poor…

This article reports on a term's work with students in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in which the adult classic text Silas Marner was studied in both written and film form (Eliot, 1994; BBCFo, 1985). Through an extended consideration of the structures employed by different forms of narrative, students were invited to consider the knowledge and…