In this conceptual essay, the author argues that computational methods and computer science more broadly should be embedded into English education programs. Positing that computational methods can deepen and expand the way literature is already taught in many English education programs and secondary English classrooms, the author first makes a…

Attainment grouping is a prevalent yet controversial practice, used in most English schools and on the rise internationally, despite evidence that it is detrimental to the majority of pupils. In England, no data is routinely recorded regarding these practices, and most research on student outcomes depends on a simplistic dichotomy between pupils…

In many low- and lower-middle-income countries, key barriers to girls' secondary school access and learning include poverty, school inaccessibility, poor school quality, and lack of gender-sensitive practices in the classroom. The nongovernmental organization, Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), provides a range of financial, pedagogical, and…

"The New Zealand Curriculum" expresses a vision for young people who are contributing and participating members of society. While this social vision is supported by the inclusion of key competencies, the curriculum document says little about content and its role in developing this participatory agency. This article uses interview data…

The study of English, like the teaching of English, is bound with thematic concerns of love. Notions of love, and the range of experiences that come with them, coalesce in learning spaces when both teachers and students analyse texts, unpack social issues, and construct arguments in daily teaching and learning practice. Within the broader social…

Mutual support and dialogue across secondary and tertiary English is vital work in urgent times. In this article, the authors examine Australia's secondary-tertiary English education nexus, building on previous scholarship to explore points of connection and disconnection with a view to identifying sustainable ways of supporting points of…

In this study of microteaching in a secondary English methods course, we intentionally stray from normative assessment practice, instead asking pre-service teachers to provide feedback on their peers' microteaching using assessment practices designed to orient them "figuratively." The term 'figurative' refers to 'figurative language':…

In this paper, we examine the ways in which the conceptualisation of literature and literary study encoded in the inaugural secondary school English syllabus in New South Wales (NSW), Australia can be seen to anticipate the conceptualisation so fervently enunciated in "The Teaching of English in England" -- the Newbolt Report of 1921.…

Following the racial unrest of 2020, anti-racist rhetoric from K-12 schools and university teacher education institutes magnified. Despite claiming alliance with anti-racism, it became unclear whether the actions of teacher education, both in-service and pre-service, matched their rhetoric. To determine how, if at all, teacher education informs…

Achievement data from New Zealand secondary schools suggest that students from lower socio-economic communities have fewer opportunities to engage with complex content in subject English. This article examines this phenomenon by drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality and considers how a context of simultaneously increased autonomy and…

Purpose: Recently, practitioner literature in English education has taken up the issue of writing-related shame in classrooms, calling for teachers to help students develop resilience. One possible approach for nurturing shame resilience around writing is dialogic collaging: students make and dialogically engage with collages and with colleagues…

English teaching that satisfies curricula standards has often been siloed from instruction that advances the goals of social justice. Exasperated teachers may feel they can either meet the day-to-day demands of their profession or teach to dismantle social inequities, but not achieve the aims of both approaches. In this reflective practitioner…

Being entered for exams and reaching key educational thresholds, for example 5 A* to C grades (including English and Mathematics) at GCSE, are important markers of participation and success in secondary education. However, little is known about the prevalence and make-up of children in care reaching these thresholds. Using secondary data analysis,…

Teaching writing requires explicit pedagogical training. Often pre-service English teachers are not only unprepared to teach writing, but they are also unprepared to provide effective writing feedback. Effective writing feedback: (1) prepares young writers to make sound and thorough writing choices; (2) positively impacts learning; and (3)…

This article serves as an invitation to see the way the teaching of biography-driven writing has been increasingly pushed out of the secondary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum in favor of highly structured, formulaic, and impersonal writing, and how this is a setback for students in their preparation for college and career writing. The…