This article examines synergies and gaps in the construction of English, literacy, multimodality in policy and curriculum in Australian education with a focus on current assessment practices and educational accountability in order to make recommendations for future practice for teachers and for policy-makers. The article builds on analyses of the…

In various parts of the world, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are actively working towards Reconciliation. In Australia, the context in which we each undertake our work as educationalists and researchers, the Reconciliation agenda has been pushed into schools and English teachers have been called on to share responsibility for facilitating…

Building on contemporary research on teacher professional development, this study examined the practices of a technology-focused learning community at a high school in the United States. Over the course of a school year, classroom teachers and a university-based researcher participated in the learning community to investigate how technology can…

This paper focuses on Australian texts with Asian representations, which will be discussed in terms of Ethical Intelligence (Weinstein, 2011) explored through drama. This approach aligns with the architecture of the "Australian Curriculum: English" (AC:E, v5, 2013), in particular the general capabilities of "ethical…

This study investigates syllabi for evidence of the principles of writing across the curriculum (WAC) in courses offered by the Faculty of Business (FOB) at a university operating in a non–English-speaking country. The research analyzed all syllabi of FOB courses offered in the spring 2010 semester for evidence of WAC looking for indications of…

This study investigated data from 5 high schools in West Tennessee. The study examined whether a ninth-grade transition program (i.e., the Ninth-grade Academy) had an effect on student achievement and engagement, which was measured by English I End-of-Course Test Scores, attendance rates, and dropout rates. All of the schools were treatment…

The action research project report was created to remedy a lack of multicultural literature within the regular level sophomore English class and to assist regular level sophomore students' connection to their reading. The teacher-researcher also examined her students' own ethnic backgrounds, cultures, religions, economic status, gender, and/or…

English is best advanced by being relocated within the central aims of education, which in turn need to be drawn from Enlightenment values. Central among the latter is knowledge. The article argues that the least obviously "factual" side of English--novels and poetry--contributes to knowledge in direct and indirect ways. These include…

In this essay I explore the constraints and opportunities confronting me as a newly qualified teacher and how these affect my pedagogy. I have reflected on my own development from beginning to newly qualified teacher and considered how such forces have shaped my identity as a teacher, my values and my approach to the job. As part of my exploration…

The treatment of a research paper as an isolated utterance within a composition classroom is problematic in that such papers may fail to encourage transfer of writing knowledge. In this essay, I argue that a research paper's failure to work as a utterance situated within a conversation--as critiqued through a framework constructed by Mikhail…

Few studies identify those factors that might account for the development of social capital. Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a social tie among actors in schools is important because absent social ties, individuals do not have access to social resources. We investigate social tie formation in schools focusing on advice…

The second part of this account of struggles over literacy begins in the later seventeenth century. From the 1670s, the new dissenting academies, backed by rising business classes, made teaching in English for a wider curriculum their goal. Thus was Defoe's mastery of a new spoken style developed, while in Scotland, the eighteenth century…

Evolving technologies and globalisation presents educators with the challenge of creating learning experiences to help students develop competencies to enable them to function successfully in a dynamic society. Today's learner is expected to be multiliterate--able to analyse and construct multi-modal texts. A qualitative embedded multi-case study…

This article explores the changing place of poetry studies in the broader English curriculum of Victoria, Australia. Its focus is on how students learning to become English teachers engage with poetry studies. Setting this problem within the context of pedagogical theory and evidence about the evolving Victorian curriculum, we have interviewed six…

The present study investigated how fifteen Iranian EFL learners developed the ability to self-assess their writings through having access to the rater's scores. The participants were supervised for four weeks as they went through their first experience in self-assessment. They were provided with a detailed evaluation sheet for assessing their…