My argument is that a literary education should build on a primary level of responsivity towards literature, involving empathy and immersion in the world of the text. To engage with literary works from the past involves a play between familiarity and strangeness, and this play should be located as part of a reader's response to texts, rather than…

This article explores how circumstances in different conjunctures influence the types of narrative, working practice and "Professional Memory" that English teachers construct. It is argued that the circumstances in which teachers begin their careers help to formulate attitudes, values and missions that remain potent over long periods.…

Much of English teaching, whether it be mounting an argument on a social issue, analysing media, or developing a critical reading of a novel or film, implies an ethical stance. This article considers the relationship between ethics, belief and ideology. After looking, within a Lacanian framework, at the ways in which particular beliefs are made…

Recounting a successful means of introducing other Englishes, the author encourages understanding and acceptance of devalued Englishes among mainstream-English-speaking students.

This article examines relationships in the writing process and offers some strategies to address student needs on both the cognitive and affective domains.

Planned instructional scaffolding--the temporary use of materials, routines and structures to support students in doing challenging academic work--is a critical component of English-language reading instruction with emergent bilinguals (students formally categorized as English Language Learners). Although scholars describe how scaffolds…

Although "VCE English Language (EL)" has been offered for twenty years in Victoria, Australia, the subject, and especially students' experience of it, has had little evaluation. Using data from four surveys conducted across seven years with over 1500 Unit 3-4 "EL" students, augmented by VCAA enrolment data, a profile of…

The purpose of this action research was to improve reading comprehension and student engagement in a hybrid learning environment as measured by performance on reading comprehension assessments and student self-reporting surveys. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted classes for the 2020-2021 school year in a hybrid model. In my ninth grade…

Since pairing the classics with young adult literature can increase reading comprehension and spark interest amongst our students, this essay explores a unit plan for connecting Will Hobbs's "Downriver" (1991) with William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" (1954). Both works espouse significant and timely themes: the importance of…

This article takes a personal view of the contribution made by Pete Medway to King's College London.

Studies of the way games and gaming align themselves with the pedagogy of the humanities have left behind a key discipline: that of literary studies, as opposed to literacy studies, a far more common concern among scholars who have examined the impact of games on university and secondary teaching. This paper considers the reasons for such a lacuna…

This article provides a reflective commentary on the modification of the lead author's professional practice in a secondary academy in England. The modification of practice has been as a result of work conducted on a postgraduate Masters module, which has focused on practitioner development of an exemplar grammar lesson devised for Year Nine…

In the fields of Corpus Linguistics and Teacher Education, there is a substantial body of research relating to corpus applications in the classroom. However, the majority of such work relates to teacher training in tertiary education. In this article, a research project is described in which corpus training was included as part of a Certificate in…

This article examines the practice of studying texts in secondary school English lessons as a particular type of reading experience. Through a critical stylistic analysis of a popular edition of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", the article explores how reading the text is framed by educational editions, and how this might present the…

This paper presents an analysis of the gender of the authors and the main characters of the set texts for English examinations taken at age 16 in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It presents an argument for why representation within the canon is important and places this within the context of recent educational reform in England and…