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SECTION 1
Histories, Ideologies and Values of English
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Chapter 1
Developments In English Text2txt
Paul Dickinson
By the end of this chapter you will have:
- gained an appreciation of the historical and political developments that have led to the current National Curriculum for English 2007
- understood the implications for the English teacher entrusted with the implementation of the National Curriculum for English
- been provided with an overview of the Framework for teaching secondary English
- reflected upon your own views of what constitutes English teaching
- appreciated the competence and creativity debate that surrounds the subject of English.
Context
English as a subject has a relatively short but dramatic history and its evolution has been marked by strong political involvement, particularly since the 1970s. This chapter will help you understand the complexities of the subject and its place in the curriculum at the start of the twenty-first century. It will also encourage you to view the curriculum critically, guide you through the benefits of the current curriculum with its emphasis on literacy skills under the key concept of âcompetenceâ and raise questions about what kind of curriculum we should provide with the new opportunties that âcreativityâ offers. Whether you are a student on a teacher training programme or a practising teacher you will have already formed a view of what English is about. This will have been influenced by many factors such as your degree (e.g. literature based, media emphasis, combined subjects and linguistics), your own experiences of being taught English, and discussions with other students and teachers. This diversity was recognised by Brian Coxâs committee when they were appointed to set up the first National Curriculum for English (DES, 1989). Brian Cox reflected upon the Cox Report, âpeople set in opposition individual and social aims, or utilitarian and imaginative aims, or language and literature, or reading for meaning and decoding or craft and creativity in writing, and so onâ (Cox, 1991: 18).
He sums up by indicating that âbest practice reflects a consensusâ (ibid.). Student teachers aspiring to reach the professional standards of the regular English teachers whom they observe will have witnessed the richness of different approaches adopted by these teachers to achieve similar outcomes or, equally validly, depending upon occasion, diverse outcomes. Agreed aims for a whole series of lessons do not necessarily entail identical methods of approach to achieving those aims. Whoever can invoke approaches that most readily engage the class in concentration and motivate large groups of pupils is at a professional advantage over one who arranges classroom experiences in much the same way on all occasions regardless of ability of group, text in hand, or desired outcome in terms of, say, writing in a particular mode or style.
For example, one teacher may use role play to help pupils appreciate character and another successfully encourages them to share, honestly but with mutual respect, their reflections about a poem. Variations in approach are one thing and variations in intentions and final ends are another, but the point about the debates entered by Cox, quoted above, is that those debates were about final outcomes and intended ends. The National Curriculum has not caused massive resistance among English teachers, most of whom recognised, if they were teaching when it began, its derivation from many enlightened existing intentions on behalf of the learners. English has often been cited as the subject where creativity can be developed and where pupils can find their voice. It has also been viewed as the place where pupils gain the necessary basic literacy skills to help them successfully access the rest of the curriculum and become effective communicators.
[I]t is of all subjects the one most available to creative interpretation. But this can only realise its fullest potential when it rests on a secure foundation. Thatâs to say, however much time and encouragement pupils are given to delve into their own heads, the outcome will only be adequately coherent, interesting and socialised if it is based on a secure understanding of how English works. (Andrew Motion, 2007)
From 2008 teachers in secondary schools have been implementing a National Curriculum for English for pupils of compulsory school age, coupled with a Framework for Secondary English that offers less content and greater teacher autonomy and flexibility than at its inception in 1990. It will provide you with many opportunities to create an English experience that caters for individual needs and motivates pupils.
The new curriculum is designed to enable the personalisation of learning, in a way that the previous curriculum did not ⌠it has the depth and range necessary to enable teachers to focus their teaching on what each individual needs in order to progress. (Boston, 2007)
Yet nearly two decades of prescription and years of planning to a Framework of word, sentence and text-level objectives, and the dependency culture that this has inculcated, may take a few years to shrug off. Recent entrants to the profession will have been trained to plan to objectives that are specific to particular year groups and will be thumbing through departmentsâ schemes of work to inform their practice. However, with a stronger focus on teacher training, rather than initial teacher training, and increased scrutiny of pedagogy, a shift away from the more prescriptive approaches should be visible by the bookâs publication date.
The new curriculum offers more scope for teaching to the stage of pupilsâ development rather than age. It is a curriculum designed to link with the 14â19 agenda and contribute to different pathways to qualifications and training. Diplomas are on offer at Levels 1, 2 and 3 and provide alternative routes where pupils can choose to specialise from a suite of 17 lines including Creative and Media. Yet the jury is still out on the uptake of diplomas as schools need to find effective partnerships with colleges and employers to deliver them and as parents/teachers consider the value and acceptance of diplomas. Successful partnerships where cultural differences are worked through will be the way forward as businesses invest in schools, and consortia are created to deliver the diplomas.
At post-16 a variety of routes is currently on offer, including AS levels and A levels. All A levels are modular and divided into two stages (AS and A2 qualifications). AS levels are studied in the first year and A2s are studied in the second year of any two-year course. There are also Level 2 courses (intermediate) as well as Advanced Certificates of Education. The latter two routes tend to be the vocational courses. The whole 14â19 curriculum is under the spotlight as the status of vocational courses is being raised. In 2006 Tony Blair committed support for each local authority to have at least one school or college to provide the International Baccalaureate, a two-year diploma programme where pupils would take six subjects including their own language, a second language, Arts and Science. The point about these changes is that they have subtle, perhaps, but certainly powerful influences upon what the teacher feels he or she is doing when teaching English at that level.
Influence of national policy
There is a strong government drive to increase the participation rate in higher education with a future target of 50% of the population enrolling on a degree or equivalent course. Foundation degrees are available for a wide range of courses often beginning in further education and being completed at universities. The serious pursuit of this 50% target entails schools coming under pressure to produce well-qualified students in large numbers able to begin degree-level study. From this perspective you could argue that English teachers with their sixth forms now face the pressure of enabling averagely bright students, many of them, to fulfil themselves as readers and writers in ways that were, merely two generations ago, seen as within the scope of only a small intellectual elite. Moreover, schools are increasingly being encouraged to seek specialist status with the consequent financial benefits. Thus there are schools with sports or language college status as well as training schools. Schools are being encouraged to seek partnerships with investors from the private and public domain with effectively the emergence of independent state schools able to be more flexible in their provision, often in the form of trust schools or academies, some in partnership with universities. This political intervention to create diversity of kind (amongst supposedly equal-status comprehensives) is coupled with an increasing level of monitoring and accountability that schools and teachers face. Whilst politically many universities may not want to support this development, there is undoubtedly a positioning of universities to contribute further to the attainment and aspirations of pupils as part of a wider civic responsibility.
Target setting for pupils, schools and local authorities (LAs) is part of regular policy, with results displayed in national papers as league tables, much like those of football teams! The âthreatâ of being turned into academies lingers over schools with less than 30% of their pupils achieving five AâCs at GCSE (these schools being termed National Challenge schools). The Childrenâs Plan states that by 2020 at least 90% of children will achieve the equivalent of five higher-level GCSEs by the age of 19. Furthermore, the government aims to reduce the number of secondary schools that have less than 30% of pupils achieving five A*âC GCSEs currently (August 2008) at 638 to zero.
Data on pupils are being used to highlight the underachievers, to target the âgifted and talentedâ and make comparisons between schools and, in some cases, even between teachers in the same school. The government has set itself high targets in a range of areas from literacy achievements to lowering truancy rates. At subject level it is a period in which the very nature of English is being questioned. What is meant by reading? Does this recognise the skills of navigating websites? Pupils are increasingly immersed in virtual worlds, reading multi-modal texts, writing to real audiences online and researching topics at the click of a button. Yet schools tend to operate in an essentially print-based culture, one emphasised by the terms of the current curriculum in English; despite the reference to multi-modal texts under âreadingâ there is no requirement for pupils to construct them. Whilst much of the national strategy is worthy (the emphasis on modelling writing for example), schools need to recognise pupilsâ prior skills and knowledge in the widest sense, from popular fiction to the narrative of computer games (see Goodwyn, 2000). We need to acknowledge that pupils are interacting more and more with texts that are constructed using the affordances offered by ICT. Pupils now read in a range of mediums and this needs to be supported. A popular gift for Christmas 2008 advertised at Waterstones was an e-book made by Sony that can hold over a hundred books. With increasing access to ICT it is likely that more pupils will be creating texts on their computers at home, in school and whilst on the move as they draw upon this potential. As Cope and Kalantzis (2000: 234) note:
[M]ulitimodality itself is becoming more significant in todayâs communications environment where, from multimedia desktops to shopping malls, written text is represented in dynamic relation to sound, visuals, spaces and gestures.
English is meeting new challenges, with teachers needing to update their subject knowledge, to consider inclusion as well as teaching for examinations, life skills and creativity. It is an exciting time to be an English teacher as English departments explore ways of teaching that realign the subject to fit external demands. The new teacher of English is likely to have numerous resources available to him or her in the form of publications, teacher-produced materials and web-based ideas for lessons. What should not be lost is the teacherâs autonomy in selecting what is appropriate, adding to it and shaping the materials for the particular classâs needs and circumstances as well as the individuals within each class. This chapter leads into others on planning and assessment to help you to work effectively with your pupils to personalise their learning. It also illustrates a range of methods to develop pupilsâ language potential and personal growth, and to raise their awareness of broader culture. It will take you on a journey through the development of English into the classroom, contributing to your addressing of the QTS standard Q15:
Know and understand the relevant statutory and non-statutory curricula frameworks, including those provided through the National Strategies, for their subjects/curriculum areas and other relevant initiatives applicable to the age and ability range for which they are trained. (TDA website, 2008)
as well as recognising that today the following quote is as apt as it was in 1994, that:
The work of English teaching involves continual pressing for the expression of alternative ideas, inviting challenge to received opinions, seeking strong personal responses, establishing debate. (Brindley, 1994: 11)
English at the start of the twentieth century
English as a recognisable school subject emerged in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1904 the Board of Education Regulations required all elementary and secondary schools to offer courses in English Language and Literature. There then followed a response to the growth of the late Victorian technology with a realisation that there was a need for a workforce that could read simple instructions and could both give and receive information. Thus the emphasis was upon reading and writing to provide the necessary skills for a large proportion of British employees. The early 1900s were also marked by numerous circulars to shape what was taught. The thrust was upon high culture, with the importance of literature as a moralising force being emphasised. Texts recommended included Robinson Crusoe and Hiawatha. Dickens was conspicuous by his absence as his works were deemed to âventure into the realms of social realismâ (Davison and Dowson, 1998: 22).
You might want to consider if you had to select two poets, two playwrights and two novelists (pre-1900) as needing inclusion in the current curriculum which ones you w...
