Questions of English

Aesthetics, Democracy and the Formation of Subject

Jeanne Gerlach, Annette Patterson, Robin Peel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415191203
• eBook ISBN: 9781134654604
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The impact and content of English as a subject on the curriculum is once more the subject of lively debate. Questions of English sets out to map the development of English as a subject and how it has come to encompass the diversity of ideas that currently characterise it.
Drawing on a combination of historical analysis and recent research findings Robin Peel, Annette Patterson and Jeanne Gerlach bring together and compare important new insights on curriculum development and teaching practice from England, Australia and the United States. They also discuss the development of teacher training, highlighting the variety of ways in which teachers build their own beliefs and knowledge about English.

1
Introduction
Robin Peel

Rationale

From its earliest days as a school and university subject English has been concerned with attempts to define itself. To the sceptical, whether inside or outside the field, this preoccupation is seen as no more than mildly interesting navel gazing, revealing the field’s deep anxieties and unresolved insecurities. It is true that English, despite being one of the younger school curriculum subjects, has within 100 years undergone a number of name changes, as if it cannot make up its mind what its function is. First criticism, then literary criticism, then English, English Literature and Language and finally literary studies, textual studies, culture and criticism and English studies. Each term suggest a differing emphasis, as do the debates about whether we should use the word language or languages, literature or literatures, and the questions that have formed the titles of conferences such as What is English? and English, whose English?

Ultimately it is the failure to reach agreed definitions of what we mean when we use the word ‘English’ that bedevils discussion and creates unnecessary misunderstandings. In What is English Teaching? (Davies 1996) Chris Davies, writing from a United Kingdom perspective, argues that the inability to make a clear distinction between literacy and the subject English, between the subject name and the language name resulted in a National Curriculum that ‘fudges the distinction between specialist English and general literacy…[and that] renders hopeless all attempts at coherence in the subject’s structure’ (Davies 1996, p. 35).

In this book we aim to demonstrate that the ability to live with uncertainty, a plurality of voices and a tradition of questioning is one of English’s great strengths. But we are talking about plurality within specialist English: we are not seeking to take on the great issues of initial literacy, of how we initially learn to speak, read and write, or how these cross-curricular abilities are developed in secondary school and college. In the sections which discuss the United States experience we shall be discussing the effects of separating a literacy from English, of having separate ‘writing‘ classes in a way that is not the case in England and Australia. If we argue for a separation, it does not necessarily have to be according to the American model.

One of the fundamental tenets of twentieth-century theory, which along with technology has been responsible for the most explosive reorientations of English in the past twenty years, is that thought, understanding and knowledge are grounded in difference, that experience begins when the I becomes separate from the you, the self from the other, and the way that the creation of binaries is often accompanied by the creation of hierarchy and anxiety. In the next chapter we begin our investigation by exploring the historical roots of some of these hierarchies and anxieties by taking a particular perspective on the history of English in England, and suggest that there is much to be learned from an exploration of the historiography and ideology of English studies.

In later chapters in which we report what specialists have said to us in England, Australia and the United States we hope to show that there is a great deal to be learned from an exploration of the beliefs which inform current debates about English across the world, and the relationship between present practice and historical precedent. Each of us has chosen to explore that relationship in our own particular way, because as writers we are not outside our culture, and the way that we report our research says something about the way we have been constructed and the assumptions that are specific to Australia, the United States or England. In the account of the emergence of English in England, for example the charge of navel-gazing proves difficult to substantiate, because in many ways the history of English in England reveals a reluctance to look at anything too long and with an analytical eye. Those such as Matthew Arnold, Churston Collins, Walter Raleigh and F.R.Leavis—the early crusaders of English as a field which incorporated all the disparate elements hitherto separately known as reading, writing, composing, reciting, and spelling and assembled them all under the umbrella of literary studies—such men favoured appreciation above abstract thinking, evangelism above science. Questions were asked more readily than a willingness to answer them. English was seen to be about something that was ultimately undefinable. Synthesis was valued above analysis. There was something reductive about defining, and a suspicion of the boundaries that definitions can create. This concern with borders, boundaries, territories is evidenced in the titles of English conferences such as ‘Claiming the Territory’ (Australia). It is reflected in the title and content of articles: Kathryn Southworth (Southworth 1995), for example, expresses in ‘Falling Towers’: the fate of the English Empire, an ‘anxiety’ about attempting to define English:

There is…a danger in defining English… Those who have any stake in the education of teachers will be aware of how the notion of academic subject knowledge has been devalued in the DfE Circular 14/93 (in England). The recently published criteria for assessing primary teacher education have reduced it to very little more than knowledge of the primary school curriculum, whatever its virtues, and subject competencies have become merely the ability to stay one step ahead of the children. We may shortly be contesting not so much one definition of English, but a definition of subject which is inimical to most ideas of education, let alone higher education.

Yet in her final sentence Southworth provides us with a reason why matters of definition and belief are important, for in England discussion of ‘education for life’ is encouraging acceptance of a unified system of education in English from infant to postgraduate level. The emphasis on learning outcomes and competencies, which is the language of contemporary pedagogy, forces educators to make decisions about what a module, a field, or a subject considers itself to be ‘about’. This practice of self-reflection and self-regulation has always been a feature of the set of practices known as ‘English’.

Origins and intention

Our investigations have drawn on our experience as teacher educators who have worked as English teachers in classrooms and are English ‘specialists’ ourselves. The present study has its precise origins in a presentation given by Andrew Goodwyn and Dana Fox at the International Conference of Literacy and Language at the University of East Anglia in April 1993. Entitled ‘Whose Model of English?’ the presentation reported on the findings of a piece of research which had interviewed teachers in England and the United States about the model of English they most valued, asking them to rank the five models of English described in the 1988 Cox Report. These were listed in a questionnaire we originally used, and it may be useful to list them here. We offered the Cox Committee’s definition of each, but as these definitions themselves proved to be problematic and ambiguous, we shall leave them undefined, simply listing them for the purposes of discussion.

Cultural Heritage

Personal Growth

Adult Needs

Cross Curricular

Cultural Criticism

The results of the Fox-Goodwyn survey were interesting, revealing as they did differences between England and the United States (in England teachers placed the cultural criticism model of English much higher than did their colleagues in the USA). It also set us thinking: how did teachers acquire these beliefs, and to what extent did they undergo modification as they progressed from being students who had specialised in English, to newly qualified English teachers, and then to more experienced teachers, sometimes Heads of English. And how did the views of English teachers in schools compare with the views of English teachers in universities and colleges, both those in English Departments and those in Education Departments (a separation which exists in some institutions and not in others)? Finally we wanted to see to what extent institutional structures facilitated or acted as a brake on curriculum development in English, and the extent to which beliefs were reflected in classroom practice, though this took us beyond our initial questionnaire. Our chosen methodology reveals our reservations about the questionnaire method as the main source of information.

Methodology

In Versions of English, a study of the varieties of English that were offered to 15–17-year olds in English schools and colleges, Douglas and Dorothy Barnes (1984) identify seven possible modes in educational research, each one borrowing its methodology from social science disciplines.

These modes are:

1. Assessment of learning outcomes
2. Surveys (such as the studies of teachers’ attitudes)
3. Historical accounts
4. Studies of innovation
5. Classroom studies
6. Content analysis (of examination papers, syllabuses or other learning materials)
7. Sociological studies (studies showing curriculum as it operates in classroom practice—what teachers and students actually do)

As will become clear, Questions of English incorporates elements from 2, and 7 in particular, through a combination of interviews, questionnaires and observation. We have prefaced our discussion of the observed practice in each of the three countries with a historical account (3 above) and the discussion is further informed by elements taken from 4, 5 and 6. For example, the section which discusses some of the ‘Voices’ of students in Higher Education English in England includes an account of an innovative practice. Yet we are mindful of Foucault’s observation that changes in public opinion precede changes in individuals.

Yet we would not claim that this book gives an insight into classroom practice: as the original title indicated, our aim was to explore English specialists’ beliefs. As Barnes and Barnes remind us, ‘Teachers’ reports on their own teaching are notoriously unreliable’ (Barnes and Barnes 1984, p. 11) and the gap between what we think we are doing and what the students actually experience in the classroom is well known by any of us who have been either at the receiving or giving end of teaching practice observation. Others, however, have argued that beliefs or ‘personal constructs’ (Kelly 1970) are the crucial elements determining classroom practice. This is Nancy Martin, writing in 1983, following an investigation in Western Australia:

The term ‘personal construct’ has been used to refer to the system of beliefs and attitudes which underlie behaviour, and are the unseen prompters—perhaps ‘determiners’ is not too strong a term—of action. And these same ‘prompters’ are the major influence on each teacher’s classroom climate for learning, rather than those surface features of the curriculum—books, resources, programmes etc; they are beliefs about children and how they learn; about authority and the teacher’s role in the learning process; about himself or herself as a person as well as a teacher, and how both roles can be maintained within the structure of the institution which school is. In addition, there are the teacher’s beliefs about Subject English: his, or her views about what English is, what the terms ‘language’ and ‘literature’ represent in classroom events; how the children learn to progress in reading, writing and understanding books. These, together with his or her over-riding beliefs about education and his place in it, are likely to be the most powerful elements in the contexts of the lessons.

Martin (1983, p. 66)

A decade or so later we feel less confident about the autonomy of the individual, and Martin’s perception of the power of beliefs and personal constructs is itself a belief which we shall want to consider in the light of our own comments made in the Preface.

Our method of research has been qualitative, though, as we have indicated, the starting point was a wider survey based on a questionnaire. We reported on that survey in English in Education (Peel and Hargreaves 1995) and indicated at the time the limitations of the questionnaire method. We then began a series of taped interviews with a number of secondary school teachers (ten from each country), twelfth-grade students who were planning to specialise in English at college or university (ten from each country), undergraduates (ten from each country), university or higher education lecturers (ten from each country). Where possible we supplemented these voices with the views of student teachers and non-specialists from the world of publishing, writing, commerce and industry.

Initial questions

Although it may be difficult to generalise about what goes on in English in one school, let alone one county or one country, we thought it might be profitable to consider the range of different practices currently under discussion in England, and to compare them with the issues and beliefs being discussed in countries such as Australia and the United States. At the centre of these discussions sit the sets of beliefs to which teachers subscribe, sets of beliefs which may be in the ascendant in one country, dominant in another, and fading in a third. So we started with a couple of questions. What do students who specialise in English, student teachers and teachers in schools, colleges and universities believe they should be doing in the curriculum time appropriated by the English Department? Are there any discernible patterns in the differences in belief that come under the umbrella of English/Language Arts, such as the anticipated differences of belief across the phases?

We decided it was a good time to find out by asking a small cross-section of specialists in England, Australia, and the United States. We wanted to know what kinds of beliefs about English they held, and what kind of model of English they were going to carry with them into the next century, and beyond. How did they acquire their beliefs, and to what extent did they modify them as they progressed through their careers?

Questions of English

Whatever ideological, pedagogical, theoretical and cultural assumptions may divide those who have chosen to work in the field called English there is one thing that is likely to unite specialists in England, Australia and the United States. Whether they are students, researchers or teachers, whether in London, Washington or Sydney, whether in the school, college or university phase, specialists are likely to agree that their work is largely concerned with the practice of asking questions. This is true of all disciplines: what English particularly encourages is the practice of asking questions of the self. The impulse to interrogate and challenge may well be characteristic of all Western epistemology since classical times, but whereas it could be argued that the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• Part I: England: Questions of History, Theory and Curriculum
• Part II: Australia: Questions of Pedagogy
• Part III: United States: Questions of Practice and Individual Expression
• Part IV: Shared Questions, Different Answers: Different Questions, Shared Answers
• Appendix A: Research Questionnaire: Developing Views of ‘English’
• Appendix B: English
• Appendix C: The Graduate of the 21st Century