Published in the Australian Journal of Language and Literacy Vol 34 no 1, June 2011
Abstract: This paper describes and interprets how preservice English teachers explore constructions of race and identity in the graphic novel, American Born Chinese,
with a small group of adolescents from a mostly white community in the U.S. in the space of a virtual classroom. Findings indicate that the secondary students constructed characters’ feelings of racial and cultural inferiority as a matter of the individual rather than as a result of institutional forms of exclusion. The author argues for educators to attend more closely to the social, historical and political context within which a critical approach to teaching literacy is implemented. Implications for using technology to mentor preservice English teachers to explore systemic forms of oppression in their development as critical educators are discussed.

The online ordering system will automatically calculate postage. NO POSTAGE WILL BE CHARGED. PDF file will be emailed to you within 24 hours.

The authors reconfigure critical literacy so that it can give proper consideration to the aesthetic, which involves paying attention to such things as individual identity, human emotion, creativity, and the value and productivity of texts. To demonstrate how the conjunction of critical literacy and the aesthetic can transform English classrooms, the au thors draw examples from various genres, media, and countries, including poetry by Donne, Shakespeare, Robert Lowell and Les Murray; To Kill a Mockingbird ; an episode of Friends ; and Huckleberry Finn.

Article published in English in Australia Vol 47 no 2, 2012
Abstract: Contemporary curriculum guidelines, such as those provided in the incoming Australian curriculum, call for English to attend to multimodal forms of text and literacy as well as more traditional forms. Students are expected to become capable and critical readers, users and creators of texts and forms of literacy that span everything from newspapers to classic texts to visual art to computer games. How to do so, and what this means for English, is often less clear. In this paper, we describe an English curriculum that was at once literary and multimodal, analytic and creative, and embraced a range of opportunities for students to study and create literary and aesthetic texts in many forms. We discuss the opportunities this presented to connect with the excitement of the contemporary world, and the ways in which longstanding principles and philosophies of good teaching and learning, and the central concerns of English curriculum across time, might be understood and reconstituted in the digital age.

In the words of the distinguished Canadian, Emeritus Professor Patrick Dias, "the essays in Imagination, Innovation, Creativity: Re-visioning English in Education will restore and further develop seminal and significant insight's from our profession's corporate memory; articulate and explore exhilarating contemporary advances in our knowledge and practice; and open up exciting possibilities for the future of our English teaching profession. Perhaps, above all, in a world sometimes prone to despair and aimlessness these essays offer hope and direction." The chapters stress the importance of reconnnecting and re-engaging with what teachers love about English and its unique capacity to:

• engage the mind, the spirit and heart
• stimulate imagination, curiosity and creative capacities through meaningful immersion in the stories of humanity, and
• enrich and develop students' cognitive and affective command and understanding of language in all its expansive dimensions, contexts and purposes.

• The essential persuasive language textbook for all students and teachers
• A dynamic exploration of newspaper texts for senior English students
• Covers television news and current affairs, radio taklback and internet issues
• Packed full of activities, sample newspaper texts, annotated student writing
• Full-colour 8-page insert including advertisements, photographs and cartoons

Published in Practically Primary Vol 16 no 2, June 2011
The unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates)  As educators, we are instructed continually to provide opportunities for our students to become independent life-long learners in an ever-changing world. The research of Richard Elmore and John Hattie shows us the need to embed higher order thinking skills, student generated questioning, collaborative group work, and peer and self feedback into our teaching and planning.  So how do we do this on a regular basis, and be able to assess students against curriculum standards?

The online ordering system will automatically calculate postage. NO POSTAGE WILL BE CHARGED. PDF file will be emailed to you within 24 hours.

The au thors give guidance on planning responsive and effective programs for students in the middle years to respond to issues of change that affect young adolescents - moving to new environments, expanding social horizons and facing increased expectations and responsibilities. They use episodes of Home and Away , teen magazines and a variety of texts from fantasy to media reports to illustrate the various roles of the literacy learner.

Contains very practical, step-by-step activities to help teachers develop effective critical literacy programs for students in the early years. The book uses familiar texts ranging from everyday literature such as advertising catalogues and popular televisions shows, to fiction and expository texts to illustrate the four roles of the literacy learner.