Abstract: As critically reflective educators, we once in a while step outside the framework that the regular discourse of mainstream schooling creates around what we do and we ask these kinds of questions to which there are no straightforward answers. I find myself currently diving deep into areas of my practice which I assumed were cohesive and clear from my experiences as a student and a student-teacher. It is an odd mix of anxiety and excitement because when we ask ourselves why we teach writing in schools and what that might look like we are essentially going through an identity crisis. Are we happy to allow our identities as teachers of writing to be 'bounded by the dominant discourse of writing pedagogy' (Gardener, 2013, p. 73) expressed through standard curriculum documents and perpetuated through the daily practices of mainstream schools? And what does that discourse look like anyway? How does this dominant discourse shape our students' identities as writers in the social space that is school? And so, deeper I dive. In grasping around for answers, I draw on an experience from my professional practicum where I began a unit on persuasive language with a class of Year Eleven students. The context for this experience was a selective government school which attracts a diverse cohort of students, all of whom undergo a rigorous selection process to gain entry to the school. The majority of them are very bright, self-motivated and high achievers. However, from their recent SAC results, and from observing their general demeanour and activity during class, it was clear that many of them could be more engaged with English. Revisiting this experience, now at some distance, I explore how teachers might create spaces for students to bring their literacies and identities as writers into the classroom for engagement and rich meaning-making - meaning-making that is of course always mediated by the dominant discourse of writing as a means of formal assessment within school.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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