university to school: challenging assumptions in subject knowledge development

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University to school: challengingassumptions in subject knowledgedevelopmentAndrew Green aa Brunel University , UKPublished online: 20 Aug 2006.

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University to school: challenging

assumptions in subject knowledge

development

Andrew Green*

Brunel University, UK

This investigation addresses the complex issue of teachers’ subject knowledge. Specifically it

focuses on the teaching of secondary school English; however, the principles it suggests apply more

widely. Drawing on the experiences of trainee English teachers undertaking full-time and flexible

PGCE courses during both their university- and school-based training, it explores the subject

knowledge models of Banks, Leach & Moon and of Grossman, Wilson & Shulman, delineating

how these can be used as a foundation on which beginning teachers can build their own personal

deliverable models of subject.

A growing body of literature exists on issues surrounding transition into higher

education (Booth, 1997; Stewart & McCormack, 1997; Ozga & Sukhnandan, 1998;

Cook & Leckey, 1999; Drew, 2001; Durkin & Main, 2002; Clerehan, 2003; Lowe &

Cook, 2003; Marland, 2003) and higher education English in particular (Ballinger,

2003; Smith, 2003, 2004; Green, 2005a, forthcoming). The imperatives driving

such academic scrutiny emerge from a growing perception that dichotomous

paradigms of English (or rather Englishes) now exist in schools and colleges—under

the auspices of the Key Stage Three National Strategy (or the Secondary Strategy as

it is set to become), the National Curriculum and Curriculum 2000—and

universities (Knights, 2004). Attached to each of these paradigms are associated

pedagogies and practices, all of which enshrine (often tacitly) their own particular

purposes, codes and personal and political agendas. Taken together, these imply a

relationship both between teachers and the material to be taught, and between

teachers and learners (McInnis & James, 1995; Knights, 2005). Such issues are of

especial importance to graduate students entering initial teacher training (ITT), who

have to manage a reverse transition of their own from university to school (Daly,

2004; Burley, 2005; Turvey, 2005).

*School of Sport and Education, Brunel University, Kingston Lance, Uxbridge, Middlesex

UB8 3PH, UK. Email: andrew.green@brunel.ac.uk

Changing English

Vol. 13, No. 1, April 2006, pp. 111–123

ISSN 1358-684X (print)/ISSN 1469-3585 (online)/06/010111-13

# 2006 The editors of Changing English

DOI: 10.1080/13586840500347475

In a recent survey of Level 1 undergraduates in five English higher education

institutions (Green, 2005a), 15% of respondents identified as one of their main

reasons for studying English at university the wish to become teachers of English in

schools. A significant proportion of graduates in any given year go on to apply for

ITT in some form. Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR) statistics over the

last five years demonstrate the steadily increasing number of English graduates

entering Initial Teacher Training on PGCE courses.

The report of the Holmes Group (1986) questions the extent to which university

English prepares beginning teachers effectively for their professional training courses

within the context of the American education system—a pertinent question to ask of

the British system also. This article considers some fundamental issues of subject

knowledge development that face beginning teachers as they make the academic

shift from university to school, and the processes by which they refine and redefine

their degree-level knowledge into a workable classroom model.

Data gathered includes:

1. questionnaire responses from undergraduate students of English in five

English Higher Education Institutions (two pre-1992, two post-1992 and

one Higher Education College); and

2. qualitative data gathered from two cohorts of PGCE trainees, one following a

full-time course and the other the flexible route.

Data collection was undertaken during university-based subject sessions

throughout the course of training, and the approach was based on the work of

Banks et al. (1999) and of Grossman et al. (1989). This addressed specifically the

issue of what constitutes subject knowledge, subject knowledge development and the

role of these in effective classroom practice. The enquiry also drew upon trainees’

planning and evaluation records, teaching observation notes, school placement

evaluations and written assignments. These allow the tracking of trainees’

developing perspectives as they gain both academic and practical experience

throughout the course and reflect their developing sense of how their subject

knowledge (and perceptions of what this incorporates) modifies accordingly.

Central in this process is the interrogation of innate assumptions about the ‘what’,

‘why’ and ‘how’ of study at the various phases of English education. English

graduates training as secondary English teachers must consider the fundamental

purposes and nature of English study in the school context and modify their

knowledge of the subject in its university manifestation to the requirements of the

classroom and school curricula.

This realignment can be a painful and difficult process to manage, personally and

academically. Love and detailed content knowledge of the fiction of George Gissing

or George Meredith—both absent from the National Curriculum list of pre-1914

authors for study—provides the beginning teacher with nothing directly usable in

content terms for classroom practice, although in terms of ‘contextual’ or ‘skills’

knowledge it may well be highly relevant. The same is true of many of the authors

and issues trainees will have encountered in the course of their undergraduate

112 A. Green

studies. Even such unquestionably usable figures as Shakespeare—the only

obligatory author for study in the National Curriculum, who must be studied at

Key Stage Three, Key Stage Four and at post-compulsory level—present the

beginning teacher with difficulties. Trainees soon become aware that what

constitutes effective working knowledge of Shakespeare within the context of their

degree level studies is substantially different from practical classroom knowledge of

use with pupils at Key Stage Three or GCSE levels. They are obliged to challenge

radically their sense of what it means to ‘know’ Shakespeare, to enter into a

reconstructive dialogue with their degree level knowledge and in the light of this to

come to an understanding of how these linked but distinct knowledges can be made

to coexist and interrelate with one another within effective teacherly practice.

This is suggested in the words of one trainee:

The transformation from graduate in English to teacher of English primarily concerns

the ability to devise appropriate teaching strategies to modify my knowledge and

understanding into accessible and motivating experience [for pupils].

This observation hinges on the recognition that the effective teacher of English (who

must also remain a student of English) is also now in the role of transmitter or

facilitator of knowledge to others. It exposes the fundamental issue that scholarship

and pedagogy must interact. Good practice at any stage of education must be based

around what Knights (2005) calls ‘the mutually constitutive relations of pedagogic

and scholarly practice’ (p. 33).

Grossman et al. (1989) note:

Given the central role subject matter plays in teaching, we must re-examine our

assumption that the subject matter knowledge required for teaching can be acquired

solely through courses taken in the appropriate university department. (p. 23)

In coming to terms with this recognition, and in managing their transition out of

university and back into school, beginning teachers have to reconsider their position

as subject ‘experts’ and to establish an understanding of their multi-faceted

relationship with their discipline, evaluating their subject knowledge on a variety of

different levels.

Reflecting early in their course of professional training upon their experience of

English at school and at university, beginning teachers were asked to comment upon

what they considered their subject knowledge strengths and their areas for

development. Their responses are illuminating. At this stage in their training,

perceptions of what constitutes subject knowledge tend to be heavily content-biased,

trainees measuring the extent of their knowledge against lists of authors from the

National Curriculum, GCSE or A-level syllabuses. As Turvey (2005) observes:

Literature—what constitutes its ‘objects of study’ and the processes of engagement in

classrooms—is … for many (but not all) PGCE students central to how they define

themselves as English teachers. (p. 6)

In a less developed way it is possible, at this stage, to trace in the responses of

trainees an outline sense that a teacher’s subject knowledge depends on more than

content alone. The desire, for example, ‘to make texts available to all pupils’, to

Challenging assumptions in subject knowledge development 113

ensure ‘accessibility’ and ‘entitlement’, and the frequent identification of ‘skills’,

evidences an important if undeveloped recognition that pedagogy and methods of

delivery are essential components of effective teacherly subject knowledge. Similarly,

in identifying the significance of ‘school frameworks and contexts’, trainees

demonstrate awareness of the role of curricular and institutional contexts in defining

the specific and varied forms their subject may take.

Developing their engagement with these issues, trainees need to recognise what

distinguishes university study and knowledge from its school counterparts and then

to identify areas where they can see personal difficulties or opportunities for

development. In terms of content, most trainees declare confidence in the field of

literature and literary study, while recognising that the transfer of knowledge from

university to school is far from straightforward. In relation to language study, media

studies, drama and information and communications technology (ICT), significant

caveats appear. A more general area of perceived need amongst trainees lies in

knowledge of curriculum and effective pedagogic approaches. A particular area of

focus for trainees is how to break down the study of subject, a process that can

sometimes be hampered by expertise, and the attendant difficulty in perceiving where

barriers to understanding may lie. As one trainee put it, the key issue for

development is:

how to ensure that I’m getting that common area with pupils where learning occurs,

while another identifies the need to:

break things down and not to assume students understand terms. Breaking knowledge

down and manipulating it so it is at the right level for students to learn.

Such issues are repeatedly identified as areas of need. However, it is essential that

trainees do not conceive of their ITT as merely ‘tips for teachers’. Training in

subject knowledge development must be theoretically robust, introducing trainees to

the cognitive, sociological, political and other principles that underpin effective

educational practices.

Within such initial observations lies a putative recognition that any academic

discipline functions around an essentially dichotomous, dialogic structure. As

Dewey (1903) remarks:

Every study or subject thus has two aspects: one for the scientist as a scientist; the other

for the teacher as a teacher. These two aspects are in no sense opposed or conflicting.

But neither are they immediately identical. (pp. 285–286)

The interface between these two linked but separate knowledges is the very business

of teaching and learning. The teacher and the learner are frequently in obverse

relationships with the subject they share: their knowledges and experiences of the

subject are connected but functionally differentiated. It is through effective

pedagogic practice that the two knowledges come together to enable new learning

for both teacher and student. Thus, effective teachers are not solely experts in

subject content, which can take them only so far; rather, they undergo metacognitive

114 A. Green

and reflexive engagement with the subject to make them professional interrogators of

(subject-linked) cognitive and pedagogic processes.

Model 1: Banks et al. (1999)

In constructing a usable school manifestation of subject, the ideas of Banks et al.

(1999) are particularly interesting. They propose a tetrapartite division of inter-

related subject knowledges.

(1) Subject knowledge

This is a declared body of content knowledge with which trainees enter their ITT.

This will have been developed from a variety of sources: from attitudes and input at

home, at school, at college and at university, as well as through personal reading and

study. It will have derived also from engagement with ICT, with a plethora of media

texts, and from their experience of the language(s) that surround them. Although

trainees’ awareness of and engagement with these different aspects of subject

knowledge will vary, this is the area of greatest confidence as they enter ITT. It is

also, as outlined above, what they most readily associate with the concept of subject

knowledge. Early in training, such knowledge is often seen by trainees as the key

indicator of their likely effectiveness as a teacher. However, later discussion with

trainees indicates that as they evaluate the uses to which their subject knowledge is

put in practice, they increasingly realise that it is only a part of the picture. Prior

knowledge of an area of learning or even a specific text does not stand on its own and

cannot be delivered whole, but requires careful, often substantial, modification.

Content is the most easily defined aspect of subject knowledge and therefore

provides a useful starting point for trainees in personalising their construction of

subject. The process begins with ‘auditing’ their content. This begins an iterative

engagement with subject knowledge, the first in a series of interventions by tutors and

school mentors to assist trainees in developing a rounded conceptualisation of subject.

(2) School knowledge

This is a very different but linked body of knowledge that beginning teachers have to

develop. It relates to curricular issues (Shulman, 1986), such as the breadth of study

required under the National Curriculum and how this translates, for example, into a

GCSE course, or understanding of the demands of the Key Stage Three National

Strategy and its non-statutory relationship with the curriculum. It also requires

trainees to engage with current modes of assessment in the subject, their role within

and impact upon the forms the subject takes, and how these are applied. Beyond

this, however, it encompasses historical perspectives of the development of the

subject and its academic roots—particularly interesting in the case of English

(Eaglestone, 2000); and the developing school ‘canon’ of literature and teenage

literature and the forces that shape these. These are global issues in the teaching of

English. Necessarily, however, beginning teachers have also to engage with a raft of

specific school and departmental issues, policies and procedures that will impinge

directly upon the version of the subject they are preparing to teach. Trainee

evaluations make clear that the experience of multiple school placements in the

course of training can make this a problematic issue, as they have to adapt their

professional practice and knowledge to the differing nature of placement schools and

varying institutional manifestations of subject.

In this dimension of subject knowledge development, trainees are required to

undertake a detailed mapping of their experience of English against the National

Curriculum, both in terms of content and skill. In doing this, they begin the process

of refining their construction of subject for use in school. This is an essential element

of the procedure and brings trainees face to face with issues of school knowledge. In

contemplating what is ‘in’ and what is ‘out’; what is obligatory and what is

recommended; how their knowledge incorporates the four modalities of speaking,

listening, reading and writing and how these interrelate both cognitively and

functionally—in considering such issues, and more, the beginning teacher is faced

with the reality that English as ‘delivered’ in school (and at university) is a

constructed subject encoding a set of socio-political, cultural and ideological

principles. These principles, the messages they convey and the ensuing choices they

require of the teacher emerged in discussion with trainees as the course progressed.

It is clear that they have a profound impact on trainees’ developing sense of subject

construct as they consider the extent to which the hidden underpinnings of the

curriculum reflect their own personal beliefs about the subject (which Banks et al.

term the ‘personal subject construct’) and how these influence their choices in terms

of what to teach, as well as how far they might use their teaching to challenge these.

School knowledge encompasses assessment as well as curriculum. The alarming

trend over recent years for ever-increasing burdens of assessment (Barnes, 2000;

Hodgson & Spours, 2003; Bluett et al., 2004; Daly, 2004; Moore, 2004; Green,

2005a) and the high profile of league tables has led to an increasingly constrained

and instrumental definition of the study of English through secondary schooling.

This dimension of subject construct fundamentally challenges trainees’ perceptions

of their role as teacher. Evaluations and written assignments typically explore

teachers’ responsibilities as conveyers of knowledge and facilitators of learning and

seek to balance these with parental expectations and the need to ensure pupils gain

the best grades they can. This is a difficult balance to achieve. Evaluations and

observations make clear that within the training school context, trainees are

inevitably influenced—and sometimes constrained—by institutional and/or depart-

mental policy and ethos. Trainees were clear about the need professionally to

question and evaluate school practices in this respect and to establish their personal

views of good practice in this area that fits the needs of schools, parents, teachers and

pupils.

(3) Pedagogic knowledge

This is the body of skills and approaches that trainees learn for use in the

effective ‘delivery’ of the subject throughout the school. It involves developing

116 A. Green

understanding in the subject, strategies for gaining and sustaining the interest of

students, and for encouraging the disaffected. It includes differentiation (an area

where trainees’ evaluations and assignments demonstrate they require particular

practical support): e.g. how to help less able learners approach linguistically and

cognitively challenging texts, as well as how to extend gifted and talented students.

However, pedagogic knowledge encompasses more than this. The development of

powerful pedagogic knowledge often requires teachers to challenge, sometimes even

revise, subject content knowledge they thought was robust.

Engagement with issues of pedagogy further broadens notions of subject

knowledge and the formation of subject construct. The challenges of devising

effective means by which information may be conveyed and information processed

so that learning is facilitated, and understanding how this relates to other dimensions

of subject knowledge—these are complex and demanding tasks, incorporating what

Daly (2004) terms assurance of ‘learner readiness’. They involve acts of creative

empathy on the part of teachers, who have to put themselves in the position of their

students in order to understand their needs in seeking to access particular areas of

learning. This was recognised directly by one trainee:

It is difficult to revert back to the role of the pupil. Understanding the pupil’s needs is

crucial.

Depending upon how able trainees are to undertake this act of empathy, the

process of transforming content knowledge into practical classroom knowledge will

be more or less difficult as students’ needs are the genesis of approaching how

lessons are taught (Daly, 2004).

All of the above distinct components of teacherly subject knowledge, set alongside

teachers’ own beliefs (or personal subject construct), need to interrelate if the trainee

is to manage the move from English student to classroom practitioner.

Building teacherly knowledge

As Grossman et al. (1989) observe:

Teacher education begins long before students enter formal programs for teacher

preparation. (p. 35)

The building of a working school knowledge of subject is more complex than has so

far been suggested: other ideas also have to be brought into play. Formative

experiences (both positive and negative) have already played a part in shaping

trainees’ sense of the kind of teachers they wish to be and the methods they feel

comfortable employing. In many cases these experiences underpin the very reasons

why they enter ITT. Many come because of their own positive experiences of

education in general and of their chosen subject in particular; others enter because of

their own negative experiences and the desire to ensure that the experience of their

students should be more positive.

It is important that beginning teachers perceive the fluid nature of subject

knowledge and any construction of subject. Calderhead and Miller (1985) explore

the relationship between teachers’ subject content knowledge and class-specific

knowledge—e.g. knowledge of the individuals within the class (Turvey, 2005), their

corporate needs and preferences and the dynamics these establish. In bringing these

knowledges to bear on each other, they suggest, the teacher creates ‘action-relevant’

knowledge. This relates to Banks et al.’s perceived overlap between subject and

pedagogic knowledge, though somewhat more specifically delineated. It also recalls

Feiman-Nemser and Buchman’s (1985) concept of ‘pedagogical thinking’, which

requires teachers to locate their subject knowledge within the individual needs of

students and their beliefs about the subject they are being taught (Turvey, 2005).

Teachers’ development of subject model, therefore, consists not solely of personal

evaluation and refinement, but must also reflect and interact with a classroomful of

other subject constructs in increasingly complex ways as students develop in

maturity and ability as subject practitioners in their own right. The issue is further

complicated for trainees by the realities of working within the corporate context of

the school and department, where personal constructs of subject must be submitted

to a further (sometimes quite draconian) process of moderation by consensus.

Trainees frequently report difficulties in trying out particular pedagogic approaches

because of resistance from mentors or other members of the departments in which

they are working; an unwillingness, for example, to look favourably on the use of

drama approaches to text or the use of groupwork and talk in the classroom.

Resourcing also frequently proves a barrier to subject knowledge development; for

example, the desire to develop skills in the use of interactive whiteboards may be

limited or even nullified by the lack of appropriate resources within a placement

department. Equally, a rigid departmental policy, such as adherence to the letter of

the Key Stage Three Strategy (or an inveterate resistance to it) may impede trainees’

personal development of subject construct. It is essential that close work is

undertaken by Initial Teacher Training tutors and mentors within schools to ensure

that trainees’ experiences and development are not limited unreasonably in this

respect.

Model 2: Grossman et al. (1989)

Grossman et al. (1989), like Banks et al. (1999), identify four categories within what

they term ‘subject matter knowledge’.

(1) Content knowledge

This they identify as the ‘stuff’ of the discipline, itself not an unproblematic concept.

Teachers often need to extend their content knowledge to bring it into line with

curriculum requirements—a connection here with the model of Banks et al.—and for

personal development to continue if they are to be innovative and inspiring teachers.

Many beginning teachers, for instance, require input during ITT on language and

‘grammar’ (Gregory, 2003; Burley, 2005) to assist their development and to boost

their self-confidence in these increasingly targeted areas of content knowledge. As

118 A. Green

beginning teachers develop, the ways they set about acquiring new, and developing

old, subject knowledge changes, reflecting a growing perception of school and

pedagogic requirements and the importance of these in the development of teacherly

knowledge. This will be differentiated according to purpose, so that the way a

teacher reads and learns a text or subject area for delivery at Key Stage Three will

differ in many respects from the way this is done for an A-level class.

(2) Substantive knowledge(s)

This is a paradigm or framework that offers foci of inquiry, the questions asked of a

subject and the directions exploration may take. These exist in multiple forms within

the discipline of English. Models of literary criticism, literary theory or linguistic

frameworks, for example, arise from particular inspirations and generate lines of

inquiry and modes of interrogating text or language that suit their own individual

rationales. Metacognitive engagement with the various substantive manifestations of

subject is essential for the teacher: each ‘version’ of the subject encodes its own

implied relationship between teacher and learner (Knights, 2005) as well as between

the reader and the material studied. This is an area of subject knowledge with which

trainees express difficulty engaging and developing, as it is frequently a tacit feature

of their own subject constructs. It is important, however, that ITT addresses this

issue. The role of the teacher in presenting and employing substantive formations of

subject (when a multiplicity of viewpoints is important) is frequently synthetic,

providing students with the tools to engage with the particular substantive formation

of the subject offered but offering no personal value judgement as to the relative

merit of each as a means of inquiry. These substantive modes of subject are

frequently in fruitful dialogue with each other.

The importance of such substantive frameworks within the curricular formation of

English, for example, is forcibly argued by Bluett et al. (2004). They identify in the

lack of any coherent theoretical underpinning, a significant and continuing weakness

in English Literature specifications under Curriculum 2000. Beginning teachers

need to be alert to the substantive foundations on which the school curriculum is

built and how this connects (or fails to connect) with what underpins their degree

level studies and personal constructs of subject. Further, they have to consider how

such substantive frameworks can be provided (and usefully approached) within their

own teaching to ensure students are properly able to locate their studies within

appropriate subject paradigms.

(3) Syntactic knowledge

This relates to the tools and forms of inquiry within the subject. It proved an area

where trainees were less confident as practitioners. Again, however, it is a

fundamental aspect of subject formation. It deals with canons of knowledge, the

formation of evidence and proof accepted within the discipline and the ways in

which new knowledge is brought into the discipline. This is subject not as content,

but rather as process. Effective teachers need to consider carefully how they

introduce students to this dimension of subject. Throughout their development as

learners, trainees and their students need gradually to be introduced to the

conventions and processes by which the subject operates if they are to be effective

practitioners. Expertise in this area is vital to the teacher. Tacit knowledge of such

procedures has a certain value, but engagement with these processes needs to be

more and more explicit, and more and more detailed within practice, if trainees and

their students are to become properly autonomous. It is, of course, essential that

teachers remain abreast of developments in the syntactic structures of the subject if

they are effectively to continue the development of their own subject knowledge.

(4) Beliefs about subject matter

In many ways this is similar to Banks et al.’s conception of the personal subject

construct. It takes into account values and assumptions about the subject that

trainees have developed and the engagement they have with it. Trainees’ locus in any

given area of the subject is very important. For example, some adhere firmly to the

notion that language and ‘grammar’ should be taught discretely and the skills thus

learned applied to reading and writing; others hold strongly to the view that they

should only be taught integrally and in context—Gregory (2003) argues for a

balance of both. Some would prioritise (and see as sacrosanct) the role of ‘great

literature’ in the English curriculum, whilst others hold a wider and more utilitarian

view of text. Political, philosophical, theoretical and religious views, as well as

personal experiences of the subject at school, at university and elsewhere, will also

play an important role in shaping the nature of the subject the teacher wishes to

‘deliver’. As training progressed, trainees became increasingly aware that the view of

the subject this leads to, and the impact this has on the choices a teacher makes

about how and what to teach, will inevitably result in widely differing experiences for

both teachers and pupils—even within the confines of an established curriculum or

module for study. The extent to which students are able to engage with the subject

will inevitably depend upon the extent to which their construct and developing

personal beliefs about it coincide with those of their teachers and peers. A

considerable responsibility is thus placed on teachers to ensure that personal beliefs

and constructs of subject are non-exclusive so that personal interpretations and

values do not impinge on students’ freedom to form their own views and to develop

their own interactions with the subject.

Deliverable subject models

Beyond the models of Grossman et al. and of Banks et al., however, lies a further

process trainees must go through in realigning their knowledge of subject. Having

considered the above dimensions of subject knowledge and established how these

can fit together practically and theoretically in the classroom, trainees have to go

through a final stage of development when, having formed a perception of what can

120 A. Green

be taught (within the parameters of content, school, pedagogic, substantive and

syntactic knowledges) they consider the version of the subject that they are able and

happy to teach. This might be termed the personal deliverable model. This is a personal

version of the subject, combining academic, educational and pragmatic components

which together create the area of functioning subject practice within which the

teacher will operate. This will, of course, be a more or less successful subject system

and constantly needs to be re-evaluated in the light of such issues as individual and

whole-class needs or the purposes of particular teaching sessions or sequences of

sessions.

The personal deliverable model represents the interface between the teacher,

the student and the curriculum. The creation of this model, which will be

different for all trainees, and for every class that trainees teach, is the outcome of

a ‘negotiation’ of the needs of all three, undertaken by the teacher and applied to

the class. The success of work undertaken in the classroom context is dependent

upon the sensitivity and practicality with which the teacher conducts this

‘negotiation’.

The development of effective teacherly knowledge is, therefore, a complex and

interactive process. According to Grossman et al. (1989), it is:

by drawing on a number of different types of knowledge and skill teachers translate their

knowledge of subject matter into instructional representations. (p. 32)

The process of subject knowledge development must be an interventionist process

in which trainees need to be brought early to the recognition that subject knowledge,

in the school context, is much more than the books they have read, or other areas in

which they have expertise. Feiman-Nemser and Buchman (1985) observe:

In learning to teach, neither firsthand experience nor university instruction can be left to

work themselves out by themselves. (p. 29)

The ITT tutor has a crucial role to play in this field, assisting trainees in

developing complex and challenging conceptions of subject, and the ways in which

this must inform work with their students in a variety of contexts and for a range of

purposes. Successfully establishing negotiated constructs and models of subject is at

the heart of effective ITT.

Notes on contributor

Andrew Green taught English in a variety of schools in Oxfordshire and London

before becoming Head of English at Ewell Castle School, Surrey. He now lectures

in English Education at Brunel University in West London, working on both

undergraduate and post-graduate courses. His research interests include the

teaching of English post-16 and issues surrounding the transition from the study

of English post-16 to university. He is the author of the recent English Subject

Centre report Four perspectives on transition: English Literature from sixth form to

university.

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