Standing brave in the face of rapid curriculum change: EAL/D teachers speak about critical literacy and its place in senior English teaching.

Jennifer AlfordFaculty of Education, QUTjh.alford@qut.edu.au

Presented at AATE/ALEA National Conference, July 5-7, 2013. Brisbane.

Abstract Critical literacy (CL) has been the subject of much debate in the

Australian public and education arenas since 2002. Recently, this debate has dissipated as literacy education agendas

and attendant policies shift to embrace more hybrid models and approaches to the teaching of senior English.

This paper/presentation reports on the views expressed by four teachers of senior English about critical literacy and it’s relevance to students who are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are learning English while undertaking senior studies in high school.

Teachers’ understandings of critical literacy are important, esp. given the emphasis on Critical and Creative Thinking and Literacy as two of the General Capabilities underpinning the Australian national curriculum.

Using critical discourse analysis, data from four specialist ESL teachers in two different schools were analysed for the ways in which these teachers construct critical literacy.

While all four teachers indicated significant commitment to critical literacy as an approach to English language teaching, the understandings they articulated varied from providing forms of access to powerful genres, to rationalist approaches to interrogating text, to a type of ‘critical-aesthetic’ analysis of text construction.

Implications.

Overview ....

Context Aims and Research QuestionConcepts and Literature ReviewConceptual FrameworkDesign and Methods Analysis, Findings & DiscussionLimitationsImplicationsReferences

Context: The public debate

Qld English syllabi and critical language study –

Beginnings of CL

Senior English

2002

CL and EAL pedagogy

English for ESL 2007

The post-critical turn?

Senior

English 2008 and English for ESL 2007

(amended 2009)

EAL/D learners in mainstream senior English classrooms.

2003 PD seminar

“Veiled in a cloud of mystery....” (McLaughlin and De Voodg, 2004, p.29)

Context:Teachers were challenged by the need to teach

critical literacy with EAL/D learners (no EAL/D syllabus at this stage).

Margot: I found that - I think for any student - I think it was almost way too much, way too soon. Maybe it was the way the school had done it because in the first six weeks of our course we were supposed to cover representation, representation of discourses, what is text, invited readings, positioning, alternate readings, resistant readings, binary oppositions. It was just - we had this list of things to be covered in the first six weeks and kids could barely - I mean, the mainstream kids struggled as well because it was too much. (Interview, Feb, 2010).

2007 First EAL/D QSA syllabus appeared

Riva: Because the (2002) syllabus required everything to be critical, teachers spent an awful lot of time teaching that aspect of it and it’s a simple numbers game there isn’t that much time in the sylla... in the school year to teach what they need to teach plus what they now have to teach so they tended to assume language knowledge .

JA: Mmmm.

Riva: And for most students who’d gone through Gr 10 that was a fair assumption but for our students who haven’t done grade 1-10 English here but they were coming in without that assumed knowledge and the teachers were focussing on critical literacy because they had to. So we needed a syllabus which allotted time, not just allowed, but allotted time to the explicit teaching of language and that’s what this one did. We actually wrote it with a percentage written in it .

JA: Oh OK.

Riva: And QSA  took it out ‘cos it didn’t fit their principles. It was agreed by everybody that 30% of the time should be explicit language teaching but they took that out.  

JA: Mmmm.

Riva: ..and a lot of people were really upset they took it out. X were really upset.

JA: Did they take that out in the original or in the rewrite in 2009?

Riva: No in the initial. X were really upset they took it out ‘cos they’d seen the draft and they were really upset. But there’s general agreement that we need at least 30% of the time for language teaching. 

(Interview, Feb, 2010)

2009 QSA syllabus ‘rewrite’

Some teachers requested CL be removed from the senior EAL/D syllabus in order that international students might then pass senior English.

JA: And do you know about the 2009 amendment and how that came about?

X: ...they’ve never explained it. They got up and they just said ‘Here is the new syllabus’ at a conference. They got up on the last day and said ‘Here is the new syllabus’ and handed it out.

JA: Right.X: ...and it was hysterical because um they’d written it

without recourse.. without any consultation with anybody.... QSA writers just did it themselves...they’ve telescoped all sorts of things in; they’ve lost the ‘ESL-ness’ of it.... The other one was more rigorous and specific.  

(Interview , Feb , 2010).

JA: So what about the current senior ESL syllabus that you're working from, what place does critical literacy have there?

Margot: It's not mandated in the (syllabus) it's not actually assessed. So it's not assessed although you could argue that in terms of cognitive processes and understanding - critical literacy understandings will inform cognitive processes. (Interview Feb, 2010)

Identifying CL in ACARA Senior EAL/D syllabus:

“English as an Additional Language or Dialect aims to develop students’: • understanding of the relationships between language, texts and ways of thinking and knowing in SAE;• ability to communicate ideas, feelings, attitudes and information appropriately in and through SAE across the curriculum areas;• inferential comprehension, critical analysis and reflection skills.”

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/SeniorSecondary/English/English-as-an-Additional-Language-or-Dialect/RationaleAims

“Critical” language and text analysis skills-

Across the range of units (4) in the senior EAL/D course: analysing how language reflects cultural constructions of groupings or

ideas such as age, gender, race and identity (ACEEA017); explaining the effects of descriptive language and imagery in texts

(ACEEA016); explaining how language is used to influence or persuade an audience or

to express appreciation of an object, a process or a performance (ACEEA014);

explaining overt and implicit assumptions made in texts, for example, as seen in editorial opinions and stereotypes in advertising (ACEEA042);

analysing how language forms and conventions used in different modes and mediums influence audiences (ACEEA072);

analysing how audiences are positioned in texts and how texts present different perspectives on personal, social and historical issues (ACEEA094)

analysing how culturally based representations of concepts such as knowledge or authority are conveyed (ACEEA095);

evaluating the manipulation of text structures and language features for different purposes (ACEEA096) ...............

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/SeniorSecondary/English/English-as-an-Additional-Language-or-Dialect/Curriculum/SeniorSecondary

Assessment Criteria: “Responding to texts”An ‘A’ standard =evaluates information, ideas and attitudes

presented in texts, demonstrating insightful understanding;

critically analyses how relationships between context, purpose and audience influence texts

evaluates the effectiveness of text structures, language features and conventions in different modes and mediums to convey personal, social and cultural perspectives;

critically analyses relationships between language, values, culture and identity and evaluates how they influence and change understanding.

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/SeniorSecondary/English/English-as-an-Additional-Language-or-Dialect/AchievementStandards#Rows=&page=4

Research problem“What kinds of literate practices, for whom,

fitted for what social and economic formations can and should be constructed and sanctioned through teaching?” (Freebody & Luke, 1990, p. 2).

English and EAL/D teachers have been experiencing rapid and significant change in the policies that guide their daily work.

The question for teachers then is: how do we now continue to ‘move’ pedagogically – designing responsive, inclusive and intellectually engaging curriculum (Comber & Nixon, 2009)... for senior school EAL/D learners at levels 4-6 on the ESL Bandscales?

Research question in this paper:In the context of current approaches

to and debates about language and literacy teaching, what are EAL/D teachers’ articulated understandings of critical language study/critical literacy (CL)?

Teacher knowledge/conceptualisations of CL as evident in their interview talk and classroom interactions.

Lit review - Concepts and TermsCLA – Critical Language Awareness

(Clark, 1995; Fairclough, 1992, 2001; Wallace, 1999, 2003).

CLS – Critical Language Studies (Van Lier, 2004)

Critical EAP (Benesch, 2001, 2009; Morgan, B. 2005, 2009)

CL – Critical Literacy (Corson, 1999; Janks, 1991, 2000; Luke, 1995, 1997, 2000 ; Morgan, 1997)

Distillation of critical language study to one “method” is actively resisted (Collins & Blot, 2003; Comber, 2001; Luke, 2000; Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Norton & Toohey, 2004; Street, 2003)

“By ‘critical’ we mean ways that give students tools for weighing and critiquing, analysing and appraising textual techniques and ideologies, values and positions. The key challenge….is how to engage students with the study of ‘how texts work’ semiotically and linguistically, while at the same time taking up explicitly how texts and their associated social institutions work politically to construct and position writers and readers in relations of power and knowledge (or lack thereof).” (Luke, Comber & O’Brien, 1994, p. 35)

Literature Review: Studies about high school EAL teachers’ understandings and practice of critical language study

Individual teacher is the source of the problem:

lack of knowledge about and lack of personal commitment to CLA among English/EAL teachers, regardless of currriculum (Monareng, 2008; Savage, 2008; Cadiero-Kaplan, 2001)

Teacher inexperience, isolation, class size and the range of teacher’s responsibility as well as teacher education courses must be taken into account (Glazier, 2007);

Literature Review: “Best” practice models of critical EAL teaching

Grammar focussed models: Carr (1994); Hammond & Macken-Horarick, (1999); Janks

(1991); Morgan, Brian (2004); Wallace (1999, 2003)

Academic skill sets approach: e.g., linking personal experience to

broader exercise of power ; raising awareness about English and its role in colonial history…..

CL can complement not replace the conventional focus on the skill sets needed for academic study.

Benesch (2001, 2009) ; Morgan & Ramanathan (2005).

Literature Review: EAL learners and critical language study Students become stronger agents of their own language

learning (Janks, 1999; 2010; Wallace 1992, 1995, 1999, 2003)

Cultural and functional “received” notions of literacy education, that characterise EAL instruction, are the very conditions that are preventing low level literacy EAL learners from achieving literacy development in schools. (de Gourville 2002)

“Critical language awareness is a valuable tool to disrupt traditional approaches of language teaching which can reproduce unjust views and structures rather than transform them” (Godley & Minicci, 2008).

Lau (2013) – with careful language scaffolds and guidance as well as classroom structures and conditions that facilitate open and critical discussions of real student concerns, beginning ELLs were quite capable of cognitively challenging (critical) literacy work.” (p. 25).

3 conditions?

Janks’s (2010) Synthesis model draws on the literature:Catherine Wallace/Norman

Fairclough (Domination);Lisa Delpit, Jenny Hammond,

Mary Macken-Horarick (Access);Shirley Brice Heath and ‘Ways

with Words’ (Diversity);New London Group and

Multiliteracies (Design).

Janks’s (2010) model

Janks maintains that four orientations are possible - Domination, Access, Diversity and Design - that they are interdependent and ideally, that all need to be held in “productive tension to achieve what is a shared goal of all critical literacy work: equity and social justice” (Janks, 2010, p.27).

Domination assumes a critical discourse analysis approach in which the language and images in dominant texts are deconstructed to discover concepts such as foregroundings, silences and whose interests are served. (“CL” in Qld)

Access - making explicit the features of the genres that carry social power, e.g., analytical essays and reports, hitherto assumed to be already in the/some learners’ heads.

- a hallmark of EAL/D teaching in Australia since the 1980s and is an important part of teachers’ pedagogy. Janks (2010), Lee (1997) and others caution, however, that access without deconstruction can serve to naturalise and reify such genres without questioning how they came to be powerful.

Diversity - drawing on a range of modalities as resources and to include students’ own diverse language and literacies.

Design asks teachers to harness the productive power of diverse learners to create their own meanings through re-construction of texts. Students use a range of media and technologies to do so without relying on traditional print media.

The Synthesis Model of Critical Literacy (Janks, 2010, p. 26)Domination without access This maintains the exclusionary force of dominant discourses.

Domination without diversity Domination without difference and diversity loses the ruptures that produce contestation and change.

Domination without design The deconstruction of dominance, without reconstruction or design, removes human

agency.

Access without domination Access without a theory of domination leads to the naturalisation of powerful discourses without an understanding of how

these powerful forms came to be powerful.

Access without diversity This fails to recognise that difference fundamentally affects pathways to access and

involves issues of history, identity and value.

Access without design This maintains and reifies dominant forms without considering how they can be transformed.

Diversity without domination This leads to a celebration of diversity without any recognition that difference is structured in dominance and that not all discourses/genres/languages/literacies are equally powerful.

Diversity without access Diversity without access to powerful forms of language ghettoises students.

Diversity without design Diversity provides the means, the ideas, the alternative perspectives for reconstruction and transformation. Without design, the potential that diversity offers is not realised.

Design without domination Design without an understanding of how dominant discourses/practices perpetuate themselves, runs the risk of an unconscious reproduction of these forms.

Design without access This runs the risk of whatever is designed remaining on the margins.

Design without diversity This privileges dominant forms and fails to use the design resources provided by difference.

Conceptual Framework

Language as social practice (Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1995, 2001, 2003; Lankshear, 1997; Luke, 1991, 1995......).

Critical Discourse Analysis… via the intricate workings of language. (Fairclough, 2003)

Step 1: identify a social problem which has a semiotic aspect. Semiosis includes all forms of meaning making - visual images, aural, body language or actual written or spoken language. Every practice has semiotic elements.

Step 2: identify obstacles to the problem through analysis of: the network of practices it is located within; the relationship of semiosis to other elements within the particular practices concerned; and the discourse (the semiosis itself).

Analysis of discourse involves:

Fig. 1. Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 2001b, p. 21).

Step 3: consider whether the social order in a sense ‘needs’ the problem in order to maintain the status quo. Step 4: identify possible ways past the obstacles and reflect critically on the analysis carried out in steps 1 to 4.

Text

Context - Social conditions of production and of interpretation - Queensland, Australia, 2010

Interaction – process of production and interpretation - School as institution; governing bodies; researcher relationship

Text e.g, teacher talk in interview; classroom discourseFa

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Conceptual framework combined: (Fairclough, 2003)

CDA Systemic Functional Linguistic tools to analyse data

Representation: Ways of representing aspects of the world through language (e.g., critical literacy as a concept in this study) = discourses

•Themes; • Aspects of transitivity (Halliday, 1978) – participants (who or what is acting) and processes (how are they acting); •Metaphor.

Action: Ways of acting/interacting within a social event and includes enacting social relations (e.g., ways of doing teaching) = genres

•Semantic/grammatical relations between sentences and clauses;•Higher-level semantic relations over long stretches of text –predominant types of exchange and speech functions; •Predominant grammatical moods (declarative, imperative or interrogative?).

Identification: Ways of being /identifying with some position; indicates commitment and judgement (e.g., ways teachers position themselves and learners in relation to critical literacy)= styles.

•Modality (commitment to ‘truth’ (epistemic modalities) and necessity/obligation (deontic modalities); •Evaluation (e.g., through the use of adjectives or qualifiers); •Shifts in mode from everyday to technical language;

Design and MethodsCritical case study design (Carspecken, 1996; Creswell, 2008)

- advocacy and transformation of social practices in pursuit of more equitable situations.

multiple instrumental case study design (Creswell, 2008).

Inductive and deductive.

4 cases – four teachers in two sites over 1 school term

Site 1 Beacon* High – lower SES; more refugee-background learners: Margot and Celia.

Site 2 Riverdale High – mixed-higher SES; more international/migrant students: Riva and Lucas.

* = all names are pseudonyms.

IssueCase 1

Case 2 Case 3

Case 4

5 data sets :i. Semi-structured interviews (3

x 4 teachers); ii. Video recordings of “CL”

lessons* (3 x 4) in a “CL”* unit;iii. Field notes;iii. Stimulated verbal recall –

video segments;iv. Teachers’ planning

documents.

* Teacher designated. They invited me to these “CL” lessons.

CDA SFL tools to analyse data at linguistic

level

Janks (2010) as explanatory framework for

analysis

Representation: Ways of representing aspects of the world through language (e.g., critical literacy as a concept in this study) = discourses

•Themes; • Aspects of transitivity (Halliday, 1978) – participants (who or what is acting) and processes (how are they acting); •Metaphor. Combinations of....

Domination?

Access?

Diversity?

Design?

Other?

Action: Ways of acting/interacting within a social event and includes enacting social relations (e.g., ways of doing teaching) = genres

•Semantic/grammatical relations between sentences and clauses;•Higher-level semantic relations over long stretches of text –predominant types of exchange and speech functions; •Predominant grammatical moods (declarative, imperative or interrogative?)

Identification: Ways of being /identifying with some position; indicates commitment and judgement (e.g., ways teachers position themselves and learners in relation to critical literacy)= styles.

•Modality (commitment to ‘truth’ (epistemic modalities) and necessity/obligation (deontic modalities); •Evaluation (e.g., through the use of adjectives or qualifiers); •Shifts in mode from everyday to technical language;

Unit Key Critical Literacy Learning Experienceschosen from the syllabus for the school Work Programs

(taken directly from the English for ESL Learners Syllabus (2007, amended 2009, p.17-18).

Assessment item

Beacon High Margot Yr 11 Language of the

Mediai. Examining how individuals and groups, times, places, events or concepts and their relationships with one another are represented in written or spoken and/or multimodal texts such as documentaries, feature articles, television and radio news broadcasts. ii. Analysing how vocabulary and verbal, non-verbal, visual, auditory and/or language features are selected and used for different purposes and audiences. (Margot focussed on television and print news media).

Written investigative report on the ways in which the media represent groups in society (e.g.,women in sport, refugees, aged people, youth).

CeliaYear 12

Language of Literature

i. Identifying the individuals, groups, times, places and issues that are represented in a variety of literary texts; make and justify decisions about why they are represented in similar and/or different ways.(Celia scoped the unit to the study of two texts – Animal Farm by George Orwell and sections of Macbeth by William Shakespeare).

Written persuasive text - Hortatorical speech calling a group of people to action in relation to some aspect of the unit theme – oppression. 800-1000 words.

Riverdale High RivaYear 11

and

LucasYear 11

Language of the Media

i. Examining how individuals and groups, times, places, events or concepts and their relationships with one another are represented in written or spoken and/or multimodal texts such as documentaries, feature articles, television and radio news broadcasts. ii. Analysing how vocabulary and verbal, non-verbal, visual, auditory and/or language features are selected and used for different purposes and audiences.

Written analytical exposition of the multimodal techniques used to represent a particular point of view in an on-line documentary. Exam conditions; 600 words.

Data Teacher 1 Margot

Excerpt 1

Margot: Okay. I guess critical literacy is understanding not JUST (.5) what the text is about but, um well, it IS understanding what the text is about, but understanding WHY that text is about that, what (1.0) I guess (2.0) oh it sounds a bit subversive if you start talking about hidden messages but um, understanding why things have been written in the way they've been written, um, and I guess you know for teenagers in particular there's - they tend to take everything at face value, to just accept that because they've read it somewhere IT’S TRUE, whereas it's just developing that more CRITICAL way of looking at (.5) text, whatever they may be. So that to me is critical literacy, is I guess OPENING THEM UP to understanding that it's not just about seeing what's in front of you but seeing where it fits into a wider CONTEXT where it fits into you know our society or that particular society or um, and thus becoming more EMPOWERED. I like that word empowered, so.........

JA: So in what way do you think they're empowered by critical literacy?

Margot: Because it allows them to understand if they're being manipulated I guess. Um, it allows them to see - ....um (2.0) that if you KNOW (.5) why somebody is saying something in a particular way it does help you to UNDERSTAND the issue more deeply. I guess it's a matter of, you know, like, for them THINKING more deeply about (.5) you know what are the agents – you know like, how things, just that whole empowering business I guess is understanding, you know, how society works, how INSTITUTIONS work. (Margot, Site 1. Interview 1, Feb 3, 2010; lines 6-35)

Excerpt 2Margot: Also in terms of I guess communication skills

which is….. to me, communication skills are where crit lit [sic] dovetails with knowledge of language because how you communicate, basically, you know, all of those things come together, your knowledge of grammar, your vocabulary, all of those things come together to communicate a particular message in a particular way and that's where your genre and your register and all of those things do operate together (emphasised with rising intonation) because part of that .. in terms of creating a particular text for a particular purpose, which is what crit lit - I guess that's the production side of it .. is understanding the right register, having the right genre….

(Margot, Site 1. Interview 1, Feb 3, 2010: 392-401).

Analysis* - MargotRe-presents CL as a source of understanding and social empowerment for teenagers and a standard attribute of an open-minded, educated person; Access and Domination are interdependent (logic of equivalence); Further refines the term CL by arguing that deconstruction of texts (Janks’s Domination orientation) can actually aid students’ Access to dominant discourses; Does not indicate whether deconstruction would extend to the ‘genres of power’ (Luke, 1996); i.e., interrogating those genres to see the ideological ‘work’ they do, not just the functional work. Uses declarative verb moods, and explains causal and equivalent semantic relations between CL and positive outcomes; Indicates strong epistemic commitment to CL, suggesting it is an inevitable and empowering aspect of literacy teaching; some weakening of commitment through use of the mental process ‘guess’. The ‘access paradox’ (Lodge, 1997; Janks 2004). Margot seems to be suggesting that in order to produce critical literacy responses, students need access to the naturalised, ‘symbolic power’ (Bourdieu, 1991) or status afforded to certain genres in schooling system. Diversity and Design?

Data Teacher 2 Celia

Excerpt 1Celia : (addressing the class) So the genre is persuasive. It's

a persuasive text. You're going to convince people to take some form of action. You want to change attitudes or beliefs, or both, or you want to reinforce and strengthen certain attitudes that the collective group would hold. Now you've got a particular purpose. Now you choose who you want to be. You can be a person - an historical person that's achieved great things, or you can be an imaginary person. You can make something up. But you've got to be focusing on oppression - that's the topic - and the fight for freedom. ......(discussion about the connection of the task to the parent novel ‘Animal Farm’ (Orwell, 1943) being studied and features of the genre required).

(Celia lesson 2, Feb 23, 2010. Lines 43-120) 

Excerpt 2Celia: I think also critical literacy is getting involved in your reading. You

might want to take something PERSONALLY or you might want to reject it and say, I don’t agree with this at all. I guess critical literacy is KNOWING that you have the power to do that and that you are aware of where you stand as far as a particular text is concerned, so you can become EMOTIONALLY involved with a text. I think that that’s being critically literate as well.

JA In what way?......Celia: ……yeah, just becoming emotionally involved. Then I

guess, because I’m aware of critical literacy (1.0) and how it can affect a reader, I can see that the language choices have been DESIGNED and the story has been written for me to have that (1.0) emotional response. So I can sort of actually critically analyse the text if I wanted to, according to her language choices. She’s* positioned me quite WELL (1.0) to become EMOTIONALLY involved with the story, to even want to dig a bit deeper and find out a little bit more about the background and the era and the actual setting of the story itself, who she is as an author, to the extent that I would go and borrow a book and read her stories.

(Celia. Interview 1, Feb 8, 2010; lines 22-62).The author – Alice Walker.

Analysis - Celia

Celia foregrounds CL as a significant aspect of learning to be literate for her particular EAL/D learners, many of whom are refugee-background with interrupted schooling, thereby embracing the idea that EAL/D learners can engage critically with texts at a higher order thinking level (cf. the social problem;

Celia seems to be holding some elements of critical literacy in productive tension - Access and Domination and to a lesser extent Diversity;

As a result, she demonstrates pedagogy that invites some contestation and change brought about by alternative perspectives (Janks, 2010). But there is a strong allegiance to ‘genre pedagogy’ and ‘essayist literacy’ (Allison, 2011; Ivanic, 1998; Street, 1984) and “subjection to the normative forms of academic writing” (Janks, 2010, p. 155). The ‘Access paradox’ continues to influence these teachers;

Celia seems to be suggesting that CL is being able to become emotionally involved in a story and be moved or affected by its language use, and to simultaneously be aware of how that language is positioning one as the reader. Morgan (1997), and Misson and Morgan (2006) promote this view when they suggest that teachers can work with ‘critical aesthetics’: teaching students to be open to critique that which they find beautiful or pleasing.

Data Teacher 3 Riva

Riva:

A representation works within a construction of reality. So it's like construction of reality is the big picture, and the representation can be of PEOPLE , of IDEAS , of things that happen, of GROUPS OF PEOPLE So, (2.0) when constructing his reality, or her reality, the documentary maker will be representing the scientists in a particular way (1.0) and representing the pandas, who are a character here, in a particular way (1.0). So they are representing people, ideas and the issue, the situation.

This situation has been represented in a particular way and it could have been represented (1.0) - the situation could have been represented (1.0; Riva shows, again, the slide of Uryu Ishida challenging the dominant reading) MUCH more negatively, couldn't it? If you remember those opening scenes of the factories . If that had continued, we could have had a very different construction of reality, a very DIFFERENT representation of the scientists.

So, these (representations) arise from the point of the view of the text creator, the MAKER of the text, the WRITER, FILMAKER, the POET, the PLAYWRIGHT, WHOEVER makes the text, their point of view, their own personal context, just like yours when you wrote your feature article, their own personal context, their idea about the world, their beliefs, their values, what they think is important and true, affects how they represent people, ideas and things and affects the world that THEY develop and show you.

Okay... So, to move on, how are you going to use that? How are you going write about that? So, just an example of how you'll write about these – how you'll USE these terms in writing. Riva shows the 5th slide in her ppt.and moves into a “grammatics” lesson.

(Riva lesson 1, Oct 6, 2010: lines 200-222.)

Analysis- Riva Riva demonstrates a clear commitment to combining

Domination with Access especially through KAL. In doing so, she rescales the critical literacy component of the syllabus in ways that are accessible to her particular learners. Access with Domination provides a view of texts and discourses as reproducable but always invested with power.

KAL is an important element of being critically literate to Riva (see Macken-Horarick and Christie) and shows her commitment to and ability to provide access to the standard variety of Australia’s dominant language (Standard Australian English). Without knowledge of and access to dominant language, students remain locked in a place of knowing its value and status, but with no way of using it (Bourdieu, 1991).

Riva attempts to weave Diversity in to her pedagogy via multimodal resources from diverse backgrounds.

Design?

Data Teacher 4 Lucas

Lucas: I understand that THEY understand the critical terminology and how they are being positioned, whether or not they can write

it fluently is the big ask for any ESL student.JA: So how do you address that problem?Lucas: With regards to this documentary and the next couple, we

give them a lot of terminology and we UNPACK some of the terminology that they are going to be hit with. We also give them, the first thing that we give them are cloze exercises that have those words missing but have the sentence starters and (we) show them (that) THIS IS HOW we want you to talk about the documentary. We might give them a few topic sentences and (then we) SEE what they come up with after that. We scaffold them with regards to the (1.0) requirements of an essay, their introductory sentence, their thesis, their preview and all that, EVERYTHING that has to do with the genre as well. Every time that we speak about this I would be using the terminology that I expect them to HAVE in the essay. We do give them a MODEL. I think the model is about the Disneyland one so they can actually see how the different critical aspects have been spoken about... like colour, music, camera angles.

(Lucas, Interview 2, Oct 5, 2010: 303-322.)

Analysis - Lucas Lucas sees that Access, including KAL, and Domination

are able to co-exist and that critical work can unfold over time with genre pedagogy and scaffolding enabling this process.

Pedagogic activity is centred on literally ‘giving’ his students knowledge about language with which they can then formulate sentences and whole text.

This allows the potential for Diversity of thought and expression to be drawn on, however, Lucas indicates the need to scaffold the genre task didactically in order for his students to learn to master the critical literacy practices required by schooling.

Given the assessment constraints, the necessary focus on Access does not allow Lucas, (or Margot, Celia or Riva) to provide opportunity for learners to engage in any significant way with the Design elements of the Janks’s Synthesis model.

Summary – to return to Janks, 2010.....Affordances

(Alford, 2013)Evidence from this study at

Beacon High and Riverdale High

Domination with access allows the exclusionary force of dominant discourses to be challenged and potentially dissipated.

Certain texts were deconstructed in detail by Riva and Lucas e.g., YouTube documentaries and media texts – to show how they are invested with power through semiotic choices.All four teachers provide students with access to powerful education genres e.g., analytical essays and investigative reports, and these genres were deconstructed functionally (Kalantzis & Cope, 2012) but not critically to show how they reproduce and reinforce power. They remained unquestioned/untransformed and the strict reproduction of them was assessed.

Domination with diversity invites contestation and change brought about by alternative perspectives/discourses/languages/literacies.

Margot at Beacon High: Following critical interrogation, students created their own thesis about media portrayal of a particular group in society e.g., refugees or youth, and wrote an investigative report. They drew on their own histories and perspectives to do so. Their own languages and literacies however were not encouraged. Following set models was expected.Celia at Beacon: Students examined a political speech for aspects of power and then chose their own issue of ‘oppression’ and wrote a speech using their own histories and perspectives but again following a set model in one mode- a written, persuasive speech.Both teachers at Riverdale interrogated a YouTube documentary and students offered their own diverse readings of it in order to construct a group practice essay. However, elements to be covered in the essay were pre-set e.g., music, camera angles, language used.

Domination with design allows for creative reconstruction based on an understanding of power.

Students gained an understanding of how power is exercised through semiotic choices in texts but were not encouraged to redesign/transform the models in any way though the potential was there in the Yr 12 political speech task (Celia).

Access with domination provides a view of texts and discourses as reproducable but always invested with power.

There is a pervasive view among the 4 teachers that powerful genres e.g., analytical essays need to be made explicit to CLD learners who are still mastering literacy in SAE. However, all teachers and in particular Lucas indicates that this combination of orientations (access with domination) can comfortably co-exist. Some other powerful texts – online documentaries and TV and print media texts and some discourses are challenged e.g., Disneyland commercialism; Scientific knowledge; racism; ageism.The potential for Celia to do this more overtly was apparent in her lesson on the political speech.

Affordances cont’d (Alford, 2013)Access with diversity recognises that learners bring different histories, identities and values to text production

Limited opportunity to bring different histories, identities and values to text production is evident – except in Yr 11 at Riverdale analytical essay where Ss produced an essay in a group each taking responsibility for a paragraph - one lesson. Students may or may not have done so though, as the emphasis was clearly on re-producing the model. Riva used some diverse multimodal texts recognising students’ own literacy practices.Yr 12 Beacon: Students could bring their own history/experience of oppression to the writing task by choosing the purpose and audience of the speech.

Access with design gives diverse learners the chance to transform dominant texts using multiple sign systems.

Diversity with domination celebrates difference but recognises that it is structured in dominance and can be challenged.

The Yr 11 documentary task at Riverdale demonstrated how teachers can draw on Diverse texts, such as Chinese scientific reports about pandas, but show how they, too, are structured purposefully for certain effects and are open to contestation.

Diversity with access allows difference to be brought into dominant language forms.

There was little scope for this as teachers concentrated on providing access to dominant language forms (including KAL).

Diversity with design realises the potential diversity offers in reconstructing texts.Design with domination provides an understanding of how dominant practices are perpetuated and how they can be transformed.Design with access creates potential for new forms to be accepted by/as dominant practicesDesign with diversity provides opportunity to draw on difference as a resource for design.

Implications As Luke (2004) argues, in a normative application of discourse

analysis, it is the consequence of systems of representation that matters.

The consequence of the 4 teachers’ systems of representation is that their EAL/D students have the opportunity to engage with particular orientations to CL – Mostly Access and Domination and to a lesser extent Diversity and Design and some critical aesthetic appreciation of text.

Opportunities exist to explore ways to include more Diversity and Design.

Poses the question of ‘does the status quo need this problem to be maintained?’ Not blaming the teachers! What if we really took Diversity and Design seriously?

Poses the need to explore critical aesthetics further to see how it might be substantially woven into a critical synthesis model.

The 4 teachers’ commitment to KAL position them valuably to address a unique aim of the national EAL/D senior syllabus: to develop in students “ the ability to communicate ideas, feelings, attitudes and information appropriately in and through SAE across the curriculum areas” (ACARA, 2012, p. 1).

Further investigation into how CL is constructed as an approach to teaching in ACARA senior EAL/D syllabus and how this is enacted by teachers.

LimitationsParticular time and place - “consistent with the always partial state

of knowing in social research” (Glesne, 1999, p. 152);

2 sites; 2 terms – limited generalisability;

4 participants– scope;My own position as teacher educator

and researcher, and advocate for CL.

Thanks for coming.

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