Popular Culture: A Resource for Writing In Secondary English Classrooms

Author(s):  
Douglas McClenaghan ◽  
Brenton Doecke
Author(s):  
Brittany Tomin ◽  
Jennifer Jenson

Science fiction (SF), while enjoying unprecedented success in popular culture, continues to be an under-utilized resource in K-12 education. This chapter details the results of an in-school study on the use of SF in secondary school courses, examining how SF can be used as a pedagogical tool by educators to help students explore fictional futures in the context of contemporary issues, with a particular focus on developing critical thinking and critical literacy competencies. This study was designed to address the gap in pedagogical resources on teaching SF, and the dearth of research on potential benefits of teaching with SF in secondary English classrooms in particular. The aim of this chapter will therefore be to provide a research-informed overview of the benefits of integrating SF texts into secondary English classrooms, and to offer suggestions for educators.


1944 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McIntosh

Writing reader response journals during the act of reading provides ideal opportunities for secondary English students to deepen and expand their understanding of literature. Based on data from three case studies conducted by a former high school English teacher, currently an English educator, this article examines the effectiveness of students recording response entries as they read a novel. Excerpts from student journals illustrate the positive results of combining the acts of reading and writing. Student engagement with text leads to better comprehension and through writing reflective responses, students become more effective readers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 456-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Henry ◽  
Cecilia Thorsen

Demotivation (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011) and non-participation (Norton, 2001) characterize negative responses to classroom practice of a generally chronic nature. In this article, focus is directed to negativity that emerges within the context of a particular language developing activity, and which can be understood as a situated response to the activity’s demands. In conceptualizing negative responses at the activity level, disaffection – the negative face of engagement – is a construct of central importance. Drawing on data from a large-scale ethnographic project in secondary English classrooms in Sweden, in this exploratory case study disaffection (Skinner, 2016) is examined in the context of two language developing activities. Analyses reveal that disaffection can transform into active engagement, and that when called upon to perform an inauthentic identity, students can ‘redesign’ activities in ways that enable them to act authentically.


2000 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Love

Abstract Whole Class Text Response Discussions (WCTRD) are pervasive in secondary English and represent one site in which students can learn to adopt the habits of critical thought that are promoted in state and national Curriculum documents. In this study, the phasal structures (Gregory and Malcolm 1981) of a variety of such WCTRDs in Australian secondary English classrooms were examined. It was found that teachers in such WCTRDs regularly made limited selections from the available pool of phases, such selections regularly scaffolding a narrow range of literate and moral skills, but offering little support for the development of critical and analytical response. Such results suggest that despite a shift at an academic and professional development level towards more critically-oriented models of text response, day-to-day discursive practice in some secondary English classrooms in Australia is still very much grounded in Reader Response practices (Iser 1978) that contribute to the development of morally compliant citizens. One WCTRD was selected for closer analysis of how the textual, experiential and interpersonal meanings (Halliday 1994) operated to privilege students’ ‘personal response’ over critical response. Through the examination of Transitivity and Conversational Structural choices in particular, a picture was provided of how this WCTRD was structured to encourage students to rehearse previously appropriated ideologies, rather than to critically or analytically interrogate these ideologies.


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