"Charged with Meaning" teachers' review

"Charged with Meaning" Table of Contents

More about specific chapters

The other opening chapters are rich in their discussion and when you see names like Janet Dutton, Jackie Manuel and Jack Thomson you know you are in safe hands. These chapters remind us of our original desire to teach English and our days in teacher education.

Consider sharing some of these insights and ideas in faculty meeting to inspire and validate your staff’s decision to become an English teacher. For example, on p.15 there is a table of Key Features of Growth Model with reminders we should find reassuring.

Chapter 4 on Lesson and Unit Planning in English is full of wonderful gems. I know so many of you are time-poor but writing units of work for your own students should be one of the joys. Some of my fondest memories was working with a team in our faculty and writing units of work for our students in our school. It became a time to generate ideas to inspire each other and that “charge” was there. Maybe consider reading this chapter and taking 2-3 ideas for your next unit of work.

When I have worked with teachers in unit-writing they have often thought they should start with the syllabus content points. My advice has been to start with the unit’s intention and what you want your students to gain and achieve. Then start brainstorming lots of ways to explore the texts or concepts or the unit. Once you have this detail then consider looking at the syllabus and you will be surprised our many of those content points are in your unit. You could consider adding some specific lesson or tasks which are more specific to syllabus content which you may have not have previously considered. The syllabus content has two years for it to be covered and we know that sometimes there will be content points that will occur frequently where others will be seldom and very specific. On p. 62 there are some important questions we need to ask before we start creating including:

• Who are my students?
• What do I want my students to learn?
• Why do I want my students to learn these things? (I really like this question – how often are we asked “why are we doing this?” If we have thought about the reason we will have some valid and satisfying responses for our students.)
• There is an extract from an exemplar unit of work on p. 53: The literature of love and loss which contains some marvellous ideas for texts and teaching.

Helen Sykes who has been an English mentor and expert my entire career has some excellent ideas and advice for teaching the class novel in Chapter 9.

Helen is always practical and authentic and this chapter reflects her style, especially when she shares that the “perfect” class novel is difficult to find. This chapter provides some valuable provocation and excellent ideas e.g. p. 109 strategies to engage students in the novel including

• Show a commercial book trailer
• Watch online interviews with the author
• Provide some background information on the context

Helen also emphasises the need for allocating class time for reading. I know there are teachers who worry about this as not being “real” work. I propose that the English classroom is the best place for reading and may be the only place your students are engaged in this important skill and activity. Consider this: do we criticise the PE lesson which involves students running? We should never be embarrassed or reluctant to have students reading in our English lessons.

Helen’s Chapter 13 Wide Reading in the English Classroom is full of practical advice and excellent ideas for this important area of English. How much self-selected reading are your students doing? In particular, does this feature in your Stage 6 classrooms where this is actually mandated in the syllabus but we know it is not always pursued. If you think about the HSC and the combination of Paper 1 Section 1 and Paper 2 Module C here is 40% of the HSC which is enriched, improved and enhanced by reading.

One of my favourite chapters is Chapter 10: Working with Short Stories written by another English expert, Paul Grover. Short stories seem to come and go as classroom texts but they have such appeal and belong to a long tradition. Paul lists the distinctive features of short stories on p. 115 and this is a wonderful starting point for exploring this specific literary genre. One of the gems of this chapter is that Paul includes The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty which I think is my absolute favourite short story and it still is powerful and indeed gives a “charge”. The teaching activities which follow the story are rich and engaging and are excellent examples of questions which make students think without it being mere “busy” work. Paul also includes some engaging ideas for students’ own writing and his list of resources for teaching Short Stories is excellent. I would add to that list a more recent anthology, Off the Map by Scot Gardner (see Five Senses' Talking Texts blog #42 posted July 5 2024).

Chapter 12 on Young Adult Fiction was written by Deb and I and this is an area of our special interest and joy. Fiction written specifically for adolescents is quite recent, compared to the wider readership. It is fascinating to explore the chronology of YA and consider the book covers for example, the 1970s and 1980s. In 2024 this section of the bookshop and library is abundant with choice and the growing list of engaging, compelling YA written by First Nations writers is inspiring. Young adult fiction has the same range of genres as adult fiction, it has similar preoccupations with what it means to be human, and perhaps an added intensity.

As Patrick Ness said:

“The intensity of lived adolescence makes for compelling storytelling, that's when you push at the boundaries of who you might be, to find out what you believe, to make big mistakes and everything feels so important. Everything feels life or death."

You will find science fiction, fantasy, crime, thrillers, horror, relationships, dystopias and many other genres among YA titles. The distinguishing feature of YA is that the protagonists are often adolescents, either confronting the issues that matter to them or dealing with the world that adults have left them.

The importance of voice and choice for students and YA is also discussed and could be the focus for a wide reading challenge. YA could be the basis for a close study and in your decision to select a novel for your class, consider the following questions and ideas:

• What do you want your students to gain from this novel study? Big ideas? Craft? Distinctive features?
• What elements of the syllabus can best be explored through this novel?
• Help orient your students to any challenges the novel might have e.g.circular narrative, verse novel, changing voices
• Be sure to build in reflection time at the end
• How can you take your student further with the author or the ideas or stylistic features?

On pp. 144-145 there is a table of suggested texts. These are all fabulous for your book room and be sure to add to your list from the texts we have reviewed in previous Five Senses blogs. Wayne extends this focus in his Chapter 14 Sample Activities for Teaching the Novel. Read these ideas and choose a few which you know your students would enjoy and incorporate it into your next novel unit e.g. develop a sound track for a short espied in the novel.

Chapter 25 Responding to Visual Texts contains a rich variety of valuable analytical insights and learning for students. Paul Grover’s tables on p.251-252 on the “grammar of visual texts” are excellent. This chapter is beautifully supplemented by Lucinda McKnight’s Chapter 26 Visual Design for English and Chapter 27 by Deb and I: Picture Books and Graphic Novels for the Secondary Classroom.

Picture books and graphic novels are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex in the way the visual and written components interrelate to develop students’ understanding about specific ideologies, reading positions and multiple readings. Such texts will allow you to tap into adolescents’ interest in visual cues and subject matter which is often edgy and dark. Picture books and graphic novels will be valuable in a unit exploring specific themes and ideas or in a unit which explores a range of visual texts or an author study where a selection of books by the same author can be explored for recurring ideas, perspective and the way that authors innovate with texts.

The list on pp. 263-264 continues to grow with the addition of new and compelling graphic texts like Oxygen Mask (Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin), Azaria (Maree Coote) and Medusa (Jessie Burton).

Luke Bartolo’s Chapter 28 Film as a Language is very valuable and fascinating to read. His comments about contextualising film-making techniques through the lens of the history of film-making are really interesting. His genre and generic conventions on p. 283 could give you some valuable content for exploration in your classroom. Genre in film is very accessible and is an important foundation for understanding how genre can be subverted and manipulated.

I was delighted to re-read the chapters on drama, plays and teaching playscripts in chapters 29–32. The English classroom is a place to build trust and collaboration and drama tasks can do this. Jackie Manuel’s chapter on Exploring Some Principals and Pedagogies of Teaching Playscripts in Secondary School should be compulsory reading. Plays are not mini novels but require a different approach and the pedagogy in this chapter is empowering. Deb and I explore some plays for secondary schools in Chapter 31 and Matthew Brown is inspiring in his exploration of one of his favourite topics: “He was not of an age, but for all time”: Introducing Shakespeare.

Re-visiting and re-reading Charged With Meaning has certainly given me a re-charge and reminded me why I wanted to become an English teacher. Take some time to re-charge your own English soul and be affirmed as to the importance and value of what you are doing daily when teaching English.

“So go. Run with it.
Make trouble.”

Patrick Ness. 2011