Imagination, Innovation, Creativity

Since its institutionalisation as a school subject in the 1800s, English has been marked by the regular recurrence of often polarised and highly contested debates about what does and what should constitute the subject. At certain periods in its history there has been a significant need for a re-evaluation and a subsequent renaissance in English in Education. The editors and the other contributors to this book are convinced that English is in such a period right now.

Particularly in the last decade or so, the field of English in Education - in both primary and secondary schooling - has increasingly come under pressure from a range of forces. Not the least of these has been the ever increasing focus on the necessary, but not sufficient, skills of basic literacy - which has had the unfortunate, but often unintended, consequence of threatening to dilute that imaginative, innovative and creative kaleidoscopic richness which characterises the finest English curriculum, teaching and learning.

The writers in this book – from Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United States - have been selected from across a spectrum of excellence in research, scholarship, policy-setting, and practical experience in English in Education. They are as one in their determination to reclaim and expand the richness and diversity of the subject English, as they are richly diverse in their own expertise in the field of English in Education. Their essays collectively stress the importance of reconnecting and re-engaging with what teachers love about English: its unique capacity to engage the mind, the spirit and the heart; to stimulate imagination, curiosity and creative capacities through meaningful immersion in the stories of humanity; and to enrich and develop students’ cognitive and affective command and understanding of language in all its expansive dimensions, contexts and purposes.

Contents

1. “What is Within Becomes What is Around”: Imagination, Innovation, Creativity by Jacqueline Manuel, Paul Brock, Wayne Sawyer, Don Carter
2. English: A Suggested Vision and a Strategy by John Dixon
3. The Value of Literature and Language in Contemporary Education: A Personal Perspective by Paul Brock
4. Research, Pedagogy and English by Ken Watson
5. A Personal Perspective on Attempts to Internationalise the English Curriculum Through Global Exchanges by Jeanne Gerlach
6. Language and Literature: Revisiting Some Defining Episodes in the History of English by Wayne Sawyer
7. Getting Off the Subject; English, Drama and Media and the Commonwealth of Powerful Culture by Jonothan Neelands
8. “The Best Moments”: Adolescents’ Reading Practices and Preferences by Jacqueline Manuel
9. The Disappearance of Enjoyment: How Literature Went Wandering in the Literacy Woods and Got Lost by Terry Locke
10. Re-Visioning English Education: Imagination, Innovation, Creativity by Libby Gleeson
11. Rich Performance Tasks: Re-Imagining Multimedia Drama in the English Classroomby Miranda Jefferson
12. “Something Grand and Lustrous”: Some Reflections on ‘Creativity’ in Subject English and Beyond by Don Carter
13. Creating Imaginative, Practical Possibilities in K-6 English Classrooms by Robyn Ewing
14. Through the Looking Glass – Re-Visioning Primary English by Annalies Van Westenbrugge
15. Literature As Rich Concept Thought by Simon Haines
16. Empathy, Imagination and Creativity in English and Dramaby Roslyn Arnold & John Hughes
17. “A Love of Teaching and Learning”: A Case Study of English Teaching Transformed Through Quality Teaching and Professional Learning by Vicki Treble
18. English in England and Wales: A New Era? by Sue Brindley
19. Developing Students’ Creativity in Primary English Through the Arts by Janelle Warhurst, Karen Crawford, Jackie Ireland, Doug Neale, Jenny Pickering, Carla Rathmell, Gretel Watson
20. The Indij Readers Project by Margaret Cossey
21. Creativity, Reading, Writing and Life’s Experiences by Bob Walshe
22. Texts, Repertoires and Reading Journals: How Knowing What They Know Helps Readers Read by Jack Thomson
23. Goals or Horizons? The Conundrum of Progression in English or a Possible Way of Understanding Formative Assessment in the English Classroom by Bethan Marshall