Global literacy and…
the millenium
learner in the
era of an
Australian
English
curriculum
Presented by
Lindsay Williams
Wordsmart Consulting
Anticipatory set
Read the lyrics…
…write your
response on the
slip of paper.
About me
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English teacher 25 years; Head of English 16 years
Worked in both state and private sector
Immediate past Vice President of the English Teachers Association
of Queensland
Director of educational consultancy company
Presented two day workshop at ASFLA pre-conference institute in
2009
Teach pre-service English teachers (QUT currently)
Educational author: a range of articles, reports, curriculum materials
(Lockie Leonard materials for the ACTF TV series, Film Australia,
National Reading Day 2007, classroom guide to graphic novel
version of The Merchant of Venice for Walker Books ), Teachers
Notes for newly released Odo Hirsch book Darius Bell and the glitter
pool (Allen & Unwin), Teacher Notes for Richard Harland’s
Worldshaker and Jameela by Rukhsana Khan (Allen and Unwin)
Contributing author to AATE kit, Critical Literacy: Readings and
Resources (1996)and Global Learning Centre’s A world of texts
(1995); sole writer: Secondary English Teacher: A Survival Manual
Winner Peter Botsman Memorial Award for contributions to English
in Queensland
Aims
• To explore the role of
literacy in a connected,
digital world.
• To consider the
semiotic (signs) and
semantic (meaning)
implications of new
(and old) media.
• To consider how
English might best
serve the Millennium
learner.
Outline of session
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Read and respond to lyrics
Introductory comments
Looking forward: the National Curriculum
Time to play: Some thoughts about adaptation
A close look at ‘Everybody Hurts’: lyrics, song,
video
• Multimodality, digital connectedness and
studying literature (especially ‘The Classics)
• Closing comments
Looking forward: The National
Curriculum
Looking forward: the National Curriculum
Aims of the English curriculum include:
• Understand how Standard Australian English
works in its written and spoken forms and in
combination with other non-linguistic forms of
communication
• Understand, interpret, reflect on and create an
increasingly broad repertoire of spoken, written
and multimodal texts across a range of settings
• Access a broad range of literary texts and
develop an informed appreciation of literature
(page 5)
Looking forward: the National Curriculum
The interrelated, interwoven strands:
• Language - Knowing about the English language: a
coherent, dynamic, and evolving body of knowledge about
English and how it works.
• Literature – Understanding, appreciating, responding to,
analysing and creating literature: an enjoyment in, and
informed appreciation of, how English language can
convey information and emotion, create imaginative
worlds and aesthetic and other significant experiences.
• Literacy – Growing a repertoire of English usage: the
ability to understand and produce the English language
accurately, fluently, creatively, critically, confidently, and
effectively in a range of modes, and digital and print
settings, in texts designed for a range of purposes and
audiences.
(Page 6)
Looking forward: the National Curriculum
‘The goal of teaching grammar and text patterns
should be on expressing thought clearly,
persuading and arguing more convincingly and
reasoning more carefully. The intention is to
achieve coherence, precision and imagination in
speaking and writing. The overall goal is
conversion of ‘knowledge about’ language
into a capacity for effective listening,
speaking, viewing, reading, writing and
creating.’ (page 7)
Snapshots: Kindergarten to Yr 10
P2: Through studying English ‘Students come to an explicit
understanding and appreciation of the nature of the English
language and how it works to create various kinds of meaning’.
Year 3 (Literacy)
• Identify how some audio and visual technical conventions support
narrative and information in a multimodal text
Year 5 (Literacy)
• Analyse how multimodal texts, including film, utilise particular
conventions in order to shape meaning, including promoting a
certain view
• Integrate written, oral, viewing and technological skills and
conventions in the production of multimodal texts for specific
purposes and audiences
Snapshots: Kindergarten to Yr 10
Year 9 (Literacy)
• Use spoken, non-verbal, auditory, visual,
technical and multimodal resources in a
presentation and evaluate audience
response
Year 10 (Language)
• Construction of multimodal and digital
texts involves a knowledge of visual
grammar
Snapshot: Years 11 and 12
(mainstream/standard) English
Unit 1: Language, texts and contexts
• Students explore and anlayse aspects of language…in a variety of
print, spoken, multimodal and digital texts, including texts from
emerging technologies
• They also analyse how visual elements in texts combine with
spoken and written elements to create meaning.
Unit 2: Representation
• Through the creation and presentation of their own multimodal texts,
they reflect on their language choices and consider why they
present ideas in particular ways.
Similar types of comments can be found in Units 3 and 4.
What’s missing from all documents?
 Linguistic (written and spoken), e.g. staging of
information, cohesion, vocabulary (incl. figurative
language), grammar, punctuation & paragraphing,
spelling, layout, intonation and rhythm
 Visual, e.g. objects, size, setting, colours, lines and
vectors position, direction, camera angle, camera
movement, shot type, light, editing
 Gestural, e.g. eye contact, facial expression, stance,
gesture
 Spatial, location and movement in space
 Audio, e.g. volume, music, sound effects, silence
Time to play: Some thoughts
about…
A potentially illuminating place
to start …
Roland Barthes (1977)
“ We know now that a text is not
a line of words releasing a
single ‘theological’ meaning
(the ‘message’ of the AuthorGod) but a multi-dimensional
space in which a variety of
writings, none of them
original, blend and clash. The
text is a tissue of quotations
drawn from the innumerable
centres of culture.”
Maria Losada Friend (2004)
At the conclusion of a paper on adaptations of a
story by Ovid: “These authors and their interest
in the Latin poet prove that tradition can be
taken not only as a source of inspiration, but
also as a way to explore human issues with
critical, revisionist eyes. Intertextuality becomes
then a useful element to explain their attempts,
and to understand their creative processes as a
peculiar dialectic confrontation with the original
source.”
Susan Hayward (2006)
“A literary adaptation
creates a new story; it is
not the same as the
original, but takes on a
new life, as indeed do the
characters. Narrative and
characters become
independent of the
original even though both
are based – in terms of
genesis – on the original.”
(p12)
Susan Hayward (2006)
“Film adaptations are both more and less than the
original. More not just because they are in
excess of the written word…But more also
because they are a mise-en-abîme
[reduplication] of authorial texts and therefore of
productions of meaning…the notion of
authorship becomes very dispersed. Thus, quite
evidently, the film is less because the original
author is only one among many…But it is also
more because of the density of new
texts…clustered around the original…” (p14)
Song lyrics…
Ray Misson:
‘The lyrics themselves
are not the text, and it
is not satisfactory to
treat them as if they
were.’
A close look at…
Onto the main show…
A close look at ‘Everybody Hurts’ (as
‘specimen’):
• Lyrics
• Song
• Video
(Translation rather than adaptation?)
Federico Fellini’s Eight and a half (1963)
Dream sequence
REM and Web 2.0
REM and Web 2.0
Multimodality, digital
connectedness and studying
literature (especially ‘The
Classics’)
Okay, but
what’s all this
got to do with
classic
literature (if
anything)…
Okay, but what’s all this got to do
with classic literature…
Adaptation, translation and
the classics
Jane Austen: Pride and
Prejudice
• Books, including Pride and
Prejudice and Zombies
(Seth Graham Smith) and
Becoming Elizabeth
Bennett: Create your own
Jane Austen adventure
(Emma Campbell Webster)
• Movie (incl. Bride and
Prejudice)
• TV series, including recent
Lost in Austen
• Game…
• And more…
Digital literacy practices…
According to Steven Johnson (2010): ‘Yes,
we are a little less focused, thanks to the
electric stimulus of the screen. Yes, we are
reading slightly fewer long-form narratives
and arguments than we did 50 years ago,
though the Kindle and the iPad may well
change that. Those are costs, to be sure. But
what of the other side of the ledger? We are
reading more text, writing far more often, than
we were in the heyday of television…
Digital literacy practices…
Steven Johnson continued…
…And the speed with which we can follow
the trail of an idea, or discover new
perspectives on a problem, has increased
by several orders of magnitude. We are
marginally less focused, and exponentially
more connected. That’s a bargain all of us
should be happy to make.’
Et tu,
Hamlet?
Closing comments
Three key points…
• Expanding repertoire of (multi)literacy
practices required in a multimodal,
connected world
• Impacts of technology on the way we
consume and create texts
• Balancing a central Australian curriculum
with local needs of students and
communities.
Conclusion
“Laugh as much as you choose, but you will
not laugh me out of my opinion.” Jane
Austen, Chapter 17 of Pride and Prejudice
Lindsay@englishteacherguru.com
References
Articles and books
___ (2009) Shape of the Australian curriculum: English. Canberra: Commonwealth
of Australia.
Barthes, R. (1977). The death of the author. Image, music, text. London: Fontana.
Friend, M. (2004). Updating the classics: Ovid, Emma Tennant’s “Philomena” and
the Intertextual Link. Retrieved from
http://www.publicacions.ub.es/revistes/bells13/PDF/articles_07.pdf
Hayward, S. (2006). Cinema studies: the key concepts. Great Britain: Routledge.
Johnson, S. (June 2010). Yes, people still read, but now it’s social. The New York
Times. Retrieved 23 June 2010 from
www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20unbox.
Photo credits
Title slide: http://www.theinspirationroom.com/daily/musicvideos/2006/5/everybodyhurts-michael-stipe.jpg
Slide 4: http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ausfotoj.jpg
Slide 8:
http://rhizome.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/adaptation.jpg
Slide 9: