Inclusive cultural literacy

This issue of English in Education complements our three recent special issues on aspects of English education: social justice; critical literacy and social media; and race, language and (in)equality. Taken together, these suggest the need to rethink the concept of “cultural literacy”, popularised in the 1980s in E. D. Hirsch’s book of that title and resurrected a decade ago in the UK by curriculum reforms that emphasised a putative “English” cultural heritage. Hirsch’s book, subtitled “What Every American Needs to Know”, drew on the work of the 18th century educator Hugh Blair, who instructed young Scotsmen in English language and culture. This concept of “cultural literacy” implies that English teachers’ primary purpose is to rectify alleged linguistic and cultural deficits: to “close the gap” between students’ language and the culture required for educational success.

In the UK and elsewhere, this combination of “gap” ideologies and performative assessment of students (and teachers), rationalised by a notion of redistributive justice, places culturally responsive teachers in a conflicted position. The first article in this issue, “Neither this nor that”, draws on the research journal of Bruce, an early career teacher who recorded his experience of teaching middle years students in an Australian school with a majority First Nations population. At this school, a “social justice” policy mandated teachers to follow the National Accelerated Literacy approach to English as a gateway to “powerful knowledge” and full social participation, justified by references to Bernstein’s theory of “restricted” and “elaborated” language codes. Bruce’s conflict was deepened by his choosing to read with his students Kimberley Warrior, a novel written by a non-Indigenous settler Australian, rather than including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices. He lacked any institutional support to create culturally nourishing curricula in the English classroom.

The project described by the authors of “‘Make Them Roll in Their Graves’: South African Writing, Decolonisation, and the English Literature A-Level” was a strategic response to the UK governmental reforms of the curriculum mentioned above. While broadening post-16 students’ understanding of post-colonial and de-colonial theories and criticism, this project took into account the demands of the current curriculum. The unconventional approach to one assessment provider’s A-level course unit Love Through the Ages drew attention to the ways that colonialism and colonial modes of thinking have vilified, even criminalised, homosexual and inter-racial relationships. Modernism at the Margins used examples of South African writing as preparation for the “Unseen Prose” exam component of another provider’s English Literature A-Level qualification. Podagogy involved students in creating podcasts in educational settings – a method of “active learning” that decentred traditional teacher-student dynamics in the classroom. The authors give examples both of the success of individual students and ways in which their project has provided a model and encouragement for other initiatives to decolonise the curriculum and expand students’ capabilities.

An inclusive approach to students and the curriculum embraces other “minorities” than those with a language code different from “standard” English. Discrimination, violence, and exclusion continue to be major issues for LGBTQ+ individuals around the world. Alexandra C. Parsons argues that, to meet the needs of their LGBTQ+ students, schools should examine possible interventions to increase inclusion. She offers a research review of educational interventions for LGBTQ+ inclusive English classrooms that directly or indirectly draw upon Freirean critical dialogue. Within the English classroom, critical dialogue may ensue from the incorporation of LGBTQ+ curricula, including story-telling, plays and film, which can offer LGBTQ+ individuals an opportunity to see themselves or their families reflected. Parsons describes several studies of such interventions. Pre-school children read and discussed picture books that celebrate gender and family diversity. Reading a novel with a LGBTQ+ character for a nine-week study shaped the environment of one 8th-grade classroom. A teacher of grade 11 and 12 students used queer theory to effect a pedagogical shift towards new ways of thinking and comprehending in heteronormative school spaces.

The following two articles discuss inclusivity and cultural literacy in terms of students’ responses to literature. Working with students in a trilingual Spanish private school, the authors of “I represented Tybalt in straight red lines” offered a multimodal approach to the study of Romeo and Juliet. They engaged students in digital literacies such as making YouTube videos that gave learners confidence as media producers, working collaboratively with a real audience in mind. This broadened the role of writing in the classroom: producing captions for storyboards, scripts for videos, and rationales for visual compositions connected extended writing with students’ most familiar formats. The authors suggest that a multimodal approach to teaching literature gives value to the personal literacy practices of adolescents and helps to engage them in a manner unreachable using traditional or monomodal approaches.

Many months passed between the submission of “The Feeling of Thinking: Social Annotation with Emojis” and its final publication in this issue. No-one seemed eager to review it, their initial reaction, like mine, doubtless resembling that of the reviewer who felt that annotating texts using emojis was more likely to produce simplistic and less individual/personal responses than would a few words, an emotions graph or even a doodle. As this same reviewer found, however, the authors offer a cogent critique of conventional classroom practice which does not recognise the importance of the affective domain in literary study. Drawing on Rita Felski’s view that the bonds which readers form with particular texts are irreducible to the historical or ideological analyses offered by critics, the authors develop the importance of students’ states of “attachment” to words, sentences, characters, scenes, works, or authors. They point to the potential of the use of emojis and the possibilities of social annotation. They also suggest opportunity for future research.

Cultural literacy, as defined by these articles, is many-faceted and active: it extends far beyond the belles-lettres 18th century view of Hugh Blair. This may explain the finding of our final article, “Understanding English graduates’ experiences entering the workforce”. Notwithstanding the contemporary view that arts and humanities degrees represent a poor return on investment in comparison to the skills gained by graduates in science and technology, most English graduates from a large US university found the skills and aptitudes they had learned valuable in their careers long-term. Despite the current utilitarian view of the subject presented by official curricula, English teachers may be among the unacknowledged influencers of the world.