Margaret’s reading lessons; or, literature as curriculum

ABSTRACT

All too often lost in the pressure and intensity of the current practice of English teachers and literacy educators is due acknowledgement of the continuing importance of history. This paper brings together two concerns: the work of Margaret Meek Spencer as a key figure in the history of English teaching, reading pedagogy and literacy education, and the value of curriculum inquiry as a resource for re-focusing and renewing the field. In that context, the paper introduces a particular notion of literature as curriculum, working first with one of Meek’s most generative texts and then linking with another key figure in English curriculum history, James Moffett, to outline what is possible when the relationship between literature and curriculum is richly reconceptualised.

KEYWORDS:

• Margaret Meek Spencer
• reading pedagogy
• English teaching
• literacy
• literature
• history
• curriculum inquiry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I was prompted to write this paper, in part, by Mills and Graham’s (2020) recent reflections on Meek’s life and legacy – a timely reminder, for me, of Margaret’s importance in my own professional and intellectual history. Hopefully it complements their account, and also those in the subsequent special issue they edited in this journal (Vol. 56, No. 3, 2022).

2. But also writing and writers – although that is another story, for another time.

3. The term is Gregory Ulmer’s (cf. Robert, Comley, and Ulmer 1988). Ulmer’s work more generally provides the basis for a pedagogy emphasising production and invention. I have drawn on this extensively in my own work (e.g. Green 2001), and the “text shop” can be readily connected to Ian Reid’s (1984) classic view of the “classroom as workshop”. There are also useful links to be made with what has been called “recreation pedagogy” in English teaching (Adams 2019).

4. Something I haven’t mentioned here, and hence haven’t done justice to, is Meek’s reference throughout to (then) current literary theory, for instance Jonathon Culler and Mikhail Bakhtin, or more specifically to narratology, and her acknowledgement here of Harold Rosen’s work.

5. Meek’s work was understandably focused more on print texts than audio-visual texts, although she made various references to film and television. However, see Taylor (2022) for a convincing argument of her ongoing relevance in and to digital culture. She writes, “[Meek’s] description of the ways that text teach remains fundamental to understanding what reading means, whatever the mode or medium” (Taylor 2022, 224).

6. Principally in conference presentations and my teaching, as it happens – I haven’t been able to find a published account of this formulation, which is a pity (see however Green 2014). Perhaps this is something else I need to follow up …

7. I was intrigued to note that Meek was keenly interested in and influenced by French philosophy (Taylor 2016, 52) – did she know of Merleau-Ponty, then? I suspect she did. Moreover, I think she would have been very interested in recent work on Merleau-Ponty, highlighting his distinctive and highly generative account of “expression” (Landes 2013).

8. Something not taken up here is the idea that literature is itself a distinctive form of teaching-learning experience, quite apart from formal education – something surely worthy of further investigation.

9. See the special issue on “Re-Reading James Moffett” in Changing English (Vol. 17, No. 3, 2010). In writing this paper, I was pleased to (re)discover that Moffett is explicitly referred to in the Introduction to The Cool Web (p. 8).

10. I shall assume henceforth that this is principally Moffett’s conceptual work, although in doing so I certainly don’t want to underestimate his colleague’s contribution here, with whom he taught at Exeter College. I take it that Moffett was responsible for both the “Preface” and the “Afterword”. Note too that there is commentary interspersed throughout the anthology.

11. This last point, although extremely important (i.e. preserving the reader/learner’s pleasure), cannot be elaborated on here, unfortunately. There are links to what was identified earlier as “recreation pedagogy”, i.e. “creative (re)writing” as reading and literary response – what I have described as “experimental literary pedagogy” (Green 2014, 46), aka “experiential literary study”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bill Green

Bill Green is Emeritus Professor of Education at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. He has published widely in English teaching, literacy education and curriculum inquiry. Among his recent publications is the co-edited book Rethinking L1 Education in a Global Era: Understanding the (Post-) National L1 Subjects in New and Difficult Times (Springer, 2021).