Teacher-researchers: a pilot project for unsettling the secondary Australian literary canon

ABSTRACT

Despite ongoing attempts to disrupt the white cis-hetero-masculine nature of the literary canon the secondary school English curriculum remains tethered to its lineage. In conversation with feminist new materialist scholars who argue that the stories we read and write have material affects on who we are becoming, this paper argues that in order to mobilise change in the secondary years of schooling, interventions into the canon must move beyond (re)forming text lists or providing teachers with readymade pedagogical resources. Drawing on the Australian context, the authors outline some of the contemporary challenges teachers face in diversifying and decolonising the curriculum. Drawing on their Literary Linking Methodology the authors discuss a pilot project that seeks to unsettle the canon by supporting teachers to undertake extended immersion with both contemporary literary texts and archival research. Accordingly, this paper contributes to understandings of the tensions and challenges teachers face in introducing contemporary Australian texts into the curriculum and offers insights into the ways in which professional learning might be (re)imagined so that English teachers might draw on available cultural resources as researchers and literary knowledge producers in the twenty-first century.

KEYWORDS:

• Material feminisms
• critical/literary theory
• secondary education
• women
• gender
• teachers
• English

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Maxine Beneba Clarke’s The Hate Race (2016) was: winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017; Shortlisted for the Nita B Kibble Award 2018; Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction 2017; Shortlisted for the ABIA Biography Book of the Year 2017; Shortlisted for the Indie Award for Non-Fiction 2017; and Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2017 See: https://www.hachette.com.au/maxine-beneba-clarke/the-hate-race

2 The Stella Count assesses gender representation in the book pages of Australian newspapers and journals (i.e. reviews and other media coverage). See: https://thestellaprize.com.au/the-count/2017-stella-count/. The First Nations and People of Colour Writers Count seeks to count the number of books (non-fiction, fiction, poetry, children’s literature and young adult) by First Nations and POC writers published in Australia in 2018. See: https://australianculturalfund.org.au/projects/poc-writers-count/. Austlit is a database about Australian literature and storytelling, with biographical and bibliographical information, full text, exhibitions and other online content. See: https://www.austlit.edu.au/. Reading Australia is an online platform which provides resources related to Australian texts for teachers of English. See https://readingaustralia.com.au/. The Stella Prize is major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing, and an organisation that champions cultural change via gender equality programs, including a specific schools program. See: https://thestellaprize.com.au/. The Melbourne Writers’ Festival is an annual, 10-day literary festival which includes a specific schools program for primary and secondary students. See: https://mwf.com.au/schools/

3 NAPLAN is an annual assessment for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Australia (see https://www.nap.edu.au/about). The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students who are nearing the end of their compulsory education (see https://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/). Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is a large-scale assessment designed to inform educational policy and practice by providing an international perspective of teaching and learning in reading literacy (see: https://www.acer.org/au/pirls)

4 The Literary Linking Methodology, put forth by the Literary Education Lab, enables teachers to co-produce new knowledge through exploring the interface of literature and other cultural and historical texts and resources.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Larissa McLean Davies

Associate Professor Larissa McLean Davies’ research spans the fields of literary studies and English education. Larissa is currently Associate Professor – Language and Literacy Education at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. Larissa is the lead Chief Investigator of the ARC Discovery Project Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers (2016–2019) and leads research into the teaching of Australian literature for the Literary Education Lab.

Sarah E. Truman

Dr Sarah E. Truman's research focuses on English literary education including how literary studies and literary interpretation are enacted in the English curriculum, pedagogies and politics of reading and writing, and speculative fiction and STS imaginaries in texts. Her research is informed by the feminist new materialisms with a particular interest in theories of affect, queer theory and speculative pragmatism. She is a researcher at the Literary Education Lab; co-director of WalkingLab; and one half of the electronic music duo Oblique Curiosities. www.sarahetruman.com.

Lucy Buzacott

Dr Lucy Buzacott is a Research Manager at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. She currently manages the Literary Education Lab and the ARC-funded project Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers as well as contributing to projects related to national literatures, literary knowledge, and English curriculum. She has a PhD in Literary Studies from the University of Queensland. Her PhD explored the intersection of race and gender in the work of William Faulkner. Her current research interests include Australian and American literature, critical race and whiteness studies, and secondary and tertiary English education.