English and meaning

ABSTRACT

Amid the ongoing tension between an authentic teaching/learning of English and the increasing encroachment of assessments, teachers might gain support for a “meaning-making” approach by dialoguing with an earlier generation of English educators who balanced “skills” and “cultural heritage” with a “personal growth” model of instruction. Emphasising the work of David Holbrook and James Britton, I highlight the long tradition of English teaching which begins with a focus on the child. Each child’s intentions become the starting point for fostering writing skill development, while encouraging connecting conversations with the texts and contexts of children’s social and cultural lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Writing
• meaning
• assessment
• “David Holbrook”
• “James Britton”
• “Dartmouth conference”

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This account derives from the novel David Holbrook wrote about his wartime experiences: Flesh Wounds, London: Methuen, 1966 [Longmans, Green, 1968 (school edition); Spellmount, 2007]. All quotations taken from the 1968 edition.

2. James Britton (1988). Record and Recall: A Cretan Memoir. London: Lightfoot Publishing.

3. These last two passages appear in Poetry Book Society Bulletin (1969, Christmas, No. 63, 1).

4. While I am focusing on Holbrook and Britton in this article, however briefly, the other names in this list may now be less well-known. Accordingly, I have included at least one citation for each in the references.

5. It may be worth noting here that Holbrook’s reading stance towards a poem was greatly influenced by F.R. Leavis, whom he studied under at Downing College. This stance denotes a search for a poem’s vital spirit, or “inscape”, a term derived from G.M. Hopkins.

6. As John Hodgson and Ann Harris (2018) conclude, “Dixon’s Growth through English articulated a genuine synthesis of the Dartmouth debates that remains an inspiration to those many teachers who still believe in a practice of English teaching that aims to develop children’s language for personal growth and democratic progress”.

7. The social and political forces working against meaning in the curriculum have, of course, exerted a strong upper hand despite the many child sensitive reports over the years. For a comprehensive account of how the neo-liberal perspective has commandeered the UK educational system (see Barrs and Rustin 2017).

8. Consider Adrian Barlow’s suggestion: “Michael Gove is proposing to present a copy of the King James Bible to every school in the kingdom. It might be no less quixotic, and could do much more for the quality of English teaching in schools today, if he would present a copy of English for Maturity to every English department at the same time” (2012, 108–109).

9. The various official UK government education reports reveal the ongoing tension between the student and the subject. Four Reports specifically targeting the Teaching of English have appeared over the years – Newbolt (1921), The Bullock Report (1975), Kingman (1988), and Cox (1989). All reports are easily accessed at http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/index.html.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gordon M. Pradl

Gordon M. Pradl is Professor Emeritus, English Education, New York University (USA). The author of Literature for Democracy: Reading as a Social Act (1996) and editor of Prospect and Retrospect: Selected Essays of James Britton (1982), he formerly served as co-editor of English Education (USA).