‘The Best Way to Approach Any Text’?

ABSTRACT

This is a review essay of Jessica Mason and Marcello Giovanelli’s Studying Fiction: A Guide for Teachers and Researchers, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021. I argue that their study is symptomatic of our current policy environment, whilst locating it within a continuing debate about whether linguistics can provide the disciplinary foundations for subject English, in contradistinction to literary studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Applied linguistics
• literary studies
• English curriculum and pedagogy
• knowledge
• professionalism

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brenton Doecke

Brenton Doecke is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. He has published widely in the fields of teacher education and English curriculum and pedagogy. He is currently a Chief Investigator in an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project, entitled ‘Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers’ (DP160101084 2016–2019). Other Chief Investigators are Associate Professor Larissa McLean Davies (University of Melbourne), Professor Lyn Yates (University of Melbourne), Professor Wayne Sawyer (University of Western Sydney), Professor Philip Mead (University of Western Australia).