28 research outputs found
Beating the Bamboozle: Literacy Pedagogy Design and the Technicality of SFL
This paper explores the issue of metalanguage and writing instruction in the senior secondary curriculum. It reports on the use of a design based research collaboration between a very experienced teacher of Ancient History and a research team with the aim of improving literacy outcomes for a group of disadvantaged students. The case highlights some of the challenges implicated in this close work between educational linguistic theorists as language specialists and classroom practitioners as subject specialists. In particular, it raises the issue of how to provide already experienced teachers with a metalanguage to express their implicit knowledge about text more effectively in the classroom. It demonstrates both the struggles involved and the positive impact of making texts more visible, and reveals the benefits of a focus on explicit teaching of writing. It also raises some implications for future in- and pre-service teacher education
Evaluative stance in humanities: expectations and performances
This chapter reports on research into literacy in the senior secondary school which aims to explore the nature of the literacy requirements for success in the final years of schooling in New South Wales, Australia. In so doing, it also explores how an \u27Appliable Linguistics\u27 can contribute to the understanding of disciplinary difference as reflected in end of school examinations in this context and points towards future directions in applying linguistics to the study of school discourse
Values and attitudes in ancient and modern history
The demanding literacy levels required of senior secondary students are widely acknowledged, yet the area of literacy in the senior secondary high school remains relatively under researched. In particular, there is a lack of detailed studies which aim to differentiate the literacy expectations of different subject areas. A first step in this process is to differentiate the underlying objectives stated for different subjects. This paper will report on preliminary research into the rationales and values statements contained in the Stage 6 Modern and Ancient History syllabi carried out as part of a larger research project investigating the literacy demands of Stage 6 Humanities Subjects in NSW. An Appraisal analysis of these syllabi shows how these subjects argue quite differently for their importance in terms of relevance to and skill building for students. The analysis will indicate how a complex interplay of judgement and appreciation is constructed in these documents and contribute to understandings of difference within the discipline of history in the senior high school
Objectivity and critique: The creation of historical perspectives in senior secondary writing
The increasing literacy demands of senior secondary studies have been noted by government agencies and scholars both in Australia and overseas. Disciplinary differences in writing has similarly received attention, although much of the research in this area has focused on the junior school, or spanned the whole of the secondary context. Less research has been focused specifically on disciplinarity in the senior high school, or on differences within what may often be conceived as a single discipline, such as between writing in Modern and Ancient History. This paper investigates disciplinary difference in the context of senior secondary writing for Modern and Ancient History and the resulting demands on students. It focuses on the different ways that dialogism, or the negotiation of competing knowledge claims, is managed in each subject. The Systemic Functional Linguistic system of engagement is used in a discourse analysis of highly rated student writing to reveal how writers in the histories open up or close down spaces for other voices in their arguments. Analysis illustrates the ways that \u27objective evaluation\u27 is managed, illuminating one aspect of what is valued as appropriate argumentation and raising implications for the way that literacy pedagogy in the senior secondary subjects of Modern and Ancient History is understood
Evaluative stance in humanities : expectations and performances
This chapter reports on research into literacy in the senior secondary school which aims to explore the nature of the literacy requirements for success in the final years of schooling in New South Wales, Australia. In so doing, it also explores how an ‘Appliable Linguistics’ can contribute to the understanding of disciplinary difference as reflected in end of school examinations in this context and points towards future directions in applying linguistics to the study of school discourse
Retorno al modo: in/dependencia contextual en el discurso de las clases de historia antigua
Este artículo explora el significado de “dependencia
contextual” en la lingüística sistémico-funcional
(LSF), situándolo en relación con el concepto
de “gravedad semántica” en la teoría de códigos de
legitimación (LCT, por sus siglas en inglés). Se plantean
distintas interpretaciones de lo que es la dependencia
contextual desde el punto de vista textual,
interpersonal e ideacional, poniendo de relieve las
nociones de implicitud, negociabilidad e iconicidad,
respectivamente. Para abarcar todos estos recursos
se propone el término “presencia”. Este artículo da
cuenta de parte del diálogo en curso entre la LSF y la
LCT, en el marco de una investigación que aborda el
discurso de la historia y la biología en escuelas australianas,
en un ejercicio cada vez más productivo de
investigación transdisciplinar
Transformation of text in the English classroom: does \u27context\u27 really matter?
This paper investigates the language demands of creating texts in the English classroom, which involve transformations in context. In particular, it focuses on the tensions inherent in tasks which require more traditional textual analysis to be presented in ways other than traditional \u27essay\u27 format. These tasks are interpreted differently by students and can result in texts which vary in terms of their choice of \u27written-like\u27 or \u27spoken-like\u27 styles. This paper uses data from year nine English students presenting speeches to an imagined jury arguing for Shakespeare\u27s Macbeth\u27s guilt or innocence and explores the implications of shifts along the mode continuum evident in the students\u27 language. It raises the question of the relative importance of transformations of language and context and the extent to which control of mode is valued. Language analysis of student responses focusing on genre, periodicity, use of vocatives and endophoric reference suggests the imagined context required by the task is less important than the literary context in assessing student responses and can act as a distraction. Findings have implications for alignment of teaching and assessment practices in English classrooms