Archive for category english
EXCURSION!
Posted by kmcg2375 in education, english, learning community, university on August 22, 2011
I’m planning my first University excursion đ
With my small class of six students studying their Grad. Dip. in Education (secondary English), I will be heading into Brisbane city to attend events that are part of the Global Poetics Tour:
Slam poets Jive, Ken and Mahogany will be slamming into Brisbane for the Australian Poetry Slam competition, which has its second Brisbane Heat on Friday 9th September. I think that’s the event we’ll be going to…although the Sunday event also looks pretty appealing: Black Star Tribute âWords or Whateverâ at the Black Star Cafe in West End.
I wonder what event my students will choose for the excursion – we make the selection in tomorrow’s tutorial!
Use #etaq21c to ask me things tomorrow!
Posted by kmcg2375 in conferences, education, english, learning community, online tools, personal, social media, technology on August 19, 2011
More specifically, use #etaq21c to ask me questions about Digital Literacy and electronic text practices in English curriculum. The conference theme says it all: “English and Generation Next”
ETAQâs Annual State Conference will be held atLourdes Hill College on Saturday 20 August. The theme is âEnglish and Generation Nextâ.
The program will feature a keynote address by Professor Peter Holbrook from the University of Queenslandâs School of English, Media Studies and Art History, a Q & A style panel session [that’s where I’m presenting!!], and a range of supporting workshops. Professor Holbrookâs address is entitled âLiterature, Literacy, the Imagination, Freedomâ.
So, if you are an English teacher, or if you are interested in digital texts and the future of the book, please, shoot some questions our way! You can post them here as a comment, but if you use Twitter then posting a comment or question there with the hashtag #etaq21c would Really Make My Day đ
I am soooo looking forward to this panel presentation! The full list of people in the panel session are:
- Professor Catherine Beavis (Griffith University and ETAQ Patron)
- Professor Peter Holbrook (University of Queensland)
- Kelli McGraw (Lecturer, QUT)
- Janina Drazek (Executive Director, Teaching and Learning, Education Queensland)
I’ll be talking about ‘acts of reading and writing’ and ‘digital pedagogy’.
Why it doesn’t matter that NSW keeps losing the State of Origin…
…GO YOU GOOD THINGS!
NSW deals national curriculum a blow
Adam Bennett (Sydney Morning Herald) August 9, 2011
[NSW Education Minister] Mr Piccoli on Tuesday announced the state government would postpone the implementation of the national curriculum by 12 months because of a lack of commonwealth funding and uncertainty about the content.
NSW will now introduce the Australian curriculum in English, Maths, Science and History in 2014, with the planning phase beginning in 2013.
Mr Piccoli said that while the NSW government remained committed to the reforms, schools couldn’t prepare for its introduction in 2013 with funding issues still unresolved and the curriculum’s content not known.
“Schools needed to know in June of this year precisely the content of the national curriculum and to know that there were funds available for professional development,” he told reporters in Sydney.
“The final document won’t be signed off until at least the ministerial council meeting in October, and that simply does not give the schools in NSW and the more than 100,000 teachers the opportunity to receive the professional development, and to be in a position to implement the national curriculum in 2013.”
Thank you New South Wales for Standing Up and Putting Your Foot Down, while the rest of the educrats and Ministers around this country smile and nod and agree to bring in a curriculum overnight when they Quite Frankly Should Know Better.
That’s MY State of Origin!
Premier’s Reading Challenge QLD
I used to be on the book selection panel for the PRC in New South Wales…great to see it so well participated in in Queensland as well.
I wonder if I can get some posters for it sent to me to put up at Uni? It’s a shame – so many great programs like this get passed over by teachers each year who just don’t get reminded of the dates!
The Premier’s Reading Challenge is on again and the aim for 2011 is to top 75,000 student participants.
Children from Prep to Year 7 are encouraged to pick up a book and get reading between May 9 and August 27, with all who complete the challenge receiving a signed certificate by the Premier.
Schools can register online until May 27. Last year, 71,000 students completed the challenge, reading more than one million books.
The challenge for students from Prep to Year 2 is to read or experience 20 books, Years 3 and 4 to read 20 books and Years 5 to 7 to read 15 books between May 9 and August 26.
Guidelines, registration details and booklists are available on the Premier’s Reading Challenge website.
Finding Arthur Applebee
Posted by kmcg2375 in education, english, Lit_Review, research on July 31, 2011
It’s only now that I’m finalising my thesis that I’m finding the work of U.S. curriculum studies researcher Arthur Applebee.
His works include his first book Tradition and Reform in the Teaching of English: A History (1974) and the later Curriculum as Conversation (1996). These are focussed on reviewing the teaching of English in the United States, but the historical connections he makes are invaluable to all of us in the field.
Here’s a clip from Curriculum as Conversation:
Foucault THAT.
Posted by kmcg2375 in books, education, english, learning community, Lit_Review, online tools, politics, reflections, research, social media, technology, university on July 28, 2011
I have a confession to make.
Lately, I’ve been cheating on my blog. (In a good way, I promise!)
A colleague at my university, Clare O’Farrell, has an established Ning that is home to members of the Poststructuralist Theory ‘Special Interest Group’ of AARE. Established it so well, in fact, that it is one of the few Nings I know of (along with the English Companion) that continued to have happy users after stupid-Ning made its stupid-serivce un-free. Hmph.
Anyway, I use my space and profile on the ‘Ed Theory Ning’ to brain-vomit about (on?) theory that I don’t understand yet.
And it’s proven #very illuminating.
Increasing my activity in various groups on the Ning has also proven fruitful. Particularly in the ‘Daily Writing Club’ (we have to do exactly as it says…!) and now also from browsing the ‘Foucault reading group’.
That’s where I was reminded to check out Clare’s actual blog, Refracted Input, which I hadn’t done for ages. This month she is discussing a quote by Foucault about ‘race and colonialism’, and in it I can see a relationship to contemporary discourses around changing technologies.
The term âfolkloreâ is nothing but a hypocrisy of the âcivilisedâ who wonât take part in the game, and who want to hide their refusal to make contact under the mantle of respect for the picturesqueâŚ
Man is irrevocably a stranger to dawn. It needed our colonial way of thinking to believe that man could have remained faithful to his beginnings and that there was any place in the world where he could encounter the essence of the âprimitiveâ. (trans. Clare OâFarrell)Michel Foucault, (1994) [1963] âVeilleur de la nuit des hommesâ In Dits et Ecrits vol. I. Paris: Gallimard, p. 232.
You see, I’ve been worrying about the ethics of what could be seen as meddling with teachers or students who are comfotable in their print-material ways, trying to prod them along to explore new technologies. I have wondered, ‘am I being selfish?’, ‘what if they have it right?’, ‘what if I’m destroying something important?’, and ‘am I wrong to advocate for my view, should I just wait and see what happens instead?’. But then, Clare’s wise words:
One cannot buy into the romanticism of the primitive â which is assumed to be so much closer to pure truth and ânatureâ. Conversely one cannot make the colonial assumption that one civilisation or one period of history (now) is more advanced and more evolved than another.
That’s right. I don’t need to worry about whether I’ll ‘wreck’ anything, unless I’m thinking of the people I’m meddling with as OTHER. And I was using pronouns to construct myself in opposition to other through all those damn self-doubts. I don’t need to do that. FOUCAULT THAT!
*Sigh of relief*
NB: Clare also curates a website on Michel Foucault, which includes a glossary of KEY CONCEPTS and other wonderful gems (thanks Clare!).
ETA mailout showdown and dates of state conferences
Posted by kmcg2375 in conferences, education, english, learning community on July 23, 2011
Living in Brisbane but being from Sydney, I am a member of both the NSW English Teachers Association and the English Teachers’ Association of Queensland.
The holiday break and a fresh term starting has brought mailouts from both associations my way.
This is a show-and-tell of what was in the respective packs.
 
Both mailouts contained information about Literacy and Numeracy Week, which this year has as it’s theme ‘The Fundamentals are Fun!’ (hmmm, invoking fundamentalism to talk about literacy…looking forward to critiquing that), as well as a catalogue of publications available from the AATE Bookshop.
The impetus for each mailouot is sending members the newest issue of the association journal. While I like the style of the NSW journal mETAphor better (the ETAQ journal is full of Arial font and the cover design could be developed, imho), I have to say I am really satisfied with the content and tone of Words’Worth, and look forward to contributing some material myself in future. Unlike in NSW, ETAQ doesn’t have resources to pay contributors for their articles (yet), but nevertheless the collegial spirit in the association currently ensures a flow of material to sustain the publication.
Both associations also included their annual state conference program notices. Seems like August is the flavour of the month…of the month… (?)
Here is a comparison of the two conferences (I’ll be at ETAQ, but wish I could get down for the NSW one too, bummer!):
ETAQ State Conference: English and Generation Next
- Saturday 20th August 2011
- 8.15am – 5.00pm
- Lourdes Hill College, Hawthorne
- Cost to members: $143 (presenters $44; students and pensioners $66)
- Keynote speaker – Professor Peter Holbrook ‘Literature, Literacy, the Imagination, Freedom’
ETA (NSW) Annual Conference: Makinig Connections That Count
- Friday 5th & Saturday 6th August 2011
- 9am-4pm / 9.30am-3pm
- Australia Technology Park, Eveleigh
- Cost to members: $290 one-day / $430 two-day (presenters register free)
- Ken Watson Address – Dr Felicity Plunkett ‘Blood and Bone: An Anatomy of Wreading’
Me and my iPad: building new literacies
Posted by kmcg2375 in books, education, english, online tools, technology, university on July 23, 2011
I have to say, after just 10 days of owning an iPad, I am noticing some significant changes to my literacy practices – and being confronted by a range of literacy challenges!
I’ve solved the ‘where is Word’? problem – you can download apps, such as Pages, which costs about $10. I haven’t bought that yet because I want to try and do as much on free apps as I can before I get frustrated and am forced to buy (that’s what a school teacher on a tight budget would have to do).
Literacy lesson #1: There are no obvious ‘windows’ in this operating system. There is also no obvious place where you can see a directory of all your ‘files’. There are apps that are always on and you can look in on them any time.
But…how do I ‘save’ my work then? –> LITERACY OF STORING/SAVING AND BACKING UP DATA IN DIFFERENT PLATFORMS/OPERATING SYSTEMS?
Literacy lesson #2: Google docs can be used as a free word processing tool. I just open it in the web browser (Safari) and work from there.
But…when I’m not online I can’t access Google Docs. –> LITERACY OF ENSURING YOU CAN ACCESS YOUR MATERIALS AT POINT OF NEED?
Literacy lesson #3: I am LOVING using ‘Notes’. It’s an app that comes with the iPad. It works even when you are not online. The ‘what should I use to take notes in class/meetings?’ problem to me is solved with this. And because the only formatting available is the ability to leave empty lines and use capital letters, all of my focus is going into getting the ideas onto the page. None (at least much, much less) of my energy is going into design considerations. I never realised until formatting was taken away from me just how much thought I give to the design of a word document.
So…is that the difference between ‘writing’ and ‘word processing’? Or between ‘scribing’ and ‘writing’? or ‘notes’ and ‘documentation’? –> LITERACY OF WRITING FOR YOURSELF VERSUS FOR OTHERS? LITERACY OF FIRST DRAFTS (maybe “no Mary Jane, you can’t just do your draft in Word, because that’s your publishing platform and I don’t want you thinking about formatting your writing yet”. hmmm…)
Food for thought.
I should say, I have also wondered how much of this thinking is coming from using th iPad per se, or if it is the cumulation of being exposed to many new tools recently – a notebook computer, my Playstation and my Kindle had already got me thinking, but now it’s just all come to a head.
I’m thinking about this faster than I can write in-depth posts about it, but I hope these ideas and questions can launch some discussion!
Call for Papers: English in Australia 46.3
Posted by kmcg2375 in education, english, Lit_Review, research, university on July 17, 2011
CALL FOR PAPERS: THEMED ISSUE OF ENGLISH IN AUSTRALIA
A new English? More of the same? Or something still unknown? Past, present and future reflections on English teaching and new technologies
This special guest-edited issue is an opportunity to look back at the way English teachers have responded to the many iterations of ânewâ media and to also grapple with how English teaching might respond to the here and now of our studentsâ increasingly digitally mediated lives, as well as looking forward to imagine the possibilities for English education. What are the challenges and opportunities presented by various forms of ânewâ (and âoldâ) media, and by various ways of understanding the ânewâ? What things might need to change? What might be best left as it is? How might English teachers best respond to new and emerging digital texts and contexts?
We ask for contributions that share ways forward for powerful practice in English education, both in terms of the texts that might be studied and the curriculum work English teachers might do. Submissions might explore studentsâ relationship with multimodal texts and practices or examine digital learning environments and their connections with âtraditionalâ classroom spaces. They might explore new conceptual and theoretical ground or they may address issues of long concern for English teachers such as creativity, engagement and social justice. We are keen to receive classroom-based accounts and action or practitioner research or any other relevant studies conducted within professional contexts or as part of higher education research degrees.
Guest editors: Kelli McGraw (QUT) & Scott Bulfin (Monash)
Download the Call for Papers and guidelines for contributors.
Books in the In-Tray
Posted by kmcg2375 in books, english, Lit_Review, research on July 14, 2011
My pre-end-of-tax-year book orders from the bookdepository.com have now all arrived and are awaiting my reading and attention!
(Does anyone out there have a strategy for making sure you factor reading into your work day?)
Photo L-R:
- Pedagogical Encounters, edited by Bronwyn Davies & Susanne Gannon (2009)
- Understanding Media: The extensions of man, Marshall McLuhan (1964)
- Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning, Karan Barad (2007)
My recent trip to Melbourne also led me to collect this stunning book combo:
This collection is the result of walking through a weekend book fair in the Atrium of the NGV in Melbourne. I’ve started my reading with the Marquez…I didn’t like Love in the time of cholera, but I hope I like this. I would like to like his writing. As for the others? Well, I’ll get to them eventually!
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