In this article we introduce a heuristic for orientating to the language content of the Australian Curriculum: English. Our pedagogical heuristic, called "Playing with Grammar", moves through three separate but interwoven stages: (i) an introduction to the learning experience, (ii) a focus on learning, and (iii) an application of new…

By the late 70s the "growth through English" slogan, derived from John Dixon's account of the Dartmouth conference, had become popular around Australia. In 1980 the Sydney IFTE conference featured several Dartmouth veterans; but during that conference, Dartmouth-linked ideas from overseas mingled with lines of local influence, especially…

While some international histories of English education are inclined to characterise the 1966 Dartmouth seminar as initiating some kind of revolution, other accounts have positioned it as one important conversation amongst many. Using Raymond Williams' notion of a "long revolution", this short essay characterises Dartmouth as making a…

The 1966 Anglo-American Seminar at Dartmouth certainly stands as a landmark event in the history of English teaching. For the purposes of this Special Issue, however, I want to unsettle some familiar interpretations of Dartmouth by reading with and against a range of American responses to the conference published in the late 1960s and 1970s. As an…

The Dartmouth Seminar is rightly understood as a key event in English curriculum history--indeed, "a pivotal moment," as one commentator put it. Nonetheless questions can still be asked about the nature of its significance, both "discursively," with regard to the discourse (and rhetoric) of post-Dartmouth English teaching, and…

In the British "zone" of the English education world, which Australia largely inhabited throughout the 20th century, the key book that came out of Dartmouth was John Dixon's "Growth through English." Some in the British "zone" may not even be aware of the equivalent American book, Herbert Muller's "The Uses of…

This essay explores how my professional experiences as an English educator have been shaped by the values and beliefs that are typically associated with the Dartmouth Seminar of 1966 as they were presented by John Dixon in his immensely influential report of that seminar, "Growth Through English." Rather than seeing "Growth"…

This article explores one teacher-researcher's consideration of how the 50-year anniversary of the Dartmouth Seminar continues to influence and hold relevance for the teaching of English in Australian secondary schools. Particular attention is paid to the influence of John Dixon and the Personal Growth model of English. The author, an early career…

In John Dixon's account of Dartmouth, experience is seen as central to the business of English as a school subject. Experience, for Dixon, is the raw material that is worked on in the classroom. What kinds of theory inform this emphasis on experience, and what are the curricular and pedagogic implications of this version of English? How does…

Much of English teaching, whether it be mounting an argument on a social issue, analysing media, or developing a critical reading of a novel or film, implies an ethical stance. This article considers the relationship between ethics, belief and ideology. After looking, within a Lacanian framework, at the ways in which particular beliefs are made…

Spoken word poetry is a means of engaging young people with a genre that has often been much maligned in classrooms all over the world. This interview with the Australian spoken word poet Luka Lesson explores issues that are of pressing concern to poetry education. These include the idea that engagement with poetry in schools can be enhanced by…

This article tells the story of two projects initiated by the University of Tasmania's English program, which were designed to investigate and improve the pathway from pre-tertiary to tertiary English studies in the state: the First Year English Survey (2012-2014) and the Teaching of English in Tasmania Community of Practice (TETCoP). The authors…

Evidence suggests that increasingly young adolescents are finishing school with poor literacy skills limiting their access to further education, training and employment. This has lifelong effects in terms of their economic participation and health and wellbeing. This paper examines the spatial practices of one school's approach to improving…

Historically, the position of girls as marginalised users of the education system has been acknowledged, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. However, reflection upon the current "list of prescribed texts", which makes up part of the South Australian Certificate of Education Board's English Studies outline, as well as the author's…

This paper explores the effects participation as writers has on the identities teachers take on when they are both writers who teach and teachers who write. This paper focuses on three interview participants and explores their encounters as writers as they engaged in the "risky" business of being writers, within and beyond school. A…