ETAQ 47 Issue 1.Indd A1 8/04/2014 10:30:34 AM EDITORIAL Stewart Riddle University of Southern Queensland
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CONTENTS Editorial Stewart Riddle ....................................................................................................................... 2 ETAQ Patron’s message Professor Catherine Beavis ................................................................................................ 3 President’s Address to the 2014 Annual General Meeting .......................................... 4 Meet Your New President Fiona Laing ............................................................................................................................ 7 Singing the same song: Modelling writing in the English classroom Kate Townsend ..................................................................................................................... 8 Australia Day honour for ETAQ foundation member ................................................10 For Mike Connors (Ipswich Grammar School, 1997–2013) John Acutt ...........................................................................................................................12 A Bushranger’s Story – Part 2 Garry Collins .......................................................................................................................13 Secretary’s Report ..............................................................................................................21 Nurturing Empathy in the English Classroom Ian Hamilton .......................................................................................................................29 Th e Ultimate Shakesperience Part Two: ‘Th e Great Globe Itself’ Natalie Fong ........................................................................................................................31 Exploring sustainability in Literature for the Australian Curriculum: An annotated guide Anita Jetnikoff and Melissa Kelly ....................................................................................38 2013 Literary Competition Winning Entries (Section A – Years 11 & 12) ................................................................ 50 Issues facing students in conceptualising and planning before writing Patsy Norton .......................................................................................................................56 Words’Worth April 2014 • Volume 47, Number 1 1 ETAQ 47_Issue 1.indd a1 8/04/2014 10:30:34 AM EDITORIAL Stewart Riddle University of Southern Queensland i everyone and welcome to the fi rst issue the second instalment of A Bushranger’s Story. of Words’Worth for 2014. It has been quite If you’d like to read the fi rst instalment, you’ll a politically-charged start to the year, with fi nd it in Vol. 46, No. 2. Given the recent HChristopher Pyne announcing a review of the criticisms in the Australian about the lack of Australian Curriculum, the Greens leading poetry in schools, Garry’s excellent resources are an inquiry into school funding, the growth of most welcome! Independent Public Schools in Queensland, Th e 2013 ETAQ Secretary’s Report is provided in and the establishment of a Ministerial Advisory full for members to see the great range of activities Group on Teacher Education. All of these policy- and engagements of the organisation last year. It is level movements have signifi cant implications for an impressive set of achievements and something English teaching, which we will see unfold over for which we can be very proud. Ian Hamilton’s the year. intriguing article on empathy is well-worth In this current context of English teaching, the read, as is Natalie Fong’s engaging second it seems that the theme for our 2014 State instalment of her ultimate Shakespeare experience Conference is very appropriately titled, “Great (you can read the fi rst half in Vol. 46, No. 3). Expectations: Stability and Change in English Anita Jetnikoff and Mel Kelly provide us with a Teaching”. Th e theme captures the sense of the really useful annotated guide for texts that can be ‘moment’ we’re in, where there is much optimism used in exploring sustainability in literature for and goodwill in English teaching, yet at the same the Australian Curriculum. We then have the fi rst time, we are facing numerous complexities and batch of wonderful winning entries from the 2013 challenges in the profession. I encourage you to Literary Competition, with the rest to follow next consider presenting and/or attending this year’s issue, and fi nally Patsy Norton’s article on Issues conference as well as thinking about contributing facing students in conceptualising and planning to the next couple of issues of Words’Worth if before writing. you are able to spare a little time from your busy schedule. Th anks very much for taking the time to read through these great pieces and please get in touch As always, we have some really great with me if you are interested in contributing to contributions to this issue. Kate Townsend our journal. starts by providing a really thought-provoking refl ection on her experiences at last year’s Finally, I would like to acknowledge the terrifi c AATE-ALEA national conference and considers work that ‘tireless’ Trish Purcell and ‘eagle eye’ the explicit modelling of writing in the English Deb Peden do in helping me put together the classroom. Th is is followed by some information journal. While I get the credit, both Trish and on the Medal of the Order of Australia for Deb give generously of their time and proof- Paul Sherman, a founding ETAQ member and reading prowess to help bring it all together. recently-awarded life member. Until next time, John Acutt shares with us a heartfelt poem Stewart Riddle called, Th e Teacher, while Garry Collins gives us [email protected] 2 The English Teachers Association of Queensland ETAQ 47_Issue 1.indd a2 8/04/2014 10:30:48 AM ETAQ PATRON’S MESSAGE Professor Catherine Beavis Griffi th University Dear ETAQ members, English is one of those subjects that is more In March this year, I was one of almost two than the sum of its parts. It is, or should be, hundred ETAQ members attending the fi rst part of a lively conversation, with room for ETAQ seminar for 2014. Th ere were many threads students to bring in their own experiences and stories running across the day. Th emes that and concerns, engage with things that have for me stood out most strongly were those of major signifi cance in their lives, and in the conversation and community; the need to affi rm broader community; big issues, real matters, and assert the centrality of creativity, openness, genuine learning. ‘Negotiation’ is a core term engagement and learning, and to speak back to in Boomer’s lexicon, as are ‘learning’ and those views and practices that limit English ‘meaning’. He saw both teachers and students through narrowly managerialist approaches and as risk takers and explorers; as learners making assessment. Th ese ideas stood out in Brenton sense of the world; trying things out; arguing, Doecke’s keynote particularly, but were also there creating, negotiating; doing what matters and in presentations and discussion throughout the day. wrestling with real questions about the world and their own lives. It’s a vision of English and Conversation and community are closely linked. English teaching that is socially responsible, Th ey characterise much of what English and individually empowering, and deeply connected English teaching is about, or should be. Th ey to the community. also coincide strongly with the view of English running though the special issue of English in In his keynote, Doecke urged the importance Australia on Garth Boomer, and his contribution of claiming back the subject, and for ways to teaching and learning in Australia and of talking ‘not driven by the language of the internationally (Issue 48(3) 2013, released at market and the language of standardised the start of this year). As Green and Meiers reforms.’ He spoke of working together, about say in their editorial, he was ‘perhaps the most listening and responding; about the power important English educator of the last quarter of stories, and the specifi city and detail of of the 20th Century, as well as being a major school worlds and students’ lives. He cited fi gure in Australian curriculum and schooling the STELLA principles – the Standards for more generally (p.4). For Boomer, ‘teaching was Teaching English Language and Literacy in above all else for learning, in a profound sense Australia (http://www.stella.org.au/) developed (p.5)’. Th e titles of his books evoke powerful by AATE, and derived from teachers’ own imperatives. Th ey include, amongst others: narratives, well worth revisiting. He spoke The Spitting Image: Reflections on Language about creativity, negotiation and sociality, and Education and Social Class (with Dale Spender, the ways in which learning together, as a group, 1976); Negotiating the Curriculum: A Teacher- enables far more than a narrow focus on the Student Partnership (1982); Fair Dinkum individual, and atomized skills, imposed by Teaching and Learning: Reflections on Literacy mechanistic assessment regimes. He closed by and Power (1985); and Metaphors and Meanings: asking us about our own professional lexicon or Essays on English Teaching by Garth Boomer words for English. A good question. I wonder (Green, Ed, 1988). what yours might be. Words’Worth April 2014 • Volume 47, Number 1 3 ETAQ 47_Issue 1.indd a3 8/04/2014 10:30:49 AM PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS TO THE 2014 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Introduction This is the 9th occasion on which it has been my honour to deliver the President’s Address at the