mutt wrote:Am I getting frikken old or what to think this reflects deteriorating social standards?

Teachers bid to downgrade literature in national curriculum

Justine Ferrari, Education writer | February 28, 2009
Article from: The Australian

ENGLISH teachers are seeking to downgrade the importance of literature in the national curriculum to allow the study of an expanded range of texts covering visual and multimodal forms "as essential works in their own right".

The professional association purporting to represent the view of the nation's English teachers also calls for the national curriculum to recognise a whole-language method for teaching reading rather than exclusively emphasising phonics and the letter-sound relationships as the initial step.

In its submission to the National Curriculum Board's framing paper on the English curriculum, the Australian Association for the Teaching of English declares studying literature is "inherently a political action" in creating the type of people society values.

The submission disputes the National Curriculum Board's definition of school English as the three elements of language, literature and literacy.

"Meaning-making in, and through, language, across a range of forms, media and expressions, should be the core organiser of the curriculum," it says.

"There is a need to state (that) English is the study of language, its central focus being the different processes through which meaning is made and received through different textual expressions - literary and otherwise." [No, you need to teach these pliable and facile young minds how to spell and write in the English language.]

It calls for the end of traditional literature as a discrete element, and for other types of English texts - which would include advertising, TV shows, signage, text messages and websites - to be viewed as essential rather than "add ons" to accompany the understanding of literary texts. [So Milton, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Homer, Blake, Emily Bronte, Jon Dunne, Butler, Chaucer, Byron, Chesterton, Coleridge, Keats, Pope, De La Mare, Dryden, Hardy, Huxley, Marlowe, Shelley and a fair few others merely wrote drivel beyond your comprehension and, therefore, must be dismissed]

"The place and role of non-literary texts in a national English curriculum needs to be rethought in terms that do not see the value of such texts as being predominantly in their potential to enhance the study of literature," it says. [Thereby denying that the language can soar to the heavens and able to express thoughts beyond earthly bounds. It's called encouraging imagination.]

"The expansion of the range of texts used in English ... will necessarily mean a significant reconfiguration of the subject, including a relative reduction in the number of literary works, as the term is traditionally conceived, studied." [So you would rather that they watched TV, bored totally sh&tless and compliant, than read and allow their mind and vision to grow?]

The AATE challenges the curriculum's view that studying literature is "a form of arts-related and arts-enriched learning experience" related to aesthetic value, saying it is only "true to a point".

Rather, studying literature is "inherently a political action in that it is also about 'nation' building through the dissemination of a 'national' culture". [Buls&it. Literature encourages apolitical thought and enhances the mind to consider matters outside of one's own direct experience.]

"Studying literature also has historically had an ethical function, contributing to the shaping of a certain sort of person that societies have found desirable," it says.

"It is difficult to imagine, for example, that the enduring value of works such as Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird, both widely taught in schools, rests on their aesthetic qualities." [May George set the pigs on you and I doubt Harper would give you any Lee(way) on that assertion.]

The English framing document for the national curriculum released in October is unequivocal in mandating the explicit teaching of the basic structures ofthe English language from grammar, spelling and punctuation to phonics in the first years of school.

"Explicit teaching of decoding, spelling and other aspects of the basic codes of written English will be an important and routine aspect," the curriculum says.

But the AATE submission says the emphasis on phonics "comes at the expense of the focus on a balanced reading program", which is the term now applied to whole language methods of teaching reading. [You mean that you know so little about spelling, grammar and punctuation that you cannot teach it - and are scared to learn.]

It calls for explicit reference to be made to "all three cueing systems" used to make sense of the written word.

Under the Three Cueing Systems model for teaching reading, the sounding of letters is the least important skill, with children first asked to use semantics, and guess the word based on the context including using pictures and then use the sentence syntax to work out the meaning.

Then children use the syntax or where the word sits in the sentence to try to work out the meaning. The third and least important cue under this model is sounding out the letters. In a separate submission, the English Teachers Association of NSW argues the national curriculum threatens to "deprofessionalise" [no such plucking word, you ignorant gits] English teachers for limiting its aims to developing literacy skills and knowledge about literature.

The ETA argues for the definition of school English to be expanded to include cultural studies, critical literacy (a sociological model analysing gender, race and class in literature to expose inherent prejudices and agendas) and personal growth of students.