This thesis develops a cognitively grounded framework which operationalises the concept of intertextuality, facilitating linguistic analysis of the role it can play in readers’ responses to, interpretations of, and discussions about, texts. The thesis demonstrates the application of this ‘narrative interrelation framework’ in two contexts: the adult reading group and the secondary school English classroom. In doing so, the thesis reflects on the forms, functions and utility of intertextual booktalk, and explores why intertextuality may manifest differently in different environments. The research symbiotically unites the fields of education research and cognitive linguistics, advancing our understanding of reading and studying fiction in secondary schools in England. The thesis aims in particular to contribute to our understanding of the use of the ‘class reader’ - reading a set text as a group - which remains the most prevalent model of reading fiction with students, both in England and internationally. Class reader units are explored along two key dimensions: conceptualising students and teachers as readers, and considering the classroom as a type of reading space. The first part of this research focuses on understanding and mapping cognition processes which underlie intertextuality, both in terms of how readers make intertextual links between stories as well how they process, understand and engage with the intertextual references they encounter. The second part of this research considers the classroom environment in contrast to another site where readers gather to discuss a text: the reading group. A contrastive analysis of these two environments looks to understand the nature of the reading experience in the classroom and, in particular, how it affects the links students make between stories. A final part of the thesis will reflect on the aspects of reading and booktalk which are facilitated or inhibited in different discourse environments. Ultimately, the thesis characterises the nature of the ‘class reader’ experience and considers the implications this has for pedagogy, for engagement and for our understanding of what class readers are intended to, and what they do, achieve as a core staple of the English curriculum. The research examines two datasets representing two distinct types of reading experience of the same two novels: Holes by Louis Sachar (1999) and Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945). The first is a 320,000 word corpus of English lesson transcripts comprising two complete ‘class reader’ schemes of work: a Year 7 mixed ability group studying Holes and a Year 9 top set group studying Animal Farm. The second 40,000 word corpus captures two sessions of an adult reading group, made up predominantly of English graduates, meeting to discuss the same two texts.

This thesis is an ethnography that took place in an ‘underperforming’ school in the South of England. The school is located on a deprived estate, taking its pupils from an area in the bottom quintile with regard to deprivation indicators, and regularly features at the bottom of local league tables. Recently converted to academy status, the school was in the process of being rebuilt. The school in question is seen as abject by the broader community and features a large number of disruptive and disaffected students. The overarching research questions that this study focuses on are: What kind of person do resistant pupils want to be recognised as and what kind of place do they want school to be? Within this, the thesis examines how students develop an identity of non-participation as well as how they act in order to make their voice heard and affect the nature of the place they are in. In order to investigate these questions the paper draws on the work of Foucault (1979, 1982, 2003) who suggested that in order to understand how power relations work it is necessary to investigate resistance rather than trying to understand power from the perspective of its own rationality. This approach is useful since students in school do not resist specific institutions or groups, but specific instances of power personified by those that they come into immediate contact with on a day to day basis. It also mobilises concepts of space and place developed by Doreen Massey (2005) and Tim Ingold (2008) whereby space is a product of interrelations permanently under construction as opposed to simply a surface and place becomes a product of these intersections within the wider power geometry of space. This is particularly relevant to the context of a failing school, seen as abject by the surrounding community and struggling to maintain any improvement. The concept of voice as defined by Nick Couldry (2010) and the students’ belief that they lack control over their lives in school is also key in terms of understanding the motivations for their resistance. The thesis argues that the fact that the school is gradually being demolished and rebuilt is seen as a threat as well as an opportunity by the participants. Since the school was intimately bound up with their identity, the changes made were an assault on their identity. However, the cracks opened up by the construction work offered them opportunities to carve out places for themselves. The participants suggest that the lip service paid to student voice by the school is a key issue in causing students’ resistant behaviour. The students in the study find that their agency is denied by the school and this, coupled with their desire to be seen as adults with legitimate opinions about their schooling, results in their resistant behaviour.

This research project is concerned with raising attainment by addressing the problems associated with literacy (reading, writing and spellings) at Key Stage 3 in the context of a supplementary school. It looks at different ways of addressing specifically identified problems associated with reading, writing and spellings by designing relevant forms of intervention and tracking progress within an emancipatory approach of the sort advocated by Freire (1970; 1972). Students’ low performance in literacy at Key Stage 3 as observed in a survey carried out by Clark, (2012, p.9-13) revealed that more than fifty per cent of Key Stage 3 students (11-13 years) do not enjoy reading or writing, and/or experience difficulties. Current legislation, the Children and Families’ Act, 2014, provides for additional funding in schools for those young people with the most serious difficulties in learning, for example those who are severely dyslexic. Around two percent of the student population receive additional support for their learning needs in this way (Wearmouth, 2012). It is obvious, therefore, that there are many students, in addition to this two percent, who require additional specialist support for their learning needs that is not available through individual resourcing in schools. The current study, albeit small-scale, indicates that students who experience difficulties in literacy can make rapid improvement in a supplementary school that is based on the principles underpinning supplementary schools in general, but, in the case of adolescents who are disengaged from literacy learning, also adopts an emancipatory approach that takes seriously their own views of their learning and the difficulties they have experienced, and supports their own agency in enhancing their literacy learning outcomes. Lessons learnt from this study can contribute to thinking around alternative approaches to re-engaging students with their literacy learning when provision is designed to engage their personal interests and the young people have a measure of control over their own learning. There may be a suggestion that high-achieving students may also benefit in this way.