Thesis (PhD) -- Bond University, 2006. / "A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy"-- t.p. Bibliography: 273-281 leaves. Also available via the World Wide web.

How to teach writing is a consistently complex problem in the field of English education. This qualitative narrative research project seeks to further complicate that problem by suggesting, through improvisation theories, two shifts in understanding writing instruction: that texts themselves do not fully constitute the wholeness of the work and thus involve the meanings we ascribe to them (as writers, readers, teachers, and students); that our role as writing instructors is as disruptors and must be improvised (altered, shifted, adjusted) based on the meaning ascribed to the written work by students and teachers. This project explores the following questions: (1) If texts do not fully constitute the whole of the written work, then how do students and teachers explain and understand what writing is about? This question is addressed in two ways: (A) How do students understand what their writing is about? (B) How do I understand what they report to me? (2) What might it mean to improvise our role in writing instruction? How might student explanations provide the context to improvise our roles as writing instructors? The participants were three high school seniors. As the sole researcher, I interviewed each of the three participants, two males and one female, over the course of the first semester of their senior year. Through qualitative research, with dimensions of narrative research, this study suggests that provoking crucial disruptions in the students’ writing is an approach to writing instruction that involves dialogue with students, and reflection on practice. It is a collaborative approach between students and teachers. This study further suggests that how we prompt students is crucial to their writing experiences. And, through dialogue with students (which can be conceived of as a form of writing instruction), we can inform, explore, and question when and how we inspire students in their writing. This dissertation proposes that writing instruction is continuously and simultaneously inquiry and practice.

This work explores the place of creative non-fiction in Australian tertiary journalism education. While creative non-fiction — a genre of writing based on the techniques of the fiction writer — has had a rocky relationship with journalism, this study shows that not only is there a place for the genre in journalism education, but that it is inextricably linked with journalism. The research is based on results from studies using elite interviews and a census of Australian universities with practical journalism curricula. The first stage of this study provides a definition of creative non-fiction based on the literature and a series of elite interviews held with American and Australian creative non-fiction experts. This definition acknowledges creative non-fiction as a genre of writing that tells true stories while utilising fiction writing techniques such as point of view, dialogue and vivid description. The definition also takes into account creative non-fiction’s diverse range of publication styles which include feature articles, memoir, biography, literary journalism and narrative non-fiction. The second stage of the study reports upon elite interviews with Australian writers who have produced works in the genres of journalism and creative non-fiction. These interviews reveal the close relationship journalism and creative non-fiction share across a variety of approaches and techniques. This study also shows how creative non-fiction can improve the careers of journalists and the quality of journalism. The census of journalism programs further reveals the place of creative non-fiction in tertiary journalism education and prompts the formulation of a two tiered model for the genre’s inclusion in the curriculum. The first tier involves including creative non-fiction in a core journalism subject. The second tier is an elective creative non-fiction subject which builds on the skills developed in the core classes. Through the literature, and the responses of the elites and survey respondents, it was possible to show how creative non-fiction helps journalism students to appreciate the history of their profession, explore their talents and finally to be part of what may be the future of print journalism.

This work explores the place of creative non-fiction in Australian tertiary journalism education. While creative non-fiction — a genre of writing based on the techniques of the fiction writer — has had a rocky relationship with journalism, this study shows that not only is there a place for the genre in journalism education, but that it is inextricably linked with journalism. The research is based on results from studies using elite interviews and a census of Australian universities with practical journalism curricula. The first stage of this study provides a definition of creative non-fiction based on the literature and a series of elite interviews held with American and Australian creative non-fiction experts. This definition acknowledges creative non-fiction as a genre of writing that tells true stories while utilising fiction writing techniques such as point of view, dialogue and vivid description. The definition also takes into account creative non-fiction’s diverse range of publication styles which include feature articles, memoir, biography, literary journalism and narrative non-fiction. The second stage of the study reports upon elite interviews with Australian writers who have produced works in the genres of journalism and creative non-fiction. These interviews reveal the close relationship journalism and creative non-fiction share across a variety of approaches and techniques. This study also shows how creative non-fiction can improve the careers of journalists and the quality of journalism. The census of journalism programs further reveals the place of creative non-fiction in tertiary journalism education and prompts the formulation of a two tiered model for the genre’s inclusion in the curriculum. The first tier involves including creative non-fiction in a core journalism subject. The second tier is an elective creative non-fiction subject which builds on the skills developed in the core classes. Through the literature, and the responses of the elites and survey respondents, it was possible to show how creative non-fiction helps journalism students to appreciate the history of their profession, explore their talents and finally to be part of what may be the future of print journalism.

This ethnographic study is driven by the aim of understanding how an out-of-school learning program supports the development of youth artists and writers, particularly when it operates outside of institutional strictures such as mandatory grading, curricular guidelines, and tracking based on age and perceived abilities. The research is guided by the following overarching questions: 1) In what ways do Black, Latinx, and queer students demonstrate investment in critical multimodal literacies? 2) How do world-building projects reveal the possibilities and limits of the imagination? 3) What conditions can inspire youth to articulate their identities as evolving writers and leaders? This work argues that playing with multimodal projects and imaginative world-building opportunities provided generative conditions for young adults’ development as writers, creators, and mentors. By engaging in transdisciplinary projects that invited crafting, coding, urban planning, architectural modeling, and creative writing, youth participants contributed to a participatory learning environment that celebrated their inherent capacities as critical thinkers and actors. My research ultimately highlights the ways that critical multimodal literacies can promote powerful self-expressions, complex articulations of the future, and projections of self confidence through productive play and public engagement with wider audiences.

What might becoming a poet have to do with becoming a teacher? What might becoming a teacher have to do with becoming a poet? Is it possible to invite someone to become a teacher or a poet? What might such an invitation look like? What kinds of conditions are involved in "making poetry"? What might these conditions have to do with "making pedagogy"? Further, what might these conditions — of making poetry or pedagogy — have to do with "making research"? Based on a study of a six-week intensive language across the curriculum course involving a group of prospective Secondary School teachers, this dissertation explores the kinds of conditions that might create an interpretive location in which to entertain and address the above kinds of questions — of the making of poetry and pedagogy and research — i n all their relations. Moving backward and forward — between the lived particulars of a group of preservice teachers' writing practices in a workshop-styled setting, and the writing practice of a researcher/teacher educator/poet curious about the acts of learning and teaching, writing and researching — this work attempts to live well with the necessarily tangled relationships among literacy, aesthetic practice, and the ongoing production of subjectivity in teacher education and our educational researchings of teacher education. The value of writing practice, as this dissertation attempts to enact it, is not only in its offer of further practice — of writing to learn (about writing and teaching and researching) — but also in its offer of a location where we might become curious about the performative nature of learning itself. The dissertation seeks to show the ways that my own writing life, shaped as it is by the work of those who have brought hermeneutics, postmodernism, psychoanalytic theory, and the literary imagination to bear on teacher education, is deeply implicated with other writing lives, others who are always and already writing lives. The invitation to imagine the curious time of researching pedagogy, then, is part of an invitation to think differently about preservice teachers thinking differently about their time together in classrooms, engaged in acts of learning and teaching, writing and researching.

What might becoming a poet have to do with becoming a teacher? What might becoming a teacher have to do with becoming a poet? Is it possible to invite someone to become a teacher or a poet? What might such an invitation look like? What kinds of conditions are involved in "making poetry"? What might these conditions have to do with "making pedagogy"? Further, what might these conditions — of making poetry or pedagogy — have to do with "making research"? Based on a study of a six-week intensive language across the curriculum course involving a group of prospective Secondary School teachers, this dissertation explores the kinds of conditions that might create an interpretive location in which to entertain and address the above kinds of questions — of the making of poetry and pedagogy and research — i n all their relations. Moving backward and forward — between the lived particulars of a group of preservice teachers' writing practices in a workshop-styled setting, and the writing practice of a researcher/teacher educator/poet curious about the acts of learning and teaching, writing and researching — this work attempts to live well with the necessarily tangled relationships among literacy, aesthetic practice, and the ongoing production of subjectivity in teacher education and our educational researchings of teacher education. The value of writing practice, as this dissertation attempts to enact it, is not only in its offer of further practice — of writing to learn (about writing and teaching and researching) — but also in its offer of a location where we might become curious about the performative nature of learning itself. The dissertation seeks to show the ways that my own writing life, shaped as it is by the work of those who have brought hermeneutics, postmodernism, psychoanalytic theory, and the literary imagination to bear on teacher education, is deeply implicated with other writing lives, others who are always and already writing lives. The invitation to imagine the curious time of researching pedagogy, then, is part of an invitation to think differently about preservice teachers thinking differently about their time together in classrooms, engaged in acts of learning and teaching, writing and researching. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

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How do ELA spaces, here defined as classroom practices, curricula, and assignments, invite students to locate “their” voice? To enact one? To what extent do or might pedagogical approaches to and community norms for a class discussion; the possibility and opportunity to lean into uncertainty; the texts students read and are exposed to; and the kinds of writing assignments and different narrative perspectives with which they experiment each play a role in shaping that voice? The chapters that follow will explore occasions and sites where voice may be located in different iterations in the ELA secondary classroom. Based on student claims and written responses on which I report in this dissertation, ELA spaces emerge as a kind of laboratory theater for locating a writerly identity. The results of my research suggest that Harkness pedagogy; reading and writing in response to literature; dialectical journaling; essaying that embraces uncertainty; experiment and play with different narrative perspectives; and being in conversation with literature are all promising pedagogical approaches to ELA instruction whose aim is to help writers locate and develop their own writerly voice.