ABSTRACT This research project had three aims. The first was to investigate the culture of literacy assessment in English classrooms during the first year of high school. The second aim was to examine the interplay of elements of classroom-based literacy assessment including: the use of alternative assessment methods, tasks, and practices; the influence of principles of literacy assessment, discourses related to literacy assessment, and teacher-student interactions in classrooms. A third aim was to develop an understanding of the perceptions of the participants related to literacy assessment during one school year. Two studies were undertaken to achieve these aims. The preliminary study surveyed Year 8 English teachers in Queensland, Australia about their perceptions and practices of literacy assessment. The survey composed of open and closed questions was sent to 100 state high schools. Data from the 120 returned surveys were analysed using quantitative and qualitative techniques. The main findings from the survey were that Year 8 teachers knew little about their students' previous experiences of literacy assessment. Teachers perceived that students needed to understand the assessment program in high school. However, teachers recognised that students faced difficulties in dealing with new regimes of assessment. While teachers were positive about their assessment programs, they were also concerned about their lack of expertise in assessment and their recording procedures. Tensions between teachers' expectations of their students and their values and practices suggested that a further exploration of literacy assessment was required in classroom settings. This exploration was undertaken in the main study. The main study comprised a detailed investigation of literacy assessment in two Year 8 English classrooms using a longitudinal, qualitative research design. Data were collected systematically from multiple sources, numerous times throughout one school year. Data gathering methods included observations, interviews, document collection, videotaping, ranking activities, and collecting participants' accounts of literacy assessment events. A range of qualitative analysis techniques was applied to each form of data. The main study found that while teachers had some autonomy in assessment, they were also constrained by the requirements of assessment programs outlined in syllabus documents. In these programs, teachers are responsible for the development, implementation and marking of up to ten assessment tasks during the year. An analysis of teachers' programs and practices identified task sheets as key assessment texts. They were used in multiple ways by the teachers and their students. Students' understandings about task sheets varied, their comprehension of task sheets was limited, and they understood less than their teachers expected. The pedagogy of literacy assessment was dominated by implicit teaching and centred on completing assessment tasks. The teachers adopted authoritative positions in assessment talk and there were limited opportunities for students to participate in the assessment process. In talk around assessment, students were introduced to institutionalised ways of valuing and doing assessment. Teachers' detailed explanations of tasks had limited effects on students' learning, and during the year there was increasing student resistance to these explanations. The teachers' and their students' understandings of tasks and assessment were incongruent. However, the teachers and students did share a focus on assessment as a goal in itself. Purposes for completing tasks such as developing new literacy skills were not evident in participants' accounts. Although the first aim of the study was to investigate the culture of assessment, multiple cultures of assessment were identified. The study also concluded that in these classrooms there were multiple discourses related to assessment which were co-constructed by teachers and students during assessment related activities. These discourses were not always shared and were understood in different ways by the teachers and students. Implications were drawn from these findings about directions for future research including: broadening the research to other contexts, continuing investigations of classroom-based assessment theory and practice, and further longitudinal studies of students' perceptions. Implications for practice focused on re-examining the purposes and focus of assessment in the first year of high school, increasing teachers' and students' awareness of the complexity of the assessment process, and improving the development and construction of task sheets. The study is an example of how a longitudinal approach using a range of research strategies, drawn from both quantitative and qualitative paradigms, can be effectively applied to investigate classroom-based literacy assessment. The study also provided a framework for the investigation of classroom-based literacy assessment practices which might be applied to other research contexts. The findings reveal that the implementation and use of alternative approaches to assessing literacy in the high school context provided no easy answers to issues related to principles, practices and student participation in assessment. Finally, the findings from the study have revealed the importance of developing an understanding of the perspectives of all classroom participants if the effectiveness of assessment as a teaching and learning tool is to be optimised for all learners.

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The strong hold of the research paper on the English curriculum over the past fifty years has created instructional and learning challenges that call for innovative solutions. Although concerned educators have developed creative variations to spark student interest and promote critical thinking, research has revealed little change in curriculum design or student performance on the research paper, even with advanced ability students (Ford, 1995; Moulton & Holmes, 2003). The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how students’ perceptions of the knowledge task presented by a literary analysis research paper related to research and composing strategies for five twelfth-grade advanced students. Social constructivism (Creswell, 2003; Vygotsky, 1934/1986) and phenomenology (Schutz, 1967; Seidman, 1998) served as theoretical frameworks for the study. Three questions guided the research: 1) How might students’ epistemological views be described as they initiate the research paper process? 2) How do students’ epistemological views relate to the choices they make during the research and composing processes? 3) How do students’ epistemological views relate to the final research product? Data collection and analysis occurred over an eight-month period. Data sources included an epistemological questionnaire (Schommer, 1989), four in-depth phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 1998) conducted with each student at drafting stages, member checking, discourse analysis of free responses and essay drafts, and a researcher’s log. Constant comparative in-case and cross-case analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Miles & Huberman, 1994) were used to analyze data. Holistic and four-dimension rubric scoring (content, organization, style, conventions) was used to analyze and evaluate the final essays. Trustworthiness was established through methods that ensured credibility, confirmability, dependability, and transferability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). While participants expressed strong beliefs in complex knowledge and demonstrated high levels of reflective thinking, they differed in their views towards certain knowledge, which resulted in variations in composing strategies and essay quality. Significant relationships were indicated between knowledge views and concept formation, knowledge views and composing strategies, problem solving and the research experience, and reflective thinking and academic challenge. Prior knowledge, motivation, and gender also contributed to different outcomes. Results suggested important directions for research paper design and instruction in the language arts curriculum.

This project is an attempt to design a new English curriculum to fit a major organizational and philosophical change planned for Westmount Secondary School in the year 1990. Chapter 1 describes the context in which the innovation will take place, the nature of the innovation itself and the primary objective the changes is intended to fulfil; namely, the development of students who are self-directed problem-solvers. Chapter 2 attempts to clarify this objective by examining the origins of problem-solving in education and describing some recent accounts of its use, most notably in problem-based learning. Chapter 3 explores the philosophy of self-directed learning and differentiates among the many similar related terms. Autonomy is identified as the key feature of self-directed learning. Chapter 4 outlines the constraints on curriculum design imposed by the new English Guideline recently published by the Ministry of Education. Finally, in chapter 5 an attempt is made to identify the features common to both self-direction and problem-solving and adapt these to the requirements of "Westmount 1990" and the English Guideline. The result is a proposal for a problem-based independent Grade 12 course outlined in Chapter 6. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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This thesis investigates the practice of set text study as it is encountered within the English curriculum of a Victorian secondary school. The study evolved from a range of concerns to do with the researcher’s own teaching and the attitudes being expressed in her school community. It developed into an investigation of the student experience of reading, and of studying the required texts in subject, English This research aims to: • provide understanding of the development of set text study and to consider whether this construct is meeting the goals of contemporary English teaching examine both the beliefs which underpin the practices and the practices themselves provide greater understanding of the way students experience this aspect of their school learning consider how notions of transformation, insight and emerging identity through literature study fit with student experience Five guiding research questions address the issues which gave rise to the study. These questions provide a focus and structure throughout the research process. The questions address issues of: students’ school and non-school reading practices, enjoyment, beliefs about learning, ideology and specifically, the potential influence of textual representations of suicide and adult characters on a teenage student’s emerging sense of self. An overview of key theoretical positions on the act of reading situates the attitudinal and theoretical aspects of this research. The practical orientation of this study is situated alongside research on the experience of reading and of teaching literature, both from Australia and overseas. This thesis adopts a phenomenological approach within a constructivist framework. A qualitative methodology using a case-study approach, allows for the prolonged engagement necessary to explore the research questions and develop the sort of relationship necessary to facilitate the in-depth and reflective responses being sought. In-depth interviews (both face-to-face interviews and on-line chat sessions) are the primary data-gathering tool. In reporting the findings, the student voice is privileged. Practical and theoretical notions of communication and language are explored. The processes used to undertake this research are reflected upon and some possibilities for incorporating some of these methods into a school learning context are considered. While the focus of the study is to increase understanding of individual experience, some clear findings emerge. Although reading played an important part in the non-school lives of most of these students, the school experience of reading was more often than not, disappointing. Key factors which students perceived as contributing to their lack of enjoyment and satisfaction included: text choice, lack of challenge in lesson content, the sameness of the associated tasks, the behaviour of peers and lack of opportunity for having their opinions heard. Almost conversely, the students who gained greatest satisfaction reported on: particular texts, the creativity and scope for individual input of required tasks, teacher involvement, more positive class interaction and specific modelling by teachers of required tasks. The thesis concludes with recommendations for structural support (both whole school and classroom) to enable the positive shared reading experiences to become the experience of more students. It challenges the sanctity of the set text and offers a range of alternatives. In calls on teachers to consider the implications of entering a continuing story of students’ reading and to work at developing better ways of incorporating components of effective non-school reading practices into school reading practices. The concerns regarding the potential negative influence of set texts on a student’s identity were not validated in this research. However new concerns for students’ well being did emerge. The research indicates that set texts can make a difference to the quality of students’ lives. By incorporating a range of texts and class activities, by knowing students as well as possible, and by fully engaging as co-readers, teachers are in a better position to minimise student distress and to attend to the work of creating democratic reading environments with the greatest potential for reading success for everyone.

In 1976, following the recommendations of the Campbell Report, school-based course development and assessment replaced the New South Wales Higher School Certificate courses and public examinations. Under the auspices of the A.C.T. Schools Authority, the A.C.T. Accrediting Agency took control of administering the new system. Nine years after the system was introduced, the benefits of the new system were very clear in the area of English curriculum at Years 11 and 12 level. To a considerable degree, the hopes of the Campbell Report have been fulfilled in terms of providing students with greater freedom of choice and flexibility in the selection of options in an English course composed of a number of term or term equivalent units. Assessment instruments have become much more wide-ranging. Teacher/student relationships have become less authoritarian. Teaching strategies and learning approaches have generally made students more active participants in the learning process. The field study drew heavily on English course documents in the senior secondary colleges, presenting an overview of the workings of the English curriculum. Because courses are being continually reaccredited, it was necessary to set the curriculum overview at a particular time, in 1984. As the A.C.T. is a small education system in Australian terms, it was possible to gain some concept of the whole picture, although 428 term units is not an inconsiderable number. The field study, because of its significant data base, poses more questions than it answers. It does, to a degree, present "what is", or rather "what was" in the 1984 English curriculum at Years 11 and 12 level in A.C.T. colleges. And it points directions for further research.

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Abstract The thesis has a theoretical and empirical character. It deals with the motivation of the pupils learning the English language at the preparatory school and also with the general factors that affect the overall level of mastering this foreign language. The first part of the theoretical part is focused on the curricular documents (White paper, system of education). These documents contain important chapters about teaching the English language at the preparatory school. The second part is about the basic and main methods of learning foreign languages. The last part describes the pupils? motivation at school. A survey is related to the practical part. It was realized by the help of a questionnaire and a test. The received data inform us about the status of the school English in the comparison of what children can learn outside the school and how much is it important for their future improvement in the English language.

Since 1921 England’s governments have commissioned enquiries into English and literacy teaching, leading towards published recommendations and requirements for English grammar teaching. Governments’ officially sanctioned publications represent their policy aspirations for English and literacy. Research studies have explored the subsequent challenge for schools and teachers who must integrate grammar into a subject whose wider philosophies may conflict with an explicit grammar element. My study draws on critical theory to analyse the ideological discourses of English grammar these official policy documents reveal, and how they conflict or coincide with wider ideologies of English and literacy in schools. My study uses a two-stage analysis. First is an intertextual analysis using a corpus approach to identify the data’s grammar topics through its keywords and argumentation types. Second is a qualitative critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the documents’ main ideas and ideological discourses. The CDA analysis reveals three main ideological discourses of grammar, namely of ‘heritage and authority’, ‘standards and control’, and ‘life chances and skills’. These discourses are constructed from both prescriptive and descriptive traditions of linguistic thinking, and draw on ideological perspectives of teaching and teachers, learning and learners, and changing philosophies of English over time. The findings show no direct connection between the topic keywords policy authors use and the ideological positions they adopt. But there is a clear trend in argumentation approaches used to make hoped-for claims for grammar’s place and benefits in subject English. The discourses found question whether teachers are sufficiently prepared for grammar teaching and whether learners are sufficiently prepared for communicating in the workplace. The policy ideologies of grammar found in the qualitative analysis are finally re-mapped against wider philosophies of subject English to identify the broad policy trends.