Literary inquiry

1
Literary inquiry

• TATE Statewide Workshop Program
• Marist Regional College, Wednesday 2 August 2006
• Prospect High School, Thursday 3 August 2006
• Ogilvie High School, Thursday 10 August 2006

2
Literary inquiry

• Literary inquiry is a student-centred approach to
  learning. It is central to effective teaching and
  learning within the English discipline.

3
Discipline inquiry

• There are a range of generic inquiry processes
  within and across all disciplines. These include
• posing problems
• gathering information
• thinking about possibilities
• making decisions
• justifying conclusions

4
Literary inquiry

• Investigating classic, contemporary and popular
  literary texts i.e. that broad group of texts
  that we read or view for pleasure.

5
Literary inquiry

• Investigating the forms, context, structures and
  features of literary texts. For example,
• characterisation, narrative structure and
  symbolism in stories
• the influence of context in the construction and
  interpretation of feature films
• juxtaposition and composition in picture books

6
Literary inquiry

• Investigating the ideas and issues represented
  in literary texts. For example,
• textual representation of power structures in
  society
• textual representation of personal identity and
  family relationships
• textual representation of ethical practices
  associated with genetic engineering

7
Understandings about texts

• Texts are communications involving spoken,
  signed, written, visual, non-verbal or auditory
  language.
• Text categories are increasingly fluid.
• Texts may be comprised of one or more semiotic
  systems linguistic, visual, auditory, gestural,
  spatial.
• Texts are constructed for particular purposes.

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Understandings about texts

• Textual meaning is actively constructed in a
  dynamic interplay between the text creator, the
  reader, the text and its context.
• Texts may be read differently by different
  people.
• Text creators often use on intertextuality in the
  construction of texts.
• Texts may be multimodal, interactive, linear and
  non-linear.

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Literary inquiry

• What do students inquire about?
• What are some important areas of literary inquiry?

10
Generic and literary inquiry

• What are the connections between generic and
  literary inquiry?
• How do literary inquiry and generic inquiry work
  together?

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Literary inquiry

• What are the features of literary inquiry across
  our five Essential Learnings standards?
• What are the features of the inquiry-based
  learning strands of our Senior Secondary English
  syllabuses?

12
Essential literary questions

• What are some essential literary questions?

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Whose literary inquiry is it?
14
Shifting the focus

• An English classroom less focused on the teacher
  asking questions about teacher-selected texts,
  towards an English classroom where students frame
  and investigate more of their own questions about
  self-chosen texts.

15
Developing thinking

• The thinking English classroom
• 1-2-4 questioning
• literature circles
• picture book philosophy
• re-creative transformation
• questioning circles
• Socratic circles
• negotiated literary inquiries

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English teachers as learners

• If we want to teach students to inquire, to pose
  and solve problems, to think critically, then as
  teachers we have to be so engaged ourselves as
  learners, in formal and informal ways, in ongoing
  collaborative professional development
  communities and as professionals engaged in
  disciplinary communities.
• Anthony R Petrosky Only Connect AATE 2006

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A final thought

• The test of literature is, I suppose, whether
  we ourselves live more intensely for the reading
  of it.
• Elizabeth Drew