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Reading Description:

Green, B., Pennell, B. & MacKenzie, N. (2007). Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years. In Middle years schooling: reframing adolescence (pp. 187-205). Frenchs Forest, N.S.W. : Pearson Education Australia.

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(This reference information is provided as a guide only, and may not conform to the required referencing standards for your subject)

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188

Introduction: 'adolescent literacy'?

One of the most intriguing developments in the recent burgeoning of the literacy

studies field is the emergence of a distinctively new category - 'adolescent

literacies'. This is intriguing, and potentially exciting, because to date, in Australia at least, the policy practice has been to think in terms of two general categories: 'child literacy' on the one hand, and 'adult literacy' on the other. These

categories have effectively corresponded with, respectively, the formal literacy work of schooling, from the early years through to the post-compulsory stage,

and the realm of adult, community and workplace education. Now we seem

to have a third, intermediary category, referring specifically to the notion of adolescence, and presumably aimed at that section of the school population which

is in between childhood and adulthood. For many, this refers specifically to secondary education, or perhaps more

precisely to junior secondary education, which culminates in Year 10. For others,

adolescence is something that does not map so neatly onto current traditional forms and patterns of school organisation. For adherents of middle schooling, for

instance, it is more common to think across the transition between primary and

secondary school, and in terms of the period roughly between Year 5 and Year 8, or the last two years of primary school and the first two years of high school.

Some posit a working distinction between 'early', 'middle' and 'late' adolescence

(The Carnegie Corporation [1995], cited Carrington 2006, p. 22), with the 'early' and 'middle' categories together referring to the period roughly from 10 to 17.

Whatever the case, bringing together adolescence and schooling, and focusing

as we do here more on the early (adolescent) phase, is significant because it draws attention to those forms and practices of literacy that seem characteristically

associated with upper primary and junior secondary students. Yet these are the very years, and the very students, who allegedly have missed out in terms of both

policy and pedagogy. Indeed, the junior secondary school is often seen as the 'black hole' of public comprehensive schooling, and an object of real frustration for

many who are genuinely committed both to young people and the idea of a full and appropriate education. As Carrington (2006, p. 156) writes, '[t]he middle years

have been relatively neglected in policy, funding and organisational terms for a considerable period'; moreover, she argues that this period has been identified as

'a wasteland of pedagogy and intellectual rigour, where teachers are crying out for real professional development, an area in need of policy and curricula renewal'. A

very similar picture is painted for North America: 'Despite the prevalence of literacy in adolescents' lives, educational policies, school curricula, and the public

currently are neglecting it' (Moore et al. 1999, p. 99). A focus on 'adolescent

literacy' has arisen, then, because it seems to relate directly to this pervasive

concern about the quality and character of schooling for early adolescence.

Section Four Teaching Practice and Theory

In this chapter, we review current knowledge in literacy education, and make

quite specific links to the whole matter of the middle years of schooling and the young people at issue here. We then address recent empirical research and policy

and the profile of 'adolescent literacy' that emerges from such work. Finally we consider various principles and strategies for teaching literacy to young people

today, with a particular focus on the early adolescent years, the transition between primary and secondary education, and the junior high school.

Changing I iteracies Literacy is a key and enduring issue not just for the middle years phase but for

schooling more generally. That is because since the early 18th century literacy has been, and still is, central to the whole project of modern schooling. Reading and

writing are fundamental to the various practices of the modern school, such as assessment and grading, and also to learning itself. Texts, and 'textbooks', have

always figured heavily in what happens in schools, from the earliest reading books through to those commonly found in the content areas, and from the early

School Readers through to the 'Great Books' studied in literature classes. It is

perhaps more accurate to say that schooling is crucially organised by speech and writing, and hence in terms of their associated social relations and social practices. Until very recently the focus has been on print texts and print literacy -print culture.

However, that situation is now changing. We see all around us evidence of a broad shift from 'print' to 'digital electronics', as the dominant shaping principle of

contemporary social existence. A new era is already consolidating itself, a new phase of social, cultural and economic organisation. This involves different ways of being and becoming, different forms of life, of identity. Digital technologies are

crucial in this regard, as are more broadly new forms and intensities of media culture and practice. Literacy itself is changing. Increasingly it is referred to as a

plurality ('literacies'), to signify the very different textualities that are now in circu­lation and, generally speaking, the proliferation of messages and communications

of various kinds and in a range of modalities. The world around us is very different: media-saturated, and technologically textured- what has been described as a dramatically changed and changing semiotic landscape (Kress 2003).

How can we best understand the concept of literacy, then? Traditionally,

literacy has been seen as more or less simply reading and writing, or the decoding

and encoding of written and printed texts. Moreover, it has been seen as an individual matter, and as referring to the set of largely psychological skills that a

person acquires, thereafter being regarded as literate. Literacy in this view is a 'thing', a state of being, and essentially neutral. Individuals first learn literacy -how to read and write-usually in early childhood or the early years of schooling,

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years 189

and then, having acquired this overall capacity, the so-called 'basics', they thereafter use this literacy to learn: that is the common assumption. It is easy to see

why, in such a view, the literacy needs of adolescents might have been neglected, or overlooked, although it might also make us think again about the policy

distinction between 'child literacy' and 'adult literacy'. Furthermore, literacy has traditionally been seen as necessarily linked to schooling, and understood as

primarily, if not exclusively, a matter of formal teaching and learning. 'Child literacy' equates, in a sense, with 'school literacy'. This involves another, further

articulation with assessment, or the 'test paradigm', as it has been called (Cook­Gumperz 1986, p. 37). Literacy, schooling, assessment: from here, it is easy to see

the ready connection with measurement technologies and with standardised

testing, which is arguably the dominant perspective today, certainly in policy terms. Moreover, this also enables a movement from thinking in terms solely of

the individual to taking due account of the population as well, with regard to measuring and assessing literacy.

What has emerged relatively recently is a concerted emphasis on understanding literacy as a form of situated social practice. This counterview -

increasingly described as the New Literacy Studies - sees literacy not as 'autonomous', or socially neutral, but as ideological, as invested with power, and caught up in culture and history. Literacy is a social practice, as is learning

literacy. As Barton and Hamilton (2000) write:

Shifting away from literacy as an individual attribute is one of the most important implications of a practice account of literacy, and one of the ways

in which it differs most from more traditional accounts (p. 13).

Moreover, 'social practices are more usefully understood as existing in the relations between people, with groups and communities, rather than a set of properties residing in individuals'. Hence literacy, like all social practices

'straddle[ s] the distinction between individual and social worlds' (Barton &

Hamilton 2000, p. 8). It becomes important therefore to go beyond a narrowly

psychological understanding of literacy to one that embraces a more sociological

and sociocultural account. What counts as literacy, for whom, and to what ends, become important questions to ask. For Carrington (2006, p. 159), a particularly

crucial point here is 'the belief that literacy practices are inherently political- that they are linked to issues of power, identity, inclusion and exclusion'. Linking literacy and power in this fashion changes the game quite considerably, and has

striking implications for teachers and teaching. There are two further points to take into account in this context. One is that

traditional views of literacy are print-centric, even print-bound. They developed

in concert with and arguably under the influence of what has been called the print apparatus, the confluence of print technology and the publishing industry,

190 ! Section Four Teaching Practice and Theory

and their associated cultural forms and practices. As noted above, a shift is

underway currently, from 'print' to 'digital-electronics', with the emergence and consolidation of new technologies of information, communication and image. There is a need to understand the new forms of literacy that are appearing on the scene, inside as well as outside of school. The other point follows on from the

discussion of literacy practices above. Barton and Hamilton (2000, p. 1 0) stress the need to acknowledge that there are very clearly now, in fact, 'different literacies',

rather than a singular literacy. They describe 'literacies' as 'coherent

configurations of literacy practices', and assert that 'there are different literacies associated with different domains of life' (Barton & Hamilton 2000, p. 1 0-11).

The examples they give include 'workplace literacy' and 'academic literacy', but

it might be just as appropriate to posit 'adolescent literacy' as a distinctive form

of literacy. The issue then becomes, firstly, what is it that constitutes adolescence as a distinctive 'domain of life', and secondly, how best to understand the distinctive form of literacy that is in question here, and it is to these matters that

we now turn.

What literacy practices characterise new Millennia! adolescents' experience?

To refer to adolescence as a 'domain' of life is perhaps misleading. However, it makes more sense when we recall the established categories, in Australia at least,

of 'child literacy' and 'adult literacy', organised around the categories of childhood and adulthood, respectively. These categories can be understood as referring not just to certain distinctive periods in the human lifespan, admittedly

drawn somewhat arbitrarily, and culturally specific - even, to some extent, ethnocentric. They are also seen as referring to distinctive types (or 'stages') of

personhood, the first supposedly still developing and still quite heavily dependent, and the second more or less autonomous and completed.

Furthermore, each is characteristically associated, with certain places or contexts, and certain institutions, that in a way shape or even define them -the

'school', for instance, on the one hand, and the 'workplace' on the other. The same can be said of adolescence, and of adolescents: young people tend to

identify with and to assemble in their own places, in and out of school, and to have their own interests and associations, their own distinctive cultures. There

are, often, overlappings in this regard but the point remains that, however fragile the category itself might be, there would seem some definite sense in

which 'adolescence' marks out a distinctive space, at least discursively, and an

associated form of life (Reed et al. 2004 ).

What, then, might be seen as the 'coherent configuration [ . . . ] of literacy practices' that makes up so-called adolescent literacy? What are the literacy

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years 19 1

practices that characterise this particular social grouping? In what ways are they

distinctive with regard to those associated with younger children or those we identify as adults (and presumably as citizens and workers)? This is a matter for

empirical investigation, and it must be said that such work is relatively limited at present. That is because, until quite recently, as already noted, there has not

seemed to be much need for research in this area- the assumption being, on the one hand, that literacy was something distinct and readily knowable, as well as being learnt early in (school) life, and on the other, that there wasn't much different and distinctive about the adolescent years in this regard. That twofold

assumption is now being challenged. What does seem to be the case is that young people are more generally attuned to new technocultural changes in society, more

open to playing with new forms of media, and more readily engaged in digital­

electronic modes of meaning-making and communication. This is subject, of course, to opportunity; but even then it seems that, certainly in the more developed societies, children and teenagers are finding ways of participating to

some degree in what has been called the global-popular, the intersection of popular culture and new technology in and through networks that are

increasingly worldwide. That does not spell the end of print culture and the

traditional activities of reading and writing. What it means is that now, increasingly, teachers must be sensitive to a mix of semiotic modes and technological forms in their classrooms, and to a range of textual practices (Lankshear & Knobel 1997). Moreover, teachers must be alert to the emergence

of new forms of life in their classrooms, new populations and new generations, wired ones, 'aliens' - those who will inherit the earth (Green & Bigum 1993; Facer et al. 2003).

This is, of course, and perhaps understandably, a matter of some anxiety

among parents and others in the wider (adult) community, and one response has been to call for more surveillance and control, more regulation, one form of this

being the rise of standardised testing. Are our children becoming more literate or less literate? Are standards declining? Is there a 'literacy crisis'? How well are

young people today faring in the world of 'high stakes' testing and global grids

of ranking and accountability? We turn in the next section, therefore, to a review of recent empirical research about the current state of literacy and the associated profile of early adolescent educational achievement.

Profiling adolescent literacy

Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and

write more than at any other time in human history. They will need

advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives. They will need literacy to cope

192 Section Four Teaching Practice and Theory

with the flood of information they will find everywhere they turn. They will need literacy to feed their imaginations so they can create the world of the future (Moore et al. 1999, p. 99).

According to Carrington (2004, p. 31), 'many of the early adolescents in our upper

primary and secondary schools are disengaged and achieving below their potential'. Does this mean that the literacy standards of students in this age group

are poorer than previous generations? How do we know? In this section, the literacy standards of upper primary and early secondary age students (10 to 15

years) will be reviewed in the light of official reports on the topic. Discussion will focus on the intent of these reports, the evidence they offer, and what they leave out.

Literacy is multifaceted and involves a number of cognitive and language processes, framed within the contexts of society, culture and social interaction

(Gee 2000). Despite this, governments, education systems and schools often rely upon reductionist standardised assessments to provide much of the information

that informs decision-making, policy and curriculum design. Linn (2000, p. 4) suggests that tests and assessments have appealed to policymakers and reformers over the past 50 years because they are relatively inexpensive, can be managed

externally, implemented quickly, and provide visible results which, moreover, may be used in a variety of ways in accountability systems. But what do these

standardised tests offer? Do they provide an accurate picture of student strengths

and weaknesses in terms of the literacies that they use in their daily lives? Despite advice from people like Coffman (1993) and Linn (2000), standardised tests and assessments are regularly used as a means to compare individuals, schools,

systems, states and even countries. This would suggest that it is possible to separate cultural effects from non-cultural factors, system effects from non­

system factors, school effects from non-school factors, as well as accounting for

individual differences. This over-reliance on standardised tests may be one of the causes for the mismatch between the print-based literacy that adolescents largely experience in school and the fast-paced information flow and its associated literacies and textualities that many teenagers now enjoy outside of school vis-a­

vis electronic real-time messaging, surfing the Internet, talking on a cell phone, using portable e-books, and the countless other evolving texts and modalities (Bean & Harper 2004, p. 394).

In the following section we discuss numerous standardised assessment and reporting both to (a) provide the reader with an understanding of these widely

used reports and (b) provide a picture of literacy and Australia's young people as represented by reports that inform governments and policy developers.

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years I 193

What do international standardised assessment tests tell us?

We will begin the discussion of reports based upon standardised tests with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD 2001, 2003, 2006). The OECD PISA is an internationally standardised assessment jointly

developed by participating countries and administered to 15-year-olds in schools. The survey was implemented in 43 countries in 2000 and 41 countries in 2003,

and at least 58 countries were expected to participate in the third assessment in 2006 (OECD PISA 2006). Tests using a pen-and-paper assessment, along with a

questionnaire inviting responses to questions regarding home backgrounds, attitude to school and learning and study strategies, are typically administered to

between 4500 and 10 000 students in each country. A total of about seven hours

of test items is covered, with different students taking different combinations of test items (OECD PISA 2006). The aim of PISA is to determine young people's preparedness for the challenges that they will meet in the future, including their

ability to analyse, reason and communicate their arguments and ideas to others

(OECD PISA 2001).

PISA (OECD 2001) claims to measure reading literacy in terms of students' ability to use written information in situations that they encounter in their daily

lives, thus going beyond the traditional notion of decoding information and literal interpretation. Students are shown a range of different kinds of written

text, ranging from prose to lists, graphs and diagrams. Set tasks require students to retrieve specified information, interpret and reflect on text, thereby evaluating

what they read. The texts are set in a variety of reading situations, including reading for private use, occupational purposes, education and public use (OECD

PISA 2003, p. 34). Students are placed at different levels of proficiency (Levels 1-5) according to the difficulty of the tasks they can complete, with easier tasks

requiring basic handling of simple texts, while harder tasks involve increasing complexity and less explicit information.

In 2003, approximately 12 500 students from 321 schools around Australia participated in PISA 2003 (OECD PISA 2005). Based upon mean performance,

Australian students ranked in the top four countries, behind Finland, Korea and Canada (OECD PISA 2003, p. 35). In 2003, Australia was one of eight countries with a mean score which was significantly higher than the OECD average (the others being Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand

and Sweden) (OECD PISA 2003). In addition, 12 per cent of students in

Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Korea, New Zealand and Liechtenstein

achieved Level 5 in 2003, indicating that they are capable of sophisticated, critical thinking. In all areas tested (reading literacy, mathematical literacy, scientific

194 I Section Four Teaching Practice and Theory

literacy and problem solving), Australia ranked as one of the highest achieving countries (OECD PISA 2005). Students in Japan scored higher than Australian

students in mathematical literacy, while students in both Japan and the Republic

of Korea scored notably higher in scientific literacy. Students from the United States scored lower than Australian students in all three domains (Australian

Bureau of Statistics 2002). While national benchmarks have been introduced to provide a set of

indicators or descriptors representing nationally agreed minimum acceptable

standards for literacy (and numeracy) at Years 3, 5 and 7, Australia's education ministers have agreed that information from PISA is to be used for reporting IS­

year-old students' performance in literacy and numeracy (DEST 2006). The

PISA results have also been used to compare the various Australian states on each of the areas tested. PISA provides one way of reviewing the literacy achievements

of Australia's 15-year-olds. Another is provided by the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), which is a research program jointly managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the Common­

wealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). These surveys examine student achievement scores (for 14-year-olds) on tests of reading comprehension and mathematics from five studies conducted between 1975 and

1998 (Rothman 2002). The first three studies (1975, 1980 and 1989) used 14-year-olds in Australian

schools, most of whom were enrolled in Year 9 at the time of the study; while studies conducted in 1995 and 1998 used students in Year 9, most of whom were 14 years of age at the time (Rothman 2002). The reading comprehension tests

used were developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research and

contained a number of common test items that allowed scores on all tests to

be set on a single scale. Findings suggest little change in scores in reading comprehension between 1975 and 1998 among the subgroup of 14-year-old students, although there was a small, statistically significant decrease among the

full cohort. These findings were consistent with findings for American students over the same period (Rothman 2002). Female 14-year-olds scored 0.5 points

higher in reading comprehension in 1998 than they did in 1975, and male

students scored 0.6 lower, leading to an increase in the difference between males

and females in reading comprehension scores from 0.9 in 1975 to 2.0 in 1998 (Rothman 2002). This slight change in student achievement is in stark contrast to

the major changes that took place in Australian society and Australian education between 1975 and 1998:

• the total number of students enrolled in schools doubled;

• major reviews in secondary education were conducted;

• the retention rate to Year 12 went from 34.1 in 1975 to 73.4 in 2001; and

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years ; 195

• the number of students for whom English is not their first language increased

significantly (Rothman 2002).

What do Australian standardised assessment tests tell us?

Australian education systems also report on the success of their schools, teachers and students, using data which have been gathered using standardised assessment

tools. The New South Wales Department of Education and Training (NSW

DET) annual reports (NSW DET 2000-04) include references to both international and state-wide assessment tools. The PISA (OECD 2003) results are

used in the 2004 annual report to argue that 15-year-olds in NSW DET schools 'rank amongst the best in the world' (NSW DET 2004) in literacy achievement.

The NSW DET 2004 annual report also suggests that data gathered using NSW basic skills test (BST) for students in Year 5 showed that 93.1 per cent of Year 5

students achieved Band 3 or above in literacy in 2004 and 95.8 per cent in writing (NSW DET 2004). Data gathered using the NSW English language and literacy

assessment (ELLA) program for Years 7 and 8 demonstrated that in 2004, 95.6 per cent of Year 7 students achieved elementary standard or higher in writing, 94.1 per cent in reading and 92.5 per cent in language (NSW DET 2004). Scores for Year 8 students were even higher. The NSW DET uses these scores to

demonstrate the success of the NSW DET Literacy Strategy (1997). There is

nothing in these reports to indicate that the NSW DET is concerned about the standards of literacy achievements of 10 to 16-year-olds.

The Victorian Department of Education and Training (VIC DET) annual report for 2004-2005 discusses student achievements in terms of 'progress against

the government's targets' (VIC DET 2005), claiming that 89.6 per cent of Year 5 students achieved the national benchmark in reading in 2003 and 95.6 per cent in writing. Measurement tools are not provided and literacy achievements for

12-16-year-old students are not discussed. The Australian Capital Territory claims to have 92 per cent of Year 7 students achieving national benchmarks in

reading and 90 per cent in writing (ACT DET 2005, p. 14). Literacy standards for the other Australian states and territories may be

reviewed in the 'OECD PISA in Brief from Australia's Perspective' report (OECD PISA 2005), which can be found on the OECD website. While there is

some variation between states, Indigenous Australians were the only group to score below the OECD average in reading, mathematical literacy, scientific

literacy and problem solving. Non-Indigenous students achieved, on average,

above the OECD average (OECD PISA 2005, p. 10). A perceived drop in the standard literacy skills of young people in the 10-16-

year-old age group in Australia is blamed on many different things, including

196 j Section Four Teaching Practice and Theory

television, computer games, poor teaching, inadequate curriculum and poor

student work ethics. However, research suggests that literacy in current times is more complex than ever before, with adolescents effectively managing to operate

successfully in a world of multiliteracies. Discussions of Generation Y advise that anyone born after the 1970s plays, works and communicates in ways quite

different from their parents and grandparents. The literacy skills required to successfully communicate in the world of Generation Y are multiple, flexible and

constantly changing. Moreover, most of the community learns about educational issues through the media - a problematical source of information.

To summarise the current situation in regard to the literacy achievements of adolescents in Australia in the 21st century, then, it is important to look at the

sources of data and consider their motives and intended audience:

• The OECD PISA (2005) reports suggest that the majority of Australia's adolescents are achieving a literacy standard comparable to adolescents from other OECD countries.

• The LSAY (Rothman 2002) suggests that the majority of Australia's 14-year­

old students are achieving a literacy standard comparable to adolescents in Australia over the last three decades, although there has been a small, statistically significant decrease among the full cohort, consistent with findings for 14-year-old American students over the same period (Rothman 2002).

• The annual reports from New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory

and Victoria support the findings of the OECD PISA and LSAY, while acknowledging that a small number of students are in need of extra support.

• The Teaching Reading project identifies a problem with a minority of adolescents (DEST 2005).

Moreover, the media appear to provide two distinctly different sides to the story, while generally loading the case against a positive reading of what young people are capable of, literacy-wise - in itself, a phenomenon that has a long

history (Green, Hodgens & Luke 1996). Despite the changes now clearly underway, in terms of both culture and

economy, it would appear that young people are doing pretty well, broadly

speaking. There is no generalised 'crisis', in other words. Nonetheless, the challenge remains to provide the most appropriate and productive forms of literacy pedagogy that are currently available for those young people in our

schools today, perhaps particularly those in the middle years who, as we have already suggested, have too often been overlooked to date. In the next section,

therefore, we consider what all this means for contemporary teachers and

classrooms. In considering various principles and strategies for teaching literacy to early adolescents today, we examine how issues of early adolescent identity

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years ! 197

impact on engagement in literacy learning. We also consider the design and

alignment of appropriate curriculum, pedagogy and assessment for the middle years of schooling, and discuss the effects of the transition between primary and

secondary education, with a particular focus on the junior high school.

Teaching literacy and young people today

In Australian school systems, the teaching of literacy has been the responsibility

of all teachers for some time now, and this responsibility is reiterated in Teaching Reading (DEST 2005) where Recommendation 3 states that '[t]he Committee recommends that literacy teaching continue throughout schooling (K-12) in all

areas of the curriculum' (p. 38). The report also argues that '[t]eachers require a range of teaching strategies upon which they can draw, that meet the

developmental and learning needs of individual children' (p. 11). Teaching Reading (DEST 2005) presents literacy as an identifiable attribute of an

individual but it also understands that literacy learning continues throughout schooling, that it is 'developmental'. The report makes no specific distinctions

between students' literacy needs during different phases of schooling and offers no help with its requirement for a 'range of teaching strategies'. Despite

Carrington's (2006, p. 156) view of the middle years of schooling phase as 'a wasteland of pedagogy', elsewhere Carrington (2004, p. 30) reviews the achievements of the last decade in middle years schooling research in Australia, and argues that much has been accomplished although as 'a grassroots enterprise'

rather than at a school systems level (p. 33). There is important international research focusing on early adolescent identities (Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan 1996) and other research on middle school pedagogy and curriculum that also indicates ways to promote student engagement in the middle years of schooling (Reed et al. 2004 ).

What then do we know about early adolescent literacy as a distinctive form

of literacy? A North American report on literacy, Reading Next (Snow 2004),

focuses on the middle years of schooling. This report argues that ' [ e ]nsuring adequate ongoing literacy development for all students in the middle and high school years is a more challenging task than ensuring excellent reading education

in the primary grades' (Snow 2004, pp. 9-10). The report argues that there are two reasons for this. The first is that the skill requirements of secondary school

literacy are 'more complex, more embedded in subject matters, and more

multiply determined' (Snow 2004, p. 10) than those of the primary school.

Australian research supports this argument (Christie 1998). The second reason

offered in Reading Next is that 'adolescents are not as universally motivated to

read better or as interested in school-based reading as kindergartners' (Snow 2004, p. 10). Australian research mirrors this, finding that 'alienation and

198 Section Four Teaching Practice and T heory

disengagement' are common attributes of students in this phase of schooling (Carrington 2004, p. 31). Carrington (2004, p. 30) also finds that Australian research routinely treats student literacy as the 'litmus test' for the 'engagement and achievement' of middle years students. We argue that understanding

literacies, and literacy learning, in terms of social practices is an important step towards reshaping literacy teaching and learning in the middle years. If we go further and link literacy and power, there are clear imperatives for refining our middle years teaching practices.

Understanding issues around the maturation of early adolescent learners clearly assists with identifying desirable pedagogical practices and curriculum for

the middle years of schooling. It has long been known that effective teaching requires the alignment of pedagogy and curriculum with assessment (Bernstein

1971; Carrington 2004; Snow 2004). While issues of early adolescent identity work

can guide changes in the middle years of schooling with regard to curriculum and pedagogy, research finds that assessment can be improved by attending to what is already known in terms of assessment theory and practice. Research into

assessment practices in the middle years finds that assessment is often an afterthought, rather than being integral to programming (Carrington 2004, p. 37).

What pedagogical principles should underpin adolescent I iteracy teaching?

The middle years research suggests learning outcomes are maximised by

teaching that is responsive to student needs, is student-centred, and where

curriculum and assessment are negotiated with students (Reed et al. 2004, p. 254). The MYRAD project (DET 2002), along with other research on the middle

years, finds that teaching programs, across the curriculum, should provide for differentiated literacy learning. That is, programs must allow for individual differences in students' interests and achievements, and cultural and community

literacy practices. Some students need guided reading instruction with particular texts, while other students may read and comprehend them readily. The learning

of those students whose first language is not English can be scaffolded in guided teaching situations, to assist with the learning of vocabulary, genres, and the

language structures and features of texts (DET 2002). Other collaborative tasks requiring a team approach are important, where roles are allocated on a skill or

personal preference basis, and responsibility for achieving the learning goals is shared equally by all members of the group.

While explicit teaching is essential, it is imperative that students have

opportunities to demonstrate their engagement with the required literacy

learning. Observational learning, teacher modelling and demonstrations are effective teaching/learning practices when they are followed by tasks that allow

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years I 199

students to build their skills, knowledge and understandings in independent work. If, as we have argued, schooling is indeed organised around speech and

writing, then environments where everyone is productive in talking about learning are essential. Students need to be engaged in real dialogue, in situations where they are allowed time to offer full explanations or arguments and where

student-with-student discussion flourishes. This means that, in whole-class discussions, talk does not emanate only from the teacher and that classroom talk moves beyond the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) format that educational

researchers typically record in classroom talk (Anstey 2003, p. 107). Discussion­'substantive conversation' (Carrington 2004, p. 39) - needs to occur in

heterogeneous group environments, in collaborative learning and in workshop situations. Teachers must plan for such activities and be 'explicit about why they

are asking students to work in small groups and also ensure that the guidelines

and conventions of such work are clear and specific' (Baxter 2004, p. 193).

Classrooms should display models of the texts that are the focus of literacy learning. The students' texts, too, should be on display as demonstrations of literacy

competence. Digitally, blogs can be shared to achieve an audience for developing literacy competencies. Literacy practices have always been tied to technologies of

production, and so a multimedia environment is essential in the new-millennial classroom. As the repertoire of means of textual production expands from print to

digital-electronic, a concurrent shift must occur in the kinds of texts under examination and being produced in literacy learning (Kress 2003). Student

production of such texts, and groups of texts, should involve school-community partnerships wherever possible, so that links with real-world literacy contexts and

practices are forged (Newman & Associates 1996, cited in Carrington 2004, p. 36). Extensive planning is required for such text-composing and text-production

projects, but the resulting levels of student engagement in, and responsibility for, products is high. The audience(s) for the reception of their text(s) must be clear for

students from the outset. The explicit teaching of skills and knowledge also needs to be well-paced so that students can plan what they can achieve from the means of

production at their disposal, in the time frame available to them. Teachers need pedagogical principles and strategies to assist students to learn

subject literacies and technoliteracies. Barton and Hamilton's (2000, pp. 10-11) formulation of'coherent configurations of literacy practices' must be kept in mind

as policy makers and teachers make decisions about which of the different literacies associated with various 'domains of life' should be the legitimate focus of

classroom programs. Gee (2003, p. 5) argues that the literate practices of reading, writing, talking and listening require us to have knowledge of the 'various objects,

tools, technologies, sites, institutions' that coordinate our activities, and hence

teachers must know about and implement strategies so that 'the more complex,

the more embedded' (Snow 2004, p. 10) knowledge contained in the language and

200 Section Four Teaching Practice and T heory

texts of the secondary school disciplines is accessible to all students. Young people

being born into the digital-electronic world are competent to play with new forms of media for meaning-making and communication and the texts of popular

culture (Carrington 2004, p. 38). Pedagogical models such as those outlined in Stewart-Dore (2003, pp. 161-80) and Unsworth (2001) assist with programming

for teaching/learning about multimodal texts.

What else needs to change significantly in order to effectively promote the literacy learning of all adolescents?

The MYRAD project (DET 2002) not only identified concerns about curriculum

content, but also demonstrated the need to examine the intellectual quality of the learning undertaken by students. A constructivist method of learning was

favoured, as was a pedagogy that allowed students responsibility in designing the curriculum, including its processes and assessment. Most significantly, middle

years teaching programs need to present students with opportunities to undertake complex, rich and authentic tasks. Teaching programs most

significantly must be adjusted to allow the necessary time for deep learning and textual production. This necessitates a reduction in curriculum content and

promotes a teaching-learning structure that encourages multidisciplinary problem-solving tasks. Barratt (1998, cited in Carrington 2004, p. 34) argues that

the content of the middle years curriculum should be distinct and not just a reshaping of primary curriculum, nor a less challenging version of senior

secondary school curriculum. This is consistent with arguments that establish early adolescence as a distinct 'domain of life'.

The Middle Years Literacy Project (Culican, Emmitt & Oakley 2001) has two other key findings about middle years curriculum. Programs must create

structured opportunities for metacognition, reflection and self-assessment. There needs to be a common language ('metalanguage') for talking about literacy development and a unified approach to literacy teaching and learning across the

curriculum areas. The MYRAD project (DET 2002) also identified the need to integrate thinking and learning skills across core learning areas and found that

the inclusion of thinking skills into teaching involved changes in teachers'

practices, requiring new knowledge and skills and challenges to 'one's understanding of what it means to be a teacher' (Key Message 8). Indeed, the project found that teaching and learning practices in the classroom are 'the most critical area', and that change has been slow in this area (Key Message 10.1). (We

note here that critique of much middle years of schooling research- for instance,

Whitehead [2000] - argues that this work constructs a deficit view of teachers.

The view is also often highly gendered in terms of the traditional gender roles

and relations in the field of primary and secondary education.)

Chapter 10 Literacy, adolescence and schooling; or a challenge in the middle years 20 1

Assessment is an area that middle years research finds particularly

problematic in teaching/learning programs. One study suggested that there was a lack of 'assessment literacy' among middle years teachers (Lingard et al. 2002,

cited in Carrington 2004, p. 36). Assessment should be planned in the initial stages of negotiating literacy programs (Edwards-Groves 2003, p. 56). It must be

designed to direct students' learning and to inform the evaluation of the teaching program. It should assist students in developing their understanding of the

processes of composing and responding to academic resources. Assessment must be differentiated and, where possible, negotiated with students. Students need to

play some part in their own assessment so that they accept responsibility for their learning, and so it is important to have students reflect, in writing and talking, on

their progress (Culican, Emmitt & Oakley 2001). Information provided about a

student by state testing regimes, such as those discussed above, is most useful when it feeds into and is integrated with the ongoing literacy profile developed by classroom assessment (Edwards-Groves 2003, p. 57).

Conclusion

In this chapter we have aimed to provide an account of the literacy practices, demands and conditions pertaining to teaching and learning in the context of the

middle years of schooling. Working with the notion of 'adolescent literacy' - a relatively new category, arguably as problematical as that of 'adolescence' itself­

we have sought to link this to available profiles in the public realm, notably those associated with large-scale testing schemes. We have then looked more specifically

at what the implications and challenges might be for classrooms and schools, and hence for teachers and their students. The result, hopefully, is a more informed understanding of literacy, schooling and young people today and tomorrow.

5. Identify some of the factors that, over time, may cause statistical variation to the findings in

longitudinal studies of skills such as literacy. Explain how each of these factors might have

changed since 1998.

6. Do the findings from public standardised testing and assessments such as PISA and

BST/ELLA provide proof of a definitive improvement or decline in the standards of student

literacy achievement? Why?

7. Snow (2004, p. 10) states that the requirements for secondary school literacy are 'more

complex' than those needed in the primary school. What arguments does Snow advance to

support her claim? Do you agree with Snow? Find examples from your own experiences

to illustrate or refute her argument.

8. Research identifies particular strategies that enhance the design of teaching/learning

programs for the middle years of schooling. Make a list of the strategies that make a

difference in the planning phase, the teaching phase and the assessment phase.

9. What does Gee (2003, p. 5) mean when he suggests that we - teachers and students - must

have knowledge of the 'various objects, tools, technologies, sites [and) institutions' that

shape our lives? To support your answer, explain each of the items in Gee's list.

10. What is meant by an 'authentic task'? Undertake some further research if you are unsure.

Explain what an 'authentic task' might include in order to develop adolescent literacy skills.

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