10.4225/03/599101812c20f
Douglas McClenaghan
Douglas
McClenaghan
Popular culture as curriculum : adolescent literacy practices and secondary English
Monash University
2017
English language
Popular culture
Study and teaching (Secondary)
2017-08-14 01:48:47
Thesis
https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/thesis/Popular_culture_as_curriculum_adolescent_literacy_practices_and_secondary_English/5306626
In this thesis I explore the ways in which students are able
to draw on their out of school popular cultural and literacy practices to
challenge conventional understandings of subject English. It is based on
practitioner research conducted by me with secondary English students in my
classrooms.
<p>The study is informed by theoretical positions and prior
research into popular culture and secondary English. I use these perspectives
to re-frame English curriculum and pedagogy in terms of the kinds of social relationships
and networks that students develop beyond school, particularly in their
engagement with popular culture. The literacy practices that students engage in
beyond school provide challenges to dominant understandings of English
curriculum and pedagogy. Research exploring the interface between adolescents’
out of school literacy practices and the English classroom suggest that
conventional conceptions of literacy are outdated and limiting vis-s-vis the
diversity of literacy practices students engage with in their everyday lives.</p>
<p>Informed by these perspectives my research focused on
examining ways in which students in my English classrooms could draw on their
out of school literacy practices when undertaking conventional tasks. I sought
to understand how they used such literacy practices to create understanding and
meaning while fulfilling the requirements of the English curriculum. I examined
student work samples produced in these classrooms, describing the contexts in
which they were produced and the significance of each text. At the same time, I
describe my professional learning as I set about exploring the semiotic
potential of popular culture in my classroom, reviewing my existing practices
as an English teacher, and reconceptualising the role of English within the
curriculum and the lives of my students.</p>
<p>The study finds that students’ uses of their out of school
literacy practices provide a means of reconceptualising subject English as
grounded in the social and cultural networks and relationships that student are
engaged in, and where knowledge and meaning are socially constructed. It
demonstrates an alternative pedagogy where teacher and student are co-learners
and co-constructors of knowledge.</p>