Towards a grammar for the 21st Century
Pauline Jones and Joan Phillip *
Charles Sturt University Bathurst NSW 2795
Australia

Abstract

One aspect of this paper reports on the early implementation of the ‘text-based’ grammar requirements of the current NSW primary English syllabus (1998) in an inner Sydney school. The school has been included in a governmental program for ‘disadvantaged’ schools because of socio-economic features of the areas. There is also a high proportion of students from non-English speaking backgrounds. The research reported in this paper has been funded by that program and follows an action research model; although in the longer term we aim for a richer ethnographic study of the school. The other aspect of the paper follows the nexus of the syllabus requirements with the political imperatives of a NSW governmental literacy policy which was introduced in 1997 and is in a developmental process.

The syllabus in question was a revision of a previous syllabus which has been based on functional grammar and the paper briefly outlines the historical and political controversies associated with the changes to the grammar requirements of the syllabus. Although functional grammar was disfavoured in the revision we argue that the grammatical compromises of the syllabus have meant that the syllabus has been received positively by the community in general and teachers in particular, while maintaining much of the flexibility of functional grammar as a tool for understanding the relationship between texts and cultural contexts: the relationship between texts and the reproduction of cultural patterns and dynamics.

We describe the scope and sequence of the grammar presented in the syllabus and identify its nexus with governmental literacy strategies through the concept of ‘critical literacy’ which is acknowledged in the syllabus and in the governmental literacy policies. We concede the changing understandings of the term ‘critical literacy’ but have argued that it should include a method of reading ideologically to understand both the significance of textual representations and how readers might be positioned in complex ways. This approach is shown to be within the parameters of the syllabus and governmental policies. That it is achievable through the application of the text-based grammar outlined in the NSW primary school syllabus is indicated in our description of Year 4 students using grammatical analysis to trace an Aboriginal woman’s developing sense of ‘agency’ and to understand the relationship between grammatical choices and representations of power.

We argue, from our Australian experience, that even for very young children a socio-cultural grammar offers a significant dimension to the concept of literacy and that as we move towards the 21st Century finding ways of adapting functional grammar for school situations is important.

Part 1
The context of K-6 English syllabus development in New South Wales 1994 - 1998
This paper may well have been entitled, ‘Grammatical terminology – Does it matter?’ Of course, you might imagine the ‘answer’ to such a question would have been equivocal: ‘In some ways, yes; and in some ways, no.’ Nevertheless one aspect of this paper is about contestation over grammatical terminology in a Kindergarten to Year 6 English syllabus. But the contestation became much more than a matter of terminology. It became an endeavour to maintain a text-based grammar which is not just descriptive but explanatory; a grammar which is a tool for reading and writing texts within the context of cultural ideologies and practices . That is, within a concept of critical literacy which our research suggests has the potential to engage quite young students with the politics of their community in remarkable ways. This, in turn, raises ethical issues for teachers, which are to be discussed later in the paper; but for now, suffice to say that in giving up most of the terminology specific to functional grammar the syllabus designers addressed the problems of terminology which distracted the community from real pedagogical issues. In moments of hubris some of us whisper that we lost the battle but won the war. We whisper this in the knowledge of the dangers of such metaphors (Kamler 1996). However, we understand that curricula are inevitably sites of contestation and that if a syllabus is to have any possibility of implementation then competing discourses, theories, beliefs and attitudes must somehow be accommodated. In a pluralist society a syllabus is necessarily heteroglossic; at least our experience in NSW suggests so.

 

What happened in NSW was that from 1988 a new syllabus was in process of development. There were several drafts and intensive consultation with selected panels and forums. The processes were complicated by the politicisation of syllabus development in the Education Reform Act (1990) which vested final responsibility for syllabus development with the State Minister for Education. The publications of a National Statement on English teaching and a National Profile of English teaching (1993) further complicated the processes of the syllabus development as the relationships between national and state documents were debated. Even though in July 1991 the Syllabus Committee had unanimously adopted ‘the functional approach to language’ (NSW Board of Studies 1996: 76) there were continued demands for various models from a ‘whole language’ model, to ‘back to basics skills model’. As well there was the pressure for inclusion of National ‘outcomes’ as the basis for the syllabus (NSW Board of Studies 1996: 79). In 1993 the Syllabus Committee requested clarification and the Minister gave an undertaking to use the National Profiles in ‘all NSW syllabus documents’ (NSW Board of Studies 1996: 79).

In 1994 a syllabus drawing upon National Documents and based on functional grammar was published. Perhaps some of the competing voices felt cheated, silenced, confused. After all a ‘whole language approach’ had dominated many teachers’ thinking for some time; and for years there was a kind of fear about direct, explicit, teaching which was thought of, probably mistakenly, as a ‘transmission’ model, as opposed to an ‘interpretation’ model (Barnes 1976/1992: 185-187, Barnes and Shemilt 1974). In any case the result was some community outcry, fostered in many ways by the media which criticized the syllabus for its incomprehensible ‘jargon’ (such as ‘participant’, process and ‘circumstance’). What, after all was wrong with ‘noun’ and ‘verb’? Figgis (1995) in conversation with Christie and Williams reflected those debates as Hope (1996) later attempted to summarize them.

Certainly many teachers were disturbed, often before they had even given themselves time to familiarize themselves with the grammar requirements of the syllabus. In NSW primary schools grammar teaching, even of the most traditional, de-contextualized kind, had not been mandatory since 1974. A small study (O’Neill and Phillip 1994), conducted within a few months of the publication of the 1994 syllabus suggested that teachers felt inadequate. This sense of inadequacy was intensified by the media reactions mentioned above. It was a frustrating period based on vague ideas of the past, as Williams indicated:

Media reports, and the political policies in which they frequently result, often suggest that useful directions for literacy education policy are to be found in imaginary visions of learning and teaching which are located in the halcyon days of nobody’s youth (Williams 1998: 18). Besides the new grammar there were many aspects of the syllabus which were challenging and demanding. The complexities of levels and numbers of outcomes required, together with methods of assessing and reporting disturbed teachers; however, we are focusing specifically upon the grammar requirement which was supported by A Handbook of Grammar. The implementation of all the requirements of the syllabus itself was supported by an expensive program of professional development based on ‘a train the trainer’ model. Unfortunately the person delivering the grammar training often had but a little postgraduate study in functional grammar and found it difficult to answer questions beyond the script. The explanation of the grammar in the syllabus and the purpose it was to serve also had limitations. Thus, although there was an acknowledgement that, ‘[w]ithin the context of culture particular beliefs, values, attitudes and ways of thinking about the world motivate choices from the language system (NSW Board of Studies 1994 a: 4) there was no indication in either the Syllabus or the ‘Grammar Handbook’ how functional grammar might be used to examine such cultural dynamics. Functional Grammar was presented as an essentially descriptive tool: ‘This syllabus is based on a functional view of language which provides a comprehensive description of how language works’ (NSW Board of Studies 1994 a: 6). Thus ‘linguistic features’ of text types, together with the generic ‘stages’ of culturally valued texts are to be identified by the students so that they might achieve some ‘control’ of the genre. The application of the grammar was very much about ‘modelling’ various text types. So, in the ‘teaching about texts’ section of the 1994 syllabus a re-telling of the fairy story, Hansel and Gretel (Grimm/Browne 1994) was used to illustrate strategies for teaching about narrative texts, by identification of ‘linguistic features and structures’. The grammatical annotations of the text are: There are positive aspects of this approach for it makes explicit the elements of text types which can be used as a scaffold for students ‘ writing but really these strategies were more applicable to writing than to reading practices. It is probably fair to say that the 1994 K-6 English Syllabus represents a particular historical view of critical literacy, as outlined in a major national study of the preparation of literacy teachers in Australia: To learn to function effectively in one’s society is to learn to handle the language patterns, of the text, genres or discourses in which socially valued meanings are made (Christie et al 1991: xii) In this report, ‘A Report on a Project of National Significance’, there was attention to the critique of textual practices but, more emphasis was given to the social nature of language use and a contrast drawn between this model of literacy and previous models which had been based on the ‘personal’ and the ‘individual’.

This model of critical literacy and the distinctions drawn between previous models of English teaching set a foundation for the transformation of English teaching in the 1990’s. The stress on the ‘personal’ in the previous English teaching models meant that much English teaching encouraged anecdotal connections with texts which encouraged a kind of solipsism. Christie (1995, 1999) has critiqued the way the ‘personal’ approach to the teaching of a novel treats characters as though they are ‘real’; the role of representation in cultural dynamics, in cultural reproduction – or disruption - is thus rendered invisible. Furthermore, teachers’ interventions in shaping the values, beliefs and behaviours of students also remain invisible, naturalised. In contrast an understanding of the relationships between the cultural, the social and the individual presents a way of making visible the dynamics of discursive formations as they circulate within cultural texts including within our own speaking and writing. It is not that we are thus immune to the ideologies which shape those discursive formations, those discourses, a view of critical literacy reportedly held by some contemporary educators (Christie and Misson 1998); such a view would be akin to the Marxist concept of ‘false consciousness’ (Threadgold in Threadgold and Cranny-Francis 1990:18). As Threadgold argues, there is no ‘outside’ of cultural processes; we are always ‘sexually, socially and historically positioned speaking subjects, who are subjected to and constructed in and through signifying networks of power and desire’ (Threadgold 1990 in Threadgold and Cranny-Francis 1990: 14). As we always live within semiosis our speaking and behaving will be inflected by the discourses and epistemes (Foucault 1980) of our culture; we will be ‘hailed’ (Althusser 1969) in some ways by the ideologies of texts, but not necessarily deterministically. Understanding that we are inevitably in-dwellers of semiosis does not preclude our opening discursive processes (including our own) and their material origins, to scrutiny and evaluation. Rather it makes ongoing critique necessary if we are to disrupt practices, including epistemologies, which maintain social inequities. Thus it becomes possible to open positions of conscious resistance and transformation. Such a view of critical literacy is, of course, highly political and therefore raises ethical issues for teachers as they teach that texts are inflected by the institutionalized dynamics of power.

A syllabus for the 21st Century, we argue, should be able to deal with these complexities.

However representation of critical literacy in the 1994 syllabus was really based on a labelling of grammatical features. It is possible to understand the severe criticisms of the functional grammar of the syllabus (Lohrey 1994) in which functional grammar, as a theory of language was disputed. It is also possible to understand that the Syllabus designers simplified fundamental aspects of the grammar because of its purpose and audience. There was attention to the social foundation of language, but, understandably, no attention to the behavioural foundation of grammatical categories (Halliday 1973: 31). Some essential elements of functional grammar were mentioned so vaguely that a teacher, even with the knowledge of traditional grammar, could not have understood the meaning. So the syllabus states that language is a system but although choice is mentioned in the context of language as a system, the semantic load of those terms, and their relationship, was not clarified. Even the term, Participants, was used in a very loose way; that it is to do with a grammatical relationship and not just general entities in the content of a text was never clear in the documents. A question as basic as ‘Who did what to whom?’ was not included. That the examples given of the Participant element were all associated with ‘one participant processes’ suggests the limitations of explanations of the Participant:

 
human Girls and boys must go to school.
non-human Trees provide shade from the sun.
concrete The buildings were destroyed.
abstract Love conquers all.
specific The dog barked all night.
Non-specific A banana is a healthy fruit.
 

(NSW Board of Studies 1994 b: 11).

Hence, for example, the power of the female characters in the Anthony Browne re-telling of Hansel and Gretel, which, as indicated above, was annotated for classroom use in the ‘Support Documents’, was not an issue in the reading. That both the disruption of harmony and its re-establishment are driven by the female characters in subject (agentive) roles is not noted. Thus discourses to do with males being, for good or ill, at the mercy of females are left invisible; thus these social roles remain ‘natural’.

But, in spite of the limitations of the grammatical explanations in the Syllabus and Support documents, given time, given professional development, teachers’ understanding of the grammar would have been extended. We might have hoped for this; after all, the previous Syllabus had been untouched for twenty years. Professional development, as we have indicated, was under way on a broad scale, media attention was diminishing. However, there was a change of government.

The new Premier was obviously influenced by negative media representations of teacher and community reactions to the syllabus and saw the possibility of some political kudos in rescuing teachers from what he believed to be unclear, difficult, grammatical ‘jargon’. His memory of his own school days, with its Latinate grammar lessons, was mooted as the desirable model for today’s classroom. Probably there was also some political ‘lobbying’ on the part of academics who came from a different approach to English teaching. For some years in Australia there had been debate (Reid 1987), often strident, over the relative merits of ‘personal growth’- ‘whole language’ models of English pedagogy and models which are genre-based. In the 1994 K-6 English Syllabus a genre model had been instituted.

The ensuing Australian events indicate the potential for curriculum development to be an ongoing site of contestation. Voices and beliefs which are marginalised or silenced in one document do not just vanish. Those of us who, perhaps from different pedagogical perspectives and interests, saw the applicability of Functional Grammar in the classroom judged our 1994 syllabus with its ‘Grammar handbook’ as a leap into the present. Yet, within a few months of the publication of the syllabus the new Premier had interrupted in-servicing schedules and set up a committee to review the English Syllabus. The Committee, chaired by Professor Ken Eltis, became known as the ‘Eltis Review’. Professor Eltis did not see a leap forward; in a later reflection he wrote:

early in 1995…I came face to face with the consequences of hastily imposed curriculum reform (Eltis 1999: 1). It is important to realize that the development of the 1994 document had begun in 1988. Over the next six years there had been several drafts, there was extensive consultation, the Syllabus Committee was representative of different interests, as was the consultative group of ‘critical friends’ and teachers. During the developmental stage of the curriculum there was a change from a ‘language experience’ pedagogical model to a ‘functional approach’ but that was to do consultations; it was a recognition of contemporary educational practices which teachers were finding supported children’s literacy development. For example, some metropolitan schools which had been given special support because of their socio-economic situation were identifying dramatic improvements in students’ literacy (Hammond 1989). The penultimate draft was distributed to every primary school in the state and also submitted for community consultation. Consultation Forums, involving teachers and parents, were arranged in every Region throughout the state. That draft included what has become known as ‘the functional approach’ together with functional grammar terminology. How this process and its chronology might be called ‘hasty’ is impossible to understand. It only makes sense within a context of ideological dissonance.

Astonishingly in his ‘review’ Eltis wrote:

The warning…need[s] to be heeded most by those in the bureaucracies who may fall victim to the practice of setting curriculum and assessment directions for schools for reasons not necessarily based on sound educational theory and practice. This might be glossed as: theory I do not understand, or have not taken the time to understand, or do not agree with ideologically. After all, there had not been time to properly implement the syllabus and to evaluate it. And there was considerable evidence that genre based teaching was an effective model for teaching literacy (Martin and Rothery, 1985; Christie, Gray, Gray, Macken, Martin and Rothery 1990; Martin and Rothery 1993).

Eltis continued:

(Examples of this [‘setting curriculum and assessment directions for schools for reasons not necessarily based on sound educational theory and practice’] were found in the NSW Review.) Equally important is the warning to be given to those in curriculum and assessment divisions and training and development divisions, who may develop blind spots about what schools are doing and come to promote an agenda which may be more their own than one designed in the best interests of schools, teachers, or of the community more generally (Eltis 1999: 3). Although in his reflections Eltis argues that his conclusions were borne out by the later Board of Studies Review there are two matters which suggest his assertion is dubious:
  1. The Review followed so closely upon the publication of the Syllabus that teachers were still uncertain about the requirements of the Syllabus. Some teachers had not yet received the necessary professional development. There is no doubt the teachers were challenged. The study mentioned previously (O’Neill & Phillip 1994) which included a series of professional development workshops in Functional Grammar, over three weeks, began very negatively. As the presenter I felt the teachers were blaming me, hating me, because they had to struggle with such new material. However, by the end of the program, the teachers were generally positive and confident, accepting that there was time to familiarize themselves with the requirements of Functional Grammar. We had explored ways of teaching the metalanguage and they felt they could move from their work with texts into the grammar requirements of the Syllabus. The Premier and the Review interrupted this process. By the time of the NSW Board of Studies Review (1996) the implementation of the grammar had been thoroughly disrupted and negative views had been disseminated; hence we might conclude problems with the grammar were as much a feature of the interruption as of real issues of implementation.
  2. The New South Wales Board of Studies Review (1996), which was based on extensive research, presents a different picture from the one Eltis has indicated supports his position. The Review of the Board found:
The terminology of the functional approach undoubtedly caused concern for about one third of those responding. (Added emphasis) There was also evidence that once teachers began to understand how to work with a functional approach the terminology became less daunting:   Teachers receptive to the approach were also becoming comfortable with the terminology. (Facilitator)   I was intimidated by the grammar. I studied it, read about it, put it into my own language. After a while I found I wanted to use the new terms. So I’ve gone back to them and I’m gradually introducing them. The kids find it easy. It’s harder for me. (Teacher)   Kids certainly have no problem with ‘participants’. (Teacher)   …[The] new terminology [is] more relevant to children – difficult for teachers. (Teacher)   Children don’t appear to have any difficulty with the terminology at all – they actually enjoy playing with the language. Terms become easier and clearer with usage. (Teacher)

The students have no problems with terms. Often the terminology assists in students remembering the functions of parts of text. (Teacher)

I like that terminology because it really explains how language works and you can use it to work with kids on their writing and work with them on other aspects of their language and how to use it…(Teacher) (NSW Board of Studies 1996: 40-46).

 Of course there were negative statements, too; the point is only from about one third of a sample which included over two thousand teachers, and over five hundred parents and other members of the community, including academics. Distorted interpretations, instances of people hearing what they wanted to hear, rather than heeding the data actually collected, are to do with the emotional field generated by the introduction of Functional Grammar and its associated pedagogies and political alignments. The Board’s Review noted: The views expressed by teachers were often coloured with emotive responses which ranged from strong support to scepticism, and anger (NSW Board of Studies 1996: 44). It is also important to note that the Eltis Review Committee’s brief was to do with general aspects of curriculum development together with a consideration of methods of ‘reporting and profiling’ and the use of an ‘outcomes’ framework which had been introduced in our national documents. There was thus considerable surprise for those of us working upon the implementation of the Syllabus when the Eltis Committee ‘submitted to the Minister’ ‘that the existing syllabus continue to be implemented in 1996 and 1997, with Functional Grammar no longer being mandatory’, and further that the Board of Studies ‘review the use of ‘Functional Grammar’ in English K-6 with a view to: - supporting the functional approach to language that underpins the syllabus

- replacing the ‘Functional Grammar’ terminology with conventional terminology (Board of Studies 1996: 10) (Emphasis added)

 ‘[W]ith a view to’ realised a command: there was never any question of anyone’s choice, other than the Premier’s. The members of the Board of Studies were, we think it not an exaggeration to say, highly sensitive to the Premier’s wishes, to what he would or wouldn’t accept, to what he would, or wouldn’t, find fitting in a K-6 English syllabus. So we were set the task of using ‘conventional’ terminologies; but we were left with that vague term ‘a functional approach’. We could, to ourselves, call it a ‘functional theory’; that theory was already in place with the study of ‘text types’; teachers were comfortable with teaching ‘text types’ and understood how the social context and textual purpose shape textual practice. They really were not so aware of the meaning of ‘context of culture’, although it was mentioned in the 1994 document in terms of ‘[w]ithin the context of culture particular beliefs, values, attitudes and ways of thinking about the world motivate choices from the language system (NSW Board of Studies 1994a: 4), there was nothing in the 1994 syllabus that led teachers directly to an ideological critical literacy based on Functional Grammar. As we have indicated, by the time we were developing the ‘revised’ syllabus the possibilities of a socially critical literacy were being explored and disseminated at conferences, in publications and in pre-service and postgraduate courses. We actually thought we could make the grammar of the new syllabus a very flexible analytical tool to support a socially critical literacy. For example, the limitations of the term ‘participant’, as it had been represented in the 1994 might be redressed by introducing the idea of ‘semantic roles’ such as ‘doer’, ‘done to’, ‘sayer’. But if the Syllabus Advisory Committee pushed too far we were reminded of our parameters and what ‘the Board’- Premier, Media, even teachers - would, or wouldn’t accept. Types of verbs seemed acceptable; and we were able to keep ‘‘theme’/ of clause’ (surely no-one could object to the two words ‘theme’ and ‘clause’- they are so safely conventional words) and that allowed the Writing Team to present the concepts of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ within the heading ‘theme of clause’.

But as we began to take some comfort in being able to translate the analytical potential of Functional Grammar concepts into ‘conventional’ terminologies an article appeared in at least one Sydney newspaper that ‘the bureaucrats’ were working to subvert their Ministry’s guidelines for the syllabus. Confidentiality was always mandatory but even quite innocuous drafts and suggestions, which teachers might have well discussed with colleagues in their schools, were retained in the committee room. Such a context is appalling for Committees attempting to develop a syllabus which would accommodate best practice and theory in the most useful, accessible, way for teachers. The intrusion of ignorant elements in the media and the way they unnerved the relevant government Ministry reflected their intrusion in the implementation of the previous Syllabus (1994).

On the one hand the media intrusions made laughable Eltis’ previous conclusions that ‘bureaucracies… may fall victim to the practice of setting curriculum and assessment directions for schools for reasons not necessarily based on sound educational theory and practice’ when he could only have meant that the bureaucracy had fallen victim to those who followed a functional grammar and genre pedagogy. It is apparent to us that the educational soundness of the 1998 Syllabus was always at risk from elements in the media which were absolutely without educational expertise.

By 1997 the NSW Department of School Education (shortly to be reorganized and named, the Department of Education and Training) began developing and implementing a literacy policy. It complemented much of our work; we were especially delighted at the inclusion of a developmental reading model which included a recognition of the way texts ‘position’ readers, or, ‘construct a version of the reader’. Reading is not just a matter of understanding meaning; texts and their consumption, are imbricated in cultural reproductions, or disruptions. The revised K-6 English Syllabus and Support documents were eventually published in March 1998; it was received very positively by teachers, by the community and even by the media. As we indicated in our introduction if there is a lesson to be learned from our state experiences it is to do with compromise. People who can influence a document’s reception need to feel accommodated; competing pedagogic discourses and theories need to be accommodated; even a Premier needs to feel accommodated. We would argue that a syllabus, to receive essential support needs to be heteroglossic. Otherwise six years of work can seem be jeopardized in three months (which was the duration of the ‘Eltis Review’). We have a workable Syllabus and a grammar which is not just a tool for writing, but for reading. One of the main developments of the 1998 syllabus is the reframing of reading as a socially critical act and an indication that the grammar of the syllabus might be used to that end. In 1994 reading was represented in the syllabus in terms of: 3. 6 Identif[ying] simple symbolic meanings and stereotypes in texts and discusses their purpose and meaning

(NSW Board of Studies 1994: 12).

4.12 With teacher guidance, identifies and discusses how linguistic structures and features work to shape readers' and viewers' understanding of texts (NSW Board of Studies 1994: 13).

 On the other hand the 1998 syllabus links cultural patterns to texts and makes the link between those patterns and grammatical choices: The syllabus emphasises the development of critical literacy. This involves students in questioning, challenging and evaluating the texts that they listen to, read and view. Critical literacy enables students to perceive how texts position readers to take a particular view of people and events (NSW Board of Studies 1998: 5). Questions related to this emphasis are posed: How do grammatical patterns change according to the purpose, content, audience and channel of communication?

How is grammar used to express cultural patterns regarding, for example, differences in power, status, values and attitudes, gender ethnicity and class? (NSW Board of Studies 1998: 9)

 For us, the explicit teaching of the social nature of language is central to our view of ‘critical social literacy’. This will include explicit teaching of the ways our language, our texts, are both symptomatic of cultural dynamics and instrumental in maintaining, reproducing or disrupting, social practices.

 

Part 2
A case study of implementation of the grammar requirements of English K-6
The case study material is drawn from ongoing collaborative research with a school staff in Sydney’s inner west. The school population is diverse, with between 85-90% of students speaking languages other than English at home. Classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, the school is part of an equity program which provides access to additional resources. These resources are used in projects aimed at improving English literacy outcomes and allow the school to buy additional professional development assistance, time-release for teachers and material resources to support curriculum implementation.

From the early 90’s onwards teachers at the school participated in professional development activities made available through an equity program in genre-based approach to teaching literacy which particularly attended to factual writing. Unlike the ‘train the trainer’ programs described earlier, the Metropolitan East Disadvantaged School Program (Hammond 1989) took a long term approach involving professional development for teachers first, followed by a period of classroom work (which included cooperative work with consultants) and evaluation. Something of the influence on teaching practices is evident in curriculum units produced by the teachers subsequently. In these curriculum units the teachers recorded how they used modelling and deconstruction as strategies for explicitly teaching the ways in which language works in different social contexts. ‘Deconstruction’ in these curriculum units was concerned with situational features of the language, social purpose, register details, generic features in preparation for writing in the genre under focus (Rothery and Veel 1993). Reading tended to be about immersing students in intertexts relevant to the topic in question. Importantly for later critical literacy work, the selected texts were often socially critical in content with the curriculum cycles addressing issues such as race relations, gender, the environment and media.

Beyond this professional development funded by Disadvantaged Schools Program, staff knowledge of grammar were varied; two teachers had completed university courses with strong functional grammar components, others had traditional grammar understandings, some had very little grammar study of any sort. The principal and two teachers attended a course of about 10 weeks funded; again it was funded through the equity program. All had completed the minimum and only mandatory requirement of 2 hours that accompanied the 1994 English K-6 syllabus.

Teachers at the school contributed to a submission to the 1996 NSW Board of Studies English K-6 Review. They supported the 1994 syllabus and functional grammar, arguing that teachers needed more time and support to implement its contents. They made two key points
They also felt strongly that some form of critical literacy was essential. Illustrating their case with an outline of the kinds of practices they were currently engaged in they argued:

Most of the students have been working at the level of text with some grammar understandings since kindergarten. They find terms such as text, stage, recount, orientation, sequence of events and re-orientation useful and have done some work with Participants, Processes, and Circumstances but these are fairly new. This unit of work [referring to a worked example of practice in the submission] is a progression from the context – whole text relationship to include grammar at the clause level.

It would be fair to say that the teachers who wrote and implemented this unit are fairly comfortable at the level of text and are just beginning to feel comfortable at the level of grammar …..and don’t really have the tools yet to effectively teach concepts of critical literacy. Teachers need time to feel comfortable at these different levels (Jones and Searle 1996).

In subsequent professional development worked funded by Disadvantaged Schools Program, teachers in the upper primary years worked with Katina Zammitt from the University of Western Sydney who used the concept of hypertheme (Martin and Halliday 1993: 244-255; Martin 1992) to develop strategies for assisting students read challenging information texts. This work provided teachers with a clear and probably first demonstration of how grammar might be used to assist students’ reading. The teachers became interested in the potential for grammar to help students engage closely with a text and to mediate between relevant intertexts and the text in focus.

Responding to draft k-6 English Syllabus and to the State Literacy Strategy, the school asked us to help with professional development in critical literacy and grammar. Teachers felt strongly that they needed to develop their own knowledge of grammar before they could teach the grammar described in the scope and sequence guide. We began work on the afternoon of the release of the revised syllabus, making ‘the scope and sequence’ of grammar in the Syllabus the focus of the program . To construct the ideological frame for linking the application of grammar in the development of critical literacy we introduced a concept of discourse using texts such as Beware Beware (Hill and Barrett 1993) and Zoo (Browne 1994) to examine gendered discourses and then focused on Granpa (Burningham 1984) to illustrate further how texts construct a version of the reader.

We invited the teachers to read texts they chosen to use in the classroom ‘ideologically’; that is, we invited the teachers to identify discourses in the texts and then to locate how those discourses were realized in the language choices. We then considered suitable strategies for introducing these ways of reading to students at the different ‘stages’ identified in the Syllabus.

The following transcript extracts represent a larger sequence of lessons in one class. The focus for this work is a children’s text Pilawuk, an account of a young Aboriginal woman’s life. (Brian 1996). The text recounts, first, how government and church authorities had removed the child, Pilawuk, from her family, and then recounts her search for and eventual reunion with members of this family.

In terms of the broader social context for this work, there was considerable public discussion of the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families over a number of generations. The Australian Prime Minister’s continued refusal to publicly apologize to Aboriginal people together with his government’s efforts to appease rural Australia over the issue of indigenous land rights has contributed to a racist backlash in sections of the community. At the same time a minor political party’s assimilationist, anti-immigration platform has touched a very conservative element in the community. More moderate elements are often accused of ‘political correctness’. That these children’s lives are touched by racism became obvious as the teachers worked with this text.

The teachers noticed the agentless passives in the text and the shifts in voice that accompanied Pilawuk’s growth into agency. The illustrative clauses are selected extracts from the original text, they do not constitute the entire text. In their preparation teachers used both transitivity and ergative analyses of the text because they were especially interested in the way causation is represented in the text.

1.
Missionaries moved my family from our own country to Malak Malak country in the Daly River area.
Actor Process: Material Goal Circumstance: Location: geographicalpsychological Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
Agent Process: 

Material

 Medium Circumstance: Location: geographical/psychological Circumstance: Location: physical/ geographical
 

Voice: Active
2.
Then as a child I was  forcibly  taken  from my family
Circumstance: Location: temporal: 

sequence

 Circumstance: Location: temporal: developmental Affected Process: Material Circumstance: Manner: perjorative Circumstance:  

Location: social/ 

psychological
Circumstance: Location: temporal: 

sequence

 Circumstance: Location: temporal: developmental Medium Process: Material Circumstance:  

Location: social/ 

psychological
 
Voice: Passive: Agent: Implicit
3.
And sent to live with a non-Aboriginal family in Adelaide.
Process: Material Circumstance: Accompaniment: comitative 
Process: Material Circumstance: Accompaniment: comitative 
 
Voice: Passive: Agent: Implicit
4.
First I was taken to Darwin.
Affected Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/ geographical
Medium Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
 
Voice: Passive: Agent: Implicit
5.
Then many other Aboriginal children and I were flown to Melville Island.
Affected Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
Medium Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
 
Voice: Passive: Agent: Implicit
6.
I was taken to Darwin
Affected Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
Medium Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
 
Voice: Passive: Agent: Implicit
7.
and  flown down to Adelaide.
Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical/geographical
Voice: Passive: Agent: Implicit

8.
I wrote to the superintendent there.
Behaver Process: Behavioural Range Goal Circumstance: Location: physical
 

Voice: Active
9.
I went to Daly River.
Actor Process: Material Circumstance: Location: physical
 
Voice: Active
In a transitive analysis of the text, Pilawuk and other Aboriginal children are the Affected in clauses 2 – 7, as the writer reconstructs her early years of powerlessness and dislocation caused initially by the church and then by government policy. Later (clauses 8 and 9) she becomes Behaver and Actor as she seeks and brings about a reunion with her family. The ergative analysis allows us to consider causality. The institution of the church appears as explicit Agent, the government is the implicit Agent. While the author/s explain the White Australian policy for the young readers: This happened because the Australian Government had a policy to make Australian ‘white’. The government wanted everyone to have the same skin colour, culture and language. The idea was that dark-skinned Aboriginal people, like my mother, would die out as a race. But other Aboriginal people, like me, who had a non-Aboriginal mother or father should be made to fit in to the white community. Thousands of other Aboriginal children from all over Australia were also taken from their families (Brian 1996: 6-7). Retrieving the identity of the Implicit Agent demands certain interpretive resources, it requires readers to recall earlier information in the text and retain that for the duration of reading. The teachers sensed that highlighting the theme of the clause, ‘the doer’ and ‘the done to’, would be crucial in negotiating the meanings of the text with the children.

While conflating Medium/subject in this text serves to maintain the focus on Pilawuk, causality is frequently omitted in other texts about the same issue. In his critical discourse analysis of the Prime Minister’s speech to the 1997 Reconciliation Convention, Luke (1997 ) notes two key features of the text:

In the following extract from the Australian Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Native Title John Howard uses the same grammatical choices: I think we probably also agree on some other things, for example, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia have been

very badly treated in the past and we must continue our efforts to

improve their health, their housing, their employment and their

educational opportunities.

And in doing that we should always remember that the Aboriginal

people of Australia have a very special affinity with their land.

I think we would also agree on how important the rural and mining

industries are to the future of our country.

 Between them they contribute 63 per cent of Australia's export income and that helps generate a lot of wealth which in turn enables us

to help the less fortunate within our community.

 (Extract from the Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Wik Nov 30th 1997)

In this speech the rural and mining industries are represented as agentive, in contrast to indigenous Australians, ‘the less fortunate’, a persistent trope inserted in discourses of race and reconciliation in conservative Australia.

In the classroom children and their teachers are cultural subjects, not immune to those circulating discourses and thus bring particular systems of ideas to the reading of a text. At first it was difficult for these young readers to understand Pilawuk’s initial powerlessness as well as the effectiveness of her later efforts. Here Sam and Patsy are discussing the text during a pre-reading exercise:

Classroom talk extract 1:

Sam: If she was separated from her family

why didn’t she stay with her real family?

Patsy: What do you mean?

Sam: When you grow older

you’re allow…you could run off.

Patsy Yes, you see what happens is

that she was brought back to her family.
that she was brought back to her family
Affected Process: Material Circumstance: Location: social/pyschological
Medium Process: Material Circumstance: Location: social/pyschological
Patsy, who has read the book previously, still views Pilawuk as the Affected even in her reunion with her family (she was brought back to her family). Mindful of such circulating discourses which position indigenous Australians as ‘the less fortunate within our community’, the teachers were also concerned to point out Pilawuk’s determination and success in achieving her difficult goal of finding her family.

In our work with the teachers we hoped that using the grammar would give them an explicit way for discussing the cultural meanings operating in the written text and enable them to work with semantic and critical reading practices. In this text ‘voice’ was an important grammar focus for understanding historical processes, for the erasure and apportioning of responsibility and for representing Aboriginality as ‘agentive’.

In this extract from the classroom, the teachers and children have read the text and completed a timeline of events from Pilawuk’s life.

Teacher 1: We are going to come down little bit closer to the words now

and look at some of the grammar

…

I am going to show you the beginning of a sentence

that comes from the text. (holding up a strip of card with clause written on it)

MISSIONARIES MOVED MY FAMILY FROM OUR OWN COUNTRY

okay hands up if you can tell me what’s the verb in that sentence, Stuart?

 Stuart: Move.

Teacher 1: Move is the verb,

now often verbs have a doer

well they nearly always have a ‘doer’

who or what is doing in this sentence?

hands up if you can tell me who is the doer in this sentence?

 Sam: The missionaries.

Teacher 1: Good boy, the missionaries are ‘doers’ and they moved,

now let’s look at this sentence…(practice with two more active clauses) Teacher 1:… Okay good, now FIRST I WAS TAKEN TO DARWIN, the verb? Marcia? Marcia: was was taken?

Teacher 1: Okay, was taken, now listen carefully to this.

Who is the ‘doer’?

don’t be tricked,

who is doing the taking?

(7.0)

Think very very carefully,

who’s doing the taking?….

 Frank: Missionaries

Teacher 1: Good boy, who was going to say the Missionaries?

Who was going to say Pilawuk or I?

Nobody?

that is very interesting

this is what often happens in English

they hide the doers,

the doers sort of become invisible like this sentence here

  The teachers went on to identify instances of passive clauses and to describe the patterns of agency in the text as it moved from predominantly passive to active clauses.

In ‘the scope and sequence’ chart of the K-6 English syllabus (1998) ‘voice’ is an aspect of work with the clause at stage 3 (or upper primary). That in this classroom, it is presented as less to do with the theme of clause and conflation of Actor/subject and Goal/subject probably reflects the terminology available to these teachers and students at this time. While the most relevant developmental stage for this class is stage 2, the students are clearly working towards stage 3. The teachers have given the students an elementary introduction to semantic role as part of examining representations and institutional authority. Semantic role is included in the revised syllabus in work with the structure of the clause. The concept of semantic role is an important foundation for critical literacy which we see as an engagement with the power dynamics of social institutions.

Critical literacy work is not for the fainthearted. Teachers can be caught by the unpredictable readings constructed and the lines of discussion taken up by the students. In this classroom conversations about ethnicity, identity and race relations followed, sometimes becoming quite heated. As indicated previously there are ethical issues for teachers, in negotiating the power dynamics within the classroom and avoiding charges of manipulation, but as Knoebel and Healy (1998) write, critical literacy is about ‘activities and critique that are open to different and multiple points of view.’

The third extract is later in the teaching/learning sequence. Here, the children and their teachers are writing to the Prime Minister about the issue and one teacher is responding to a group of children who have suggested telling the Prime Minister what the class has learned about the use of active and passive verbs. Note that this is Sam from the first transcript.

Classroom talk – extract 3

Teacher 2: So how then is that important in understanding Pilawuk’s history?

did that help you understand her history - knowing about passive and active verbs?

How?

(7.0)

Teacher 1: Would anybody like to help?

 Teacher 2: Sam?

Sam: Passive and active helps you understand the story

because it tells you what passive means they’re like doing something to her

active means that she is doing it for herself.

 Teacher 2: Mm?

Sam: At the end she is doing active

but at the start she is being passive

because the missionaries are taking her somewhere.

 Teacher 2: Right. Teacher 1: So if I say (writing on chart)

WE LEARNED ABOUT ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VERBS.

IN THE BEGINNING PILAWUK WAS --

Pilawuk’s verbs were passive would we say that?…

 …Why were they passive, Sam?

Sam Because the missionaries were taking them places

and she couldn’t do anything about it. Teacher 1: Yes the missionaries and who else?

Sam: And the government…

Teacher 1: …PILAWUK’S VERBS WERE PASSIVE

BECAUSE THE MISSIONARIES AND THE GOVERNMENT WERE MOVING HER AROUND Teacher 2: Is that what you want to say moving her around, taking her away from ? Sam: She was being taken away like stolen.

Student: Oh yea.

Teacher 1: And they took her away and then they moved her a lot didn’t they?

Sam: And she ended up in Adelaide.

Teacher 1: Yes, she went to a couple of other places too…

….Can I just say something about the active?

Teacher 2: Karen, would you like to contribute?

Karen: When she was old enough she had more power and she could control herself wherever she went

Teacher 1: WHEN SHE WAS OLDER SHE HAD MORE POWER

 AND COULD CONTROL WHERE SHE WENT

The children here are being encouraged to not only identify grammatical patterns in texts but to consider discursive formations and engage with and critique the processes of cultural dynamics. The teachers with whom we are working are attempting with quite young children, a critical discourse analysis with consequences. Functional grammar provides teachers and students with some very effective tools to analyse and discuss texts and to take classroom activities into the context of culture in a way that teachers weren’t able to, or perhaps weren’t ready to, in 1994.

The grammar of the revised NSW K-6 English Syllabus is a promising one with which to begin the 21st Century. It has elements of functional grammar: the verbal system, the mood system, a hint of theme and lexical cohesion, while the introduction of ‘doer’ and ‘done to’ and the meanings of active and passive voice allow teachers to consider representations of agency. The grammar of the Syllabus is an explicit tool for developing critical literacies. We know that critical literacy will not make any of us immune to ideology but it offers a way of making visible the ideologies and discursive practices which shape our lives, our subjectivities, and thus gives us the potential for agency and resistance to inequitable distributions of power.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Althusser, L. (1969). from 'Ideology and ideological state apparatuses' in A critical and cultural Reader, edited by A. Easthorpe & K. McGowan. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992.

Barnes, D. and Shemilt, D. (1974). ‘Transmission and interpretation’ in Functions of language, Education Review, 26: 3, B. Wade (ed) Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

Barnes, D. (1992). From communication to curriculum. 2nd Edition, first published 1976. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heineman.

Brian, J. (1996). Pilawuk – When I was Young. Flinders Park, SA: Magic Bean in –Fact, Era Publications.

Browne, A. (1994). Zoo. London: A Red Fox Book. First published, 1992, London: Julia MacRae.

Burningham, J. (1984). Granpa. London: Cape.

Christie, F. Gray, P., Gray, B.,Macken, M.,Martin, J.R. and Rothery, J. (1990). Language a resource for meaning, Reports 1-4. Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Christie, F. (1995). ‘Tracking the interpersonal in the operation of a pedagogic discourse’. Paper presented at the ISFC95, 20 July, Peking University, Beijing.

Christie, F. (1999). ‘The pedagogic device and the teaching of English’. In Pedagogy and the Shaping of Consciousness: Linguistic and social processes, edited by F. Christie. London: Cassell.

Christie, F. & Misson, R. (Eds) (1998). Literacy and Schooling. London: Routledge.

Christie, F., Devlin, B., Freebody, P., Luke, A., Martin, J. R., Threadgold, T., Walton, C. (1991). Teaching English Literacy: A Project of National Significance on the preservice preparation of teachers for teaching English literacy. Vol. 1. Canberra: Department of Employment, Education and Training and Darwin Centre for Studies of Language in Education, Northern Territory University.

Eltis, K. (1995). Focussing on learning: Report of the Review of outcomes and profiles in New South Wales Schooling. Sydney: NSW Ministry for Education and Training.

Eltis, K. (1999). NSW Snapshot. http://www.dtec.nsw.gov.au/forum/html/nsw.html (Accessed 12/07/99)

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge (UK): Polity.

Figgis, J. with Christie, F. and Williams, G. (1995). ‘The question of functional grammar’. Education Report, Radio National. Transcript Wednesday 4th October. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/ederpt/estories/er041001.htm (Accessed 30/05/00)

Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Trans. Colin Gordon et. al. New York: Pantheon.

Grimm, J and W. (1981/nd). Hansel and Gretel. Illustrated by Anthony Browne. London: Julia MacRae Books.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1973) Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978) Language as a Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Meaning. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. and Martin, J. R. (1993). Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. London: Falmer.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

Hammond, J. (1989). ‘The NCELTR literacy project’. Prospect. Vol 5, No 1, pp.23-30.

Hill, S and Barrett, A. (1993). Beware, Beware. (A. Barrett, Illustrator). London: Walker Books.

Hope, D. (1996). "The literacy war". The Sydney Morning Herald. 29 July 1996.

Jenks, C. (ed.) (1993) Cultural Reproduction. London: Routledge.

Jones, P. and Searle ,S. (1996). Submission to the NSW Board of Studies English K-6 Review

Kamler, B. (1995). 'The Grammar Wars, or, What do Teachers Need to Know About Grammar'. In, English in Australia. 114, December 1995. pp. 3-15

Knobel, M. & Healy, A. (Eds) (1998). Critical Literacies in the Classroom. Sydney: Primary English Teachers Association.

Kress, G. (1985). Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practice. Geelong, Vic.: Deakin University Press.

Lohrey, A. (1994). ‘A recipe for disaster – review of the NSW K-6 English Syllabus’ in

Education Australia. Issue 28 (pp. 44-46).

Luke, A. (1997) ‘The material effects of the word: Apologies, ‘stolen children’ and public discourse’ in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Vol 18, No 3. (pp. 349-368).

Martin, J. R. and Rothery, J. (1985). Factual writing: Exploring and challenging social reality. Geelong: Deakin University Press.

Martin, J. R. (1992). English Text: system and Structure. Amsterdam: Benjamin.

Martin, J. R. and Rothery, J. (1993) in B. Cope and M. Kalantzis (eds). The powers of literacy: a genre based approach to teaching writing. London: Falmer Press.

NSW Board of Studies (1994a). English K-6: Syllabus and Support Documents North Sydney: NSW Board of Studies.

NSW Board of Studies (1944b). English K-6: A Handbook of Grammar for English Teachers of English K-6. North Sydney: NSW Board of Studies.

NSW Board of Studies (1996). English K-6 Review Report Part A: Findings from the Consultation. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies.

NSW Board of Studies (1998). English K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: NSW Board of Studies.

NSW Dept of School Education (1997a). Focus on Literacy: A position paper on the teaching of literacy (Draft as at 4.2.97), pp.2-16.

NSW Dept of School Education (1997b). Choosing Literacy Strategies that Work: Stage 2. Sydney: Curriculum Directorate.

NSW Dept of School Education (1997c). Literacy: Teaching Reading: A K-6 Framework. Sydney: Curriculum Directorate.

NSW Dept of School Education (1997d). Literacy: 97 Strategy: Planning a Whole School Approach to Literacy. Sydney: Curriculum Directorate.

O’Neill, C. and Phillip, J. (1994). ‘Grammar returns from the wilderness.’ Paper presented at AARE Conference, November 1994, University of Newcastle, Newcastle.

Rothery, J. & Veel, R. (1993). 'Exposing the Ideology of Literature - the Power of Deconstruction', in English in Australia. No. 105. Sept.

Threadgold, T. & Cranny-Francis, A. (Eds) (1990). Feminine Masculine and Representation. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.


 *    Copyright Pauline Jones and Joan Phillip. Reproduced with permission of the authors 22 June 2001.