Weaving accounts of literacy through the official curriculum: Stitching policy to practice

Abstract

Literacy as a construct remains a contested term in Queensland. What is clear however is that the ways literacy is understood and enacted at various levels of our state education system impacts on what constitutes essential literate capabilities as defined in policy and practice. Further, views of literacy shape what counts as literacy success both in curriculum and statewide literacy testing programs. In this paper, accounts of what constitutes literacy are reported as they are revealed in the talk of key members of the education community who are actively involved in the development and implementation of literacy and literacy assessment policy at state and national levels. Their accounts weave together complex discourses of policy, practice and outcomes where literacy is positioned as the thread that stitches teacher knowledge, curriculum implementation and assessment to student learning outcomes.