Parsing the Australian English curriculum: Grammar, multimodality and cross-cultural texts
Abstract
The release of The Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has revived
debates about the role of grammar as English content knowledge. We consider
some of the discussion circulating in the mainstream media vis-à-vis the intent
of the national English Curriculum. We demonstrate how the Curriculum
draws upon the complementary tenets of traditional Latin-based grammar and
systemic functional linguistics across the three Strands of Language, Literature
and Literacy, creating scope for teachers to develop students’ knowledge about
language in innovative ways. We argue that such an approach is necessary for
working ...
View more >The release of The Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has revived debates about the role of grammar as English content knowledge. We consider some of the discussion circulating in the mainstream media vis-à-vis the intent of the national English Curriculum. We demonstrate how the Curriculum draws upon the complementary tenets of traditional Latin-based grammar and systemic functional linguistics across the three Strands of Language, Literature and Literacy, creating scope for teachers to develop students’ knowledge about language in innovative ways. We argue that such an approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts. To demonstrate the utility of this new approach, we draw out a set of learning outcomes from Year 6 and then map out a framework for relating the outcomes to the form and function of multimodal language. As a case in point, our analysis is of two Coca-Cola web advertisements, one each from South Korea and Australia.
View less >
View more >The release of The Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has revived debates about the role of grammar as English content knowledge. We consider some of the discussion circulating in the mainstream media vis-à-vis the intent of the national English Curriculum. We demonstrate how the Curriculum draws upon the complementary tenets of traditional Latin-based grammar and systemic functional linguistics across the three Strands of Language, Literature and Literacy, creating scope for teachers to develop students’ knowledge about language in innovative ways. We argue that such an approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts. To demonstrate the utility of this new approach, we draw out a set of learning outcomes from Year 6 and then map out a framework for relating the outcomes to the form and function of multimodal language. As a case in point, our analysis is of two Coca-Cola web advertisements, one each from South Korea and Australia.
View less >
Journal Title
Australian Journal of Language and Literacy
Volume
35
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2012 Australian Literacy Educators' Association. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal's website for access to the definitive, published version.
Subject
Curriculum and Pedagogy not elsewhere classified