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'Required Reading examines for the first time what students have read and studied in the disciplines of English and literary studies at Australian schools and universities after 1945. On the basis of this primary evidence, the authors challenge enduring myths of curriculum history, the history of literary studies, critical theory, and cultural studies. They fill out the picture of how students were encouraged to read: when, where, and in which particular pedagogical and wider social and historical contexts. They relate dramatic changes to curriculum frameworks and syllabi, teaching and learning methods, social and cultural values and assumptions, and the academic discipline of literary studies itself. Required Reading shows, finally, how flawed assumptions about the nature and history of English and Literature have, since the 1980s, obstructed the advancement of knowledge within both fields of scholarly endeavour. Contributors include: Tim Dolin, Joanne Jones, Patricia Dowsett, John Yiannakis, Ian Reid, Jacqueline Manuel, Don Carter, Wayne Sawyer, Larissa McLean Davies, Brenton Doecke, Prue Gill, Terry Hayes, Jenny de Reuck, Susan K Martin, Tully Barnett, Kate Douglas, Alice Healy-Ingram, Georgina Arnott, and Claire Jones.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Review of Required Reading : Literature in Australian Schools Since 1945, Edited by Tim Dolin, Jo Jones and Patricia Dowsett.
2018
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , February vol. 33 no. 1 2018;
— Review of Required Reading : Literature in Australian Schools since 1945 2017 anthology criticism'Like the teaching of history, the teaching of literature in Australian secondary schools – the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ – has, for the last twenty years or so, been a topic of intermittent controversy in the media; to a much lesser extent, one gathers, in the schools themselves, where a majority of English teachers seem either happy or resigned to be singing from the same songbook, with only occasional peeps of protest at the inexorable displacement of traditional literary studies by cultural studies, with the various losses that entails. A comprehensive history of the treatment of literature in Australian schools would therefore be very welcome as a way of placing some context around the recent changes.' (Introduction)
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World of Texts
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 395 2017; (p. 62)
— Review of Required Reading : Literature in Australian Schools since 1945 2017 anthology criticism'At the heart of Required Reading is a database called ALIAS (Analysis of Literature in Australian Schools). It includes all the reading material prescribed for senior secondary English and Literature courses in most of the states from 1945 to 2005. Like all electronic databases, ALIAS comprises a structured collection of items to view, navigate, and search. To make meaning from these items they need to be framed in narrative terms. This is precisely what the chapters in this book achieve in the most interesting ways.' (Introduction)
-
World of Texts
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 395 2017; (p. 62)
— Review of Required Reading : Literature in Australian Schools since 1945 2017 anthology criticism'At the heart of Required Reading is a database called ALIAS (Analysis of Literature in Australian Schools). It includes all the reading material prescribed for senior secondary English and Literature courses in most of the states from 1945 to 2005. Like all electronic databases, ALIAS comprises a structured collection of items to view, navigate, and search. To make meaning from these items they need to be framed in narrative terms. This is precisely what the chapters in this book achieve in the most interesting ways.' (Introduction)
-
Review of Required Reading : Literature in Australian Schools Since 1945, Edited by Tim Dolin, Jo Jones and Patricia Dowsett.
2018
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , February vol. 33 no. 1 2018;
— Review of Required Reading : Literature in Australian Schools since 1945 2017 anthology criticism'Like the teaching of history, the teaching of literature in Australian secondary schools – the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ – has, for the last twenty years or so, been a topic of intermittent controversy in the media; to a much lesser extent, one gathers, in the schools themselves, where a majority of English teachers seem either happy or resigned to be singing from the same songbook, with only occasional peeps of protest at the inexorable displacement of traditional literary studies by cultural studies, with the various losses that entails. A comprehensive history of the treatment of literature in Australian schools would therefore be very welcome as a way of placing some context around the recent changes.' (Introduction)
