AustLit

'This paper draws on interviews conducted as part of the Australian Research Council funded Discovery project Investigating Literary Knowledge in the Making of English Teachers. Those interviews inquire into the role of literary knowing in the professional learning of early career English teachers, focusing specifically on their experiences as they make the transition, via teacher education programmes, from university students of English to school teachers. We have also been interested in how key institutional settings, practices and policies might have shaped their experiences of literary education at tertiary level; the knowledge and values they bring to their work as English teachers; and the professional learning they undergo in their first years of teaching. The aim of this article is to present an exploration of ‘literary sociability’, a working concept of the project for identifying and exploring ways of literary meaning making that might have particular relevance and use for understanding early career English teachers’ experiences across the settings of their education and work.' (Publication abstract)

Words like 'intertextuality' bring to mind the moment of 'theory. Especially significant for our own professional learning were journals like The English and Media Magazine, including resonantly titled essays such as "The Post-Structuralist Always Reads Twice' (Exton, 1982). These essays advocated new understandings of texts and textuality that challenged the interpretive practises that had traditionally held sway in English classrooms. In Australia, the moment of 'theory' prompted some remarkably innovative work in the area of English curriculum and pedagogy, as Bill Corcoran's time as the editor of English in Australia shows (sec Corcoran, 1998).