History is a complex subject. It is more propositional than procedural in nature (Nichol, 1984), and involves adductive thinking (Booth, 1983), where historical evidence and facts are 'teased out' and a convincing account of the past is then reconstructed through speculation, imagination and empathy (Nichol, 1984; Booth, 1983). The teaching and learning of history should not just be the transmission of knowledge, but rather it should involve a process whereby students and teachers interact in order to analyze evidence, raise questions (...) and hypotheses, synthesize facts, and communicate their ideas, understand others' viewpoints, consider values, reflect and engage in moral reasoning (Brophy, 1996). It is through this interaction that development of thinking in history will occur (Coltnam, 1975). The main focus of the research is on the language used in the history classroom, particularly during critical episodes when the teachers and students appeared to be engaged in the process of historical thinking. This research is particularly concerned with historical thought embedded in the language used in history classrooms. To investigate this, both high and low inference coding systems were adopted to code, describe and analyze the verbal behaviour that occurred. The data were gathered in six classes from schools in Singapore. They constituted two classes of above average students (Special stream), two classes of average students (Express stream) and two classes of below average (Normal stream) students. Audio and video recordings were made of two lessons from each of the six classes. These lessons were transcribed, coded and analyzed to ascertain which contexts were more conducive for the production of higher order thought. It was found that a complex interrelationship of factors including pedagogic activity, type of teacher talk and student talk, and even more importantly the interaction between them, determined whether or not there was historical thinking. The findings revealed that there was historical thinking when explicit and implicit contact was established during interaction between the teacher and the students. For explicit contact to he made the teacher and the students needed to be language game (Wittgenstein, 1972). This is where the teacher made those moves that elicited student responses that demonstrated historical thinking. For implicit contact to be made the element of voice (as in the concept of “voice” described in Bakhtin's theory on the dual-voicing and polyphony) becomes essential. During such episodes the teacher mediated between the characters in history, his or her own talk and that of the students. These responses which were often dramatised, the teacher used first and second person forms (dual voicing) to evoke empathy and imagination. In doing so they also engaged in a dialogic interaction with the characters of the past and there was back channelling. There were evidences of such dialogues in all the Special, Express and Normal stream lessons but in various contexts. These dialogues reveal that the nature of talk and interaction is distinct to the subject history. (shrink)

The actions of affect are prominent in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and can be broken down for the purposes of education into two roles. The first alludes to the history of philosophy and the ways in which affect has been used by Spinoza (Deleuze, 1992) Nietzsche (Deleuze, 1983) or Bergson (Deleuze, 1991). In this role, Deleuze reinvigorates and challenges definitions of affect that would place them into systems of understanding that could take paths to metaphysics or to becoming paradigms (...) for capture in any further theorisation of affect. For example, scholars might attest to the use of affect as defined by Spinoza in the Ethics. Deleuze (1983, 1991, 1992) attends to the ways in which scholarly understanding of affect has been broached in order to free the idea up for empirical studies and also to show that the power of didactic language may be subsumed and subverted. The second role of affect in the work of Deleuze comes about in his first two co-authored books that he produced with Félix Guattari (Deleuze & Guattari, 1984, 1988). These publications have a distinct purpose from the scholarly work, which this article shall examine in terms of educational activism, group identities and the sociology of education. This level imbues the use of language in pedagogic acts with an intense affective resonance and the multiple traces of becoming that might be present in any teaching and learning context. (shrink)

This article examines the definitions of literacy in operation in secondary schools, and the relationship between official literacy policy and the practices of the agents responsible for implementing this policy. We trace the history of national 'policy' back to the Language Across the Curriculum movement of the 1970s as it provides an illustrative point of comparison with the first five years of the National Literacy Strategy. Drawing on empirical data which illuminate the views, perceptions and practices of key agents on (...) a number of levels, we critically review the concept of 'school literacy' promoted in government policy, defining it as 'school-centric literacy' and question its ability to facilitate participation in the practices associated with the media and technological literacies which are increasingly a feature of school life. There is evidence of some unplanned effects of the current national policy but also that levels of agency, for literacy teachers in particular, may be rapidly diminishing. (shrink)

This article reports on a qualitative action research project which looked at the possibility that giving students an opportunity to explore their relationship with their essays through a range of creative writing techniques might enhance creativity in university writing. The project comprised a series of practical and experiential workshops, with questionnaires and follow-up interviews. The workshops are described, and themes arising from the different strands of the project discussed, using case study material from individual students. Drawing on a range of (...) theoretical perspectives from psychoanalysis, literary theory and academic literacies, the discussion covers notions of genre, writer identity, creativity and play. We argue that approaches introduced in these workshops have implications for mainstream practice in ways that could enable students to feel freer, more empowered and more present in their university writing. (shrink)