The document presents a manifesto arguing for changes to the English Literature curriculum. It argues that exam boards should reduce prescription in their specifications and stop insisting students study and appreciate literary heritage texts. It claims the dominant factor shaping the English Lit curriculum is public perception of its status, rather than input from subject experts. The manifesto also advocates for creative writing to be a core part of the literature curriculum at GCSE and A-level.

1. Recalibrating English Literature

2. My Manifesto
1. Exam boards for English Literature should reduce the
level of prescription in their specifications
2. There is no inherent value in insisting students
consume, understand and enjoy literary heritage texts.
3. The dominant factor shaping the English Lit curriculum
is the public image or perception of the subject and its
status in society NOT subject experts and educators.
4. Creative writing should be a core part of the literature
curriculum at GCSE and A level.

3. Context of the project
• Prescription from government, increased
focus on language, impact of the EBACC in lit
and grade quotas
• Status and credibility- the English & Media
dilemma

4. “Teaching and learning Othello, Great
Expectations and Emily Dickinson sounds better
than teaching and learning East is East, Attack
the Block and Make Bradford British. But my
Media students are actively engaged in critical
reflection and analysis; the students will be
attacking or defending these texts whereas my
English class will be learning to “appreciate”
texts that have been appreciated and approved
by people before them.”
them

5. Bourdieu – Cultural
Capital
• Correlation between class (as defined by father’s
occupation) and taste.
• Therefore there is a conflict in the education system as
worthiness and quality of texts is being decided by people
of a dominant class
• Thus the study of Literature becomes a process of aligning
students’ tastes with an educational elite
• To what extent are we implicit in wanting to protect that
status and our own cultural capital?

6. Context of the project
• Prescription government, increased focus on
language – where does Lit fit in the new
EBACC
• Status and credibility- the English & Media
dilemma
• What English teaching can learn from Media
Studies

7. Levels of prescription
GCSE MEDIA GCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE
Controlled assessment: Controlled assessment:
Analysis of wide range of Comparative analysis of 2
texts (teacher choice) literary heritage texts (1x
Creation of Texts (Students meet a Shakespeare, 1x “dead and credible”)
set brief)
Self evaluation of production Exam:
Comparison of contemporary
Exam: and Literary heritage poetry
Moving image analysis (pre-taught)
(unseen)
Question on a case study Analysis of novel and play
(chosen by teachers or students)
(pre-taught)

8. Origins of the project
• Prescription government, increased focus on
language – where does Lit fit in the EBACC
• What English teaching can learn from Media
Studies
• Status and credibility- my own dilemma
• What are we doing? Teaching skills or teaching
texts?

9. Research Methodology
Comparison across 3 subjects – similar skills, similar
teachers
Initial canvas of teachers – prescription top-down
Chief examiners of 3 disciplines (A level)
Discourse analysis

10. Discourse analysis
Constructionist approach – analysedhow
prescription is explained and justified by teachers
and examiners
Language “emphasizes the way versions of the
world, society events and inner psychological
worlds are produced in discourse” Bryman (2004)
Discourse is a form of action and therefore a
practice in its own right. (Gill)

11. Coded Responses
Category 1: An ideological dilemma/conflict between their personal
opinions and their professional role.
Category 2: Deflecting personal responsibility or placing blame on
another group of people or another institution.
Category 3: Making value judgments about texts discussed. Despite (in
some cases) the insistence that there should be no hierarchy of
texts, nonetheless in conversation, personal opinions were expressed
about texts.
Category 4: Ascribing status to subjects through explicit or implicit
comment.

12. Findings
• Teachers
• Examiners

13. Why do you teach Of Mice and Men?
Availability of texts/budgetry
constraints
11% Availability of texts/budgetry constraints
Because it's easy/short
22% The novel's messages or themes
Student enjoyment (especially boys)
The novel's messages or themes
10%
Teacher Enjoyment
Availability of resources
3%
Quality of narrative/characterisation/writing
Because it's prescribed Student enjoyment (especially boys)
7% Crossover for more than one unit of study
18%
Availability of audio/film
version
7%
45% Availability of audio/film version
Because it's prescribed
Crossover for Availability of resources
more than one
Teacher
unit of study
Enjoyment
5% Because it's easy/short
Quality of 5%
narrative/characterisation/writing
12%

14. Findings from teacher research:
According to the teachers’ discourse, formal structures of
the curriculum and assessment are the dominant force in
deciding what text are taught:
Posted by: bob****** 13/05/2012 at 17:24
…because it's relatively brief, short enough to read in entirety.
Posted by: seaviews 13/05/2012 at 17:46
Because it's short. Because it's easy to teach. Because the exam board chose it.
Posted by: penny******** 13/05/2012 at 18:26
Because it is on the syllabus, we have no budget to buy new books and we have piles of excellent resources
at our disposal.
Posted by: nikkigabb1967 14/05/2012 at 14:28
It is relatively short and therefore manageable in a crowded two year programme of study, which for most
students comprises two GCSEs and several texts and controlled assessments.
Posted by: Eva_Smith02/01/2012 at 17:06
With regards to choosing 'Of Mice and Men' over some perhaps more challenging texts, I must admit that I
do think there is room for improvement in many departments. That said, now that pupils must study two
novels for the exam and, potentially a third if not doing a crossover for Lang/Lit it does make it easier to
cover a short novel that the teacher is familiar with and can teach easily

15. Ideological dilemma
Teachers want to get the best grades out of their students but
they also want to teach texts they perceive to have literary
merit. Often they perceivethe two to be mutually exclusive:
Posted by: englishtt06 21/02/2012 at 17:22
I think that some people see English teaching as something akin to The Dead Poet’s Society where we have
all the time in the world to read and appreciate great literature; with responsive and enthusiastic classes. If
only!
Posted by: anteater 21/02/2012 at 20:11
“ginbroon:Who knows, you might just be inspired to do something a little different next year!”
Doesn't matter how inspired we are if it isn't in the exam spec.
Posted by: seaviews 13/05/2012 at 17:46
Because Steinbeck is fab. (tho I'd prefer to do Grapes of Wrath but can't because GofW is REAL literature
and my students aren't up to it.)
Posted by: englishtt06 25/02/2012 at 00:46
…what is more likely is that schools will stop entering all pupils for literature and just enter the higher
sets. I know in our dept. that SLT want us just to focus on English Language… It would be nice to live in
world where every child is allowed to read 'great' literature and appreciate it for what it is; in the real world
of league tables, why would a school pay to enter a child for a subject they will not do well in?

16. What do you think?
• Ease of teaching?
• Ease of understanding?
• Literary merit?
• Relevance to their lives?
• Pure enjoyment?
• Doesn’t matter?

17. Examiners EN1, EN2, MD1, MD2 FM1 FM2
Examiners across all disciplines saw prescription as a bad
thing, (though sometimes necessary for examination purposes)
“Yeah there was a unanimous feeling really against any sort of, er sort of canon... there
was a feeling that, urm, they wanted teachers to have the freedom to be able to choose
and teach what they wanted to.” (FM1)
“I mean, I’m not at all interested in a film canon at all what I’m interested is students
having a passion for a variety of cinema and I think the A level does that.” (FM2)
“I (and others) felt what we were getting in exam answers was ‘teacher’s favourite
films’ (and I mean films) with a canon of texts and case studies being offered by
centres and candidates and very little sense that candidates were being asked to draw
upon their own experience and knowledge.” (MD1)

18. Prescription in English
“Hugely driving the whole notion of a canon is an agenda of let’s
call, you know, it loosely speaking of the right, not as in being right but
politically aligned to the right,” (EN1)
“as a starting point, the regulators produce subject criteria which have to
be adhered to. This will provide parameters for selecting texts,” (EN2)
“The major dominant force was the government quango regulator *…+
there was a significant English subject presence in this quasi government
role, pretty much setting the rules so, whatever you think about GCSE or A
level, 80% of that I would say, 75,*or+ 80% of that was a given.” (EN1)

19. On comedy

20. My Manifesto
1. Exam boards for English Literature should reduce the
level of prescription in their specifications.
2. There is no inherent value in insisting students
consume, understand and enjoy literary heritage texts.
3. The dominant factor shaping the English Lit curriculum
is the public image or perception of the subject and its
status in society NOT subject experts and educators.
4. Creative writing should be a core part of the literature
curriculum at GCSE and A level.

21. The Marxist bit…

22. Bourdieu suggests that when
“class fractions who previously made little use of the school
system enter into the race for academic qualifications, the
effect is to force the groups whose reproduction was mainly
or exclusively achieved through education to step up their
investments so as to maintain the relative scarcity of their
qualifications and, consequently, their position in the class
structure. Academic qualifications and the school system
which awards them thus become one of the key stakes in an
interclass competition which generates a general and
continuous growth in the demand for education and an
inflation of academic qualifications.” (2010, p.127).

23. What I want you to do…
• When was the last time your KS4 or 5 students
did some expressive creative writing?
• When was the last time you did some creative
writing?
• When was the last time you taught your
students something you wanted them to
know?

24. Feeding Back
• I’ll be in touch