The status of literature: English teaching and the condition of literature teaching in schools

Although the curriculum subject of English is continually reviewed and revised in all English speaking countries, the status of literature is rarely questioned i.e. that it is of high cultural value and all students should be taught about it. The concerns of any review, in any country, are typically about what counts as literature, especially in terms of national heritage and then how much of the curriculum should it occupy. This article reports on three inter-related pieces of research that examine the views of in-service, and pre-service, English teachers about their experiences of teaching literature and their perceptions of its ‘status’ and significance at official level and in the actual classroom; it draws attention to how England compares to some other English speaking countries and draws attention to the need to learn from the negative outcomes of political policy in England. The findings suggest that the nature of engagement with literature for teachers and their students has been distorted by official rhetorics and assessment regimes and that English teachers are deeply concerned to reverse this pattern.

Literature, literacy and the discourses of English teaching: a case study

This article examines the discourses of English teaching, and their implications for subject and literacy teaching and learning. Case study evidence is presented to illustrate the ways in which competing discourses are enacted in the classroom. We argue the need to critically examine the educational value of teacher discourses, which have an important impact on instructional practices and the quality of pupils' learning.

Writing westwards: medieval English literature and its early modern Irish audiences

Quite a few texts from England were translated into Irish in the fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. The number of these texts was significant enough to suggest that foreign material of this sort enjoyed something of a vogue in late-medieval Ireland. Translated texts include Mandeville’s Travels, Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hampton, Fierabras and a selection of saints’ lives. Scholars have paid little attention to the origins and initial readerships of these texts, but still less research has been conducted into their afterlife in early modern Ireland. However, a strikingly high number of these works continued to be read and copied well into the seventeenth century and some, such as the Irish translations of Octavian and William of Palerne, only survive in manuscripts from this later period. This paper takes these translations as a test case to explore the ways in which a cross-period approach to such writing is applicable in Ireland, a country where the renaissance is generally considered to have taken little hold. It considers the extent to which Irish reception of this translated material shifts and evolves in the course of this turbulent period and whether the same factors that contributed to the continued demand for a range of similar texts in England into the seventeenth century are also discernible in the Irish context.

'Thou glorious kingdome, thou chiefe of empires': Persia in seventeenth-century travel literature

Bringing together a range of little-considered materials, this article assesses the portrayal of Persia in seventeenth-century travel literature and drama. In particular it argues that such texts use their awareness of Islamic sectarian division to portray Persia as a good potential trading partner in preference to the Ottoman Empire. A close reading of John Day, William Rowley and George Wilkins’ The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) demonstrates how the play develops a fantasy model of how relations between Persia and England might function. The potential unity between England and Persia, imagined in terms of both religion and trade, demonstrates how Persia figured as a model ‘other England’ in early modern literature.

Attitudes to reading in English primary schools

This article reports on a two-year research project investigating attitudes to reading held by teachers and pupils in a sample of English primary schools. The project draws on international and national surveys of reading engagement and the findings of previous research, but seeks to provide more detailed data relating to the attitudes of individual children and the strategies used by individual schools and teachers whose pupils demonstrate positive attitudes to reading. Written questionnaires for teachers and pupils and oral interviews with teachers are used, generating both quantitative and qualitative data. Results are related to previous research literature in this area which shows a link between reading motivation and attainment, and to motivational theory. In conclusion, it is argued that teaching strategies which promote positive attitudes to reading need to be used alongside the teaching of reading skills in any effort to raise attainment.

Natural effusions: Mrs J. Howorth’s English translation of Albrecht von Haller’s Die Alpen

Albrecht von Haller's Die Alpen [The Alps] was an immensely popular piece of early eighteenth-century poetry, yet it took more than half a century to be translated into English. In this article I examine Mrs J. Howorth's prose rendering of it in her translated collection The Poems of Baron Haller (1794) and analyse how the translation itself reflects late-eighteenth-century scientific, political and aesthetic concerns, notably through the influence of Linnaeus and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Secondly, I explore how Howorth constructed a public image of herself as a female consumer and producer of botanical literature, and argue that her translation constitutes an early example of British women's increasing engagement in science through the activity of translation.