Assessing the reading and writing of EAL/D students: issues and implications

This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a study on literacy strategies for learners in established English as an Additional Language (EAL) classes in Years 7-10 in three Victorian secondary schools. The paper draws on baseline reading and writing assessment results (N=45). 

Introduction : Nationalism and transnationalism in Australian historical writing

One of the strongest trends in Australian historical writing over the last two decades has been a drive to emphasise the nation’s connectedness with the rest of the world. Across a range of historical genres and topics, we have seen a new enthusiasm to explore entanglements between Australian history and that of other places and peoples. The history of travel has been an important contributor to this line of inquiry, but it is at the more intellectual, imaginative and emotional levels that the greatest gains are sometimes claimed for the study of what has become known as ‘transnationalism’. This trend to emphasise international networks in history has been drawn on by historians in the essays that follow. It reflects and contributes to an international flourishing of histories emphasising mobility in the context of empires and globalisation. But where does this leave the idea of ‘the nation’ as a factor in thinking through post-white settlement Australian history? And are some of the claims made for the explanatory impact of transnationalism exaggerated? In a recent article on the ‘transgressive transnationalism’ of Griffith Taylor, Carolyn Strange nodded to the ‘path-breaking’ recent works of Australian historians who have led a ‘transnational turn’, but her conclusion was partly corrective: ‘whether or not transnational thinking was transgressive, strategic or otherwise in the past, and whether or not our historical subjects were progressive or regressive are questions for contextual analysis, in which the nation will continue to matter’.

In March 2012 a number of historians gathered at a workshop in the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin University, to discuss the standing of nationalism and transnationalism in Australian historical writing. All of them had been involved in the production of transnational history in various ways and they took the opportunity to both reflect again on their own work and to critically examine current debates. This collection has been developed from papers presented at that workshop. The five articles here are deliberately short and, hopefully, punchy. Rather than offering a detailed survey of this large field, they seek to stimulate debate and to suggest future intellectual directions.

How do native English academic writers and Chinese native speakers writing in English promote their research

This paper reports on an investigation of a rhetorical organization of Applied Linguistics abstracts produced in Anglophone and Chinese academic discourse communities and written by native English and native Chinese speaking scholars. The study utilises the Framework for the Analysis of the Rhetorical Structure of Texts (FARS), proposed by Golebiowski (2009, 2011). FARS provides a functional account of the relational structure of texts in terms of strategies employed by writers to achieve their communicative purposes. I show how the two groups of abstracts utilize different relational schemata in order to indicate the functional prominence of textual propositions. It is proposed that relational choices, which result in differences in the accentuation of communicative messages in the two groups of abstracts, are dictated by cultural traditions and conventions underlying the discourse community into which the authors have been socialized.

Material writing: Towards hybrid-making

Writing operates in an expanding field of intersections between symbol, inflection and further meaning. The materiality of writing, its embodied action, situated context and myriad substantive expressions, requires an interdisciplinary approach best advanced by collaborative teams and fuelled by collective concerns. At a recent design conference, Doha 2013: Hybrid Making, our team of creative arts researchers (Jondi Keane, Patrick West and Valerie Jeremijenko) conducted a workshop based on the idea of reverse engineering the notion of a souvenir, by starting with the sensation rather than the iconic image. The approaches explored by the group focused on the ways in which a sensation, emotion and/or idea attach to an object and how an object offers itself as an attractor for memory and indicate that when experience, sensation and place are emphasized, the materiality of writing comes to the fore. We assert that material writing allows or even requires a fluid movement between conceptual and perceptual modes of creative practice. In this paper we will unpack different methods of material writing: the materiality of the act of writing with substances, site-specific/site-conditioned writing and 3D printing. Through the particularity of each mode of material writing our discussions will examine the points of attachment that we, as symbolizing creatures, produce in order to orient and reconstruct a world on the fly. Material writing constantly brings us back to earth, anchoring us to the expanded processes integral to hybrid-making.

“Never read anything that can at all unsettle your religious faith”: reading and writing in the monthly packet

The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church (1851–99) reveals the interest that Charlotte Yonge had in promoting and supporting girls as readers and writers. As the editor and as a major contributor, Yonge provided a variety of material for the magazine as part of a strategy for the development of girls' reading and writing habits in ways that were consistent with their High Anglican beliefs and that would never cause them to question their faith.

Writing “nhill” : the short story as still life

This chapter explores the philosophical, literary and practice-based elements that contributed to the writing by the author of a short story ('Nhill') and reflects upon how, as an example of creative-writing practice, the story contributes to Humanities-based research into issues of time, settlement, Aboriginality and post-coloniality. It works with theorists such as Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva and Norman Bryson, as well as engaging with various painterly examples of Still Life. The possibility of a productive syncretism between Literature and Painting is proposed and extended.

Connecting with carnival : developing critical business education through reflective writing

In response to recent criticisms, and following a sustained effort by Critical Management Scholars, business education, especially the MBA, is increasingly taking seriously the idea that it needs to enable students to develop the capacities of critical and reflective thought. One method in particular is suggested as meeting this end; reflective writing. The aim of this current paper is to consider if this method lives up to the promise of developing critical and reflective coporate citizens. Using a body of critical theory on reflective practice, I argue that reflective writing as done by students tends to be a Truth posing exercise. This is insufficient to the end that critical scholars envision. My aim with this paper is to introduce a new form of reflective writing. Drawing on the based on Bakhtin's (1984) notion of carnival, I argue for a dialogical text in which different voices and perspectives jostle and claim that this is productive of texts that grant autonomy to the reader to make meaning. This form of writing is more conductive to the constitution of ethical and critical thinking than are the current truth books (Masschelein, 2006) that dominant reflective writing. I illustrate this through my experiences introducing reflective writing in an undergraduate accounting unit and to an MBA. I argue that the latter is more dialogical and carnivalistic as the reflective writing is a joint effort.