BUILDING LINGUISTIC SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE FOR WRITING ... · The findings reveal a strong connection between theory and observable practice. ... 2.4.2 Transformational-generative grammar

BUILDING LINGUISTIC SUBJECTKNOWLEDGE FOR WRITING

INSTRUCTION: TEACHER RESPONSES TOPROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Julie Arnold B.A. (UQ), Dip. Ed. (UQ)

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Education) IF80

Faculty of Education School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Queensland University of Technology

2019

Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning i

Keywords

grammar, language, literacy, linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge, linguistic

subject knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, professional learning, secondary

English teaching, systemic functional linguistics, writing

ii Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning

Abstract

The relationship between what teachers know and how they teach is well

researched and theorised but is nonetheless complex and evolving. Nowhere is this

teacher-knowledge/student-outcome nexus more uncertain, and its resolution more

highly sought, than in the teaching of writing. A range of factors are known to

contribute to effective writing instruction. Thanks in part to the work of Debra Myhill

and her colleagues at The Centre for Research in Writing in the United Kingdom, it is

known that teaching descriptive grammar explicitly and systematically can help

students improve their writing, especially in classrooms where the teacher’s linguistic

subject knowledge (LSK) is high. What is less clear is what happens in a ‘real’

classroom, where the teacher enacts a formal curriculum (in this case the Australian

Curriculum: English) themselves, or in their work team; where the teacher has a

school’s collaboratively developed work program, but not a series of prescriptive

lessons to follow; where the teacher can decide how and how much to use the

knowledge offered to them in a professional learning campaign.

This research project explored how two Year 10 English teachers, who are part

of a small community of professional learners, responded to professional learning about

language that was offered to support their writing instruction. Specifically, a design-based

research (DBR) methodology was used to provide insight into the way their linguistic

subject knowledge (LSK) and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge (LPSK)

influenced their decisions for the planning and delivery of writing instruction. Systemic

functional linguistics (SFL) provided a framework to guide collaborative decision-making

between teachers and the researcher about specific professional learning needs.

Shulman’s approach to pedagogical reasoning further supported an analysis of teachers’

accounts, gathered via semi-structured interviews and corroborated with supporting

documentation, of the decisions they made.

The findings reveal a strong connection between theory and observable practice.

Teachers responded to professional learning about language by engaging, applying,

transforming, evaluating and reflecting on what they knew and how they used what they

knew to make meaning for students. The evidence here suggests a powerful role for

teachers’ most familiar pedagogies in their responses to professional learning. It also

Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning iii

reveals that, in the exercise of their professional agency, these teachers departed from the

demands of the Australian Curriculum: English and the collaboratively agreed purposes

of the professional learning – a process referred to in this document as ‘diffused

translation’.

The implications for schools and policymakers are that we must continue to design

and deliver what research shows us counts as quality professional learning for writing

instruction. In addition, in developing teacher knowledge, we should carefully attend to:

the detail and instructional purposes of the intended learning; supporting teachers to find

a balance between the competing interests in their curriculums, schools and classrooms;

and the need for English faculty teams to teach appropriate grammar for writing at each

year level.

iv Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning

Table of Contents

Keywords .................................................................................................................................. i

Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... iv

List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vii

List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... viii

List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................... ix

Statement of Original Authorship ............................................................................................ x

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. xi

Introduction ...................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Literacy Policy and Professional Learning .......................................................... 3 1.1.2 Curriculum Developments ................................................................................... 6

1.2 Context ........................................................................................................................... 9 1.2.1 Standardised test results as a measure of writing performance ........................... 9 1.2.2 Curriculum imperatives ..................................................................................... 11 1.2.3 The professional learning context for writing .................................................... 14 1.2.4 The professional learning context at Newman SHS .......................................... 16

1.3 Purposes ....................................................................................................................... 17

1.4 Research design ............................................................................................................ 18 1.4.1 Significance of the research ............................................................................... 19

1.5 Thesis outline ............................................................................................................... 19

Literature Review ........................................................................... 21

2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 21

2.2 Professional Learning .................................................................................................. 21 2.2.1 Rethinking professional learning ....................................................................... 21 2.2.2 Themes in professional learning ........................................................................ 22

2.3 Writing Instruction ....................................................................................................... 27 2.3.1 Understanding the problem of writing ............................................................... 27 2.3.2 Themes in writing instruction ............................................................................ 29

2.4 Choosing a grammar .................................................................................................... 31 2.4.1 Traditional grammar .......................................................................................... 32 2.4.2 Transformational-generative grammar .............................................................. 33 2.4.3 Systemic functional linguistics .......................................................................... 34 2.4.4 Systemic functional linguistics and pedagogy ................................................... 37

2.5 Implications .................................................................................................................. 41

Theory .............................................................................................. 42

3.1 Shulman’s theory of teacher professional knowledge.................................................. 42 3.1.1 Pedagogical Content Knowledge and a Model for Pedagogical Reasoning

and Action .......................................................................................................... 43 3.1.2 Continued relevance of Shulman’s work ........................................................... 46

Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning v

3.1.3 Using Shulman’s theory for inquiry and analysis .............................................48

3.2 Systemic functional linguistics .....................................................................................49 3.2.1 Language as a social semiotic ............................................................................50 3.2.2 Genre theory .......................................................................................................54 3.2.3 Appraisal theory .................................................................................................56 3.2.4 Using the theory for inquiry and analysis ...........................................................59

3.3 A theorised role for grammar – LSK and LPSK ..........................................................60 3.3.1 The need for LSK as a theoretical concept .........................................................61 3.3.2 Transforming LSK: LPSK ..................................................................................63 3.3.3 Using the theory for inquiry and analysis ...........................................................66

3.4 Summary and conclusion ..............................................................................................67

Research design .............................................................................. 69

4.1 Design-Based Research Methodology ..........................................................................69 4.1.1 A conception of DBR phases .............................................................................70

4.2 Participants ...................................................................................................................73

4.3 Instruments ...................................................................................................................75 4.3.1 Needs analysis survey for the whole PLC prior to the intervention ...................75 4.3.2 Semi-structured interviews with the two participants ........................................77

4.4 Procedure and timeline .................................................................................................79

4.5 Data analysis .................................................................................................................81

4.6 Trustworthiness and credibility ....................................................................................83 4.6.1 Reflexivity ..........................................................................................................84

4.7 Ethics and limitations ...................................................................................................86

4.8 Summary and conclusion ..............................................................................................87

Responding to new knowledge ...................................................... 88

5.1 Organisation of the data analysis in this chapter ..........................................................89

5.2 Selecting knowledge, expanding knowledge ................................................................90 5.2.1 Needs analysis: from understanding the problem to defining a possible

solution ...............................................................................................................91 5.2.2 Professional learning: conceiving a solution, building instruction .....................94 5.2.3 Testing the intervention ......................................................................................98

5.3 Theme 1: Teachers respond by engaging in new knowledge .....................................100 5.3.1 Myrtle engaging with new knowledge .............................................................102 5.3.2 Engaging Jordan ...............................................................................................106 5.3.3 Why is it important for teachers to engage with new knowledge? ...................111

5.4 Theme 2: Teachers respond by applying new knowledge to plan for instruction ......112 5.4.1 Applying new knowledge: Myrtle ....................................................................114 5.4.2 Applying new knowledge: Jordan ....................................................................119 5.4.3 Instructional selection matters ..........................................................................125

5.5 Theme 3: Teachers respond by transforming new knowledge to make meaning for students .................................................................................................................................126

5.5.1 Myrtle transforming new knowledge ...............................................................128 5.5.2 Jordan transforming new knowledge ................................................................132 5.5.3 Reality bites: transforming in context ..............................................................135

5.6 Theme 4: Teachers respond by evaluating the impact of instructional decisions .......136 5.6.1 Myrtle evaluates ...............................................................................................138

vi Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning

5.6.2 Jordan evaluates ............................................................................................... 143 5.6.3 The complexity of improving writing .............................................................. 147

5.7 Theme 5: Teachers respond by reflecting and projecting for the purpose of future planning ................................................................................................................................ 147

5.7.1 Myrtle’s reflecting and projecting ................................................................... 149 5.7.2 Jordan’s reflecting and projecting .................................................................... 151 5.7.3 Using reflecting and projecting to keep improving pedagogical practice

for writing ........................................................................................................ 152

5.8 But the literature said they would collaborate! .......................................................... 153

5.9 Chapter Summary: teachers responding to LSK for writing ...................................... 154

Conclusions.................................................................................... 157

6.1 The CENTRAL research question: a summary of findings ....................................... 157

6.2 The research sub-questions: a summary OF FINDINGS ........................................... 159 6.2.1 Sub-question 1: How do teachers use information, data and resources to

make decisions about LSK and LPSK? ........................................................... 159 6.2.2 Sub-question 2: What are the outcomes for teachers of increasing their

LSK and LPSK?............................................................................................... 162

6.3 Theoretical insights for Shulman’s model of reasoning ............................................. 163

6.4 Methodological contributions .................................................................................... 167 6.4.1 Contributions to the body of DBR research ..................................................... 167 6.4.2 Insights about DBR Methdology ..................................................................... 168

6.5 Implications for practice ............................................................................................ 169 6.5.1 Selecting knowledge for professional learning. ............................................... 169 6.5.2 Foregrounding and sustaining a focus on the intent of the learning ................ 171 6.5.3 A role for curriculum leaders ........................................................................... 171

6.6 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 172

6.7 Future directions ........................................................................................................ 174

6.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 176

Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 177

Appendices .............................................................................................................. 189 Appendix A: Sample criteria and standards sheet for a comparable task at

Newman State High School ............................................................................. 189 Appendix B: Year 10 Language strand content descriptors (ACARA, 2018) ........... 191 Appendix C : Newman State High School Professional Learning Community

summary statement .......................................................................................... 192 Appendix D: Semi-structured interview planning documents ................................... 193 Appendix E: Sample of Year 10 student writing above the Achievement

Standard ........................................................................................................... 195 Appendix F: Needs analysis tool................................................................................ 196 Appendix G: Workshop #1 Presentation .................................................................... 208 Appendix H: Workshop #2 Presentation .................................................................... 216 Appendix I: Workshop #3 Presentation ..................................................................... 221

Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning vii

List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Frameworks underpinning Literacy, the Key to Learning: A Framework for Action Year 8 & 9 Professional Development Package: 1.Four Resources Model 2. Functional model of language 3. Teaching and Learning Cycle 4.Productive Pedagogies (Queensland Government, 2009) ........................................................................................ 4

Figure 1.2. Comparison of effect size NAPLAN Literacy and Numeracy indicators 2017 – Newman SHS, State, Nation ........................................... 10

Figure 2.1. A systemic functional model of language (Martin & Rose, 2011) ......... 35

Figure 2.2. The teaching and learning cycle (in NSW Department of Education, 1989) .......................................................................................... 39

Figure 2.3. The teaching and learning cycle in Reading to Learn (Martin & Rose, 2012, p. 147) ...................................................................................... 40

Figure 3.1 A systemic functional model of language (Martin & Rose, 2011) .......... 55

Figure 4.1 The design process consists of six iterative phases: focus, understand, define, conceive, build and test (Easterday, et al., 2014, p. 319). ............................................................................................................. 71

Figure 5.1. The design process consists of six iterative phases: focus, understand, define, conceive, build and test (Easterday et al, 2014, p. 319). ............................................................................................................. 91

Figure 5.2. Sample slides from Workshop #3 ........................................................... 96

Figure 5.3. The teaching and learning cycle in Reading to Learn (Martin & Rose, 2012, p. 147) .................................................................................... 116

Figure 5.4. Sample slide from Workshop #3 ........................................................... 118

Figure 5.5. Reading Routines – five steps of effective reading (Queensland Government Department of Education The Evidence Hub, 2015, p. 4). ... 120

Figure 5.6. Reading Routine extension task ............................................................ 123

Figure 5.7. Summary of LSK presented in Workshop #3 ....................................... 131

Figure 5.8. Four interrelated aspects of students’ engagement during a learning activity (Reeve, 2012, p. 151) .................................................................... 138

Figure 6.1. An adapted representation of pedagogical reasoning in response to professional learning .................................................................................. 165

viii Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Shulman’s Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action .......................... 45

Table 3.2 Transitivity analysis of sample sentence .................................................... 52

Table 3.3 Systemic functional linguistics applied to a sentence from a text response (adapted from Education Queensland, 2009, and Halliday, 1985) ............................................................................................................ 53

Table 4.1 Design-based research phases applied to this study.................................. 72

Table 4.2 Participant Information ............................................................................. 74

Table 4.3 Example of defining and naming a theme .................................................. 83

Table 5.1 Strands, substrands and content descriptions from Year 10 English selected for this study including selected elaborations and workshop topics (ACARA, 2018) .................................................................................. 95

Table 5.2 Shulman’s Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action (1987, p. 15) .... 99

Table 5.3 Engaging: teacher responses as engaging in new knowledge ................. 100

Table 5.4 Applying: teacher responses as applying new knowledge to plan for instruction .................................................................................................. 113

Table 5.5 Transforming: teacher responses as transforming knowledge to make meaning for students .................................................................................. 127

Table 5.6 Evaluating: teacher responses as evaluating the impact of instructional decisions ............................................................................... 136

Table 5.7 Reflecting and projecting: teacher responses as reflecting and projecting for the purpose of future planning ............................................ 148

Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning ix

List of Abbreviations

ACARA Australia Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority

ALEA Australian Literacy Educators’ Association

AITSL Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership

EAL/D English as an Additional Language or Dialect

IEA International Association for the Evaluation of Educational

Achievement

LSK linguistic subject knowledge

NAPLAN National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy

PCK pedagogical content knowledge

PIRLS Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study

PISA Programme for International Student Achievement

PLC professional learning community

LPSK Linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge

SFL systemic functional linguistics

UK United Kingdom

USA United States of America

x Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning

Statement of Original Authorship

The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet

requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best

of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or

written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signature:

Date: March 2019

QUT Verified Signature

Building Linguistic Subject Knowledge for Writing Instruction: Teacher responses to professional learning xi

Acknowledgements

Thanks Mum and Dad, for this quiet place. Thank you Jason, Camryn and

Neve for all the leave passes.

My gratitude also to Dr Anita Jetnikoff and Associate Professor Beryl Exley, my first

supervisors, who were kind and wise in shaping this study with me. And to Dr Jennifer

Alford and Dr Lisa van Leent, who generously guided me through the data collection,

analysis and final writing.

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Introduction

English teachers have an abiding interest in improving students’ capacity to

express themselves in writing. Indeed, in the rationale for the Australian Curriculum:

English (AC:E), Professor Peter Freebody alludes to a broad responsibility for writing

when he suggests that “a lot of what students learn about language will actually transfer

very directly to the kinds of tasks that they face – speaking, and in writing as well –

across different curriculum areas” (ACARA, 2018a, Rationale, para. 1). Such a claim

assumes that knowing about language will have a positive impact on writing.

However, it does not suggest how much a teacher needs to know in order to discharge

this formidable responsibility.

This thesis reports on a study of how two Year 10 English teachers responded to

professional learning about language. It analyses their accounts of the decisions they

made for writing instruction in their classrooms. Their pedagogical responses are

analysed in connection with established research and theory in the fields of teacher

professional knowledges and writing instruction. The thesis offers some suggestions

for further research and for refining the ways teachers are supported to develop their

linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) for the purposes of improving instruction for

writing.

Chapter 1 introduces the thesis and outlines the background (section 1.1) and

context (section 1.2) of the study. It presents the overarching purpose, including the

central and supporting research questions (section 1.3), and the potential significance

of this research (section 1.4). Finally, it includes an outline of the remaining chapters

of the thesis (section 1.5).

1.1 BACKGROUND

Lee Shulman’s contribution to how researchers understand the “knowledge base

of teaching” (1987, p. 4) provides the foundations for this study. In summary, Shulman

proposed that teachers possess a category of knowledge that intersects with what they

know about the subject matter and what they know about general pedagogy. He called

it pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) – a way of knowing subject matter connected

with the experience and intent of teaching, so that “the unknowing can come to know”

2 Chapter 1: Introduction

(Shulman, 1987, p. 7). There is a clear connection between Shulman’s categories of

knowledge and the subject-specific categories at the heart of this investigation.

This thesis presupposes that what teachers know about language influences the

decisions they make as they plan and deliver instruction for writing. In the context of

this study, the term ‘linguistics’ is broadly synonymous with ‘language’, including the

study of and knowledge about language. Such usage is demonstrated in the explanation

of the term ‘grammar’ and ‘language’ in subsection 1.1.2. It is intended to promote the

ideal that the study of language as it is presented in the Australian Curriculum: English

should be informed by scholars in the field of linguistics. Further, the term ‘grammar’

can be aligned with and used by educators to connote a theorised framework for

knowing about language in its context of use.

Teacher knowledge about language will be referred to here as linguistic subject

knowledge (LSK). As a part of the knowledge base for teaching English, LSK is not

only declarative and applied knowledge about language, but a way of knowing that

involves knowing how and when to explain it (Myhill, Jones, Lines & Watson, 2012).

The ways that knowledge might be conferred to students will be referred to as

linguistic pedagogic subject knowledge (LPSK). LSK and LPSK have their origins in

the theory and research of Shulman’s categories of teacher knowledge and Model of

Pedagogical Reasoning and Action, which will be explicated in Chapter 3. This will

include a theoretical consideration of the connection between pedagogical content

knowledge (PCK) and linguistics that informs the concepts of LSK and LPSK.

My own professional history has led me to do this study. Experience has shown

me that teaching students to write better is an enormously difficult undertaking, within

and between classrooms, and across whole schooling systems. As a teacher, I

experience all the regular frustrations and joys of watching students strive, or not, to

improve their written expression – to have, and hold, and deliver ideas meaningfully

to others. As a leader, I have worked with teachers for 18 years as Head of English and

in various literacy leadership roles. Together, we have developed our appreciation for

the complexity of language. We have explored and sometimes actively avoided

tensions between us when we talk about grammar. And we have tried to make use of

what we know about the English curriculum and about language in the interests of our

students. This appreciation for the importance and complexity of the task, and my

surety that even the most autocratic curriculum leader cannot control how the teaching


happens, has led me to explore more deeply how teachers make decisions to enact the

curriculum. A reflexive account of my roles and their influence on the research design

and analysis is discussed in Chapter 4, section 4.6.

1.1.1 Literacy Policy and Professional Learning

Education Queensland (EQ)’s Literacy - the Key to Learning: framework for

action 2006-20081 has been influential in re-defining what is meant by literacy,

including writing instruction, and in ascribing a role for the teaching of grammar. That

policy document proposed an inclusive set of approaches to literacy learning,

acknowledging the need for teachers and leaders to understand the historical

development of the field:

There is a need to build on each teacher’s repertoire of approaches to the

teaching of literacy. These should include a balance of skills approaches

(including the systematic teaching of reading, writing, spelling and phonics

skills), whole-language approaches (including the scaffolded and

contextualised teaching of reading comprehension), genre approaches

(including the explicit teaching of texts and grammar) and social-critical

approaches (including the purposeful teaching of critical literacy). The

integration of comprehensive approaches to the teaching of literacy in the

curriculum, based on explicit instruction, enables children to read and view,

speak and listen, and write and shape for learning in and out of school.

(Queensland Government, 2006, p. 2)

Statewide training initiatives from 2008-2010, developed in connection with the

Literacy – the Key to Learning framework, emphasised a genre approach from

amongst the possible approaches outlined in the policy. These initiatives privileged the

potential for systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to improve student writing in the

subject areas. EQ’s decision was predicated on literature and theory that strongly

advocated the need to make the demands of the curriculum explicit with regard to the

genres commonly found in various curriculum areas (Polias, 2004; Lee & Spratley,

1 This is not to downplay the very important role of the previous literacy policy document Literate Futures (Queensland Government, 2000) in setting the scene for the way we speak about literacy in Queensland. However, the more recent Literacy – the key to learning (Queensland Government, 2006) is most directly relevant to the professional learning experiences of current English teachers as they relate to this study.


2010) as well as the results of action research conducted in ten Queensland schools

(Queensland Government, 2009).

In 2008 and 2009, all primary school teachers in state schools completed five

days of intensive training, a major professional learning event towards which EQ

committed approximately 80 million dollars (Queensland Government, 2009). The

training was based on Language and Literacy: Classroom applications of functional

grammar professional development program (Dare & Polias, 2006) which was

specifically developed for the South Australian Department of Education. Teachers

were provided with training in functional grammar, then challenged to create and

analyse exemplar texts commonly used in the curriculum, with a view to using these

to improve literacy instruction in their classrooms. The frameworks in Figure 1.1

below provided a complementary set of understandings about language, literacy and

pedagogy. These models guided teachers’ analysis of the literacy demands of their

Figure 1.1. Frameworks underpinning Literacy, the Key to Learning: A Framework for Action Year 8 & 9 Professional Development Package: 1.Four Resources Model 2. Functional model of language 3.

Teaching and Learning Cycle 4.Productive Pedagogies (Queensland Government, 2009)

1

3

4

2


exemplar texts and subsequent planning for instruction. Instructors did refer to a socio-

cultural approach to literacy learning - Freebody and Luke’s Four Resource Model

(1992) - and the Productive Pedagogies framework for instruction from the previous

policy document (Queensland Government, 2000). However, it was the Functional

Model of language and the Teaching and Learning Cycle that directly guided teacher

training. Through these models, the aim of the professional development was for

teachers to apply professional learning about language based on SFL, using an

approach to instruction built on genre theory.

Secondary teachers across content areas were subsequently offered a variation

on the same five-day professional development course (Queensland Government,

2009), although secondary schools were only funded for approximately half their

teachers to participate. The first two days presented theory and application of

functional grammar in the content areas. On the third and fourth days, individuals in

faculty groups wrote and analysed a model response to an assessment task, then

planned learning experiences they could deliver in the classroom. My role as a

Metropolitan Region Associate was to support groups of teachers in across Brisbane

to complete these tasks. I was simultaneously employed by the Principal of a large

Western Metropolitan secondary school, the subject of this study and referred to

hereafter as Newman State High School (SHS), to deliver the full five days of training.

In this way, all staff at Newman SHS had access to the course in 2010 and 2011, as

well as ongoing support to apply their learning in the classroom. I learned much from

these experiences, apart from developing a more comprehensive knowledge about SFL

and its potential application in the classroom. I observed teachers wrestling with new

ideas about what they should be teaching their students to know and do. I wondered

why some teachers leapt enthusiastically at the content, immediately putting it to use

in their classrooms, while a few seemed to reject the whole premise of the enterprise,

namely that there is a need for them to investigate then teach the grammatical

capabilities that students require for learning in all subjects (Queensland Government,

2009). I noticed a variety of feelings related to teacher confidence too. Frustration and

even embarrassment was quite common, particularly amongst English teachers who

felt they should have known more about grammar. A quantitative measure of EQ

teachers’ knowledge about language was not taken at this or any other time. However,


it is reasonable to conclude that LSK and its potential for application in the classroom

(LPSK) had increased as a result of Literacy – the Key to Learning initiatives.

1.1.2 Curriculum Developments

Education Queensland’s Year 8&9 Literacy Professional Development

Package (Queensland Government, 2009) provided useful knowledge for English

teachers preparing to implement the Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) in 2012.

Furthermore, many teachers were familiar with and still applying an understanding of

literature and language described in the relatively ‘high definition’ Senior English

syllabus of 2002. This included terminology drawn directly from systemic functional

linguistics (SFL), including the “register” framework for textual features related to

“field”, “tenor” and “mode”, and used broader socio-critical concepts like “discourse”

and “genre” explicitly (QSA, 2002). The subsequent ‘low definition’ Senior English

Syllabus of 2011 largely discarded direct references to SFL, although it retained some

key ideas related to “how texts are structured and organised for particular purposes”

(QCAA, 2011, p. 3) including basic critical literacy terms like “genre”, “mode” and

“representation”. English teachers, especially teachers of the 2002 Senior English

syllabus who also participated in the 8&9 Literacy Professional Development Package,

had experienced ideas and ways of thinking about language that they would encounter

in the Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E). The AC:E, Australia’s first national

curriculum, was implemented in Queensland schools in 2012 with the support of the

Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA). It represented a

significant curricular change from the preparatory year to year 10.

The AC:E’s Language, Literature and Literacy strands clearly defined a body

of knowledge for English and presented a particular view of language. It is important

here to note that there is a connotative and material difference between ‘language’ and

‘grammar’. Linguists are concerned with describing, for their various purposes, the

structure and function of language, of which grammar is a part. This makes sense in

relation to Myhill’s assertion that to speak about language is to assume a more “liberal,

learner-centred” orientation, while speaking of grammar is a narrower undertaking,

often associated with “an outsider view of English teaching and carrying associations

of control and blame” (Myhill, 2005, p.78). Such are its negative connotations, it feels


as though the term grammar has been colonised somehow, when it might be more

helpful to distinguish between ‘descriptive’ and ‘prescriptive’ grammar.

Descriptive grammar is what linguists study. They examine principles and

patterns that underlie how language is actually used at the word, phrase, clause,

sentence, and text level. Prescriptive grammar is a kind of manifesto for correctness,

sometimes associated with editors, teachers and so-called Grammar Police amongst

the general public. Prescriptive grammar, concerned with rules and declarative

knowledge, is traditional grammar – “fragmentary, dogmatic and prescriptive – very

different from modern linguistics, and very much harder to defend on educational

grounds” (Hudson, 2004, p. 106). If one was to talk about a knowledge base for the

teaching of subject English, it would include the imperative of knowing about a

descriptive grammar as it is presented in the relevant curriculum. In the United

Kingdom (UK), prescriptive presentations of grammar are no longer foregrounded in

the written curriculum, which has been permeated with concepts such as “language

variation, context and genre” (Hudson, 2004). In Australia too, the curriculum supports

a descriptive approach to grammar2. For example, students of the AC:E might

specifically be involved in “investigating differences between spoken and written

English by comparing the language of conversation and interviews with the written

language of print texts” (ACARA, 2016b, Year 10, Language Variation and Change).

Throughout the content descriptors that guide school level planning, a descriptive

understanding of language is evident in terms like “context”, “audience”, “purpose”

and “mode”. As in the UK, Australia’s curriculum has embraced linguistics and largely

rejected prescriptivism in its approach to learning about language.

Australia’s national curriculum documents have delivered a stronger, more

explicit alignment with contemporary linguistics, particularly SFL, than is evident in

the UK or United States of America (USA) national documents (Sangster, 2012). This

has been associated with a stronger belief about the importance of knowledge about

language amongst Australian teachers (Love, Macken-Horarik & Horarik, 2015). This

2 Which is not to say that students do not experience prescriptive teaching. For example, at Newman SHS, Year 10 students, when they were in Years 8 and 9, used English Skills Builder (2013). While the publisher claims it has been “fully revised” for the AC:E strands, this popular text uses a discrete, skills-based approach. The organisation of its contents, with chapter headings like “Parts of Speech”, “Sentence structure” and “Punctuation” suggests prescriptivism, as do activity instructions like “When using adjectives in your writing, be careful to punctuate them correctly” (p. 18).


phenomenon is at least in part connected with the influence of high profile Australian

functional linguists under the leadership of Michael Halliday, such as Beverley

Derewianka and Mary Macken-Horarik, on policy and curriculum documents, and

through university and continuing professional development programs. About its

approach to grammar, ACARA says:

The Australian Curriculum: English uses standard grammatical terminology

but applies it within a contextual framework, in which language choices are

seen to vary according to the topics at hand, the nature and proximity of the

relationships between the language users, and the modes or processes of

communication available. (ACARA, 2016a, Key Ideas, paragraph 6)

Although the document nowhere refers directly to SFL, the three metafunctions

of language as described by Halliday (1978) are clearly evident in this explanation.

When language choices vary according to the “topics at hand”, the ideational

metafunction (field) is working. Language choices vary according to “the nature and

proximity of the relationships between the language users” by engaging the

interpersonal metafunction (tenor). And language choices vary according to “the

modes or processes of communication available” via the textual metafunction (mode).

(For a more complete explanation of the three metafunctions described in SFL, refer

to Chapter 2, section 2.3). Together, EQ and ACARA have created an expectation that

teachers know about grammar and have shown us what kind of grammar we should

know.

This study seeks to understand how teachers make decisions to plan and

execute writing instruction, using what they know about the English curriculum,

language, pedagogy and their students. Thus, the background for the study is deeply

connected with what has been described here: our experiences of the curriculum and

of professional learning about language. However, my immediate inspiration has been

the work of Debra Myhill and her colleagues in the UK. Their large-scale,mixed

methods study of the effects of teaching grammar in context revealed a positive

correlation between teacher LSK and student achievement in writing (Myhill, Lines,

Jones & Watson, 2012). They concluded that a next logical step would be to have

teachers design their own instructional materials. This prompted me to consider the

specific nexus between what teachers know about language, and how they decide to

enact that in their classrooms.


1.2 CONTEXT

Section 1.1 described the background to this thesis, namely the professional

experiences that fostered my interest in literacy and professional learning generally,

and about the role of linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) in improving writing

instruction amongst English teachers in particular. This section will provide a

contextual rationale for the study by presenting writing as an imperative justified by

standardised test results, curriculum demands, systemic and research priorities, and

professional learning challenges and opportunities.

1.2.1 Standardised test results as a measure of writing performance

The standard of student writing is a matter of international concern, at least

amongst English speaking countries. In 2003, an influential report by The National

Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges (2003)

described writing as The Neglected “R”. In their most recently published, five-yearly

assessment of writing performance, about 31% of US students failed to demonstrate a

“proficient” standard (National Centre for Educational Statistics, 2012).3 In the UK

too, the Department for Education showed that students perform most poorly in

writing, with more than 30 percent of students failing to meet a passing standard in

their Key Stage 3, ages 7-14 (Department for Education, 2012). In both countries,

socioeconomic status and gender are significant militating factors against satisfactory

attainment in writing (Department for Education, 2012, p. 19 and National Centre for

Educational Statistics, 2012, p.2).

The story is similar in Australia. In 2017, 18.4 % of Year 9 students did not

achieve the national minimum standard (NMS) for writing in the National Assessment

Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), a bar which the Grattan Institute claims

is achievable even if they are performing below the typical Year 5 student (2016, p.2).

Furthermore, Queensland had the third-lowest mean scale score in the country in

NAPLAN writing in 2017, achieving better than Tasmania by only two points and

worse than Western Australia by more than 16 points. 30.7% of state school students

in Queensland did not achieve NMS in 2017.

3 The most recent writing assessment was given in 2017 to students in grades 4 and 8. Results of the 2017 writing assessment will be published in late 2018 https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/writing/

https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/writing/


Consistent with international findings, poor writing is associated with low

parental education (Grattan Institute, 2016) throughout Australia. It is also a

significantly gendered problem, especially in Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern

Territory. The gap between the performance of boys and girls grows through the years

of compulsory schooling. By the time students reach Year 9 (13 ½ -14 ½ years)

Queensland’s gender gap in writing performance is 7.5% (ACARA, 2017).

NMS and mean scores aside, there is a quantifiable national problem in

improving writing for individuals and groups, as can be seen in the consistently low

relative gain for writing compared with the other literacy and numeracy indicators in

NAPLAN. Relative gain is how much a student has improved from test 1 to test 2, in

this instance from year 7 to year 9, relative to their peers with the same starting score

(Queensland Government, 2012). Figure 1.2 illustrates the problem of writing at

school, state and national levels using the related measure of effect size, which Ben

Jensen describes as “more accurate, less biased against schools in lower socio-

economic communities, less vulnerable to data collection issues, and more useful for

improving schools and teaching” (Grattan Institute, 2010, p. 16) than raw scores or

comparisons in like-school groups. It shows that, even when there are substantial gains

in NAPLAN literacy and numeracy, writing improvement is lower than reading.

Figure 1.2. Comparison of effect size NAPLAN Literacy and Numeracy indicators 2017 – Newman SHS, State, Nation

Newman SHS


1.2.2 Curriculum imperatives

This study is concerned with Year 10 teachers and Year 10 curriculum. Why

Year 10? Year 10 is the endpoint of the Australian Curriculum P-10, a culmination for

the 2017 student cohort of six years’ engagement with that curriculum. It follows four

cycles of NAPLAN testing that marks the end of Junior Secondary, but comes before

the beginning of two years of senior study for the Queensland Certificate of Education.

There is therefore some symbolic and practical value in choosing it.

However, there are more substantive reasons connected materially with the

purposes of this study. Year 10 is neither junior secondary nor formally senior

secondary; it isa kind of academic intermediary point. The 2015 introduction of Year

7 to high schools in Queensland has focussed attention on teaching and learning in

junior secondary. Forthwith, the introduction of a new senior suite of syllabus

documents and tertiary entrance procedures by the Queensland Curriculum and

Assessment Authority (QCAA) from 2019 will demand much teacher and leader time

in secondary schools. Despite these potential administrative and academic diversions,

Year 10 students must be equipped for the rigor of senior schooling. Their subject

selections for senior secondary may even be constrained by their achievement in

English4. Furthermore, Year 10 students in 2018 will be the first Senior students in

Queensland to sit external examinations, so the imperative for them to be able to write

independently and well has never been higher. Consequently, teachers of Year 10

English are acutely engaged in addressing gaps, particularly in students’ writing

performance.

Within this context, consider the variability in written expression evident in these

three writing samples taken from the ACARA sample portfolios (ACARA, 2016, Year

10 Work Samples Portfolios). Across a year, students create texts of various types,

referred to in the glossary of the AC:E as genres, which can broadly be grouped

according to their social purpose (ACARA, 2016, Glossary). A large number of the

texts students create for assessment in English belong to three key genres: text

response (where students interpret the aesthetic, moral and social value of novels,

plays, poetry, film and other texts), exposition (where the purpose is to persuade the

4 For example, at Newman SHS, a B in Year 10 English has been a prerequisite for many Authority (university entrance pathway) subjects.


audience to accept the author’s point of view), and narrative (where the purpose it to

engage the audience in the story) using different modes (written, spoken, multimodal)

(Humphrey, Love & Droga, 2011). The task from which the following excerpts are

taken was to write a text response essay comparing two film interpretations of

Shakespeare’s Macbeth5. This task is typical of what Year 10 students might be

expected to do. Refer to Appendix A for a sample criteria and standards matrix (used

at Newman SHS) and Appendix B for a summary of the content descriptors in the

Language strand for Year 10 English.

SAMPLE A (above satisfactory): Through dialogue, one instance where the theme

of equivocation is explored in this scene is where the first apparition tells Macbeth

to “beware Macduff” and the second apparition says that “none of woman born

shall harm [him]”. Equivocation is explored here in that the witches do not tell

Macbeth of Macduff’s unnatural caesarean birth, thus misleading him to believe

that he does not need to listen to the first apparition’s warning.

SAMPLE B (satisfactory): One way in which Roman Polanski has interpreted the

witches for example is by having the opening scene of the film set on the beach

and the witches burying a hand to show how menacing they really are. Polanski

then gradually fades out to the witches walking off into the distance and whether

he meant to do it or not there is not footprints, wheel marks left to show that there

has been someone there.

SAMPLE C (below satisfactory): There are three main witches but in the book it

says “all witches”. We think it’s the three witches talking, but in Polanski’s

version it is a lot more than three witches. In the beginning of the movie the three

witches look different to what we would’ve thought they looked like in the book.

There is an old one a young one and a blind witch. The young witch doesn’t say

anything in the movie but in the book the third witch says quite a bit. (ACARA,

2018)

5 The excerpts here are from the first body paragraph of three essays responding to the following task: Students saw a range of interpretations of Macbeth in film and live performance and chose two to evaluate. Students were required to reflect upon the different interpretations of theme and character, including the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the interpretations. In particular, they were asked to focus on one or two scenes in the original play and compare them to the two interpretations, commenting on whether the interpretations were suitable adaptations and in sympathy with the original play. Students had two weeks to complete the task and it was undertaken at home.


A preliminary analysis of the writing in Sample C suggests why it is not

satisfactory. The writer uses everyday language like “movie”, “book”, and “talking”

instead of the specialised terms “film”, “play”, and “dialogue”. Sentence structures are

limited in variety and clauses are inconsistently punctuated; three of the five sentences

have a dependent clause with “but” as a coordinating conjunction, and only one uses

a comma to separate the dependent from the independent clause. The interpersonal

distance constructed between the writer and the audience is too close. For example,

the pronoun “we” suggests a familiarity with the reader’s experience that is not always

appropriate in a formal text response. The contraction “doesn’t” also defies

conventional formality. Further, there is no evaluation of meaning. Instead, there is a

series of basic descriptions of the characters, and no detailed evidence that might

support a deeper interpretation. There is clearly much that needs to be attended to for

this student to demonstrate a satisfactory performance of the achievement standard in

English.

These very short excerpts suggest challenging questions a teacher might ask in

relation to the Achievement Standard described below for the productive modes,

including writing (ACARA, 2016b). One sentence has been struck through to indicate

students are not assessed on this element in this task.

Year 10 Achievement standard

Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)

Students show how the selection of language features can achieve precision and stylistic effect.

They explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives through the development of

cohesive and logical arguments. They develop their own style by experimenting with language

features, stylistic devices, text structures and images.

Students create a wide range of texts to articulate complex ideas. They make presentations and

contribute actively to class and group discussions, building on others' ideas, solving problems,

justifying opinions and developing and expanding arguments. They demonstrate understanding

of grammar, vary vocabulary choices for impact, and accurately use spelling and punctuation

when creating and editing texts.

To teach writing to the sample students, teachers might ask: Which specific

grammatical resources will I focus on to help each of these students improve? How

will I simultaneously extend the student who wrote sample A and support B and C?

What whole class and individual instructional activities do I need to design? What

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=F10AS&t=Explain

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=F10AS&t=Develop

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=F10AS&t=Articulate

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=F10AS&t=Demonstrate


specific instruction should I provide to the student who wrote Sample C? Is it possible

for C to meet the Achievement Standard before the end of Year 10? What if the only

summative writing assessment remaining in the year is an on-demand text response

task? What are the consequences for this student if I fail him/her? What if six students

in my class don’t write even as well as the Sample C student?

This brief examination of student writing compared with the year level

expectation, as well as the significant differences between writers in the same cohort,

demonstrates the complexity and gravity of the task faced by English teachers.

1.2.3 The professional learning context for writing

The 2008-10 professional development program described in the Background

section in this chapter is exceptional in focusing systemic professional learning on

writing. Queensland’s systemic priorities have historically privileged reading over

writing, and early literacy over adolescent literacy (Luke & Woods, 2009). Local

initiatives like Metro Secondary Reading support leaders with events like “What it

takes to move reading in secondary schools” (Queensland Government, 2015). In

2016, the Queensland Government opened the Reading Centre in Brisbane, a site

specifically for professional learning in reading, especially primary and junior

secondary reading, which aims to provide “specialist advice to educators and parents

on how to teach reading and support readers, including strategies for students with

dyslexia” (Queensland Government Department of Education, 2016). Most recently,

the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA), in its current

professional learning events series, has prioritised writing by offering Improving

Writing in Years 7-10: The cognitions in the Australian Curriculum (QCAA, 2017, PD

& events, Events by Category, Prep-Year 10). As can be seen from the above

professional development initiatives, primary and secondary schools have dedicated

substantial resources to imrpving reading instruction, and relatively few to writing.

Further, Australian and international academics report a dearth in research about

writing achievement compared with reading, especially early reading (Christenbury,

Bomer & Smagorinksy, 2009; Ryan & Barton, 2013). Indeed, one authoritative UK

research report claimed “there is no evidence on why pupils perform less well in

writing in comparison to reading and other core subjects” (Department for Education,

https://events.qcaa.qld.edu.au/Default.aspx

https://events.qcaa.qld.edu.au/Default.aspx

https://events.qcaa.qld.edu.au/Catalogue.aspx?yl=0


2012, p. 26). The Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA), our most

influential international measure of school students’ performance, uses reading as a

proxy for literacy performance rather than measure writing discretely. At the same

time, students’ academic outcomes, particularly in secondary school, are ultimately

judged on their productive capacity - their ability to express their ideas in writing.

Writing, though clearly an issue of concern, has received far less systemic and

academic attention than reading.

Given the comparative paucity of systemic support and research, and the

apparent intractability of the problem, it is likely that schools struggle to decide what

they should do to improve the quality of student writing. Some of the answer will be

in addressing the quality of teacher writing instruction through professional learning.

However, selecting elements of teacher knowledge that will reliably yield

improvements in writing across a range of student ability is problematic. This is the

case despite much being known about the characteristics of effective writing and the

potential for this knowledge to improve writing instruction (Derewianka, 2012;

Ferguson, 2002; Folkeryd , 2006; Lemke, 1998; Macken-Horarik & Isaac, 2014;

Martin & White, 2005; Polias & Dare, 2006). We know too something about the nature

of writing’s interdependent relationship with reading (Myhill, 2005; Martin & Rose,

2012). The significance of the research community’s contribution to our understanding

of these phenomena will be explored in Chapter 2: Literature. The comparative

difficulty of measuring writing, also described in Chapter 2, presents significant

problems for monitoring impact. Other complexities like the busyness of broader

school improvement agendas, crowded curricula, and a predominance of high-input

lessons can also confound well-intentioned educators.

Existing quality professional learning programs consistently fail to acknowledge

the myriad factors competing for teacher learning attention. Conversely, teachers have

a limited capacity to make changes to their practice (William, 2008, p.40). Much

influential work advises teachers what they should be working on when they have time

to transform their practice (Hattie, 2009; Marzano, 2007; Marzano, 2010) but these do

not explicitly address writing. Conversely, effective approaches to writing such as the

pedagogy offered in Martin and Rose’s (2012) genre-based Reading to Learn do not

prioritise other important teaching strategies, like dialogic classroom practices,


effective routines for classroom management, and collaborative learning. Writing is a

competing, and losing, agenda.

1.2.4 The professional learning context at Newman SHS

Increasingly, schools are turning to collaborative and intra-school resources to

resolve these tensions. Renowned authority on educational reform, Michael Fullan,

persuades systems and schools that “success does not come from ad hoc individuals

beavering away but rather from strategies that leverage the group” (Fullan, 2011, p.

10). Australian authorities are listening to his logic. The Australian Institute for

Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL, 2012), Australia’s national body established

to promote excellence in teaching and school leadership, has situated high quality

professional learning as central to the aims of the Melbourne Declaration of Education

Goals for Young Australians, which are to promote equity and excellence in student

learning outcomes. AITSL contracted UK experts Alma Harris and Michelle Jones

(AITSL, 2014) to work with eight schools to generate local knowledge about the most

effective models of professional learning. Harris and Jones advise that, once a problem

has been identified, “teachers work collaboratively to address the problem through

collaborative action/enquiry and classroom innovation” (AITSL, 2014, p. 2). Newman

SHS exists in a policy environment that endorses intra-school collaborative

professional learning.

The potential of collaboration to realise the affordances of increased teacher

knowledge is embodied at Newman SHS in a formal Professional Learning

Community (PLC). Appendix C provides an overview of how PLCs are structured in

the school, which is consistent with the intention described by Harris:

Here, the PLC is a collaborative group or team charged with the responsibility

of improving the outcomes of a specific group of learners. The PLC is

essentially a means of changing professional practice in order to improve

learner outcomes. It is expected to take inquiry, innovate and disseminate.”

(Harris, 2014, p. 96)

Although it is not the only way teachers can learn together, PLCs have become

the professional learning architecture of choice for a growing number of schools and

school systems (Lemke, 2009; Dufour, Dufour & Eaker, 2009; Harris, 2014; Sharrat

& Planche 2016). Harris notes the development of PLCs as a pattern emerging from

the studies collected by Darling-Hammond et al. (2009) and Mourshed et al. (2010)


which describe the workings of successful school systems and professional learning.

In particular, PLCs have been developed in: Canada, in Ontario and the York District

School Board; in Wales; and in many of the high-performing Southeast Asian

countries. Schools and systems looking to improve have been influenced by the

successful practices of others.

The workings of effective PLCs are further explicated in the detailed and

influential work of Harris and others, including Lyn Sharratt (Sharratt & Fullan, 2012;

Sharratt & Planche, 2016) whose approach has been adopted in Queensland by the

Brisbane Metropolitan Region. The existence and effectiveness of PLCs is significant

for this study because the PLC was the source of participants and the site of the


1.3 PURPOSES

This study was concerned with interdependent factors affecting student skill

acquisition in writing. It investigated the effects of and relationship between:

• teacher knowledge;

• the Australian Curriculum: English;

• ongoing planning decisions, including how the participating teachers

decided to allocate classroom time for application and practice; and

• peer and expert support.

The purpose was to describe how teachers make decisions as they plan and deliver

literacy pedagogy when it is intentionally focussed on transmitting teacher LSK and

where the ultimate aim is to improve student writing. The following research question

will underpin this inquiry:

How do teachers respond to professional learning about language that is

provided to support the writing instruction they deliver in the classroom?

And these sub-questions related to how teachers make decisions to enact the

curriculum will support the inquiry:

How do teachers use information, data and resources to make decisions about

LSK or PLSK?


What are the outcomes for teachers of increasing their linguistic subject

knowledge and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge through professional

development?

1.4 RESEARCH DESIGN

This study used a Design-based research (DBR) approach to investigate how

teachers used professional learning about language to plan and deliver writing

instruction in Term 3 of Year 10 English. I approached the teaching team of six PLC

members during their regular meeting time. I shared the purposes of the inquiry and

showed how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) would provide a framework for

connecting the language demands of the curriculum with the needs of the students in

the cohort. After the participants were selected from amongst the volunteers, I

conducted a needs analysis workshop for the participants. Any member of the PLC

was invited to attend. Three other teachers joined us, so there were six people present

including me. We selected grammatical resources that the participants wanted to know

more about and that had the potential to improve their students’ writing. I then

designed a one-hour workshop that aimed to improve teachers’ LSK. This was made

available to any interested teacher in the faculty. A total of 20 teachers other than the

participants chose to attend. Participants were offered ongoing support and

information in the form of access to the workshop materials, related readings and

access to me in my role as researcher. They also had the opportunity, as did the faculty

at large, to attend a two-hour workshop about similar grammatical knowledge

presented by a local university tutor. This was offered as an optional Student Free Day

activity and both participants attended. This approach to the research was intended to

be as ‘natural’ as possible, meaning that the research-related activities were closely

aligned with existing planning and professional learning activities.

Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with the two participating

teachers. The aim of these interviews was to elicit information about how they made

decisions, individually and collectively, to enact the curriculum and activate their

knowledge. These interviews were guided by the central research question and sub-

questions, as well as the theoretical frameworks presented in Chapter 3. Supporting

documentation, including PLC meeting minutes, unit plans, and lesson plans, was also

gathered throughout the iterative phases of the DBR process. The application of the

DBR methodology, and the framework provided by SFL, aimed to provide


practitioners and the researcher with further insight into how teachers’ developing

LSK and LPSK influence the planning and delivery of writing instruction. A detailed

presentation of the DBR process is presented in Chapter 4: Methodology.

1.4.1 Significance of the research

A significant body of literature exists that is concerned with effective

professional development, literacy learning, and SFL. However, there is a gap in

connecting what we know about effective approaches to professional learning and how

these might be harnessed for improving writing instruction. This study may help to

resolve a related issue in English and literacy teaching in schools: our model(s) of

language presents an enormous volume and complexity but our capacity to apply new

knowledge to classroom practice is limited. For teachers and their leaders, such a

resolution could support decision-making in relation to What now? How? and What

next?

1.5 THESIS OUTLINE

Chapter 1 has provided an overview of the background, context, and purpose of

the study. It offered insights into how the professional experience and orientation of

the researcher, and the global and local contextual circumstances, influenced the

research design. Chapter 2 will review empirical literature concerning effective

professional learning and writing instruction, synthesising some common ideas and

highlighting the implications for this study. Relevant theoretical frameworks,

including Shulman’s theory of knowledge, Halliday’s SFL, and the concepts of

linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge

(LPSK) are explored in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 provides an explanation of DBR, and a

detailed description of how it was used to achieve the purposes of this study. In Chapter

5, I present the results of the study, offering an analysis arranged by theme. Chapter 6

contains conclusions from and limitations of the current study. It also suggests some

insights for theory, the methodological contributions of the study, as well as

implications for practice and further research.

Chapter 2: Literature Review 21

Literature Review

This chapter reviews literature on the following topics: research about effective

professional learning for teachers; empirical studies pertaining to writing instruction;

the role of teachers’ linguistic subject knowledge for improving student writing

outcomes; and the evidence base supporting systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and

related pedagogy over alternative approaches to grammar. Section 2.5 describes

implications from the literature relevant to this study.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Learning ecologies within and beyond twenty-first century classrooms, schools,

and school systems are complex and dynamic. Schools compete locally, nationally,

and internationally for better academic results. And at the centre of this, teachers, with

their students, must learn and grow. The demand for deeply knowledgeable, highly

skilled teachers in all areas has never been so high.

This study is concerned with the endeavour of developing teacher professional

knowledge as it is applied to the skill area of writing in subject English. Writing is

central to the Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) and it is in large part success in

writing that matters; we need teachers to be very good at teaching students how to

write. Within this context, research about the roles of teachers as learners and decision-

makers about writing instruction will be considered in this chapter.

2.2 PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

This section will begin with a review of the literature about professional learning

and canvass some important themes that emerge. A commitment to student learning;

the ubiquitous presence of formative assessment; a need for sustained and focused

engagement; and the value of collaboration are interrelated themes that support my

approach to professional learning in this project.

2.2.1 Rethinking professional learning

Traditional approaches to teacher professional learning, characterised by stand-

alone workshops, are unequal to the task of training teachers to prepare students for

the twenty-first century. In the US, Linda Darling-Hammond and her colleagues, in

their report for the National Staff Development Council, were deeply critical of much

22 Chapter 2: Literature Review

of the professional learning available to teachers, describing it as “episodic, myopic,

and often meaningless” (Darling-Hammond, Chung Wei, Andree, Richardson &

Orphanos, 2009, p.2). Their comprehensive survey of the existing global research was

supported by nationally representative data from the National Centre for Education

Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey. Then the 2010 McKinsey & Company study

of 575 reform interventions conducted in 20 of the world’s most improved school

systems (Mourshed, Chijioke & Barber, 2010) proved a high degree of commonality

amongst the interventions they engaged. This included the imperative of “building

technical skills of teachers and principals, often through group or cascading training”

(p. 28). Drawing on this work, UK researcher Fullan (2011) argues that the key to

system-wide success is to harness the energy of educators. His synthesis of McKinsey

and Company’s findings is applied to two school systems that have been less effective

at improving outcomes for students: Australia and the USA. He concludes that four

wrong drivers of educational change prevent the required mobilisation of people

power: accountability; individual teacher and leadership quality; technology; and

fragmented strategies (Fullan, 2011, p. 5). Instead, he exhorts school systems to focus

on capacity building, group quality, instruction, and systemic improvement strategies.

Contemporaries William (2007) and Lemke (2009) concur in their call for a new, more

effective model of teacher professional learning.

2.2.2 Themes in professional learning

Not only do our peak bodies, including Education Queensland and the

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, know that access to quality

professional learning is important, the research corpus also largely agrees about what

quality professional learning looks like. Two sets of four interconnected themes are

presented here.

First, quality teacher learning is driven by a commitment to student learning.

This sounds obvious but is not commonplace. Darling-Hammond et al. (2009) argued

for student-focused professional learning that “addresses the concrete, everyday

challenges involved in teaching and learning specific academic subject matter” (p. 10)

and recommend that schools and teachers begin by analysing and discussing a range

of student performance data, including school based, standardised and formative

assessment. Fullan (2011) similarly situates student learning and achievement at the

heart of instructional reform. The more detailed work of Sharrat and Fullan (2012)


and Sharratt and Planche (2016), connected with one of McKinsey’s school reform

champion systems, Ontario and York Regions in Canada, firmly positions readers to

regard student outcomes as the raison d’etre for teacher capacity building via


Second, formative assessment is an important component of the professional

learning agenda, no matter the topic. This orientation to improving student

achievement by monitoring learning and modifying teaching is overtly connected with

the aforementioned commitment to student learning. Numerous studies have

demonstrated a connection between formative assessment practices and student

achievement. It must be acknowledged that impact is affected by several variables:

proximity to the learning event, sensitivity of the learning to instruction, and the

quality of the assessment instrument (William, 2010). Nonetheless, there is a strong

correlation between teacher expertise in subject-specific formative assessment and

student motivation (Araceli Ruiz-Primo et al., 2010) and student self-regulation of

improvement (Andrade, 2010). Influential work in this area has been developed by

William and colleagues (William, 2007; William, Lee, Harrison & Black, 2004) which

Fullan uses as an example of how the ‘right drivers’ can work at the local level to

create an instruction-achievement nexus. This example illustrates the interdependent

characteristics of effective professional learning which “strengthens both instruction

and achievement” (Fullan, 2009, 11).

Formative assessment is more than just one example of good practice. The

specific need for teachers to learn about and use formative assessment is a common

finding across the research evidence on professional learning. It appears in the models

developed by Sharrat (Sharrat & Fullan, 2012) and Sharratt and Planche (2016); in the

advice offered by Hattie and Timperley (2007) pertaining to the productive

communication of formative results; and in the many and collected works of Marzano

(2007, 2010a, 2010b). The message is clear: teachers must undertake any professional

learning with a commitment to improving the learning outcomes for students, and they

must also develop particular expertise in formative assessment so that they can monitor

what their students are learning both in and out of the classroom.

Despite such resounding affirmations for formative assessment practices, there

are caveats to be acknowledged. New Zealand researchers Haigh and Dixon (2007)

found in their study of formative assessment practices that teachers were able to

http://www-tandfonline-com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/author/





engage productively with students and set class activities in response to information

gathered about student capability in formative assessment tasks (p. 369). However,

knowing more about student variability did not always translate comfortably to

changes in classroom responses (p. 370). A study by Parr and Timperley (2010) that

is relevant to this project situated feedback about student writing within a formative

assessment framework. The authors noted the difficulty teachers can encounter

utilising knowledge of texts and language “in the light their interpretation of evidence

of writing achievement to provide feeback and support to move learning forward”

(Parr & Timperley, 2010, p. 72). A further complexity of the formative assessment

imperative lies in the social, dialogic nature of formative assessmen noted by Parr and

Timerley. Wills and Van der Kliej (2018) further note that more work needs to be done

in exploring the affordances of student agency and self-regulation in formative

assessment. Interesting contributions to the field are being made which may provide a

constructive way forward. For example, Cowie, Harrison and Willis’s (2018) study

suggests teacher professional ‘noticing’ of discretionary classroom moments that can

inform and underpin possible action as potentially providing a skills framework for

teachers to “sharpen their assessment for learning practices” (p. 1).

The complexities of formative assessment notwithstanding, it can further be

connected to the specific work of teachers applying their professional knowledge to

instruction in the English curriculum. The US National Council of Teachers of English

(NCTE) describes formative assessment as “the lived, daily embodiment of a teacher’s

desire to refine practice based on a keener understanding of current levels of student

performance, undergirded by the teacher’s knowledge of possible paths of student

development within the discipline and of pedagogies that support such development”

(NCTE, 2013, p. 2). The notion that English teachers can make use of formative data

was demonstrated in the formal hypothesis-test process postulated by Stephens et al

(1996). They were able to show that, when a teacher understands the student as a

learner, instructional decisions can be geared to improving learning in a way that is

connected to the curriculum and teacher knowledge, rather than the teacher reacting

with ‘quick fixes’. Each iterative cycle of increasingly knowing the learner by enacting

the curriculum in different ways to meet their needs, led to improved instructional

responses. In a different kind of study, Fisher and Frey (2013) tested the potential of

formative analysis tools for writing. This was a response to the observation that the


labour-intensive feedback typically given by teachers about student writing is largely

ineffective (p. 66). Instead, they asked teachers to “get better at analysing students’

writing for errors and misconceptions … and using these analyses such that students

could be retaught the information they needed” (p. 67). Although limited in scope,

their case analysis reveals that a formative assessment orientation to instruction can be

achieved using a collaboratively developed error analysis tool. The result was

increased purpose-driven instruction based on patterns interpreted by the teacher

during the learning process, not just at the end of the unit. Instruction could also be

differentiated more readily for individuals. Such research indicates that formative

assessment is strongly connected with teacher knowledge, specifically with what

teachers do with what they know. In the study conducted here, what teachers know

about language, and its relation to writing development in the context of the Australian

Curriculum: English, is connected with their reports of formative assessment actions

in the classroom.

A third characteristic of quality professional learning is that it must be sustained

and focused for measurable impact to occur. Mourshed et al. (2009), while conceding

that the research pool is limited, cite well-designed studies suggesting a correlation

between the duration of a professional learning program and impact, between 30 and

100 hours in an academic year required to reliably predict significant student

improvement. Garet, et al. (2001), in their significant qualitative study of 1027 maths

and science teachers found that time span and duration were important determiners of

a positive professional learning outcome. William (2008) is also a strong advocate for

the need for schools to make sustained investment in a new kind of teacher professional

development” (p. 38). He advises that professional learning should focus on only a

small number of changes simultaneously, so that teachers have the opportunity to

practise and embed their professional learning.

This sustained and focused approach is congruent with Jetnikoff and Smeed’s

On Model of professional learning. Their qualitative case study demonstrated a

connection between high quality professional development and teacher professional

renewal and student outcomes, including a rapid improvement in tertiary entrance

scores (Jetnifkoff & Smeed, 2012). Such an impact is predicated on the training being:

‘ongoing’ over the period of change; ‘on time’ in its proximity to student learning and

efficient in its use of teacher time; ‘on task’ for the negotiated goals; ‘on the mark’ for


fulfilling teachers’ specific learning needs; and ‘on the spot’, where the professional

learning was carried out at the school site. This study limited the design to a small

number of grammatical resources, allowing increased focus and duration on the salient

knowledge. The span of the professional learning was also long compared with the

duration of the study (10 weeks) because teachers had the opportunity to begin their

content learning as soon as the professional learning need was identified, and this could

be revisited throughout the study.

Finally, collaboration – teachers learning and working together for an extended

period to improve student learning outcomes - is common to successful professional

learning campaigns. Considered last here, it is certainly not the least important theme

to emerge from the literature. Indeed, it would be difficult to locate studies which do

not identify teacher collaboration as a vital component of effective professional

learning. Darling, et al. (2009) present the potential for teachers working together to

improve students as a key finding. Mourshed and colleagues (2010) demonstrate that

intraschool peer collaboration between teachers is a characteristic of highly evolved

school systems, and a driver of innovation in its own right.

The symbiotic relationship between collaboration and accountability, already

noted here as it relates to formative assessment, is at work when collaboration around

teacher professional learning happens. If it is geared to capacity building and group

quality, teachers can respond to professional learning by collectively owning the

educational practices of the school. This kind of intelligent accountability, where it is

an outcome and not a driver of reform via the use of what Onora O’Neill describes as

“second order ways of using evidence” (O’Neill, 2013, p. 4) is positive. In strong

collaborative cultures, teachers with their peers accept responsibility for student

growth, they are highly committed to certain instructional practices, and they expect

their colleagues to be as well (Fullan, 2011). Fullan is so convinced about the efficacy

of collaboration for professional learning, he describes it as a key criterion for

predicting whether a particular initiative is likely to be successful.

Leading ‘operational’ experts, whose research and practice is deeply connected

with the findings from research into effective school systems, have since focused on

the mechanics of successful collaboration. Harris (2014) sees high-impact professional

learning happen when teachers “routinely and naturally engage in activities to improve

their practice and where there are opportunities to learn from other professionals within


their schools but also in other schools” (p. 26). Sharratt and Planche’s (2016) study

shows that teachers themselves have a high degree of confidence that teachers’

collaboration inspires improved student outcomes and cites it as a crucial component

of Ontario’s impressive school improvement trajectory. Their international survey

suggests a growing level of collaboration is actually happening in schools.

Certainly, Australian authorities are trying to facilitate more and better

collaboration. AITSL’s Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School

Leaders (2012) offers the following advice for the teachers and school systems of

Australia:

Collaboration has a powerful effect in magnifying and spreading the benefits

of professional learning and adds a new and valuable dimension to the learning

undertaken by individuals. It connects teachers and leaders to their colleagues

within and across schools and to external experts. (p. 5)

AITSL subsequently commissioned leading experts in professional learning,

Harris & Jones (2014), to supervise action research projects across eight schools so

that Australia has a locally-proven, evidence-based model for effective professional

learning where impact is “thought about at the outset and not left to chance or retro-

fitted at the end” (p. 8). Like school systems around the world, Australian schools are

turning to the power of people to drive improvement initiatives.

2.3 WRITING INSTRUCTION

The research suggests some common themes in high quality professional

learning, and in any given professional learning encounter teachers must learn about

something. In the case of this project, the learning is discipline-specific to subject

English, although the findings might well be relevant to other domains. The target skill

is instruction for writing.

This section will review literature about writing instruction and engage with

emerging evidence about the potential impact of teachers’ linguistic knowledge.

2.3.1 Understanding the problem of writing

There is a rich literature about reading instruction, but a less robust corpus for

the teaching of writing. English and non-English speaking contexts alike are concerned

about writing, but national and international assessments have routinely privileged


reading (and mathematics and science). More and better knowledge about writing

instruction is needed.

Different understandings about what writing is, and how to teach and assess it,

have confounded efforts to compare writing across national boundaries. The most

ambitious attempt to investigate student writing internationally to date was conducted

by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)

in 1981. Their attempt to study achievement in written composition in 14 systems over

10 years was ultimately abandoned (Purves, 1992). Lead researcher Purves describes

the issues they encountered:

1. “School writing is an ill-defined domain (Purves, 1992, p. 109).” Writing is so

culturally specific that abstractions and correlations were impossible to reliably

make.

2. “School writing is a matter of products not processes (Purves, 1992, p. 109).”

There is such variation in approaches to the process of writing in classrooms that

researchers were left to infer what had been happening in classrooms.

3. “The quality of school writing is what observers report they see (Purves, 1992, p.

109).” Epistemologically, the observer is so much part of the observed (writers

so differently interpret tasks, markers apply standards so variously) that ratings

were at best a subjective estimate of quality.

Purves’ observations might in part explain why international assessments such as PISA

and Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (PIRLS) use reading as a

proxy for literacy performance.

Current researchers have learned from Purves’ lesson:

that writing tasks may be seen in terms of their discourse functions, their

cognitive demands, and their social situations. Such a three-dimensional

depiction of writing tasks leads away from the notion that writing may be

thought of as a single trait. (Purves, 1992, p. 109)

Studies featured in a special edition of Reading and Writing (2016) prompted Graham

and Rijlaarsdam (2016) to call for a new international study that will shift focus from

quantifying comparative writing achievement unidimensionally, to making

quantitative and qualitative measures including:


1. an analytic description of practice - what and how writing is taught, how it

is used in various school subjects, and what kind of texts students write

(features represented in texts);

2. an understanding of the degree to which relevant parties in the particular

society are satisfied with the texts students write; and

3. an analysis of the degree to which these parties’ expected outcomes were

realised. (p. 784)

This broader view of expectations about school writing, writing instruction, and impact

have the potential to deliver a richer body of literature through which to investigate

writing instruction. Such an approach recognises teachers as the “key actors in the

teaching and of writing” and focuses on “what teachers do and think in the practice of

writing instruction” (Graham & Rijlaarsdam, 2016, p. 788). This study aligns with

this approach, concerned as it is with decisions about what will be taught and how.

2.3.2 Themes in writing instruction

Despite a relative dearth of studies for writing instruction (Department for

Education, 2012, p. 26) several themes emerge from the extant research suggesting

what effective writing instruction might look like. Importantly, effective writing

instruction must be explicit and systematic but also engaging and purposeful.

Multiple large and small studies support the need for explicit strategies for text

production. Graham et al. (2013) in their survey of the teaching of writing to middle

school students, and Ryan and Barton’s (2013) project examining the teaching of

writing to middle years students in Australian schools are relevant examples. At the

same time, writing instruction should provide space for students to experiment, to

develop their own voice, and to discuss and reflect on their writing. Ryan and Barton’s

findings suggest the “soft stuff”, like student engagement and a sense of purpose,

matters and a broad synthesis of evidence collected in the UK by the Department for

Education (2010) also found engagement, including finding opportunities for student

voice, are important. Prominent UK researcher Debra Myhill and her colleagues also

support a two-tiered approach, calling for “a pedagogy of writing, underpinned by

metalinguistically aware teaching and learning, and framed by exploration, playfulness

and experimentation” (2013, p. 110). Quality writing instruction is multi-layered in its

approach.


Myhill’s team investigated the problem of writing instruction. Their large scale,

mixed method study, using a randomised control trial to measure impact and a

complementary qualitative study, revealed a third theme: teachers who teach writing

well tend to have better linguistic subject knowledge (LSK). They found not only that

explicit and contextualised grammar instruction had a positive effect on student

writing performance but also that teacher LSK was a significant mediating factor

(Myhill, Jones, Lines & Watson, 2012). The capacity of knowledgeable teachers to

accurately and consistently explicate grammar in writing instruction as well as provide

feedback and remediation for error proved important; implicit knowledge of grammar

isn’t as pedagogically useful as explicit knowledge. Myhill’s findings are relevant here

because they support my premise that explicit knowledge about grammar can be

pedagogically useful for writing instruction. This assumption, and more precise

definitions of LSK and the related idea of linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge

(LPSK) will be further explained in Chapter 3: Theory.

LSK presents an obstacle as well as an opportunity. In a recent Scottish study,

preservice teachers estimated their existing knowledge then completed a

comprehensive test of their declarative and procedural knowledge about grammar.

The results revealed a significant discrepancy between teachers’ perceived and actual

knowledge about language (Sangster, Anderson & O’Hara, 2013). This gap between

confidence and competence has been confirmed in large scale quantitative research

which measured current levels of LSK amongst Australian teachers. Love, Macken-

Horarik and Horarik (2015) show that, although teachers appear to regard LSK as more

important than their US and UK counterparts, their knowledge is similarly limited

compared with their confidence. In open-ended responses “…views which emphasise

the importance of rhetorical understandings for effective language use, align strongly

with the intentions of the AC:E, and their relative infrequency is cause for some

concern and further analysis” (Love et al, 2015, p. 177). This research suggests that

Education Queensland has been right to offer professional learning opportunities

designed to increase LSK, but perhaps mistaken if they conclude the work is done.

Related studies (Fogel & Ehri, 2000; Fearn & Farnan, 2007) indicate that it may

be important to begin planning for writing instruction by investigating a specific

linguistic learning need. Fogel and Ehri’s mixed method study tested approaches to

the teaching of writing in Standard English (SE) to third and fourth grade African-


American students who exhibited Black English Vernacular (BEV). Linguistic

learning needs were determined by the differences between SE and BEV – a set of

consistently recurring syntactic errors (Fogel & Ehri, 2000) for example: past tense

“ed” might be “Yesterday she played” but BEV uses “Yesterday she play”. By

selecting a small number of such errors and then exposing students to models, explicit

instruction and guided practice, Fogel and Ehri were able to demonstrate a significant

improvement in student writing from pre to post tests. In the examples provided in

Section 1.2.2 here, a particular linguistic learning need of the student who wrote

Sample C might be the convention of using a comma to separate a dependent clause

from an independent clause, or the use of specialised vocabulary instead of everyday

language to discuss texts for formal text response task. Observations such as these are

interesting in the context of this study for their connection with the professional

learning literature. Specifically, the centrality of student performance data and

formative assessment are a ubiquitous professional learning focus. They also connect

with the theme of explicit teaching in writing instruction. Explicit about what? We

should be explicit about grammar perhaps, to begin with.

2.4 CHOOSING A GRAMMAR

What kind of grammar should teachers begin with? For the purposes of

teaching subject English generally, and this study in particular, they should begin with

a grammar that, taught well, can improve writing. It makes sense too, to reject a

grammar that cannot6; there just isn’t time in the English classroom. Linguists may be

able to offer assistance in the form an explicit and systematic consideration of language

as a system, which teachers can use to improve the impact of their writing instruction.

Carter (1990) and Hudson (2004) indicate that “(I)n the long-run, education will

benefit enormously from the insights of a well-founded general model of language”

(Hudson, 2004, p111). The choices that will be considered here, because they have

been associated with classroom practice, are: traditional, transformational-generative

and systemic functional.

6 Of course, it may be that the study of grammar might be inherently worthwhile, in the same way that any human endeavour is worth studying, whether or not it can improve writing.


2.4.1 Traditional grammar

Traditional or prescriptive grammar categorises words into at least eight parts

of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and

interjection. Words in these categories are combined to form phrases, clauses and

sentences. The set of rules that govern the way this can happen is known as syntax.

Traditional grammar is rejected by linguists because they recognise that real language

does not sit still very well within it; language defies the neat classification that

traditional grammar demands. Take, for example, these two common rules:

Never split an infinitive. (‘To boldly go’ – but of course this has become

common.)

Never end a sentence with a preposition. (‘That’s what it’s for!’ – except when

you want a certain kind of emphasis.)” (Kalantzis, Cope, Chan & Dalley-

Trim, 2016, p. 294)

The dizzying complexity and endless qualification involved in applying the rules

of traditional grammar is not, in the end, very useful for describing how written

communication works.

Further, the transmission of traditional grammar via didactic literacy

pedagogy is characterised by direct instruction of its content, which must be

memorised and applied in activities like parsing, where the components of a sentence

are labelled and analysed for their syntactic roles. Such an approach has been

thoroughly discredited by empirical studies in the field of education. As early as 1963,

Braddock et al. compiled a report of the results of various studies from the US, Canada

and England pertaining to written composition. Amongst the instructional factors

influencing the quality of written composition, they concluded that “(I)n view of the

widespread agreement of research studies based upon many types of students and

teachers, it can be stated in strong and unqualified terms: the teaching of formal

grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice

in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing”

(Braddock et al, 1963, pp. 37-38). Hillocks’ (1984) metastudy investigated

experimental research on written composition from 1963. His synthesis of that body

of work accounted more rigorously for variables like teaching mode or style and found

that the teaching of grammar was still a serious curricular issue; despite significant

advances in the sophistication of linguistic models, the teaching of grammar could not


be shown to have a positive impact on writing. More recently, Andrews et al. (2006)

in their review of studies related to grammar teaching on the accuracy and quality of

the written compositions of 5 to 16-year-olds, concluded that there was no measurable

positive impact of teaching traditional grammar. They further suggested a need to “re-

theorise knowledge about language” (Andrews et al., p. 53). The influence of

Australia’s attempt to do this in its curriculum will be discussed in section 2.4.3.

2.4.2 Transformational-generative grammar

Transformational-generative grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. It offers

an alternative to traditional grammar – a system of analysing sentences such that the

underlying rules of the language may be elicited. Based on Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic

Structures (1957), its orientation to explaining the structure of language and its

connectedness with how people think offered potential possibilities for classroom use.

For example, sentence-combining is associated with transformative-generative

grammar. Sentence combining could grow out of this linguistic theory because

transformative grammar suggests that we can generate rules that explain acceptable

syntax – word order and usage. In this strategy, students write, or are presented with,

a series of simple sentences. For example:

Neve went bushwalking.

Neve tripped over a log.

Students are then challenged to combine the clauses in various ways,

experimenting with unfamiliar sentence structures and comparing them for effect and

effectiveness. For example, possible variations one might write include:

Neve went bushwalking and Neve tripped over a log.

Neve tripped over a log when she went bushwalking.

While she was bushwalking, Neve tripped over a log.

Neve tripped over a log because she went bushwalking.

Sentence-combining emerged as an effective classroom strategy, an observation

supported by scores of studies (Saddler, 2009), although Andrews et al. (2006)

question the quality of some these. Even the most convincing, like Sadler’s own, and

like O’Hare’s 1973 investigation into the effects of sentence-combining on written

composition, were predicated on the idea that the “practice was in no way dependent


on the students’ formal knowledge of transformational grammar” (Andrews et al., p.

48). In other words, sentence-combining is probably a good and useful strategy. It

might even be a good addition to linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge – what a

teacher knows about how to apply their knowledge of language. The possible impact

of sentence-combining aside, earlier studies, including one large scale study over three

years (Elley et al., 1979) could not demonstrate a tangible benefit to a more fulsome

study of generative grammar, and it has not subsequently proven useful for educators

(Kalantzis, et al., 2016). The case of one useful strategy is not a strong enough

foundation on which to build a broader instruction for writing.

2.4.3 Systemic functional linguistics

A grammar useful for instruction must be descriptive, like generative grammar,

but also socio-cultural in its orientation, foregrounding meaning-making in context

over the application of often archaic and arbitrary rules (Myhill, 2005). It is largely

because of this orientation that a third possibility, functional systemic linguistics

(SFL), offers a system with the potential to be effective for instruction. The case for

using SFL in this study will be built below by briefly introducing SFL as a grammar

and then presenting evidence that it offers a more robust foundation for evaluating and

teaching writing.

Halliday’s sophisticated, fulsome model of language strongly connects reading

and writing, and speaking and listening, with the functional potential of language

(Halliday, 1978). In SFL, language is presented as a “social semiotic”7 where context

and purpose guide grammatical choices, not prescriptive rules for correctness. SFL is

always concerned with the study of the text in the first instance, because variations

between language choices in text are attributed to the purposes for which the language

choices were made. For example, a persuasive speech for an election campaign will

have significantly different grammatical patterns than a short story for science fiction

enthusiasts. Such variations are referred to as ‘register variations’. Register is

composed of three variables: field, tenor and mode (see Figure 2.1).

Field refers to the ongoing activity and the particular purposes that the use of

language is serving within the context of that activity; tenor refers to the

7 Semiotic = sign system


interrelations among the participants (status and role relationships) and mode8

covers mostly Hymes’ channel, key and genre. (Halliday, 1987, p. 62)

Some reference to SFL has already been made here (Chapter 1) regarding its status as

the grammar of choice in the AC:E. A more detailed theoretical explanation will be

offered in Chapter 3.

Figure 2.1. A systemic functional model of language (Martin & Rose, 2011)

A grammar useful for teaching will be capable of describing what is going right

in successful writing, and useful for ameliorating perceived weaknesses. SFL offers a

platform for accurate and useful assessment of this kind. Fang and Wang (2011), for

example, demonstrate that a functional approach provides more valuable insight into

what makes a text successful than traditional rubrics, which focus on accuracy at the

expense of generic variation and meaning. They even suggest that the interrelatedness

of the grammar is such that it may be sufficient to only focus one or two resources for

a given text (2001, p. 160). Christie and Macken-Horarik’s (2008) well-synthesised9

8 Halliday refers to mode elsewhere in Language as Social Semiotic (1978) as the textual component of discourse, where the channel of communication adopted determines forms of cohesion, patterns of voice and theme, deixis (words like ‘you’ and ‘there’ that depend on context for meaning) and lexical continuity (chains of related words). 9 Their study is well-synthesised in the sense that it justifies a discrete package of semantic features that characterise successful narrative and interpretive texts in Senior English. Those semantic features are: abstraction (via dense nominal groups and embedding); metaphor (lexical and grammatical); elaboration and apposition; and appraisal (via various resources that build affect or judgement) (p. 178)


application of SFL analyses successful student writing of highly valued text types,

including narratives and text responses, in subject English in England and Australia.

They demonstrate that increased visibility of language is possible, describing the ways

the successful narratives achieve a mature sensibility – a refined empathy and carefully

crafted abstractions. SFL allows Christie and Macken-Horarik to be highly specific

about the grammar and its effects. For example, they single out Halliday’s

grammatical metaphor as being at work in the following example. Nominalisation,

evident in the words “anticipation” and “reflection”, creates a level of abstraction we

associate with mature, sensitive writing in English:

Example sentence: A sense of excited anticipation mixed with sad reflection

filled her mind. (p. 173)

A similar test of the utility of SFL was applied to literary interpretations, where

dense nominal groups and sequences of embedded clauses are scrutinised for their

rhetorical effect.

Example 20:

‘The Red Back Spider’ is a story about an old woman who finds it necessary

to build a solid wall between herself and her worker, about a woman who is

so selfish that she will not allow a young child to play with toys which have

remained unused and unwanted for some time. (p. 176)

The pragmatic orientation of SFL is useful for educators. It has a propensity to support

analysis and rich description across a range of text types and modes of communication.

As demonstrated by Christie and Macken-Horarik (2008), a functional approach

to literacy learning does not ask about the rules, and whether the student knows them.

A functional approach to literacy asks ‘What is the purpose of this text?’ and ‘How is

the text structured to meet these purposes?’ (Cope, Kalantzis, Chan & Dalley-Tran,

2016, p. 146). It further positions the student in the role of apprentice learner, where

the teacher transmits his or her expertise in the analysis and construction of various

text types. Halliday’s register variables present a powerful set of grammatical

resources organised into logical categories from which a teacher can choose in their

effort to reveal generic patterns to students. For example, when one is teaching Year 8

students how to write a discussion, where the purpose is to present alternative points

of view on an issue and resolve them persuasively for the reader, specialised language


related to the issue and the basic tool of nominalisation might be selected for focused

teaching – depending on factors like the intended curriculum (the syllabus document

and the school’s work program) and the particular skills and prior learning of the

students. More recent studies by Macken-Horarik, including the aptly titled ‘Good

Enough’ Grammatics (and Not More Grammar (Macken-Horarik, 2012) explains why

she, like me and other Australian teachers I know, were not content to wait for

Hudson’s “in the long run” (Hudson, 2004, p. 111 and refer the introduction to this

section: 2.4) model of language; SFL is good enough now. She demonstrates through

her own case studies of student texts that teachers can use the tools of SFL to assess

student writing for the purposes of instruction, to find the “points of need” in ways that

offer potential to satisfy students’ need for explicitness and also respect their need to

have fun with writing.

2.4.4 Systemic functional linguistics and pedagogy

A significant body of pedagogy derived from an approach built around SFL is

demonstrably effective in writing instruction. Fearn and Farnan’s 2007 study

experimented with teaching that used a figurative approach to teach explicitly how

verbs were working to make meaning in sentences and valued students’ sense of what

“sounded right”. They compared this with an approach to the same material that

prioritised identifying, describing, and defining grammatical features. They found

that, while both groups of students knew the same amount about grammar, only the

students of functional grammar could show significant improvements in their writing

(Fearn & Farnan, 2007). Studies such as this have moved the focus from building

evidence to refute the role of grammar, to finding workable and effective approaches.

Genre theory is the most influential and fully developed of the evidence-based

pedagogy that has grown from SFL. Often referred to as the Sydney School, a

collective of Australian academics committed in their research to developing effective

literacy pedagogy in: disadvantaged schools (NSW Disadvantaged Schools Program,

1989), in rural and remote schools (Christie, 1985); and for English language learners

(Hammond and Gibbons, 2005). Development of the pedagogy by Joan Rothery in

association with Jim Martin (Rose & Martin, 2012) and other local academics such as

Cope and Kalantzis (1993), galvanised the position of SFL as a linguistic approach

that could be used by teachers.


SFL, through genre theory, was operationalised in large part through the

teaching/learning cycle, the development and application of which formed a

foundation in the research. Its continued influence can be seen in Framework 4 from

Education Queensland’s literacy professional development package (see Chapter 1,

section 1.1.1.). Practitioner researchers proposed a flexible sequence of stages and

associated learning activities as presented in Figure 2.2. These include: modelling,

where the teacher provides experience in the analysis of the language and of the genre

used in relevant social context/s; joint construction, where the teacher negotiates and

then jointly builds a new text based on their collective experiences of preparing to

write; and individual construction, in which students independently plan and write, and

through which teachers can formatively and summatively assess student progress

(NSW Department of Education, 1989). The positive impact of The Writing Project

and Language and Social Power (Painter & Martin, 1986) showed that a flexible but

still explicit approach to teaching the most highly valued text types in English could

be successful. The second phase of research extended genre pedagogy, which was also

gaining international influence, by analysing writing in secondary schools and

workplaces and developing curriculum materials (Christie & Martin, 1997, p. 1) for

the Write it Right project for the NSW Department of Education.


Figure 2.2. The teaching and learning cycle (in NSW Department of Education, 1989)

Recent related pedagogy such Reading to Learn (Martin & Rose, 2012) has

continued the tradition of developing and testing pedagogy for learners who are most

at risk. Reading to Learn is highly structured, less flexible in its application than the

previous iterations of genre pedagogy. Scripted lesson planning and key strategies like

detailed reading and sentence making (Martin & Rose, 2012) are used within a revised

conception of the teaching and learning cycle (Figure 2.3).


Figure 2.3. The teaching and learning cycle in Reading to Learn (Martin & Rose, 2012, p. 147)

The goal of closing the achievement gap for adolescents and others in rural and

remote Australian and overseas schools provides a moral purpose for Reading to

Learn. Significant improvements in reading and writing have been secured for students

three to eight years behind their peers, for the general population of primary school

students, and for the curriculum literacy instruction of teachers in secondary (Rose,

2015). Unlike pedagogies that have been derived from traditional and generative

grammars, genre-based pedagogies are holistically theorised, and grounded in a

pragmatic linguistics: SFL.

Australian academics in particular support approaches underpinned by SFL and

this is reflected in national and local curriculum documents, and in the research

projects that continue to grow out of the tradition. As final evidence that Australia has

indeed chosen a grammar, even if this is not recognised in the media or explicitly by

our policymakers, SFL has found a way, largely through the authorial efforts of Peter

Freebody, Beverley Derewienka and others, into the AC:E. In the way it exists in this

document, it may not yet be good enough “to think with” (Macken-Horarik, 2012,

p.192) in that there is a tendency for the admittedly complex terminology to be hidden

from view. This can mean teachers and their curriculum leaders with insufficient

linguistic subject knowledge miss the presence of grammar as a system in the

curriculum, and consequently students may not make full use of the potential


affordances of their own growing metalinguistic knowledge. However, the existence

of a Language strand derived in form and detail from SFL - alongside the Literature

and Literacy strands of the AC:E - is at least a place to start.

2.5 IMPLICATIONS

This study draws on research evidence concerning what effective professional

learning and writing instruction look like respectively. There are two important sets

of themes that intersect: the importance of high-knowledge professionals, and the role

for explicit teaching and teacher decision-making based on actual evidence of student

work and progress. Myhill recommends that the next logical step after her

groundbreaking study is to have teachers, “design and develop the materials for any

intervention themselves, with guidance from the research team, thus taking ownership

of the pedagogical principles which inform the study” (Myhill et al., 2012 a, p. 163).

She also suggests further research could begin by analysing writers’ developmental

needs, and then designing the teaching schemes around grammatical resources most

relevant to these needs (Myhill et al b., 2012, p.1256). The Design-based research

(DBR) study conducted here, attempted to do as Myhill suggests: support teachers to

enact the curriculum so that the particular linguistic learning needs of their students

are met.

The teachers participating in this study belong to an existing professional

learning community and had the opportunity to do a number of things: analyse the

developmental needs of the writers they teach; increase their knowledge about

language; and develop appropriate materials. Research suggests that such an

intervention could engage the right drivers in combination, that is, capacity building

and group development (Fullan, 2011).

42 Chapter 3: Theory

Theory

Chapter 2 critiqued empirical literature on professional learning and writing

instruction. It was revealed that there are some convergent themes. Notably, teachers

need to be high-knowledge professionals able to make instructional decisions that meet

the needs of the individuals and groups they teach. More specifically, research about

the potential for contextualised grammar to have a positive impact on student outcomes

in writing suggests we should examine more closely how teachers make decisions

pertaining to language in the teaching of writing. Chapter 4 will present Design-based

Research as a methodology to support this examination.

The purpose of this chapter is to locate the study in the theoretical fields that

will support analysis and discussion. Here I briefly overview some possible theoretical

relationships between Shulman’s theory of teacher knowledge/s, functional systemic

linguistics, and emerging theoretical constructions that are referred to as linguistic

subject knowledge (LSK) and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge (LPSK). In

Chapter 5, I use these conceptual frameworks to analyse teachers’ accounts of their

decision-making. Such an approach will build a foundation for a more robust response

to the central research question explored here: How do teachers respond to

professional learning about language that is provided to support the writing

instruction they deliver in the classroom?

3.1 SHULMAN’S THEORY OF TEACHER PROFESSIONAL

KNOWLEDGE

With a background, interestingly, in teaching medical students as well as preservice

teachers, Schulman began conceptualising and categorising what teachers know and

how they reason at a time when teaching was only beginning to be considered a

profession. From the early twentieth century until the 1980s, teacher preparation

conceived of teaching as a craft, where content and teaching methods comprised

teacher knowledge and this was delivered in teachers’ colleges, as teacher training

rather than a scholarly education. This way of thinking about what teachers needed to

know and learn to do meant that “teacher education across the 20th century has been

severed by a persistent divide between subject matter and pedagogy” (Ball & Bass,

Chapter 3: Theory 43

1999). This divide is still discernible in some teacher education courses where content

is taught at university and the craft of teaching is largely handed over to the

experienced teacher on practicum. Until the 1980s, most Australian teachers were

trained over relatively short periods, typically two years. Few held a Bachelor’s

degree, and the lecturers who visited schools to assess preservice teachers’ practice

tended to be “good teachers” rather than post-graduates or academics. This paradigm

shifted across the 70s-80s, when post-graduate diplomas and bachelor’s degree courses

had the effect, along with government-funded teacher accreditation, of valuing subject-

specific content and theoretically justified pedagogy, and raising the status of teaching

as a profession (Aspland, 2008). Although issues of status persist, there is general

agreement that teaching is a valued profession.

Shulman’s contribution to the professionalisation of teaching was to

problematise the separation of knowledge and pedagogy that had dominated thinking

about what teachers know and do through this period of transition. He rejected the

product-process paradigm (Schulman, 1986) in education research and policymaking,

which was predicated on finding correlations between teacher behaviour and student

performance. To replace it, and to contribute constructively to the development of

teacher standards framework in the USA, he offered a more coherent theoretical

framework to explain the development of teacher understanding and transmission of

content.

3.1.1 Pedagogical Content Knowledge and a Model for Pedagogical Reasoning

and Action

Shulman first described pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as a subcategory

of teacher content knowledge (1986) but thereafter ascribed it a category in its own

right. His contemporaries and descendants have offered alternatives to the detail and

organisation of his knowledges (Hashweh, 1985, 2005; Gudmundsdottir, 1991; Banks,

Leach & Moon, 2005). However, the seven categories Shulman described have

remained influential:

• content knowledge

• general pedagogical knowledge, with special reference to those broad

principles and strategies of classroom management and organisation that

appear to transcend subject matter


• curriculum knowledge, with particular grasp of the materials and programs

that serve as “tools of the trade” for teachers

• pedagogical content knowledge, that special amalgam of content and

pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of

professional understanding.

• knowledge of learners and their characteristics

• knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from workings of the group or

classroom, the governance and financing of school districts, to the character

of communities and cultures

• knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values, and their philosophical

and historical grounds. (Shulman, 1987)

PCK is significant because it describes a knowledge distinctive for teaching,

inextricable from the essential work of classroom teachers and inalienable in form,

function, and theoretical development from their wisdom. PCK can be defined as:

a specific form of content knowledge that is relevant to its teaching. It is topic

specific, that is, related to the most regularly taught topics in a teacher’s

subject specialisation. Additionally, it includes forms of representation of the

content, namely, the analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations,

demonstrations, and activities that make the content comprehensible to

students. Finally, it includes knowledge about student difficulties in learning

the content of the topic and how to overcome these difficulties. These include

students’ alternative conceptions and misconceptions and how to engage with

these prior ideas that students hold and that often hamper effective learning.

(Hashweh, 2014, p. 598)

The concept of PCK provides a rich foundation for analysing teacher accounts of how

they enact the curriculum. Shulman further proposed a useful model for how one might

“reason like a teacher” in his Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and Action (1987).

Table 3.1 explains the series of intellectual activities, explicitly or implicitly, and not

necessarily in order, that comprise the reasoning process:


Table 3.1

Shulman’s Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action

Comprehension

Of purposes, subject matter structures, ideas within and outside the discipline

Transformation

Preparation: critical interpretation and analysis of texts, structuring and segmenting, development

of a curricular repertoire, and clarification of purposes

Representation: use of a representational repertoire which includes analogies, metaphors,

examples, demonstrations, explanations, and so forth

Selection: choice from among and instructional repertoire, which includes modes of teaching,

organizing, managing and arranging

Adaptation and Tailoring to Student Characteristics: consideration of conceptions, preconceptions,

misconceptions, and difficulties, language, culture, and motivations, social class, gender, age,

ability, aptitude, interests, self-concepts, and attention

Instruction

Management, presentations, interactions, group work, discipline, humour, questioning and other

aspects of active teaching, discovery or inquiry instruction, and the observable forms of classroom

teaching

Evaluation

Checking for student understanding during interactive learning

Testing student understanding at the end of lessons or units

Evaluating one’s own performance and adjusting for experiences

Reflection

Reviewing, reconstruction, reenacting and critically analysing one’s own and the class

performance, and grounding explanations in evidence

New Comprehensions

Of purpose, subject matter, students, teaching and self

Consolidation of new understandings, and learnings from experience

The concept of PCK and the broader notion of teacher knowledges, along with the

Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and action, are useful for this study and have been


adapted by theorists in literacy and English teaching and learning, as will be

demonstrated in section 3.3 here.

3.1.2 Continued relevance of Shulman’s work

Shulman wrote two seminal papers about the ways teachers know, and reason

with what they know, to make instructional decisions: “Those Who Understand:

Knowledge growth in teaching” (1986) and “Knowledge and Teaching: Foundations

of the new reform” (1987). In them, he was challenging a trend in policy that will be

familiar to researchers and practitioners today. Namely, he criticised public ways of

talking about teachers that reduce the “outrageously complex” (1987, p. 7) work of

teaching to what can be easily measured, including evidence drawn from standardised

assessments. In particular, he challenged the articulation and application of

professional standards that valued generic instructional practices and did not give

sufficient consideration to the role of particular subject matter.

Australia’s peak body for “promoting excellence in the profession of teaching

and school leadership” (AITSL, 2016, About Us, para. 2) arguably has the same

paradigm blind spot that Shulman noted. AITSL’s professional standards are widely

used in schools to evaluate teacher performance and determine teacher professional

learning needs. Of AITSL’s seven standards10, only one is content-specific: 2. Know

the content and how to teach it. Each AITSL standard has between four and seven

subcategories. Of the six subcategories in Standard 2, only 2.1 Content and teaching

strategies of the teaching area and 2.2 Content selection and organisation are directly

subject specific. The others are generic or cross-curricular:

2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting

2.4 Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to

promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

2.5 Literacy and numeracy strategies

2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

10 1. Know students and how they learn. 2. Know the content and how to teach it. 3. Plan for an implement effective teaching and learning. 4. Create and maintain support and safe learning environments. 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning. 6. Engage in professional learning. 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community.


By contrast, a whole subcategory, 3.1 Establish challenging learning goals, is devoted

to a single item of what Shulman would call ‘general pedagogical knowledge’. It has

to be conceded that the work of succinctly defining excellent teaching for the whole

profession is very difficult. However, this example does support the continued veracity

of Shulman’s claims that teaching standards tend to value generic over subject-specific

instructional practices.

Shulman had the knack of elevating teachers and their work at a time when

teachers were being scrutinised, criticised, “done to”. The ignominious idiom “Those

who can, do; those who can’t, teach” was elegantly rebutted by Shulman in his defence

of the wisdom of our practice:

We reject Mr. Shaw and his calumny. With Aristotle we declare that the

ultimate test of understanding rests on the ability to transform one's knowledge

into teaching. Those who can, do.

Those who understand, teach. (Shulman, 1986, p. 14)

Despite an elevation in status through the end of the twentieth century, the autonomy

and respect generally offered to professionals is routinely contested in teaching.

Sustained attacks on teachers’ competence and motivations described in Ilana Snyder’s

Literacy Wars (2006) seem, from the inside, barely to have abated. She describes a

war of words waged particularly in The Australian newspaper, supported by

conservative politicians and partisan academics. Conservative commentators Kevin

Donnelly and Kenneth Wiltshire were Generals in that war, and indeed they were re-

deployed in 2014 to review the newly introduced Australian Curriculum. The nature

of the criticisms levelled at English and literacy teachers is often just as vicious as it

ever was, with early career teachers particularly under fire. Commonplace are

headlines such as “Lament overs standards as aspiring teachers flop literacy”

(Hosking, 2015) and commentators such as The Australian’s Justine Ferrari claiming

that “the teaching of reading is mired in theory, with too little focus on practical skills”

(Ferrari, 2015). At the release of 2016’s NAPLAN results, then Minister for Education

Simon Birmingham suggested that educators were not making effective use of the

resources delivered by the government: “(t)oday’s results once again show that, despite

significant funding growth, we are not getting sufficient improvements in student

outcomes” (Dalzell, 2016). In contrast, Shulman’s inherent respect, even awe, for the

work of teaching and the wisdom of teachers remains refreshing 30 years later.


3.1.3 Using Shulman’s theory for inquiry and analysis

Shulman’s theoretical contribution was based on a rich oeuvre of case studies.

His work is full of exemplary descriptions of and reflections on teacher practice. The

most famous case is Nancy (a pseudonym), an English teacher of extraordinary

capability, whom he describes as:

…like a symphony conductor, posing questions, probing for alternative views,

drawing out the shy while tempering the boisterous. Not much happened in

the classroom that did not pass through Nancy, whose pacing and ordering,

structuring and expanding, controlled the rhythm of classroom life. (Shulman,

1987, p. 2)

However, it is Shulman’s accounts of Nancy’s reflective thinking that have influenced

this study. I have endeavoured to hear participants’ reasoning in the way Shulman

listened to how Nancy made her decisions:

Nancy characterised her treatment of literature in terms of a general theoretical

model that she employed … [Nancy describes four levels of reading skills.]

… Nancy employed this conceptual framework in her teaching, using it to

guide her own sequencing of material and formulation of questions. (Shulman,

1987, p. 2)

The methodological approach of Design-based research and the theoretical

framework offered by systemic functional linguistics helped them and me

usefully articulate that reasoning (refer section 4.2) in response to new linguistic

subject knowledge (LSK).

Shulman also helpfully noted how teacher reasoning can change when content

knowledge is not sufficient for the kind of expert teaching displayed by Nancy. His

insight alerted me to signals from teachers about how a deficit in their LSK might

reveal itself in the reasoning process. One of his other participants, Colleen (also a

pseudonym), who coincidentally was struggling with teaching grammar, makes a

deliberate decision to compensate for her lack of LSK:

(S)he confessed to the observer that she had actively avoided making eye

contact with one particular student in the front row because that youngster

always had good questions or ideas and in this particular lesson Colleen really


didn’t want to encourage either, because she wasn’t sure of the answers. She

was uncertain about the content and adapted her instructional style to allay

her anxiety. (p. 18)

An analysis that is able to draw conclusions about the interactions between LSK and

linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge (LPSK) relies on the researcher noticing

participant comprehension and transformation of understanding. The interviewer

needs to be able to see how the selection and organisation of teaching practices change

in response to the amount of knowledge the teacher has. Such interpretation is

supported by the kinds of questions posed in semi-structured interviews, and by

evidence contained in planning documents generated by the teachers.

The reasoning process described in section 3.1.2 happens whether the planning

is explicit and documented, or implicit and seemingly reflexive. Thus, it was important

to elicit comments from participants about explicit and implicit decision-making in

response to professional learning. Some example questions (refer Appendix D for

complete semi-structured interview planning documents) aligned with Shulman’s

approach included:

• You’re still in the orientation phase of your unit, but is there anything you’ve

already done that’s relevant, or potentially relevant? (initial interview)

• Have you done some prior work on this with this group How did that go?

(initial interview)

• Do you think the work you did in this unit had an impact on their writing?

Can you show me what you were talking about in a student’s work? (final

interview)

3.2 Systemic functional linguistics

Shulman’s theory of teacher knowledges provides a broad conceptual

framework for thinking about how teachers think. Shulman and others (Hashweh,

1985; Banks, Leach & Moon, 2005) were always careful to emphasise the content-

specific nature of teacher’s work. To this end, SFL is used in association with

Shulman’s theory, providing a content-specific framework for thinking about how

teachers think about language and writing instruction.


3.2.1 Language as a social semiotic

Halliday (1978) presents language as a social semiotic, where context and

purpose guide grammatical choices. He was inspired by linguists like Labov (1966)

who were not content to accept the intellectual status quo, where language variation

and change were to be considered in isolation from individual instances of difference,

and where “(T)he linguist should not use non-linguistic data to explain linguistic

change” (Labov, 1966, p.9). Labov, via his influential study of the linguistic

complexity of New York City, legitimised the study of language in its social context.

Simultaneously, Basil Bernstein’s interest in linguistics, ignited by his classroom

teaching in the working class Kingsway Day College, conflicted with his intellectual

roots in sociology (Bernstein, 1971). His investigation of linguistic variation between

people from different social classes in London debunked the notion that the way people

speak has any correlation with intelligence (Bernstein, 1962). In subsequently

developing his theory of language codes, Bernstein made significant and enduring

contributions to the fields of sociology, linguistics, and education. By describing

elaborated and restricted codes, for instance, he could show the inclusive and exclusive

effects of language use in social contexts. Indeed, he was drawn to emerging schools

of functional linguistics, and would meet Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan, who

were at that time engaged in the research towards a conception of systemic functional

linguistics (Christie, 1999; More, 2012). Together with their contemporaries, these

scholars changed forever the dichotomy between linguistics and sociology.

Halliday’s view of individuals’ experience of language is that it is culturally

determined, conditioned by the distinctive linguistic practices and purposes of the

social groups and events in which people participate. To this end, he explored grammar

from a functional perspective, working from research that described the way spoken

language works in daily life to achieve those functions for which it was formed.

Bernstein’s original connection with children and education might be considered

incidental (Bernstein, 1971; More, 2012) to the development of his theory, which made

an important contribution to understanding the ways language use in school

contributes to social inequality. However, Halliday drew understandings directly from

children’s experiences of language acquisition at home and at school. Furthermore, his

intention was always to make a contribution to social equity and educational practice

(Halliday, 1978). In distancing himself from a view of dialectical variation as “deficit”,


and working from a less evaluative approach to variation as “difference” he was able

to describe in detail the way language works in the world, providing categories for

meaning making and ultimately a descriptive system that would become instructive,

both for linguists and pedagogues.

Central to the systemic functional linguistic (SFL) system as offered by

Halliday, is the theory of register:

The notion of register is at once very simple and very powerful. It

refers to the fact that the language we speak or write varies according

to the type of situation. This in itself is no more than stating the

obvious. What the theory of register does is to attempt to uncover the

general principles which govern this variation, so that we can begin to

uncover what situational factors determine what linguistic features.

(Halliday, 1978, pp-31-32)

The register variables – field, tenor and mode - have been presented in Chapter 1

subsection 1.1.2 as integral to the organisers of the language strand in the Australian

Curriculum: English and in Chapter 2 (Literature) more completely as a way to

categorise the various sentence-level grammatical resources which realise the

meaning-making potential of language. A complete account of the grammar is

impossible, “because a language is inexhaustible” (Halliday, 1985, p. xiiv) and

certainly only a very rudimentary account can be given here. To demonstrate the

applicability of SFL theory to the analyses of texts like this student’s written

composition, and the text s/he studied, the example of student writing, from a text

response to two interpretations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is analysed as an

illustration:

Through dialogue, one instance where the theme of equivocation is explored

in this scene is where the first apparition tells Macbeth to “beware Macduff”

and the second apparition says that “none of woman born shall harm [him]”.

(ACARA, 2018, Year 10 Work Samples Portfolios)

The complicated structure of this sentence can be revealed by representing the clause

boundaries:

Through dialogue, one instance [[where the theme of equivocation is

explored in this scene]] is [[where the first apparition tells Macbeth // to


“beware Macduff” // and the second apparition says // that “none [[of

woman born]] shall harm [him]”]] ///.

Presenting the sentence though a transitivity analysis further demonstrates where the

complexities lay in what is essentially a simple sentence; the additional details

provided in the second participant.

Table 3.2

Transitivity analysis of sample sentence

Through dialogue

one instance [[where the theme of equivocation is explored in this scene]]

is

where the first apparition tells Macbeth // to “beware Macduff” // and the second apparition says // that none [[of woman born]] shall harm him

Circumstance: Manner Participant Process:

relational Participant

prepositional phrase

noun group with embedded clause as Qualifier

verb group several embedded clauses realising a single complex Participant

A further application of Halliday’s theory to this sample of student writing reveals

patterns of grammatical choice like this in Table 3.2.


Table 3.3

Systemic functional linguistics applied to a sentence from a text response (adapted from Education

Queensland, 2009, and Halliday, 1985)

FIELD – the experiential

metafunction How are

experiences in and of the world

expressed in the text? This is

interpreted via the

TRANSITIVITY system,

which construes of the world of

experiences into a manageable

set of PROCESS TYPES.

TENOR – the interpersonal

metafunction

How do people interact to

exchange meaning? This is

interpreted via the system of

MOOD

MODE – the textual

metafunction

How are the ideas organised

and connected in the text?

This is interpreted via the

THEMATIC structure.

The sentence makes use of

specialised language in the field

of literary studies, eg. dialogue,

theme. Clauses and sentences

represent meaning in logical

patterns, in this case a complex

sentence with one ranked clause

and a complicated arrangement

of embedded clauses realising

PARTICIPANTS, including

verbal PROCESSES which

project other clauses. The

central RELATIONAL

PROCESS “is” connects the

PARTICIPANT “one instance

where the theme of

equivocation is explored” with

the PARTICIPANT, in this case

the instance of the first and

second apparitions speaking to

Macduff. CIRCUMSTANCES

of CAUSE “through dialogue”

and LOCATION “in this scene”

are associated with the process.

This formal exchange between

author and reader is a

STATEMENT, where the author

is a giver of information about

the SUBJECT “one instance”.

This FINITE verb “is”, in person

and number, is in concord with

its subject – third person, present

tense. The mood constructed

here “carries the burden of the

clause as an interactive event”

(Halliday, 1985, p. 77). Note that

the mood of the clauses

embedded in the evidence from

the original text is different; that

will be referred to in 3.2.2

Appraisal.

The element in this clause

enunciated as the THEME,

the point of departure for the

message, is “Through

dialogue”. This combines

with the remainder, the

RHEME. Note that the

instance of

NOMINALISATION “the

theme of equivocation”

functions as a thematic

equivative, which allows this

complicated sentence

structure to carry multiple

themes for the purpose of the

literary interpretation.

Similarly, the embedded

clause makes use of the

CONJUNCTION “and” to

hold the whole together.


Such application is relevant here because this study is interested in “a culturally

specific and situationally sensitive range of meaning potential” (Halliday, 1978, p. 34)

that is quite narrow: a class of Year 10 students attempting to make meaning through

written composition. Of course, examining just one sentence is an oversimplification;

the demands of the task(s) for both teachers and their students are complex. This study

asked teachers to examine a selection of their students’ work, then select grammatical

resources from amongst the register variables as the focus for their professional

learning and their teaching.

3.2.2 Genre theory

Genre theory has been considered in Chapter 2 for its contribution to evidence-

based pedagogy. It is worth noting again for the theoretical work it does in building

the grammar of SFL beyond the level of the sentence, so that we may see how the

whole text fulfils its social purpose. For the purposes of this study, a discussion of

genre theory concerns the theory as an extension of SFL, developed by Australian

academics through the 1980s in direct connection with Halliday. A discussion of other

important theoretical developments in genre theory, also in the 1980s, for the study of

literary theory and rhetoric (Freadman, 2012) is not included. More useful will be the

way genre theory mobilised SFL so that we may better understand the way systematic

patterns of language choices, hitherto concerned with language choices in the context

of particular social situations, realise communicative purposes in the context of the

culture.

Genre theory is concerned with the ways we mobilise language in our culture,

collectively developing, privileging, and marginalising patterns of communications we

need to make. In this way, genre theory is “a theory of the borders of our social work,

and our familiarity with what to expect” (Martin, 2009, p. 13). More than that, genre

is an agent of social power:

To be aware of the genres, their constitutive principles, their valuation of

which are fully adequate to the writer’s interests at the moment of writing,

becomes both the sine qua non of fully literate practice and the condition

for full participation in social life.” (Kress, 2003, p. 84)

Genre theory invokes the category of the text - its whole shape and pattern - in a way

that’s meaningful for understanding how culture is reproduced, and ultimately useful


pedagogically for educators who must know enough to transmit these shapes and

patterns for their students, if they are to be successful in the culture.

The figure introduced in Chapter 2 (Figure 3.1 below) demonstrates the place

of genre in relation to register.

Figure 3.1 A systemic functional model of language (Martin & Rose, 2011)

Martin (2009) defines genre as having three characteristics:

staged: because it usually takes us more than one phase of meaning to work

through a genre,

goal-oriented: because unfolding phases are designed to accomplish

something and we feel a sense of frustration or incompleteness if we are

stopped,

social: because we undertake genres interactively with others. (p. 13)

Consider the Year 10 student text already discussed (Refer Appendix E), as it is

presented in the AC:E document. To notice the patterns of generic choice, we must

consider the whole text, and not just the sentence-level grammar. For a text response,

as per Figure 3.2, the stages typically begin with an Evaluation of the text and its

message, followed by a Synopsis of selected elements that illustrate the message,

finishing with a Reaffirmation of the evaluation (Rose, 2015).


Figure 3.2. Staging structure of the text response genre (based on Rose, 2015)

In the extended Year 10 sample from the ACARA website, the student begins the

interpretation by evaluating the various productions of Macbeth as “interesting” in

relation to “portraying the theme of equivocation”. It is not a strong evaluation, as is

often the case in text responses, but the choice serves the purpose of preparing us to

be led through the synopsis in a manner that supports the students’ positive evaluation

of the play. In the second stage of this composition, the student author demonstrates

how “dialogue techniques” in the film and the unique representation of the witches in

the stage play build the theme of equivocation. Various conventions for presenting and

explaining evidence, including citation and example, are employed in the synopsis. In

the final stage, the positive evaluation of the texts because they “successfully stick to

the true spirit”, presumably of what the student sees as Shakespeare’s intention, is

reaffirmed.

This way of applying genre theory to texts is useful for this study, which is

concerned with impact on teaching and learning. For teachers to have access to a

fulsome range of grammatical features, they must be able to select from grammatical

resources that operate at and beyond the level of the sentence in this way. Without

considering genre, they would not after all have the opportunity to improve their

explication of the generic conventions for building story or argument or evaluation in

a way that is valued in the discourse of schooling.

3.2.3 Appraisal theory

The grammatical resources of Appraisal were not, after all, used directly in the

Design-Based Research intervention. They are retained here in part to present a fuller


picture of the theoretical possibilities for this study. It is also the case that the teaching

of Appraisal in the school’s Years 8 and 9 programs became significant, as were one

participant’s references to evaluative language choices (refer Chapter 5).

Appraisal theory operates simultaneously at and beyond the sentence. Appraisal

is concerned specifically with the interpersonal metafunction of language, as described

by Halliday – an application of grammatical resources to the creation of meaning

between the initiator and the receiver of the communication. However, it works in

consort with the experiential metafunction and the placement of evaluative language

in the generic structure (Martin, 2014). Figure 3.3 below outlines the resources of

appraisal, as conceived by Martin and White (2005) including types of attitude (affect,

judgement and appreciation), graduation systems (force and focus) and engagement

systems for controlling possibility for meaning making (monogloss – offering one -

and heterogloss - accommodating more than one).

Figure 3.3. Appraisal systems (discourse semantics, interpersonal metafunction (Martin, 2014, p. 18)


Martin and White’s The Language of Evaluation is the seminal work on

Appraisal theory. In it, the authors build a convincing case for including it in SFL and

describe in detail how interpersonal language works.

It is concerned with how writers/speakers approve and disapprove, enthuse

and abhor, applaud and criticise, and with how they position their

readers/listeners to do likewise. It is concerned with the construction of texts

by communities of shared feelings and values, and with the linguistic

mechanisms for the sharing of emotions, tastes and normative assessments. It

is concerned with how writers/speakers construe for themselves particular

authorial identities or personae, with how they align or disalign themselves

with actual or potential respondents, and with how they construct for their

texts an intended or ideal audience. (Martin & White, 2005, p. 1)

Appraisal theory might usefully illuminate meaning making in the Year 10 ACARA

sample text - how the young author has attempted to position the reader to agree with

their evaluation. It has already been noted that the initial evaluation was “not strong”,

but it is possible to be more precise about that. Consider the complete introduction (or

evaluation stage):

“Come, high, or low; Thyself and office deftly show.” This particular scene

from William Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, where the witches introduce

Macbeth to the three apparitions, has been interpreted in several interesting

ways. As have several other scenes, in portraying the theme of equivocation.

Roman Polanski’s 1971 film version and Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth Undone

theatre performance provide two very different interpretations of the tragedy

as a whole, and thus these individual scenes. (ACARA, 2016)

The word “interesting” adopts a positive attitude. It offers an appreciation of the worth

or value of the film and performance as texts. This adjective is infused with attitude -

a graduating device to emphasise that the differences are of artistic value – and

thereby intensifies the meaning slightly11. In the last sentence “very” scales up the

meaning a little more. Later in the text, the author considers the performance and the

film to be of equal value. Resources for engagement are further employed to align the

11 The author could have made the evaluation much stronger. Martin and White give this example from a review of Michael Ondaatje’s novel Anvil’s Ghost: Virtually flawless, with impeccable regional details, startlingly original characters, and a compelling literary plot that borders on the thriller, Ondaatje’s stunning achievement is to produce an indelible novel of dangerous beauty.


reader with the writer’s position. In a textual move typical of a novice literary critic,

the text begins with an attribution to the ultimate source: Shakespeare himself.

Preoccupied as we are in subject English with narrative and evaluative genres,

with interpreting and constructing emotion, Appraisal offers a system for interpreting

meaning in text that is extraordinarily useful. A teacher with strong LSK in the area of

Appraisal could identify quite easily for example that this student, whose work is

already described as “above satisfactory”, could benefit from learning how to make

stronger evaluations. This would be easier to teach if one were able to explain the point

of evaluating in terms of the evaluating stage of the genre, using genre theory, instead

of just calling the first paragraph an introduction. Its interplay with the experiential

metafunction from SFL could be called upon to simultaneously correct the sentence

fragment: “As have several other scenes, in portraying the theme of equivocation.”

This could help the student achieve a more logical presentation of ideas.

3.2.4 Using the theory for inquiry and analysis

The theoretical contribution of Halliday and others draws from an array of

qualitative and quantitative studies. The corpus is full of descriptions and analyses

that reinforce the utility of SFL, and it is hoped that the application to student sample

work from the Australian Curriculum portfolio samples presented here demonstrates

how it can work. One helpful application is a local doctoral thesis by Lenore Ferguson,

in which various systems have been employed for an archeological study of Year 12

writing. Her findings, for example:

• students produced relatively fewer texts privileging evaluative thinking and

feeling than those derived from sensory and intuitive interpretations

• semantic choices in texts awarded from high to low grades ranged from the

culturally possible, through the culturally probable, to the culturally

improbable

• students demonstrated clear understanding and appreciation of discourse

purpose and patterns relevant to subject matter and role

• relatively few students wrote with intensity of feeling about subject matter

or established clear authorial positioning

• 75% of students consistently followed generic, syntactic and spelling

patterns


• Relatively few students included the use of aesthetic and figurative

language, including grammatical metaphor. (Ferguson, 2002, p. 272)

say much about what students know about and can do with language, and by extension

imply what teachers might need to know. This study, along with others reviewed in

the previous chapter, and more directly connected with ideas about linguistic subject

knowledge (LSK) and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge (LPSK), provided a

useful checking mechanism against the results of the needs analysis in the Design-

Based research project. My semi-structured interviews and complementary document

analysis also revealed that patterns identified by Ferguson (2001); Love, Macken-

Horarik and Horarik (2015); and others are consistent with the patterns participant

teachers reported valuing for their own professional learning. In other words, this

study in part tested whether the theory as experts have applied it has utility when

teachers of varying background and experience attempted to comprehend and

transform the knowlege. Some interview questions (refer Appendix D) for complete

semi-structured interview planning documents) aligned with SFL included:

• I wonder how you would describe your experiences with grammar – the

development of your own linguistic subject knowledge? (initial interview)

• How did you decide which grammatical resources to focus on in the unit?

Which content descriptors were relevant? How confident did you feel in

your knowledge of clause and sentence structure and any other significant

grammatical resources? (final interview)

• What metalanguage did you use to talk about clauses and sentences? How

did students respond? Was it confusing or helpful? (final interview)

3.3 A THEORISED ROLE FOR GRAMMAR – LSK AND LPSK

A convergence between the theoretical fields of teacher knowledge and

linguistics has been achieved by Debra Myhill and her colleagues in the UK, and also

by Mary Macken-Horarik and hers in Australia. Their theorisation is grounded in

quantitative and qualitative research already presented here in Chapter 2: Literature.

It is consistent with Halliday’s original ideas about the utility of functional linguistics

for teaching and learning, and with the thinking of contemporary linguists, including

Hudson (2004), who argue for the place of a metalinguistic knowledge in the school


curriculum and for teachers. It also recognises Shulman’s contribution to describing

how content knowledge is activated in teaching.

Linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) is a category of content knowledge within

the discipline of English. In its most rudimentary terms, LSK is what a teacher knows

about language. Just as a maths teacher needs to know about algebra and calculus, we

can reasonably claim that an English teacher should undertake some scholarship in

language – assemble a metalinguistic knowledge and, perhaps ideally, understand

language as a system.

3.3.1 The need for LSK as a theoretical concept

LSK as a theoretical concept has emerged as a distinct field, a justifiable area of

scholarly inquiry related to content knowledge. In some respects, what teachers know

about language can be examined in the same way as biology or geography - as subject

matter a professional teacher must know in order to teach the required content.

Linguists and other educational researchers have indeed engaged with teachers’

grammatical subject knowledge in this way. Andrews (2005) uses the term

‘grammatical knowledge’ in his exploration of the knowledge of sentence level

grammar teachers and students need if they are to teach and learn writing effectively.

Lobeck and Denham (2010) and Stephen Andrews (2007) use the term “teacher

language awareness” to discuss the ways teachers handle language-related issues in

the classroom, particularly the second-language learning classroom. Elsewhere, the

general term “knowledge about language” has been widely used. These theoretical

developments are significant for consolidating a symbiotic relationship between

linguists and educators. However, they are essentially either about linguistics as a

discipline, or not specific to educational research about the ways knowledge is used

by teachers.

LSK has some claim to an exceptional status. First, it is highly contested.

Curriculum writers and policymakers in English speaking countries, most thoroughly

in the UK, but also in the USA and Australia, responded to the glut of research

demonstrating that the teaching of grammar was irrelevant. In the latter part of the

twentieth century, grammar had become regarded as at best an archaic body of

knowledge, and at worst a time-consuming distraction in an increasingly crowded

curriculum. Andrews (2005) would however contend that UK teachers from the 60s

and beyond were still engaged with grammar teaching, despite this apparent


withdrawal of support from linguists, policymakers and teacher educators. Teacher

education programs in the US still do not routinely incorporate linguistics (Denham &

Loebeck, 2010). Consequently, two generations of students and their teachers learned

little formal grammar, and their predecessors had learned a kind of grammar

(prescriptive) in a way (separate from writing instruction) that could not contribute to

improving writing. Australian teachers commonly talk about the ‘black hole’ of

grammar instruction, and this certainly resonates within this context.

Further, global concern about low standards of writing as a measure of student

performance in English-speaking countries, as presented in Chapter 1, focused

attention on a perceived deficit in the teaching of grammar. Much of this speculation

has been ‘blame the teacher’, ‘back to basics’ rhetoric – an unhelpful and wearisome

contextual factor. However, concurrent developments in linguistics, especially

functional linguistics, including SFL, genre theory and Appraisal, have simultaneously

legitimised the role of grammar in English and writing instruction.

Influenced strongly by linguists such as Hudson and Andrews, who could see

the importance of teacher and student knowledge, Debrah Myhill and her colleagues,

for their large-scale mixed method study of contextualised grammar teaching in

London schools, coined the term linguistic subject knowledge (Myhill, Jones, Lines &

Watson, 2012). LSK here emerges as a definable, quantifiable phenomenon. They

suggest “linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) is more than the ability to use appropriate

terminology, as it also involves the ability to explain grammatical concepts clearly and

know when to draw attention to them” (p. 146). LSK can be sufficiently defined in

the process of developing survey instruments, such as those located in Appendices B

and C. Consequently, statistical and qualitative data can be collected and analysed,

potentially revealed as a significant mediating factor. LSK represents a theoretical

construction useful beyond the generality of knowledge about language.

Love, Macken-Horarik and Horarik (2015) have further refined this theorisation,

connecting teacher beliefs and confidence pertaining to grammar instruction in the

English classroom with emerging priorities in the Australian Curriculum: English

(AC:E). They recognise that “(K)knowledge of both the multidimensional and

multistrata features of language may represent significant reach for some teachers” (p.

171). This, along with the expanded knowledge base of the digital literacy context, can

make it difficult to capitalise on the affordances of metalinguistic knowledge. Such


issues of confidence and efficacy, within the complicated ecosystems of contemporary

classrooms, led to the formulation of a definition of “LSK as a knowledge of different

levels of language knowledge attentive to form, function and meaning in a wide range

of texts” (p. 172). This definition is more closely associated with the SFL than

Myhill’s. A strong local community of researchers, preservice educators, and

practitioners have continued with the detailed work of developing writing instruction

by utilising teacher LSK.

The volume and type of LSK a teacher needs to enact the intended curriculum,

that is the syllabus and other policy documents that steer the work of faculties and

teachers, is variable. For example, in the AC:E (Preschool to Year 10) there is a

demonstrable need to ‘know’ functional systemic linguistics, or at least those parts of

it required to teach the relevant content descriptors12. The demands of English

curriculums in the US and UK may well be less specific than Australia’s, but it is

generally agreed that “teachers’ grammatical knowledge needs to be richer and more

substantive than the grammar they may need to teach to students” (Myhill & Watson,

2014, p. 51). So, LSK has both a pragmatic and a formal place in English teaching and

in educational research.

3.3.2 Transforming LSK: LPSK

LSK is demonstrably important for this study because it influences what students

learn about writing – how they interact with their teacher about the effectiveness of

their language choices, including the ways their teacher can explain and remediate

error and ineffectiveness. I am working from the premise that explicit knowledge about

grammar can be pedagogically useful for writing instruction. However, I am also

aware that LSK does not automatically make one a better English teacher; for that,

applied knowledge about grammar is more significant (Myhill, Jones & Watson,

2013). Thus, it is helpful to talk about linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge

(LPSK), the body of knowledge unique to teachers of English and literacy, which may

12 Of course, there is also a need to know literature and, though it is a far less clearly defined field, literacy. This study pertains to learning about language, although students simultaneously respond to and create literature using literate practices. This multidimensional work of teachers is typical, and there is a need to draw a distinction between these fields of knowledge. The intention here is to focus closely on some selected grammatical resources within the functional grammar system.


best be described as the knowledge a teacher has of how to transform LSK into

classroom learning experiences.

To have strong LPSK for the purposes of improving student writing is to not

only know about grammar, but to be able to make a judicious selection of grammatical

resources to meet the demands of the curriculum at a given point, of the instructional

task at that point in time, and of the students whose writing must be improved. The

treatment of ‘Above’ and ‘Below’ satisfactory standard student work in Section 3.2

revealed a number of grammatical resources with the potential to improve the writing

of these students – certainly too many to ameliorate in one unit of work or even in a

single school year. The content descriptors provide some guidance. Certainly, one will

find content descriptors and elaborations in the Language strand that will provide

students with greater access to grammatical resources in terms of concepts, examples,

and understandings of function. For example, “nominalisation, clause combinations,

technicality and abstraction”, each carry the possibility of improving the student

writing presented in the sample folios.13 These four complex, interrelated concepts are

listed in the language features for just one of the 11 content descriptors in the Language

strand at Year 10. Individually, they are the work of whole lessons and sequences of

lesson. If one covered them all, what of the other 10 content descriptors? How will the

teacher decide where to start?

Shulman would say that a reasoning process unique to the teaching profession,

one built not just on content knowledge but on wisdom and experience, is activated in

this decision-making process (refer section 3.1). To exemplify, below is an example

of how his Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action can inform how I might go

about making instructional decisions in practice:

Comprehension: I could begin with teaching clause combinations because I know the

value of revisiting our common language for analysing sentences, and both student

samples indicate a need to focus on this grammatical resource.

13 Indeed, the participants in this study did ultimately select clause combinations as a focus, a choice that reflects findings that “teachers’ are limited in their capacity to identify, name and explain grammatical features, particularly those which operate at sentence level” (Love, Macken-Horarik & Horarik, 2015, p. 180).

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=nominalisation

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=clause


Transformation: I know from previous experience that students aren’t typically

enthusiastic about studying clause combinations. However, sharing examples of more

and less successful writing has proven quite successful in the past, for motivating them

to the learning goal. A simple think-pair-share activity, where students individually

then collectively discuss what makes two sentences more and less effective, will work

well to generate interest and activate their existing metalanguage for sentences. Then,

I am likely to use a strategy called Sentence Making (Martin & Rose, 2012) usually

reserved for younger or struggling students because it is both explicit and playful. For

this activity, I’ll print an effective sentence with one ranked clause and some embedded

clauses on a long piece of card. Working in pairs (perhaps a stronger with a weaker

student) I’ll have students cut up the sentence into progressively smaller component

parts, using a ‘think aloud’ processes to remind them of the terminology we use; my

own LSK is better than theirs and I want to challenge all of them to speak more

consistently and accurately about clause and sentence structure. When we’re finished,

students will work together to rearrange the sentence in various ways – a series of

challenges aimed at showing them a variety of possibilities for meaning making.

Finally, they will recompose the sentence in its original form, cover it over, and write

it from memory in their exercise book. This rewriting serves a dual purpose: for my

very weak students, it is further immersion in correct sentence structure; and it moves

us to quiet individual work. After this, we’ll turn to their own writing. Perhaps they’ll

rewrite a paragraph by using the patterns they’ve discovered in the previous activity.

Given what I know about the individual learners, I could differentiate here too –

challenge my stronger writers by giving them a sample paragraph with more effective

abstraction to support their rewriting, while my weaker writers might have a list of

technical words they can select from for their rewriting. So, in my planning here, I

have addressed the curriculum for content descriptor ACELA1569 and also

ACELA1571 and ACELA1570 flexibly to meet the needs of learners in my class. My

lesson is both explicit and playful in its intended approach to teaching grammar for

writing.

Evaluation: There are many ways I can check the success of the learning. I might

collect an ‘exit ticket’ from students at the end of the lesson. I can quickly scan the

paragraphs for accuracy, and see how many of the students were able to manipulate

clause combinations. I’ll know then what I need to do next.


Reflection: The outcome of the final assessment item and my reflections on the lessons

taught will ultimately guide the planning of the next unit of instruction. For example,

even if this lesson is very successful, I will want to make sure that there are plenty of

opportunities for students to engage in purposeful extended writing in subsequent

lessons.

New Comprehension: Through the aforementioned acts of reasoning, I will achieve

my own new comprehension of the grammatical resources, of the students and the

pedagogy. In other words, this lesson will add to my LPSK, whether or not it is

successful. The better I am at documenting and reflecting, the more I engage with

research, and with collegial discussions, the more likely it is that my new

comprehension will be productive.

The point of transformation, from LSK to LPSK, is central to the study proposed here.

Knowing something about how teachers deal with this nexus is an important

theoretical consideration in English teaching because “(T)he historical tendency to

focus consideration of grammar in the curriculum on whether it should be included has

led to a somewhat impoverished theoretical base for conceptualizing a role for

grammar” (Myhill &Watson, 2014, p. 45). I can perhaps make some useful

contribution to a theorised role for teaching of grammar, at least at the site and amongst

the people concerned.

3.3.3 Using the theory for inquiry and analysis

Scholars continue to locate PCK in cases of successful teaching. Myhill has done

this in her 2012 study: found, because she was looking, because of Shulman, a reason

for some teachers being more successful than others at transforming what they know

into instructional practice that has a positive impact on student writing. She was able

to speculate that this was because they could make more effective use of the learning

materials, and could offer more accurate and consistent explanations. Here, I want to

problematise and understand more about how that knowledge is translated into practice

by teachers. Love et al. (2015) suggest that teachers’ LPSK is often general and non-

linguistic, meaning the intended approach might be to teach grammar in context, at

point of need, but the specific linguistic demands of the curriculum may be overlooked

because of a deficit in LSK and LPSK. I was interested in whether teachers’ knowledge


seemed to improve, but I was more interested in what the semi-structured interviews

revealed about the ways teachers responded to professional learning intended to help

them develop LSK and LPSK. The theoretical tools of LSK and LPSK were useful for

eliciting responses to questions such as:

• How confident are you feeling now about your knowledge of

_______________? Is there any particular aspect of the language teaching

you’re concerned about getting right? (initial interview)

• You’ve brought your unit plan for last term. Can you talk me through the

basic sequence? (final interview)

• What do you think they need to learn next? What more would you need to

know about clause and sentence structure to teach it as well as you’d like?

(final interview)

3.4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

This chapter has outlined the conceptual framework that guided the research

project, particularly in the development of semi-structured interview questions that

reveal teachers’ responses to new knowledge about language. Systemic functional

linguistics, including Genre and Appraisal theories, was applied in this study to the

process of selecting grammatical resources to focus on for teacher professional

learning. The selection was predicated on a consideration of formal documents

including the AC:E and school planning documents. The needs of students and

teachers further influenced the focus of the study.

More than a decade after the publication of his original theorisation of teacher

knowledge, Shulman (2001) urged researchers to continue “exploring the wisdom of

practice” (p. 134). He specifically supported that potential for ‘design experiments’,

now commonly referred to as Design-based Research, where curriculum and teaching

are co-designed and co-constructed, and teachers themselves use and challenge the

theories on offer from the academy. The methodology of Design-Based Research will

be explained in the following chapter.

69

Research design

This chapter describes the design adopted in this project to achieve the aims and process

objectives stated in Chapter 1, section 3, concerning the ways teachers respond to professional

learning about language. In section 4.1, I justify the selection of Design-based research as a

methodology and present a conceptualisation of its phases, which guided the course of this

intervention. Section 4.2 provides contextual detail and describes the selection of participants.

Section 4.3 explains the key data collection instruments and section 4.4 provides further

information about the needs analysis and data collection procedure. Section 4.5 shows how the

data is analysed. Finally, section 4.6 concerns strategies for enhancing the validity and

trustworthiness of this study, including the significance of my dual role as researcher and direct

supervisor of the participants, and the ethical considerations of the research,

4.1 DESIGN-BASED RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Design-based Research (DBR) is a qualitative research methodology unique to

educational research. A qualitative approach is appropriate to educational research generally

and my study in particular because it allows me to make visible the different experiences of

my participants. Through the qualitative collection and analysis of data, the “complex conduct

of social life, connected-at-all-points as it seems, can be reconfigured such that it is able to be

rendered into the stuff of research — such that ‘livings’ becomes ‘findings’” (Freebody, 2011,

p. 15). Qualitative research, which can include interview transcripts and lesson artefacts, is

traditionally and essentially regarded as inductive, allowing the theory to be built from the data

(Cresswell, 2014). In practice, many research projects also use deductive analytics to test

whether data are consistent with established theory (Thomas, 2006). This project uses both

inductive and deductive reasoning to inspire rich descriptions of the professional learning

ecology and provide relevant insights about theory.

Within DBR, an on-site intervention is conceived, implemented, and evaluated. It has

been chosen for this study because it is ideally suited to small-scale collaborative research

which aims to “increase the impact, transfer, and translation of education research into

improved practice” (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012, p.16). In the course of the intervention, the

researcher responds formatively to data that suggests enhancing or inhibiting factors affecting

the intervention’s effectiveness (Reinking & Bradley, 2008, p. 15) and additionally to the real

70 Chapter 4: Research design

constraints of the context. The capacity to embrace contextual peculiarities and provide a

structure for improving and explaining the impact of an intervention are also important.

In this case the intervention is concerned with how two Year 10 English teachers, as

part of a small community of professional learners in a big high school, make use of

professional learning about language. The central research question is:

How do teachers respond to professional learning about language that is provided to

support the writing instruction they deliver in the classroom?

It is also useful to recall the supporting questions for the study, which helped guide the

intervention processes and content, and inform the design of the semi-structured interviews:

How do teachers use information, data and resources to make decisions about LSK or

PLSK?

What are the outcomes for teachers of increasing their Linguistic Subject Knowledge and

Linguistic Pedagogical Subject Knowledge through professional development?

Such questions are concerned with impact, in this case on the decisions teachers make to plan

and implement writing instruction in their classrooms as they enact the written curriculum for

English. This concern for impact activates what Jetnikoff (2015) describes as DBR’s key

strengths: “even on a small scale, the project is designed to both inform and make a difference

to the educational practice and qualitatively measure that difference” (p. 56). In this way, I

connect theory and observable practice. I also demonstrate the ways “failures and setbacks in

trying to create instruction aimed at accomplishing a pedagogical goal are at least as important

for understanding and effective implementation as are successes” (Reinking and Bradley, 2008,

p. 8). Such a practical way of thinking about the evidence helped me identify and make some

suggestions for ameliorating contextual constraints to improving writing instruction over which

school administrations may have some control. DBR provides the necessary process and tools

to analyse and explain what teachers do with new or more knowledge, and in this way measure

the impact of the intervention.

4.1.1 A conception of DBR phases

DBR is relatively new, first formally referred to in 1992 as ‘design experiment’ (Brown,

1992). Despite this, and some problems arising from uncertainties about definition and

processes (Easterday et al., 2014) a robust body of research exists (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012;

Reinking & Bradley, 2008). The formal development of DBR often focused on the impact of

71

technological innovations in education (Newman, 1990, 1992; Herrington et al., 2011).

However, educational psychologists like Anne Brown also championed the development of

design and formative experiments (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) and did indeed use it to extend

their more traditional experimental designs to classroom applications in the field of literacy

learning.

The diagram below (Figure 4.1) usefully summarises the key iterative phases of DBR

proposed by Easterday et al. (2014) where DBR is defined “as a process that integrates design

and scientific methods to allow researchers to generate useful interventions and effective theory

for solving individual and collective problems of education” (p. 319). In this model, the

researcher draws in participants to: establish a focus for the intervention; understand the

research problem; define the problem at a local level; conceive a solution; build the detail of

the intervention; and test its impact in practice. For a demonstration of each phase, refer to the

procedure and timeline in section 4.4 and the discussion of preliminary data in section 5.2.

Figure 4.1 The design process consists of six iterative phases: focus, understand, define, conceive, build and test (Easterday, et al., 2014, p. 319).

This conception has been selected here over other possibilities (Bannan-Ritland, 2003;

Reeves, 2006). This is in part because it reflects DBR’s pragmatic foundations – the notion that

a researcher can set a pedagogical goal and observe the process by which the intended outcome

is achieved (Newman, 1990, p. 10). It also provided for a more detailed account of the

involvement of the participants than was afforded by the other models. For me, this verb-driven

representation of what happens aligns more closely with the aim of eliciting what teachers do

– how they respond in thinking and action – than the nominalised labels of other models. Table

4.1 applies the phases specifically to this study, including useful detail about the purpose of

each phase.


Table 4.1

Design-based research phases applied to this study

Research question: How do teachers respond to professional learning about language that is provided to support the writing instruction they deliver in the classroom? DBR Phase – design Primary

data Supporting or illustrative data Participant resources

Focus Develop the parameters of the intervention, including stakeholders, ie. teachers, students, school. Share the topic, purpose, constraints and scale with executive leadership at the school. • End 2016 – invite English teachers to consider being in a

Year 10 PLC in 2017 • Start 2017 –clarify focus, including stakeholders, purposes

and scope

Workshop #1 – a functional model of language

Understand What now?

Term 1-2, 2017: Local interpretation of the writing problem. Teachers review intended curriculum and student data, eg. What challenges are there in the teaching of writing? Researcher conducts a needs analysis survey with PLC members

Needs analysis survey instrument

• Australian Curriculum: English Year 10 Achievement Standard

• Student work samples, including Term 2 expository and creative samples, to guide teacher decision-making and reflections

• Workshop #2 – needs analysis

Define

Term 2, 2017: Define the problem How might we … ? and articulate a goal. Sub-questions to the research question may be added or changed. The proposed use of particular theoretical tools will be decided in this phase, for example the PLC will decide to focus on particular grammatical resources.

Results of needs analysis – collaboratively designed hypothesis

Conceive How?

End Term 2- start Term 3, 2017: Design the detail of the intervention, including unit and lesson planning and teacher-researcher support. How will class time will be used in response to the professional learning? How will the PLC plan the unit of work? How will the individual teachers plan and deliver the unit of work?

Initial semi-structured interviews with two participants

PLC documentation – PLC journals, unit and lesson plans

• Existing unit and lesson plans • Workshop #3 – harnessing the power of clause and

sentence structure to improve student writing • reading, researcher support

Build What next?

Term 3, 2017: Implement the intervention – unit delivery. Iterative changes to the enacted curriculum and support for the intervention.

PLC processes including meetings and peer lesson observations. May invite researcher to observe/coobserve lessons.

Test What now? What next?

Term 3-4, 2017: Iterative and post-intervention evaluation Final semi-structured interviews with two participants

PLC documentation – peer lesson observations, formative student writing, lesson plans and activities

• PLC processes including formative assessment, moderation and reflection

• Term 3 student work samples

73

The flexible but structured qualitative approach offered by DBR was mobilised

to the research question proposed here and provided the flexibility to interpret data

collected from interviews. For example, I was able to illuminate teacher accounts by

including detail about the needs analysis as a forward to the main data presentation in

Chapter 5. I could also draw in workshop materials and lesson artefacts as needed,

preserving the centrality of the interview data in the inductive process of determining

central themes. In this way, I accounted for the different and rich experiences of the

participants.

4.2 PARTICIPANTS

The participants in this study are two Year 10 English teachers who work at

Newman SHS (a pseudonym), a metropolitan high school in Brisbane, Queensland.

The school has 1850 students and approximately 140 teachers. 35 of them teach or co-

teach at least one English class. The school has a Special Education unit, a specialist

English as an Additional Language Coordinator, and an international student program.

The school’s Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) is very

close to the national average, though there are a high proportion of students in the

lowest two quartiles. About half the students have a language background other than

English. This data includes a wide variety of students who are counted as having a

language background other than English. They might be relatively recent arrivals in

Australia, but they are just as likely to be students who were born here but speak

English as an additional language or only an additional language at home. Newman

SHS is best described as being demographically and culturally diverse.

The school has a formal PLC structure (refer Appendix C) and dedicated meeting

times during which teachers can acquire and apply professional learning with the

intention of improving student outcomes. With the exception of the needs-analysis

survey and the post-intervention interviews with two participants, all activities and

documentation described here are consistent with current practices of the school. The

professional learning approach at Newman SHS (refer section 1.2.4) lends itself to

creating an intervention and provided a suitable site to help me understand the central

phenomenon: teachers’ responses to professional learning about language.


The participants (Table 4.2) were approached on the basis that they were likely

to be present for the duration of the study and were willing to engage in professional

learning about language. Five participants volunteered to be involved. I chose Myrtle

and Jordan (pseudonyms) for the following reasons. Although they both teach Year

10, they have different qualifications and experience, including different experiences

of learning about and using systemic functional linguistics. The classes they teach also

differ in their make-up. Thus, they provided two comparable data sets suitable for

eliciting insights into the decision-making process.

Table 4.2

Participant Information

Name Participant Background Class characteristics

Myrtle Bachelor Arts / Bachelor Education (secondary). 11 years teaching experience in Qld State High Schools.

28 students in a general English class with a high proportion of students from an EAL/D background. An EAL/D support teacher is actively engaged in the class.

Jordan B.Ed., M.Ed. Drama, English and Religious Education teacher. 16 years experience in nine different schools in Australia and UK.

23 students in a selective class based on Year 9 performance, NAPLAN results and interest. All students also study Philosophy and Reason as a Humanities subject.

My role as researcher and my positionality in this study is a significant

consideration that will be further explored in section 4.2.6. Here, I disclose some

additional information, including the nature of my relationship with the participants.

My previous relationship with Myrtle has been in my capacity as Head of

English at the school since 2012, where she has been teaching. Myrtle is a specialist

English teacher and other teachers frequently look to her for support and guidance

around literacy and language pedagogy. She has undertaken significant formal

professional learning connected with writing and language based on SFL, including

the Year 8&9 Professional Development Package (Queensland Government, 2009)

and the eight-day Reading to Learn course presented by David Rose (Martin & Rose,

2012). She is a keen participant, and sometimes presenter, of school-based workshops

about language and literacy learning.

My previous relationship with Jordan began in 2002, when she was an early

career teacher in the school at which I was first a Head of Department. Jordan left the

school for family and work commitments overseas the following year and took up a

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position at Newman SHS in 2015. Jordan is a specialist English teacher on a reduced

contact load. Knowledge about grammar was a part of her initial teacher training, but

her professional learning about SFL has been limited to school-based workshops we

have periodically offered at Newman SHS. At the time of this project, she was the

school’s Gifted and Talented Coordinator and the PLC facilitator for Year 10 English.

Her leadership of this group was widely regarded as a model of effective PLC

management.

The intention was to collect interview data directly from only two people.

However, the nature of the intervention drew in other people. For example, the whole

PLC (and indeed the whole English faculty) were invited to attend the key professional

learning events. The study affected significantly more people than the participants in

the manner outlined in Chapter 5, section 5.2.

4.3 INSTRUMENTS

Two instruments were used in this study: a needs analysis survey in the

understand phase of the intervention and semi-structured interviews at the conceive

and test phases. Details about the timing of each instrument and its place in the DBR

process are provided in Table 4.1.

4.3.1 Needs analysis survey for the whole PLC prior to the intervention

A needs analysis survey was completed by the eight members of the Year 10

professional learning community before the intervention began. It provided an

opportunity for potential participants to understand the focus of the proposed

intervention and preliminary data to support the needs analysis proper. Two weeks

before completing the survey, teachers had attended Workshop #1: How might we

constructively consider student writing vis a vis the demands of the Australian

Curriculum at Year 10? which included a review of the functional model of language

and its relation to the Year 10 curriculum.

Mary Macken-Horarik and Kristina Love provided the large-scale survey they

developed for an Australian Research Council Discovery project: Grammar and

Praxis: investigating a grammatics for 21st century school English (DP110104309)

from 2001-2014. They sought to ascertain English teachers’ views about linguistic

subject knowledge (LSK) and pedagogic linguistic subject knowledge (LPSK). It was


adapted here (refer Appendix F) for the understand phase, the beginning of the needs

analysis process. Responses of the eight PLC members, including the participating

teachers, supported the two participants and I to more closely define the problem of

practice and select grammatical resources in the define phase.

The theoretical underpinnings of the survey instrument provide some

justification for using it here. It is concerned with knowledge about language presumed

in the Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E). As has previously been demonstrated

here, the AC:E has a clear connection to systemic functional linguistics (SFL). The

language used in the survey’s quantitative questions, presented on a likert scale, and

qualitative open-ended questions elicited responses that allowed the researchers to

draw conclusions in relation to language knowledge aligned with SFL. For example,

knowing that 77.5% of teachers rate the ability to “(i)dentify and name the structural

stages in various kinds of texts (for example, narrative, exposition and text response)”

as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important, allowed the authors to claim “a strong endorsement

of the importance of genre-based approaches” (Love, Macken-Horarik & Horarik,

2015, p. 176). The framing of the survey questions provided valuable preliminary

information, and stimulated useful discussion between the participants, other PLC

members and me about what they value in respect to the teaching of grammar, and

what knowledge to explore.

The original study by Love and Macken-Horarick revealed that Australian

English teachers believe teaching students about language is important, approach this

in contextualised ways, express high levels of confidence in their LSK, but require

greater professional learning support on key aspects of LSK and LPSK (Love et al.,

2015). For example, sentence level grammar, including clause and sentence structure,

is an aspect of LSK that teachers find difficult. Indeed, this is what my participants

ultimately chose. Elsewhere, “precise technical metalanguage” (p. 179) about the

aspects of language teachers value highly, like the grammar of visual and multimodal

texts, are fertile ground for possible development. Some teachers also expressed “a

particularly strong need for further support in cumulative building of knowledge” (p.

181) for the purposes of delivering a cohesive program of instruction across the

Language, Literature and Literacy strands of the AC:E. These professional learning

needs revealed by the survey in its original use suggested gaps commonly experienced

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by English teachers that I was alerted to in the needs analysis – some authoritative

material against which to cross-check the apparent revelations of the participants.

An alternative instrument was offered by Debra Myhill for her investigation of

the effect of contextualised grammar teaching on student writing performance in the

UK (Jones et al., 2013). While the study and its test of LSK is basically aligned with a

functional approach to grammar, it isn’t suitable for this study; it is too concerned with

teachers’ ability to label word classes and basic phrase, clause and sentence types. My

study did not have a quantitative dimension. I sought to offer more agency to teachers

and understand how they exercised it. While Myhill’s instrument is very short, and

could potentially be used as a discussion document with teachers at some future time,

it was not used here as data collection instrument.

4.3.2 Semi-structured interviews with the two participants

Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the final two

participants. An initial interview was conducted shortly after Workshop #3, in the first

two weeks of teaching the unit, and a final interview at the conclusion of the

intervention, after the unit had been delivered in the classroom and the marking of

student work was complete. Interview questions were constructed from the central and

supporting research questions, and the theoretical frameworks proposed in Chapter 3.

Transcipts from these four interviews were the key data set for the study.

Semi-structured interview as a method of data collection has been chosen here

because it offers a flexibility useful for the iterative process of a DBR, “sufficiently

structured to address specific dimensions of your research question while also leaving

space for study participants to offer new meanings to the topic of study” (Galletta,

2014, pp. 1-2). I prepared questions (refer Chapter 3 and Appendix D) informed by the

theoretical underpinnings of the study, but left space to notice new threads in the

narrative and argument about grammar and its place in writing instruction as they

emerged from the teachers’ accounts.

I used the protocol suggested by Galletta (2014), which includes three

segments: opening, middle, and concluding. Below is a summary of how each segment

was prepared and executed for the interviews in this study.


The purpose of the opening segment is to create space for a narrative grounded

in participant experience. Ethical documentation had been completed and permission

to record the interview secured. I reminded participant of the purpose of the study,

which was to describe how teachers make decisions to plan and deliver literacy

instruction when it is intentionally focussed on transmitting teacher LSK with the aim

of improving student writing. Initial questions were broad, so the participant was

encouraged to speak from his or own experiences. For example, Before we begin, I

wonder how you would describe your experiences with grammar. and Describe how

you decided what students needed to learn in this unit. Where necessary, I probed for

clarification: Can you show me which of these content descriptors you are talking

about? My intention was to hear the story of how the participant met and developed a

relationship with grammar, then attempted to resolve the complications involved with

introducing it to others.

The middle segment called for greater specificity, activating the theoretical

foundations of the study and connecting with the ecology of the professional learning

context: You said earlier that you wanted to focus on ____ because the high achieving

students in your class needed to use that in their writing. How will you approach the

teaching of that with students? I employed some basic representational tools in this

segment. For example, a unit plan, so the teacher could plot where in the unit sequence

a particular learning event happened, a highlighter with which to mark the parts of the

text s/he found difficult to grasp, or had wanted to share with students. Such tools

helped me manage some of the complexity of the responses, for analytic purposes,

always keeping in mind the central question: How do teachers respond to professional

learning about language that is provided to support the writing instruction they deliver

in the classroom?

The concluding segment revisited the opening narrative and moved toward

closure, engaging the participant more closely with the meaning making process. When

you were working on sentence types, how did you formatively assess students’

progress? I can see you have a very good handle on where they’re at with their writing.

Tell me, what do they need to learn next? These questions were to help me understand

the participant’s beliefs and understandings about the utility of SFL, their capacity to

apply it in the classroom, and the impact of the professional learning. I tried to follow

each thread until it was exhausted and thanked the participant at the end of the

79

interview; they were generous and may have become self-critical in ways I could not

notice.

These initial and final interviews with the two participants are the key data sets.

4.4 PROCEDURE AND TIMELINE

This section summarises the procedure, articulated using the nomenclature of

DBR as it has been presented in section 4.1.1 and in Table 4.1. The way this worked

in practice and the preliminary data it provided is documented and analysed in further

detail in Chapter 5.

At the end of Term 1, I delivered a one-hour training session to the English

faculty, Workshop #1: How might we constructively consider student writing vis a vis

the demands of the Australian Curriculum at Year 10? The intention was to revise or

introduce the basic framework and central concepts of systemic functional linguistics

(SFL), including Appraisal theory, and their relevance to the productive demands of

AC:E at Year 10. In this way, I established the focus of the intervention, including the

aforementioned elements of the research methodology. Given the broad appeal of the

subject matter, regional initiatives to improve teacher knowledge of the Australian

Curriculum, and the attention at that time on how we might approach teaching and

learning for Year 10 in 2018, it was appropriate that the information be provided to the

entire faculty group (35 teachers).

I conducted a short follow-up session at the Year 10 PLC meeting at the

beginning of Term 2, where I formally invited members to be participants in the study

which was to begin at the end of Term 2 and conclude at the beginning of Term 4. I

revisited the purposes of the study and the ethical implications members should

consider. Following this session, the eight PLC members were asked to complete the

needs-analysis tool (Appendix F) after which they had the opportunity to discuss its


contents as part of their meeting. These activities provided time and information for

PLC members to understand the parameters of writing as a ‘problem’ connected with

teacher knowledge and it was their second opportunity to consider whether they would

opt in to formal participation in the study for data collection purposes.

After participants had been selected, I presented Workshop #2: Local

interpretation of the writing problem (Appendix H) to them. Other interested members

of the PLC were invited to attend. This is in keeping with the intention of the research

design, which was to conduct activities in keeping with the usual ways of working at

the school. Exclusive professional learning experiences would not have been

appropriate. The purpose of this workshop was to define the problem at a local level.

We worked collaboratively to articulate goals for the intervention and ascertain further

training and support requirements. At this formal needs analysis session, I presented a

summary of my observations from the needs analysis tool. Then we considered the

relevant content descriptors from the AC:E and examined a selection of student writing

completed in Term 2. Because each Term 2 and 3 for both classes had an expository

and a creative assessment item, teachers were able to draw on evidence from Term 2

performance. In this way, we activated the iterative nature of a typical DBR

intervention before the main inquiry in Term 3.

The remaining detail of the solution was conceived in my own preparation for

Workshop #3: Harnessing the power of clause and sentence structure to improve

student writing (Appendix I). Through this targeted professional learning experience,

participants had the opportunity to build their knowledge then afterwards access

supplementary professional reading and support to inform the detail of their planning.

This building was a form of iterative co-construction, where the professional learning

as a design solution became teacher response in the form of planning and enacting the

curriculum.

The two participants in the study engaged in a semi-structured interview

following Workshop #3 and again after the conclusion of the unit, when Term 3

assessment had been completed and marked. These interviews were to test the impact

of the professional learning by revealing participants’: confidence in their linguistic

subject knowledge and its connection with intended and enacted curriculums; and their

perceptions of the variety and efficacy of literacy pedagogies they were able to use in

the classroom

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4.5 DATA ANALYSIS

Interview has been established as the data collection instrument and transcripts

were treated thematically to identify, analyse, and report patterns or themes. I followed

Braun and Clarke’s six phases for transcription and analysis using a thematic approach

(2006). The authors recommend a clear definition of thematic research be provided

because the theoretical freedom intrinsic to the approach may make it susceptible to

an “anything goes” criticism (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p.5). They define thematic

analysis broadly as “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns

(themes) within data. It minimally organises and describes your data set in rich detail”

(p. 6). It differs from other methods because it “is not wed to any pre-existing

theoretical framework, and so it can be used within different theoretical frameworks”

(p. 9), allowing considerable flexibility. I have drawn on Shulman’s theory of teacher

knowledges in combination with Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics

and emerging theoretical positions about its application to literacy instruction using

linguistic subject knowledge and pedagogical linguistic subject knowledge. The

following is a discussion of how the data from the interviews were processed across

Braun and Clarke’s six phases.

Phase 1 – familiarising myself with the data

Interviews were recorded and the recordings were transcribed. The interviews

were transcribed verbatim, with close attention to the way punctuation and non-

linguistic signifiers like laughter might affect the meaning. As recommended by Braun

and Clarke (2006), I used the transcription process to develop close knowledge and

begin a thorough understanding of my data.

Phase 2 – generating initial codes

I generated initial codes manually (refer sample codes in Appendix J), labelling

and highlighting any connected elements that appeared interesting or meaningful vis a

vis the research question. In this phase I identified 28 codes. I systematically collated

the data and learned its contents well, building small categories of meaningful data

that I could assess for relevance and significance. I noticed, for example, teachers

showing concern for impact and mentioning differences between traditional and

functional grammar. These noticings became codes that were useful for building and

reviewing themes.


Phases 3 and 4 – searching for themes, reviewing themes

I departed from my initial codes in order to make a close connection with my

research question and sub-questions. Through several iterations of reviewing the data,

I re-sorted and combined codes. I formed themes and identified possible relations

between them, checking and weighing the evidence there, to establish their legitimacy

and utility. The most important part of this was in the decision to closely align with

my research question (How do teachers respond to professional learning about

language that is provided to support the writing instruction they deliver in the

classroom?) by articulating verb-driven themes, as in: teachers respond by engaging,

applying, transforming, evaluating, and reflecting and projecting. This process of

‘verbing’ proved important to the framing of the analytic process. The use of gerunds

(“-ing” words) encourages attention to the perspectives represented in teachers’

reported responses, in reasoning and in action, to the professional learning (Charmaz,

2006).

Phase 5 – defining and naming themes

As a result, the themes as they are presented in Chapter 5 could be sufficiently

mapped. When I was satisfied that the themes were sufficiently refined to answer my

research question, I defined them and their boundaries. The boundaries are presented

as a series of subthemes illustrated with exemplar evidence. In this way I captured the

essence of each theme and established structure that was helpful in my analysis. For

example, the large and complex theme of ‘applying’ was defined as per Table 4.3

below and the subthemes of ‘appropriating’, ‘experimenting’ and ‘embedding’ were

used to provide a datalurgical shape to the theme.

83

Table 4.3

Example of defining and naming a theme

Applying definition

Teachers apply the new knowledge by developing lessons using the materials offered in

Workshop #3 - and from other sources including colleagues, related professional learning

and extra reading. They try examples and activities of their own design and connect their

learning to current practices.

Boundaries Examples of evidence

appropriating materials from

professional learning or

from colleagues

“I basically stole some of his activities and I basically applied them

to my context. I completely ripped off his powerpoint.” (Jordan)

experimenting with new

ways to deliver the content

or use the LSK

“The lesson began in silence. I didn’t even do my learning intention

or whatever. … It took … a lot of stamina for them to read it. And

they … hey didn’t really get it until the end, but it was good exposure

to a really complex text.” (Jordan)

embedding new knowledge

into current practices

“…it will be done in context as we’re doing joint rewrites. That’s

where I’m putting most of my grammar in.” (Myrtle)

Phase 6 – producing the report

I produced the report as presented in Chapter 5, intended as a rich and coherent

account of teacher responses. My analysis was informed by the literature and theory

presented here, and by the teaching artefacts referred to by teachers in their interviews.

The aim was to achieve convergence and corroboration to enhance the credibility of

the analysis (Bowen, 2009, p.28). This process further confirmed the validity of the

thematic analysis of participant interviews, and so more accurately reported the

experiences, meaning and the reality of participants. In this way, I hoped to “reflect

reality, and to unpick or unravel the surface of ‘reality’” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 8).

4.6 TRUSTWORTHINESS AND CREDIBILITY

Issues of trustworthiness and credibility were addressed in the following ways.

Trustworthiness or validity was firstly achieved through extended engagement, which

began with a long and carefully planned period before the data collection began - in

the focus, understand and define phases of the DBR process. This engagement was


important to ameliorating the risk that the participation might not be truly voluntary.

The nature and field of the study was announced well before it began and participants

were given multiple opportunities to show interest or otherwise, participate or

withdraw – even to not participate but to benefit from the professional learning

opportunity as they wished. This protracted establishment period for the study included

a careful needs analysis, described in detail in Chapter 5, which allowed me to spend

time with the teachers – get to know them in my role as researcher and develop trust

in the context of the project. It also allowed me to develop a credible understanding of

participants’ attitudes to and experiences of the field as it would become relevant to

the data analysis. This understanding was based on multiple sources beyond my prior

knowledge of them, including their responses to the needs analysis tool and their

participation in the needs analysis workshop. I proceeded by approaching the site,

despite my unique insider role, which is addressed in section 4.6.1, by viewing myself

as a guest in the sense that the study should occur with “minimal disruption”

(Cresswell, 2014, p. 23). I endeavoured to ensure that the PLC functioned as it

normally would and offered myself as support beyond Workshop #3; I was available

upon request but did not intrude on teacher decisions otherwise.

4.6.1 Reflexivity

Reflexivity is as an active acknowledgement of my role and its effects on the

conception, execution and analysis of the research. “In sociological terms, the ‘insider’

role is a powerful reflexive position used to gain deeper engagement and insight in

participants” (Attia & Edge, 2017, p. 37), a characterisation which resonates with the

circumstances of this study. I demonstrate reflexivity by using first-person language

and providing a transparent report of my decisions and rationale (Berger, 2015).

My role as Head of English at Newman SHS was the key aspect of my

positionality. It was crucial in every aspect of the research. I was not only an intimate

insider but also the direct supervisor of my participants – an unequal power

relationship with the potential to derail the credibility of my research. My leadership

approach is quite democratic. I position myself as a Head of Department who is

knowledgeable about curriculum and strategically savvy. I also try to respond

proactively to the professional learning needs I observe or that are requested; in short,

I prefer to teach and persuade than mandate. Within the English faculty, leadership is

distributed across senior and aspiring teachers. We collaborate on the direction and

85

design of the curriculum and assessment. There are lesson resources and exemplars,

but these are suggestions and teachers use them as a guide and at their own discretion.

The nature of my positionality was an intensification of a regular feature of

DBR, in which the researcher is “a purposeful agent of change” (Reinking & Bradley,

2008), an instrumental participant. By actively creating, “learning conditions that

learning theory suggests are productive but that are not commonly practised or

understood or are not well understood” (The Design Based Research Collective, 2002)

I was simultaneously testing and building the theory, being a Head of Department and

researching.

The tension here is that my positionality constitutes what Berger (2015)

describes as a two-edged sword:

On one hand, such familiarity may enable better in-depth understanding of

participants’ perception and interpretation of their lived experience in a way

that is impossible in the absence of having been through it. However, at the

same time, the researcher must remain constantly alert to avoid projecting

their own experience and using it as the lens to view and understand

participants’ experience.

This phenomenon is readily identifiable in my study. My positionality as high-status

insider should not be merely regarded as “potential contamination of the data to be

avoided or allowed for by achieving competence in an appropriate methodological

procedure” (Attia & Edge, 2017, p. 35). My careful attention to establishing

knowledge by and of the participants would not have been possible without my

peculiar positionality. Indeed, the study in its eventual form would not have been

possible at all. As the faculty head, I control the meeting agendas within the school’s

established meeting cycles. I also have the flexibility to present to groups and meet

with individuals in a timely and convenient manner. For example, the three workshops

were presented at the ideal time for the phases of the DBR intervention. I could book

meeting rooms, reschedule, cover classes. I even arranged for multiple presentations

of Workshop #3 because non-participating staff members were interested in the

material. Such advantages are not always available or possible for the researcher who

is a relative outsider.


On the other hand, as an insider, I needed to proceed with caution – give careful

attention to ethical considerations like the possibility of coercion: How do I know they

really participated voluntarily? I took precautions in the long preliminary phases of my

study, and provided an on-site participant advocate to be an intermediary as required.

And the possibility of inadequate transparency: Were they honest with me about

matters like their beliefs and confidence related to LSK? The topic of the study, insofar

as teachers are concerned, is not sensitive. However, the needs analysis involved

gauging teachers’ LSK and it is possible that participants may have perceived a

criticism of their expertise – or become self-critical. This is not of itself problematic

as part of usual workplace interactions. However, evidence in the interviews suggested

the participants were comfortable with me in my dual role and were candid about their

efficacy, readily expressing doubt or dissatisfaction with their knowledge or practice.

Nonetheless, instrusions in the form of PLC meetings and lesson observations were

not recorded because this helped maintain some distance between my role as

researcher - collaborator, expert and collector of interview data - and my role as Head

of Department who monitors and evaluates teacher practice.

Because my knowledge of the participants, and them of me, is unusually close,

I actively avoided projecting this prior knowledge onto the participants’ responses. I

did this in the manner described above: by attending closely to the initial phases of the

intervention. Invaluable too were, in the data analysis stage, frequent discussions with

my supervisors to check my coding and thematic analysis. They asked me, until we

were sure: How do you know? Is there evidence here, or are you drawing too heavily

on your contextual knowledge?

4.7 ETHICS AND LIMITATIONS

Low risk ethical clearance was obtained in April 2017 through QUT with minor

amendments to participant selection documents and a clarification of the term

‘intervention’ as it relates to the activities for this DBR method. QUT Ethics approval

number for this project is 1700000253. The participants returned consent forms via

my participant advocate. A letter of approach was provided and a PCIF returned, to

formalise my approach to and permission from the school.

87

Although I have used an accepted methodology, I accept that the validity of the

findings has been affected by certain limitations. The limitations of this study centre

on three main areas: limited access to supporting documentation and a reliance on

interview as a largely uncorroborated data source; the size the of the study; and the

iterations in the DBR interventions as the methodology was applied here. These are

explicated in Chapter 6 section 6.6.

4.8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

In Chapter 4, I began by detailing the choice or DBR, and my chosen conception

of it by Easterday et al. (2013). I presented contextual information and details of the

two participant teachers. I then discussed the data collection instruments used and the

selected approach to data analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In Chapter 5, I present an

analysis of the teachers’ responses to professional learning about language.

88 Chapter 5: Responding to new knowledge

Responding to new knowledge

In this chapter, I explore the ways in which two teachers at Newman State High

School (SHS) responded to professional learning about a discrete body of grammatical

knowledge that was selected for the Design-based Research (DBR) intervention. I

present evidence of the decisions they made as they planned for and implemented

writing instruction. Drawing on the work of Shulman, I argue that the teachers, Myrtle

and Jordan (pseudonyms), engaged in professional learning with similar motivations

and that there was a discernible common pattern in their application of that learning.

However, their reasoning led them to select different instructional approaches to

applying and transforming their knowledge, and a departure from the original purpose

of the professional learning. Their decisions reflect an intersection between individual

teacher characteristics and the process building of building LSK and LPSK in the

intervention.

Shulman (1986, 1987) argued for a strong connection between teacher

knowledge and pedagogy and offers a coherent framework to explain the development

of teacher understanding and transmission of content. His subcategories of teacher

knowledge (refer section 1.1.2 and in Chapter 4) are identifiable in the data, but of

particular interest is the effect of professional learning on what Shulman would refer

to as teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) – the ways the participants come

to know the content that is pedagogically relevant and available for teaching. I was

able to refine my understanding of the form and activation of this knowledge by

considering a small body of linguistic subject knowledge (LSK), namely selected

aspects of clause and sentence structure aimed at two content descriptors in the

Language strand of the Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E). Love, Macken-

Horarik and Horarik’s (2015) theorisation, in which teacher beliefs and confidence

pertaining to grammar instruction are connected with the priorities of the AC:E, is used

as a lens to engender further insight into the complexity of English teachers’ work. In

the present study, teachers are not only knowing more about grammar, but are actively

engaged in building their linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge (LPSK).

As outlined in Chapter 4, to analyse the data in this chapter I draw on Shulman’s

Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and Action. I watched Myrtle and Jordan reason

89

like teachers as they moved through the intervention and have been able to identify

five themes in their interviews. The five themes are: engaging with new knowledge;

applying new knowledge to plan for instruction; transforming knowledge to make

meaning for students; evaluating the impact of instructional decisions; and reflecting

and projecting for the purpose of future planning. I further make a case that, as they

exercised discretion in their response to the professional learning, their decision-

making drew in multiple priorities beyond the single focus of the intervention. This in

turn led to difussed or multifocused teaching of the content.

Note that the collaboratively designed content and purpose of the professional

learning is distinct from the purpose of the study. As part of the DBR process, the

teachers and I collaboratively developed a hypothesis to guide the selection of

knowledge for teachers to learn about. For teachers, the purpose was that students

improve their writing. For me, the purpose was to increase teacher LSK and LPSK.

The data collected here suggests the agreed teaching purposes of the professional

learning were partially subsumed beneath the priorities of: the teacher as professional

learner; teachers’ perception of students’ capacity or readiness to engage; and

managing time ahead of assessment.

The aim of this chapter is to describe the impact of the professional learning by

uncovering patterns in the ways teacher knowledge is acquired and applied in decisions

about writing instruction. In doing so, it addresses the central research question posed

in Chapter 1: How do teachers respond to professional learning about language that

is provided to support the writing instruction they deliver in the classroom? The data

analysed for this chapter includes four interviews, two with each of the participating

teachers. Supporting documentation, including lesson documentation and references

to student writing made by teachers, has also been included where it illustrates an

observation teachers made in the interviews.

5.1 ORGANISATION OF THE DATA ANALYSIS IN THIS CHAPTER

Section 5.2 provides a summary of the decisions the two teachers and I made

throughout the phases of the DBR intervention, where we focused on the writing

problem, sought to understood the problem in the context of Year 10 students at

Newman SHS, and defined a goal for the professional learning. I also present the LSK

selected for the intervention, including the relevant content descriptors and


elaborations from the AC:E, and our collaboratively developed hypothesis as it relates

to the broader aim of improving student writing. In this way, I foreground an agreed

purpose for the professional learning, which is relevant to the ways teachers ultimately

decided to use their knowledge.

The data presentation supporting the themes in Sections 5.3 to 5.7 are arranged

by theme in the following way:

a. definitions and scope for the theme

b. interpretations of the evidence of each teacher’s reasoning gathered from semi-

structured interviews, including direct quotations from interview transcripts

(these are referenced in the the text as initial interview – II – and final interview

- FI) and, where they provide supporting illustration, lesson artefacts and

samples of student writing.

c. conclusions about how these findings might contribute to our understanding

about the relationship between professional learning about language and the

decisions teachers make for writing instruction.

In section 5.8, I consider the evidence of collaboration. A summary is provided in

Section 5.9.

5.2 SELECTING KNOWLEDGE, EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE

In this section, I revisit the DBR process and explain how I involved teachers in

each phase of the intervention. I include a summary of the needs analysis (section

5.2.1) conducted across the understand and define phases of the DBR process and

then show how the professional learning supported teachers and me to conceive and

build the intervention (section 5.2.2). Finally, I review Shulman’s Model for

Pedagogical Reasoning and Action (section 5.2.3) against which the accounts of

teacher decision-making are interpreted in the subsequent sections.

An examination of the transformation of teacher knowledge must begin with the

selection of subject matter to know about. In a DBR intervention (Figure 5.1),

previously explained here in Chapter 4, section 4.1, the researcher establishes the

focus, but then participants are included in developing a shared understanding of the

challenges at a local level and, in this case, later defining the problem closely enough

to select particular grammatical resources.

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Figure 5.1. The design process consists of six iterative phases: focus, understand, define, conceive, build and test (Easterday et al, 2014, p. 319).

I established the focus at an initial voluntary workshop (Workshop #1, Term1, 2017

– refer Appendix G) where I asked teachers across the English faculty to consider

the focus question: How might we constructively consider student writing vis a vis

the demands of the Australian Curriculum: English at Year 10? The purpose of this

workshop was to raise awareness amongst staff and situate the study within school

practice and regional initiatives aimed at developing a deep knowledge of the

standards-based Australian Curriculum. We examined samples of student writing

from Year 10 in the previous year and I demonstrated how we might analyse them

using systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as a framework, making connections to

the relevant content descriptors in the AC:E.

In the remainder of this section I will summarise the outcomes of the needs

analysis, including our collaboratively developed hypothesis as it relates to the aim,

beyond the scope of this study, of improving student writing. I also include an

overview of the elements of the formal curriculum we selected for the intervention,

and present the LSK teachers learned about in the professional development, including

the relevant content descriptors and elaborations from the AC:E.

5.2.1 Needs analysis: from understanding the problem to defining a possible solution


In the understand phase, I approached the Year 10 English professional learning

community (PLC) and asked them to complete a voluntary needs analysis tool (refer

Appendix F). The purpose here was in part to allow potential participants time to

consider whether they would volunteer to be participants in the study. I did not want

teachers to feel that I would assume their cooperation. The needs analysis tool also

provided some preliminary data about the views of the PLC concerning LSK and

LPSK. These would inform the define phase and provide further contextual

information relevant to the interpretation of participant responses.

The responses from PLC members at this school revealed views largely

consistent with the findings in the literature. Like English teachers across the country

(Love et al., 2015) this group appreciate the efficacy in teaching knowledge about

language explicitly, in its context of use. They further express confidence in their LSK,

and are perhaps more likely than those in the ARCD project to claim a rigorous

pedagogy underpinned by school-supported strategies and an availability of suitable

professional development. In that study, many comments highlight a need for more

professional support in terms of both LSK and LPSK (p. 180). In contrast, typical

comments from Year 10 teachers in the PLC include: “Student achievement has had a

noticeable improvement after my own professional learning in Reading to Learn and

Reading Routines” (Jordan) and “Working with grammar experts means PDs that are

insightful and clearly articulate common issues for our students” (non-participant PLC

member).

Nonetheless, there is some evidence that teacher knowledge, and support for it

in professional learning and school policy, is neither as specific nor as coherent as

teachers would like. Like their colleagues nationwide, the teachers at Newman SHS

reported lacking some “precise technical metalanguage” (Love et al., 2015, p. 179).

One participant said “I lack some metalanguage to explain, for example to English as

an Additional Language (EAL) learners, the use of verbs” (Myrtle) and this was also

evident across the responses from non-participating teachers in a reluctance to

nominate particular aspects of language. Sentence level grammar, including:

embedding phrases and clauses to elaborate in sentence structure; grammatical and

lexical metaphor; and nominalisation for increased abstraction are aspects of LSK

teachers find difficult (Love et al., 2015). One of the participants articulated the need

for “A consistent, all-school approach to grammar where we all use the language of

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the new curriculum” (Myrtle). This is also consistent with Love et al.’s conclusion that

there is “a particularly strong need for further support in cumulative building of

knowledge” (p. 181) for the purposes of delivering a cohesive program of instruction:

“I would like to develop my skills in teaching it explicitly and as a system” (Jordan).

This initial exercise provided authoritative, relevant data I could share with

participants in the needs analysis proper.

Once the two participants, Myrtle and Jordan, had been selected from amongst

the volunteers, I arranged for a formal needs analysis workshop (Workshop #2, Term

2, 2017 – refer Appendix H). In this define phase, participants and other interested and

available members of the PLC attempted a local interpretation of the writing problem

articulated via these focus questions: What challenges are there in the teaching of

writing? Which elements of our own LSK, if they were improved, could have a positive

impact on our students’ writing? Multiple data were collected and we:

1. shared the results of the needs analysis tool regarding language instruction

2. overviewed the formal curriculum – the elements of the Year 10 Achievement

Standard and the potentially relevant content descriptors that intersected with the

learning and assessment demands for the next school term in English

3. analysed a selection of student writing, annotating with the SFL framework in

mind and locating opportunities for improvement that might be found in the

content descriptors.

4. prepared a hypothesis14:

If we know more about the ways we use a range of sentence and clause

structures to manipulate emphasis and to develop logical relationships

between ideas, then we can help a range of students improve their writing by

achieving more accuracy in sentence boundaries and more variety in their

presentation and sequencing of ideas.

14 Note that this hypothesis was developed by the participating teachers in cooperation with me. It articulates a purpose for the professional learning grounded in the imperative of improving student writing. However, ‘impact’ insofar as the scope of this study is concerned means impact on teacher decisions, not impact on student writing.


The hypothesis closely reflects the considerations presented in the Workshop #2 and

the dual priorities of the participants: to acquire knowledge useful to a wide variety of

students, including the grammatical needs of EAL/D, highly capable and struggling

students; and to select a manageable amount of material for the professional learning.

5.2.2 Professional learning: conceiving a solution, building instruction

The primary method of increasing teacher knowledge was for me to design and

deliver Workshop #3 (Term 2, 2017 refer Appendix I) in response to the hypothesis

above. The intention was to expand LSK, as theorised by Myhill, Jones, Lines and

Watson (2012), meaning the teachers would not just be able to use correct terminology,

they would be able to explain the concepts clearly and know when to draw attention

to them. More than that, we would, as per Love et al.’s refined theorisation (2015),

connect participant beliefs and confidence with priorities in the AC:E to support

teachers to transform LSK into LPSK, ready for the design of classroom learning

experiences.

Table 5.1 presents the LSK related to clause and sentence structure that was

presented to the participants, in the context of the formal curriculum. Note that, in the

AC:E, while the content descriptions are the focus of what is to be taught, elaborations

are examples only (ACARA, 2018); they suggest how the content might be taught.

Both are provided here, along with the topic headers from the workshop presentation.

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Table 5.1

Strands, substrands and content descriptions from Year 10 English selected for this study including

selected elaborations and workshop topics (ACARA, 2018)

Strand Sub-strand

Content Description Relevant elaboration Workshop topics La

ngua

ge

Expr

essi

ng a

nd d

evel

opin

g id

eas

Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of a wide range of sentence and clause structures as authors design and craft texts (ACELA1569)

recognising how emphasis in sentences can be changed by reordering clauses (for example, ‘She made her way home because she was feeling ill’ as compared with ‘Because she was feeling ill, she made her way home’) or parts of clauses (for example, ‘The horses raced up from the valley’ as compared with ‘Up from the valley raced the horses’)

• word classes • process-participant

circumstance as building blocks of clause

• clause types: main, subordinate, embedded and non-finite

• sentence types: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex

• conjunctions and text-connectives

Relevant knowledge, assumed or not covered in detail at the workshop: • verb types • noun groups • nominalisation,

technicality and abstraction

• active and passive voice

• theme and rheme

Analyse how higher order concepts are developed in complex texts through language features including nominalisation, clause combinations*, technicality and abstraction (ACELA1570) * only clause combinations were explicitly taught in this workshop.

analysing how logical relations between ideas are built up by combining main with subordinate clauses indicating cause, result, manner, concession, condition, and so on (for example, ‘Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his life (concession), Keats’ reputation grew substantially after his death’)

Below (Fig. 5.2) are some examples of how the information was presented to

teachers. Refer Appendix I for complete presentation slides. Note the intention was

to target teacher knowledge using forms of representation that can make the content

comprehensible to students. For example, introducing a well-chosen worded image

and suggesting questions: How does this change of order within the clause change

the emphasis (and therefore, subtly, the meaning)? and activities: Now try a different

order altogether. How does this change the meaning? Why didn’t Shakespeare do it

your way?


Figure 5.2. Sample slides from Workshop #3

In the 90-minute workshop, we reviewed word classes and clause elements. I

presented: clause types (main, subordinate, embedded and non-finite); sentence types

(simple, compound, complex, compound-complex); and included conjunctions and

text-connectives in the activities to show how logical relations between ideas are built

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up by combining main with subordinate clauses. We practised transitivity analysis -

identifying processes, participants and curcumstances – using a basic gradual release

of responsibility approach where I presented the information, I used a questioning

procedure to guide the whole group through a transitivity exercise, then the teachers

worked in pairs and individually. Transitivity sits in the ideational metafunction (refer

Chapter 2, Figure 2.1). It is a grammatical system through which experience is

represented, organised according to the process, the participants in the process and

circumstances associated with the process (Halliday, 1994, p.p. 106-108).

Opportunities were presented throughout the session for teachers to practise and

discuss the impact of changing and reordering within and between clauses. This

workshop, supported by the needs analysis activities and the participants’ own prior

knowledge, provided knowledge and theory teachers could bring to their planning.

They responded enthusiastically to their learning at the workshop, despite a wide

variability in prior knowledge and teaching experience; attendees ranged from

preservice teachers to teachers of more than 15 years experience who had attended

Education Queensland Year 8&9 Literacy Professional Development Package

(Queensland Government, 2009). All teachers found ‘new’ learning. New learning

tended to relate either to the grammatical resources under consideration or to their

relevance for the curriculum and writing instruction.

At the conclusion of Workshop #3, the participants essentially took control of

the intervention, activating and continuing to develop their LSK, and it is here that the

iterative nature of DBR most strongly comes into play. Indeed, one might posit that

this began during and perhaps even before Workshop #3, in initial decisions about

where and how the content could be used. Following the workshop, the participants

engaged in voluntary consolidation of their learning, rapidly conceiving and building

the unit of instruction in readiness for its delivery to students and continuing to plan

and adjust lessons because, as Easterday et al. (2014) note, “a design is never

completely finished (2014, p. 320). In this case, they both attended the Workshop #3

a second time, participated in a related professional development offered on a student

free day, and sought extra reading. They also had ready access to the workshop

materials and to me. Myrtle sought advice in the preparation of some lessons, to check

her grammatical analysis before showing it to students. Jordan engaged in informal


discussion about the material and requested some reading, which I provided then to

both participants – excerpts from A New Grammar Companion for Teachers

(Derewianka, 2011) and advice about relevant sections of our shared teacher reference

text Working Grammar: an introduction for secondary English teachers (Humphrey

et al., 2011). In this way they participated in the intervention in an interative fashion,

interacting with my part of the solution – the workshop and ongoing support – and

ultimately enacting their own instructional solution.

5.2.3 Testing the intervention

In the preceding subsections, I have presented a summary of the activities and

content from the first five phases of the DBR process, up to and including the build

phase. In sections 5.3 - 5.7, I revisit Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and

Action, against which the intervention is tested in Sections 5.3 – 5.7. In DBR terms,

this means “evaluating the efficacy of the solution” (Easterday et al. 2014, p. 320) for

achieving its practical and theoretical goals (p. 321), by analysing the way in which

the professional learning solution had a qualifiable impact on LPSK for writing

instruction, as revealed by teachers in the semi-structured interviews. In other words,

the test phase explores the research question: How do teachers respond to professional

learning about language that is provided to support the writing instruction they deliver

in the classroom?

Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning, previously explicated in Chapter

3, describes how a teacher might “commute from the status of learner to that of

teacher” (1987, p. 13) by making and enacting decisions. As shown in Table 5.2 below,

Shulman identified six intellectual activities.

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Table 5.2

Shulman’s Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action (1987, p. 15)

Comprehension

Of purposes, subject matter structures, ideas within and outside the discipline

Transformation

Preparation: critical interpretation and analysis of texts, structuring and segmenting, development

of a curricular repertoire, and clarification of purposes

Representation: use of a representational repertoire which includes analogies, metaphors,

examples, demonstrations, explanations, and so forth

Selection: choice from among and instructional repertoire, which includes modes of teaching,

organizing, managing and arranging

Adaptation and Tailoring to Student Characteristics: consideration of conceptions, preconceptions,

misconceptions, and difficulties, language, culture, and motivations, social class, gender, age,

ability, aptitude, interests, self-concepts, and attention

Instruction

Management, presentations, interactions, group work, discipline, humour, questioning and other

aspects of active teaching, discovery or inquiry instruction, and the observable forms of classroom

teaching

Evaluation

Checking for student understanding during interactive learning

Testing student understanding at the end of lessons or units

Evaluating one’s own performance and adjusting for experiences

Reflection

Reviewing, reconstruction, reenacting and critically analysing one’s own and the class

performance, and grounding explanations in evidence

New Comprehensions

Of purpose, subject matter, students, teaching and self

Consolidation of new understandings, and learnings from experience

All six activities in Shulman’s model were noticable in the responses of the

teachers in this study, though instruction was reported rather than observed. Myrtle


and Jordan demonstrably: comprehended the ideas and purposes, and carefully

selected text for instruction; re-presented the materials and tailored the instruction;

formatively and summatively assessed students’ learning; and arrived at new

understandings about the LSK, the students and their pedagogy.

The semi-structured interview transcripts revealed five interdependent features

of pedagogical reasoning in this context, that is where the knowledge under

consideration is: new rather than established; gleaned from an on-site professional

learning experience; highly subject-specific LSK; and shared for the purpose of

improving writing instruction. These themes are as follows, and will be discussed in

turn in sections 5.3 - 5.7:

• Theme 1: Teachers respond by engaging with new knowledge

• Theme 2: Teachers respond by applying new knowledge to plan for

instruction

• Theme 3: Teachers respond by transforming knowledge to make meaning

for students

• Theme 4: Teachers respond by evaluating the impact of instructional

decisions

• Theme 5: Teachers respond by reflecting and projecting for the purpose of

future planning

5.3 THEME 1: TEACHERS RESPOND BY ENGAGING IN NEW KNOWLEDGE

Theme 1 describes teachers’ responses as engaging with the new knowledge

by participating in the professional learning opportunity. Table 5.3 provides a

definition of the theme, including the scope of the theme, organised as definitional

boundaries of what counts as belonging to the theme, and some examples from

amongst the evidence selected for the data presentation.

Table 5.3

Engaging: teacher responses as engaging in new knowledge

Theme definition

Teachers engage with the new knowledge by participating in the professional learning

opportunity. Voluntary participation in a study like this signifies an intention to engage

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positively in purposefully building knowledge. Teachers are interested professionally as a

form of self-development. They also see the value in the new knowledge, both in terms of

its intrinsic utility for instruction and as satisfying a formal curriculum demand. Being

enthusiastic, gaining confidence, making errors and using more specialised field language

are all part of the process of engagement.


embracing the professional

learning opportunities

“I’m really optimistic because I guess I value having to make

grammar explicit.” (Myrtle, initial interview - II)

expanding P/LSK “What I’ve been doing, what I intend to keep doing, is sort

of going back to what you’ve presented so far and then

adapting and applying that in classes…” (Myrtle, II)

asserting confidence in

relation to new knowledge

“When I’m in front of the kids, I’m great. Because I’ve

prepared. I’ve checked myself. I’ve picked an example

where I really know what I’m doing. I feel my level of my

ability to teach grammar to kids is good, in terms of I’m

prepared, I’m well-researched. I’ve made sure I’ve got it

right.” (Jordan, II)

formalising teacher talk

about grammar

“I talked quite a bit about the language they knew about

language … we talked about the language of functional

grammar and what that means and how that looks. And we

had a comparison table that shows traditional and functional

grammar … and how one is sort of text or rule and the other

is sort of real world application.” (Jordan, final interview -

FI)

manipulating the LSK,

either through error or

expedience

This was a discussion point because “She’ll no longer be a

Capulet.” Because this is an embedded one – will no longer

be - I call all of that a verb. (Myrtle) Ah… (Researcher)

Yeah, I know, took some short cuts but then they still got it.

(Myrtle, FI)

Myrtle and Jordan engaged with new knowledge about grammar. The nature

of their engagement reflects the concept of comprehension as presented by Shulman

in the sense that they were developing their knowledge base by being able to


“comprehend critically a set of ideas to be taught” (Shulman, 1987, p. 14) and their

educational purposes, in this case the accomplishment of an end associated with

student literacy. The pattern in participant responses and reported actions here are

characterised by positivity and a sense of ‘having a go’ that is better represented by

the term engaging.

5.3.1 Myrtle engaging with new knowledge

From the outset, Myrtle demonstrated an appreciation of the ideas presented in

the professional learning, as evidenced by her statement: “I’m really optimistic

because I guess I value having to make grammar explicit” (Myrtle, II). She seems to

understand that explicit grammar instruction is valuable (Myhill et al., 2013b; Fogel

& Ehri, 2000; Fearn & Farnan, 2007). Her reference here to the utility of making it

explicit suggests she also comprehends the purpose of building her LSK and her initial

classroom interactions support her belief that the material is important:

I think embedding this now and having the push and the focus on it is

definitely going to have an impact on classes and what I have done so far in

class with students has just been great (Myrtle, II).

Myrtle’s embracing of the professional learning may signal a generally high self-

confidence. This is reflected in her attitude to her own developing comprehension:

“Look, it’s always a temporary puzzle. And that is ‘What’s next?’ but I’m going back

to your stuff and I’m seeing ‘Oh, that could be next. That’ll work.’ So, it’s good”

(Myrtle, II). This ability to cope with change and willingness to trial new ways of doing

things is a known marker of self-efficacy (Sklaavik & Sklaavik, 2007; Tsachannen-

Moran, 2001) – in this instance a positive judgement about how capable she is of

achieving engagement and improving instruction.

Myrtle’s enthusiasm for LSK as a field of knowledge underpins her developing

knowledge base as evident in the final interview:

Myrtle: Whatever comes my way I will use.

JA: The random vacuum approach to professional development.

Myrtle: It’s grammar! (laughs)

Myrtle’s “random vacuum” approach, a comment by me which I refer to again in

subsection 6.6, may be haphazard in some respects, and it might seem to be at odds

with some researchers’ findings that there is a need for specificity in identifying

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specific linguistic learning needs (Fogel & Ehri, 2000; Fearn & Farnan, 2007). The

intention to amass enough useful knowledge is certainly in the spirit of scholarly

findings which demonstrate that teacher LSK is a significant mediating factor for

writing outcomes (Jones et al., 2012). This is because teachers with high LSK can

more accurately and consistently explicate grammar in writing instruction. It is also

consistent with Shulman’s assignation of the centrality of comprehension (1987, p. 13-

14).

It is disingenuous, though, to portray Myrtle’s knowledge expansion as purely

haphazard. Myrtle’s pursuit of professional learning amounts to a deliberate “blending

of content and pedagogy” (Shulman, 1987, p. 8) – comprehension of a very particular

type. Despite already having a clearly articulated set of grammatical resources she uses

for instructional purposes, Myrtle continued to expand her pedagogical content

knowledge or, more specifically, linguistic pedagogical content knowledge (Myhill et

al., 2013b; Love et al., 2015). To improve her LPSK, her understanding of LSK “must

be linked to judgement and action, to the proper uses of understanding in the forging

of wise pedagogical decisions” (Shulman, 1987, p. 14). She reported adding to her

repertoire of explicit teaching about grammar:

So generally, with writing an essay, my go-to points are noun groups and

nominalisations, and theme and rheme. And you know, what academic verbs

we’re going to use, and then putting all that together in joint rewrites. … But

explicitly identifying verbs in clauses? No, I haven’t. Nothing like what I’m

doing now. (Myrtle, II)

Beyond her participation in our workshops, Myrtle conducted “a bit more

reading … And what I’ve been doing, what I intend to keep doing, is sort of going

back to what you’ve presented so far and then adapting and applying that in classes, I

think” (Myrtle, II). This is how Myrtle became familiar with the material in a way that

she could make available to students. By continuing her learning beyond the

expectations of her involvement in the project, Myrtle was engaging to the point of

being self-reflective. She recognised and began to resolve her knowledge gaps related

to the Achievement Standard for Year 10 English, including “technicality and

abstraction … I think I’m doing it, but I’m not using those terms. There’s some clarity

there for me to work on” (Myrtle, II). She acknowledged the threshold of her own


learning and instinctively embraced what she regards as worthwhile. Technicality and

abstraction are good choices for future development, given that they are indicators of

quality in senior secondary writing (Christie & Macken-Horarik, 2008; Ferguson,

2001). In this way, she used the “wisdom of her practice”, extending her engagement

with the professional learning experience and purposefully improving her LPSK for

writing instruction.

Further evidence of Myrtle’s engagement with the professional learning was in

a formalising of her talk about grammar, a possible effect of building her LSK and her

intention to demonstrate useful metalanguage to students. The process of formalising

is not completely new; this experiment was not conducted in a vacuum. Indeed, Myrtle

appears to have been formalising her talk about grammar over a long period:

My linguistic subject knowledge, I would say, has mainly developed after I’ve

become a teacher and I have done PD, but in terms of my implicit knowledge

of grammar, that was always very sound at home because of an English

teacher mother and a British father. But I would say, cos I went to school in

times when we were learning grammar and the rules by osmosis, I didn’t

graduate with anything there. Uni didn’t do too much more. The language I

have now has come mostly come after I’ve been a teacher. (Myrtle, II)

In other words, she has not always had the metalanguage to say “‘This is wrong

because…’, I could just say ‘That’s wrong. And this is how you make it right’”

(Myrtle). She nominated terms like “complex sentences” and “clauses”, “participant-

process-circumstance”, “types of verbs” and “embedded clause” amongst the explicit

grammatical knowledge she intends to use more. Myrtle also used formal terminology

to discuss student work. Language such as “he’s got his evaluations in there – ‘greatly

impact’ and ‘serious consequences’” (Myrtle, FI) to describe a student’s choice of

vocabulary is supplemented by observations like:

He starts with circumstances: Despite his good intentions of his secrecy…; On

the other hand, it goes tragically wrong in the end…; Without a doubt,

Shakespeare clearly positions the reader to acknowledge that life is a sum all

your choices. (Myrtle, FI)

Here she demonstrates confidence, as the literature suggests she needs in relation

to “declarative knowledge of grammar, particularly syntactic knowledge, if they

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(teachers) are to be able to handle students’ questions and misunderstandings

effectively” (Myhill et al. 2013b, p. 162).

It is unsurprising that this confident, pragmatic teacher sometimes manipulated

the LSK, either through error or for expedience – or to build an idiosyncratic common

language with her class. She frequently used the phrase “verbs in clauses” (Myrtle, II,

FI) as a proxy for identifying clause boundaries. This idiosyncratic use of shared

language is sometimes deliberate, as in this recollection from the final interview:

Myrtle: This was a discussion point because - She’ll no longer be a

Capulet - this is an embedded one. “Will no longer be” I call all

of that a verb.

JA: Ah…

Myrtle: Yeah, I know, took some short cuts but then they still got it. This

one was harder and I said to them that, because this is a speech -

a direct quote which is introduced with ‘says’ - it’s going to stand

by itself and we’re just going to ignore it. And I got around it

that way. “Who says: something – moving right along (laughs).

At other times, Myrtle conceded that “I think I get it, but not with those terms…this is

this metalanguage thing – I think I teach this and I know I can explain it, but I don’t

necessarily use these terms to explain it in class” (Myrtle, FI). After the conclusion of

the project, she had not mastered all the material presented in the professional learning.

Non-finite clauses15 were not retained as part of her LSK: “Oh, naming clauses, and

types of clauses. I know the basics, but. What’s it? A finite clause?” (Myrtle, FI) even

though she deliberately started using the term ‘embedded clause’ (and possibly

applying the term to both types of subordinate clause). The way teachers deal with

imperfect knowledge is beyond the scope of this inquiry. However, in the project of

building a knowledge base for any endeavour, it is entirely reasonable to expect gaps

and error as part of a normal learning process.

Myrtle’s engagement with the professional learning was characterised by an

enthusiastic embracing. Shulman might call this ‘comprehension’, but in this study the

15 a dependent clause with no subject or indication of tense, often not signalled by a conjunction, e.g. The waves pile up on top of the leading wave, [[creating a huge wave with great power]].


positivity associated with the professional learning about language is strong - of a set

of ideas to be taught and a conviction that sharing her grammatical knowledge with

students will help them improve their writing. Myrtle was confident that she could

infect students with her enthusiasm. She is also comfortable with not knowing. She

embraces the gaps in her LSK as a challenge of practice. As Myrtle well knows, her

learning is an ongoing project; she will be neither embarrassed nor intimidated by it.

5.3.2 Engaging Jordan

Similar to Myrtle, Jordan exhibited Shulman’s critical comprehension of the

subject matter and clearly articulated her reasons for engaging with the materials:

“Engaging with this level of thinking regularly is beneficial even for your own

automation of expressing your ideas to the kids, your confidence in what you’re

delivering. That is valuable” (Jordan, FI). She saw the professional learning as an

opportunity to “possess confidence in declarative knowledge of grammar, particularly

syntactic knowledge … to be able to handle students’ questions and misunderstandings

effectively (Myhill et al. 2012, p. 162) in her academically selective Year 10 English

class. Jordan further embraced the content selection collaboratively decided in the

needs analysis workshop. For her, the decision was “100% the right one. It’s exactly

where I want to focus and what I want to do – and what I think would have the greatest

impact on my kids” (Jordan, II). Jordan’s concern for impact is an important feature

of a DBR intervention (Jetnikoff, 2015, p. 2) and a key driver of successful

professional learning campaigns more broadly (Darling-Hammond, 2009; Fullan,

2011, Sharrat & Fullan, 2012; Sharrat & Planche, 2016). This motivation, combined

with her intrinsic desire to build her confidence in the field, characterised Jordan’s

engagement.

In Jordan’s embracing of the professional learning, expanding her knowledge

and developing confidence are closely connected. Sangster, Anderson and O’Hara

(2013) and later Love, Macken-Horarik and Horarik (2015) perceive a

confidence/competence gap amongst teachers, meaning that they tend to be

overconfident about their linguistic subject knowledge. However, the participants in

this study seemed acutely aware of their knowledge deficits. Confidence was

particularly a concern of Jordan’s, though at the end of the project she said it was “(f)ar

better than I felt at the start”. Presenting the new material wasa initially challenging; it

involved the risk of “getting one wrong” (Jordan, FI), a prospect she appears less

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comfortable with than Myrtle. Jordan reported being “really nervous my first one, but

giving it a go and risking it, and I knew my lot wouldn’t pick me up on it”. For Jordan,

careful planning was a conscious act of engagement designed to ameliorate this gap in

confidence:

I don’t feel confident, and I get flustered every time we have a staff one (at

professional learning), I lose my shit. I’m hopeless. ... It’s a common pattern

of behaviour for me. I second-guess myself. And then I stuff it up. When I’m

in front of the kids, I’m great. Because I’ve prepared. I’ve checked myself.

I’ve picked an example where I really know what I’m doing. I feel my level

of my ability to teach grammar to kids is good, in terms of I’m prepared, I’m

well-researched. I’ve made sure I’ve got it right. (Jordan, II)

Jordan here is commuting from learner to teacher (Shulman, 1987, pp. 12-13)

expanding her knowledge base for teaching through preparation.

Jordan’s journey to confidence and competence is ongoing – a reflexive process

for which the DBR provides a catalyst. Like Myrtle, beyond this project, she intends

to continue to deliberately expand her LPSK – amass more LSK so that her knowledge

can become “more automatic, and for me to have to think about it less”:

There are some amazing operators here, with far better linguistic knowledge

than myself, and ability to, you know, on the spot. I would love to be that. And

that is a professional goal: to be at a place where I feel more confident in my

own competence, where I don’t get flustered. (Jordan, II)

Though collaboration outside the needs analysis did not appear to be a strong feature

of participant responses overall, Jordan’s observation about the expertise of her peers

here is interesting in light of Eel’s notion of collective efficacy – the notion that one’s

confidence in the capacity of teaching peers is a significant positive influence on

student achievement (Eels, 2011) - and Fullan’s remarks about “the intrinsic energy

derived from doing something well that is important to you and to those with whom

you are working” (2011, p. 3).

Like Myrtle, Jordan recognised that her professional learning about language

is an ongoing project and that her continued engagement is warranted. The

academically selective nature of her group was presented as a reason to specifically


know more about abstraction and grammatical metaphor, which we considered but did

not ultimately choose for our project:

Particularly when you do have a high performing cohort, who some of the

errors you would have in other children’s writing aren’t there; they’re already

meeting some of the expectation, but that would be fantastic. I’m happy to

engage, then I think that would apply appropriately to children like Jay

(pseudonym) in analysing his work, to be able to explain to him how he could

be improving his writing. (Jordan, II)

Just as she is certain about what she wants to learn next, Jordan was clear about what

kind of professional learning will help her continue to build confidence in applying

LSK in the classroom:

Yes, I’m happy to talk within the two types of clauses, I’m okay with

embedded, but I would be more than happy with some growth. And I’d love

some modelling in how particularly, not just in how to grow my own

knowledge but then how that looks in the classroom. To see some models of

actually how to unpack that with kids would be really valuable. (Jordan, FI)

Jordan is making quite a clear declaration of the current status of her LSK for the

grammatical resources we explored in the intervention. For her to continue to build

both her LSK and LPSK, she will need to continue with this work in a particular way.

She values observation, a form of professional learning Garet et al. (2011) and Chung-

Wei et al. (2009) describe as ‘active learning’. This is a feature of professional

development programs that have a sustained positive effect.

Jordan’s engagement involved reasoning through a comprehension of the

purposes of learning and, in the process, justifying its space in her enacted curriculum.

Jordan embraced the professional learning opportunity enthusiastically in part because

it would encourage her to make space for an important element in the teaching of

writing amongst many other competing priorities, including school-based literacy and

numeracy requirements. This immediate orientation to managing the utility of the

professional learning is reminiscent of Ryan and Barton’s (2013) description of a

‘thirdspace’ mentality, where teachers find ways to satisfy two or more competing

priorities simultaneously:

I think I have found it really valuable and I think I have liked the consciousness

around … Oh, I have to have my #numeracy moment, I’ve gotta have my

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Reading Routine, I’ve gotta have my grammar in my lesson. All of those

things are annoying, but all of them are incredibly important and valuable, and

it’s actually been nice to have the reminder, because we do get so awfully busy

in the term and the amount of work we have to get through. And I do think

particularly in Year 10 you forget this level is needed and required too. So, it

will continue to be part of my lesson structure ongoing. (Jordan, FI)

Her instinctive cognisance of a gap in teaching sentence level knowledge is in part

evidence of the wisdom of her practice – a comprehension of the purpose and place of

the knowledge. Love et al. found too that “grammatical knowledge is taught more

explicitly in upper primary and junior secondary years of school, and that specialised

text structuring, rather than ‘language features’ is the focus of senior secondary

English” (2015, p. 177). For Jordan, a response to this professional learning is that she

has been able to make a space for the explcit teaching of apprioriate grammatical

knowledge in the Year 10 curriculum.

Jordan assumed responsibility for persuading students that knowing about

(functional) grammar can help them improve their writing. In this sense her

engagement related to her comprehension of the purpose of the knowledge:

I would like them to have strong understanding of metalanguage around their

own grammar and language use. I would like them to be able to have some

automation of understanding and applying that very basic level of functional

grammar in their own reading and writing. I think that would be really

beneficial for them. (Jordan, FI)

She shared with them the reasons for her formalised way of speaking, including

making use of “the table … that prompted questions about who’s engaged in the

process: Where is the process happening? There’s a series of questions … that flows

far more naturally than verb, noun” so that students can see the ways the clause

elements are working. In this way she activates her developing LSK and engages by

outwardly acknowledging the efficacy of metalinguistically aware teaching and

learning (Myhill et al., 2012; Hudson, 2004). Further, she embraces a functional

grammar approach, rather than a traditional one, as having more potential to improve

student writing (Fearn & Farnan, 2007; Macken-Horarik, 2012). Shulman’s notion of

comprehension involves teachers comprehending the substance and the purpose of

teaching materials. Engagement, as described here, also encompassed outward


expressions of enthusiasm for the subject matter – so the knowledge and purpose of

the knowledge can be made clear to students.

The purpose of building a shared metalanguage was also signalled in Jordan’s

intended approach to feedback. Apart from providing more explicit instruction, Jordan

wants to use her knowledge to improve the feedback she provides students, so she

could be more specific. She refers to this at the initial interview:

After what we’ve done recently, I’m really conscious that in my feedback to

children I’m not being explicit. In thinking in my marking of kids work, I’m

looking at it and I would write a ‘g’ or I would write a ‘p’ or I would write an

‘s’ on the side. But I wouldn’t necessarily tell the child what their error was.

So they’re oblivious. (Jordan, II)

This orientation to formative assessment is a recurring theme in the literature on

professional learning, which is that there needs to be an ongoing commitment to

developing expertise in formative assessment (Andrade, 2010; William, 2007;

William, 2010; Araceli Ruiz-Primo et al., 2010; William, Lee, Harrison & Black,

2004). At the end of the project, she still felt this work was incomplete and gave this

as a reason for continued engagement:

I feel like I can teach transitivity. And I feel like that’s sort of ‘this level’ …

I can read a piece of text and know that it’s not right. And then I want the kids,

and myself, to be able to go, “Here are the very specific reasons why” … you

know, ‘that’ level? I feel I can … pick(ing) a chunk of text, taking it apart for

the child, in terms of their writing, at a larger scale level, but down to the nitty-

gritty that we require, I would be more than happy to have some growth.

(Jordan, II)

Jordan’s response here indicates a cautious awareness of the time it takes to develop

accuracy in LSK and confidence in applying it to improve writing instruction. Such a

response may speak to the complexity of the task of combining detailed subject matter

with an increasingly accurate knowledge of the learner (Stephens et al., 1996).

While Myrtle’s engagement involved manipulating the LSK either deliberately,

for expedience in the classroom, or openly, as part of the learning process, the gaps in

Jordan’s mastery had more in common with Shulman’s Colleen (pseudonym) in his

original study. Colleen was a confident, committed teacher who, by training, knew

more about literature than grammar. As a result, she instinctively avoided detail and





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questions because she was uncertain of the content (Shulman, 1987, p.18). It is

possible to see something similar at work in Jordan’s discussion of Jay’s writing in her

final interview. She believed the essay was ‘Above the Year 10 Achievement

Standard’ but it does not reflect his ability. However, she was not quite confident in

using her LSK to be specific about the finer grained changes he would need to make,

even when I invited her to be quite formal and specific in the final interview:

JA: You can see him (Jay) grappling with the abstraction there, but

not quite being able to package it.

Jordan: Yes, and could he have chosen two shorter sentences? Would

that have been more powerful? We’ve got another very long

detailed sentence here. As you say, what’s at the forefront of

your sentence. You’re right; it isn’t a bad introduction, but it isn’t

reflective of his ability. And that’s where I hear these kids – he

doesn’t have that level of metacognition about his use of

language.

The use of everyday terms like “shorter sentences” instead of ‘simple sentences’;

“very long detailed sentence” instead of ‘complex sentences’ or ‘compound-complex

sentences’; and “what’s at the forefront of your sentence” instead of ‘theme’ may be

evidence of a certain ‘performance anxiety’ such as she previously referred to

experiencing in peer professional learning situations. Jordan’s continued

engagement, what she herself refers to as “the repetition of engaging with this level

of thinking regularly” (Jordan, FI) is the vehicle for increasing confidence in her

LSK and LPSK.

5.3.3 Why is it important for teachers to engage with new knowledge?

The teachers in this study engaged, by choice, in a professional learning

experience targeted at an agreed and specific linguistic learning need of the student

cohort they teach. The nature of their engagement is significant for the problem of

increasing LPSK for application in writing because engagement, as part of the teacher

reasoning process, may be foundational to the long-term project of amassing a critical

amount of LSK over time. Though quite different in their personal styles, both

participants were able to embrace the new knowledge and communicate their

conviction about its utility for writing instruction to their students. Leveraging their

confidence with the subject matter (Myrtle’s based on previous LSK and Jordan’s on


careful planning) and harnessing the affordances of a school context that has

historically and continues to provide support for their implementation efforts, they

could decide to bring more, and more accurate, metalinguistic talk to the classroom

and project confidence to their students.

Myrtle and Jordan saw their engagement with the knowledge as being part of a

longer process. This is important “because a language is inexhaustible” (Halliday,

1985, p. xiiv). We know that teachers with better LSK can have more impact on

students’ writing (Jones et al. 2012) but we don’t yet know how much they need to

know or how they might be expected to acquire it. Jetnikoff and Smeed (2012) would

describe quality professional learning: ‘ongoing’ over the period of change; ‘on time’

in its proximity to student learning and efficient in its use of teacher time; ‘on task’ for

the negotiated goals; ‘on the mark’ for fulfilling teachers’ specific learning needs; and

‘on the spot’, where the professional learning was carried out at the school site. My

experience in this project suggests it is unlikely that schools and their systems will be

able to provide professional learning for all English teachers about LSK in sufficient

quantity and quality. The engagement of teachers in committing to building their own

LSK – knowing how to select the ‘next’ thing, believing it will ultimately help - and

converting it to LPSK, must be part of the solution to the writing problem.

5.4 THEME 2: TEACHERS RESPOND BY APPLYING NEW KNOWLEDGE TO PLAN FOR INSTRUCTION

Theme 2 describes teachers’ responses as applying the new knowledge by

developing a lesson sequence based on a combination of the professional learning

materials and familiar pedagogy. Table 5.4 provides a definition of the theme,

including the scope of each theme, organised as definitional boundaries of what counts

as belonging to the theme, and examples of relevant evidence.

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Table 5.4

Applying: teacher responses as applying new knowledge to plan for instruction

Theme definition

Teachers apply the new knowledge by developing lessons using the materials offered in

Workshop #3 - and from other sources including colleagues, related professional learning

and extra reading. They try examples and activities of their own design and connect their

learning to current practices.


appropriating materials

from professional learning

or from colleagues

“I basically stole some of his activities and I basically

applied them to my context. I completely ripped off his

powerpoint.” (Jordan, II)

experimenting with new

ways to deliver the content

or use the LSK

“The lesson began in silence. I didn’t even do my learning

intention or whatever. … It took … a lot of stamina for them

to read it. And they … they didn’t really get it until the end,

but it was good exposure to a really complex text.” (Jordan,

FI)

embedding new knowledge

into current practices

“…it will be done in context as we’re doing joint rewrites.

That’s where I’m putting most of my grammar in.” (Myrtle,

II)

In Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and Action, ‘transformation’ –

where the teacher takes “what he or she already understands and makes it ready for

instruction” (Shulman, 1987, p. 14) - follows comprehension. In addition to

transformation, I have noted an ‘applying’ aspect in the teachers’ responses - a separate

theme that emerged from the data. This theme foregrounds the distinct and early

decision on the part of both teachers to attach their knowledge to familiar pedagogy -

that is, practised, school-supported routines and strategies for literacy teaching. In this

way, I tease out the process of transformation. It allows a distinction to emerge

between the decisions the teachers made to prepare materials and select strategies

based on their own professional learning needs and school priorities (applying), and

the decisions they made that were more directly connected to the needs of their

students (here referred to as ‘transforming’).


5.4.1 Applying new knowledge: Myrtle

Myrtle had a clear idea about how to apply the professional learning – where it

fit in her exisiting pedagogical practice for writing instruction - using a combination

of the materials as presented and her existing approach:

It will be done in context as we’re doing joint rewrites. That’s where I’m

putting most of my grammar in… I think that a lot of the benefits that kids in

my class get is from joint rewriting activities and … the Reading to Learn

stuff…. I feel like I was doing more of that than other teachers – with the

grammar as well. (Myrtle, II)

Her emphasis on contextualised grammar instruction agrees with a clear majority of

Australian teachers of English (Love, et al., p. 178). To assist with incorporating the

new knowledge, she appropriated some of the materials from the professional

development. As she described in the above quote, she selected knowledge about:

grammar rank scale; clause elements, including transitivity and associated questions;

and verb types. Then she assimilated this into her established practice of joint

construction, where she co-constructs texts with students. In her final interview, Myrtle

referred to adapting the slides from the professional learning, which were designed

directly from the needs analysis and the literary subject matter was relevant for her

class. It seemed to be helpful that some of the application of teacher knowledge was

made easy by the expert materials: “Okay, so this is a repeat of what you did. This is

great. I loved it. Really easy” (Myrtle, FI).

As she worked through her planning, Myrtle experimented with alternative ways

of presenting the material. For example, after presenting a transitivity activity that

mimicked the professional learning, she challenged students to:

write a sentence and that was the end of the lesson. Which ended up being

quite neat and sort of good because they thought writing a sentence would be

easy…. The sentence that we looked at came from this, an older paragraph

from years ago: This breakdown of the Capulet family can be laid directly at

the feet of the deceitful Juliet. That sentence was good at the sentence level

and I wanted (them) to identify the clause elements. (Myrtle)

By working this way, Myrtle achieved multiple forms of representation for the subject

matter, something Shulman considered desirable. In fact, in his paper “Those Who

Understand” he calls for “a veritable armamentarium of alternative forms of

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representation” (1986, p. 9). Furthermore, she was simultaneously in the role of learner

and teacher, drawing on old resources and new materials to expand her curricular

repertoire. While she is experimenting in this way, she is assembling a body of

knowledge unique to English and literacy instruction: LPSK.

Beyond using the professional learning materials and experimenting with

different ways of representing the knowledge, Myrtle made the more profound

instructional decision to embed the new learning into her dominant literacy pedagogy,

Reading to Learn (Martin & Rose, 2012). Reading to Learn is underpinned by genre

theory (refer 2.4.4), the most influential and fully developed of the evidence-based

pedagogy derived from SFL. She has had formal training in this approach – eight days

over one school year in 2015 – and has both attended and delivered intra-school

workshops with other teachers. Embedding the new knowledge this way is automatic

for Myrtle and her LPSK seems to be built by this process of embedding new

knowledge into established practices. She has over time found that, where once she:

would have had a whole lot of explicit (sic. declarative) teaching on this and

less writing. But now I have less explicit teaching and we do it as a joint

rewrite. It’s much more practical. That’s what I’m finding. It’s better. (Myrtle,

FI)

Reading to Learn relies on a coherent series of reading and writing strategies

this teacher is familiar with, arranged in the way genre theory and literature suggests

works. Myrtle referred above to the strategies in the middle circle of Figure 5.3 below.

She would lead a ‘detailed read’ of a short passage that includes the language features

she wants to highlight, then she would lead the class to complete a ‘joint rewrite’

together on the board, and finally students would attempt to use the language feature/s

in an ‘individual rewrite’ activity. For Myrtle, Reading to Learn may be akin to the

conceptual framework Shulman describes his participant Nancy using:

… to guide her own sequencing of material and formulation of questions. She

taught the framework explicitly to her students over the semester, helping

them employ it like a scaffolding to organize their own study of the texts, to

monitor their own thinking. (Shulman, 1987, p. 2)


Knowing these strategies well and being confident in their efficacy as well as having

professional learning materials to draw on, is important to the way Mayrtle applies

new knowledge.

Figure 5.3. The teaching and learning cycle in Reading to Learn (Martin & Rose, 2012, p. 147)

Reading to Learn emphasises the importance of commanding engagement by

having students carefully attend to targeted teacher questioning about language

features and physically highlighting these on a hard copy of the text (Martin & Rose,

2012, p. 156). This was an important part of Myrtle’s instructional routine:

They wrote that into their books and then they did it on their page and

highlighted. So I’ve got a lot of kids, maybe three quarters of the class, are on

their computers as a standard and so we did this: you highlight the different

colours. We set that up really early. Highlighters for every lesson and the kids

writing in their books. (Myrtle, FI)

As they worked through Martin and Rose’s adaptation of the teaching and learning

cycle, she added to these procedures by having students identify clause elements more

independently. Here is how she reported re-presenting the idea of clause, guiding

students through an example and towards a more independent activity:

Okay, each clause – a clause in an idea and there has to be one verb per clause

– so we’re going to put a slash (\) at the end of the clause. Let’s look at the

first bit. So the first clue is any time there’s a full stop, that’s got to be the end

of a clause right? So we can do that. Then, where does it make sense for your

clause to end? (Myrtle, FI)

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Again, she is not only preparing representations of the knowledge for students, but

also building her “representational repertoire” (Shulman, 1987, p. 16). Reading to

Learn seems to be a pragmatic conceptual framework for this purpose.

Embedding happened not only in literacy pedagogy directly; it was evident in

general pedagogical knowledge too. Just has she has been developing her reading and

writing instruction through Reading to Learn, Myrtle has been working at improving

her skill in asking questions and generating discussion and debate amongst her class.

She linked this aspect of pedagogy with the writing tasks she assigned the class:

We talked about the nature of Romeo and we debated whether is he impulsive

or is he loving? What’s the nature of Romeo? So, from that build the noun

group with an evaluation. … it did tie into other discussions we were having

on the nature of Romeo. (Myrtle, FI)

She articulated the connection between class discussion and writing by explaining that,

“from that initial discussion we go to writing a paragraph and using the noun group.

So they’ve already done the thinking work on why Romeo might be to blame or Juliet’s

the problem.” (Myrtle) Her approach here may in part invoke what Myhill calls

‘playful explicitness’, where “Playfulness and experimentation help writers to see the

elasticity of language, the possibilities it affords and what language can do, rather than

what writers must not do” (Myhill, 2013, p. 108).

In the process of embedding new knowledge into her established and evolving

pedagogy, the purpose of the professional learning as represented by the hypothesis

co-generated as part of the DBR intervention was diffused. For example, here is the

learning intention she shares in this lesson:

Our review of verbs will help us understand clauses and this will improve the

structure of our writing. … You need to understand clauses so you can write

sentences, and especially complex sentences for academic essays. (Excerpt

from lesson goals, Myrtle)

Although it is directed to the end of writing complex sentences for academic essays, it

does not address the more specific aspects of the hypothesis, which are “to manipulate

emphasis and develop logical relationships between ideas.”:





achieving: more accuracy in sentence boundaries and more variety in their


The result is a series of lessons that, though sophisticated in their presentation of

subject matter, do not match some aspects of the Year 10 achievement standard. The

fit is closer with the Year 8 content descriptor: Analyse and examine how effective

authors control and use a variety of clause structures, including clauses embedded

within the structure of a noun group/phrase or clause (ACELA1545). The lesson

materials do not refer to “creatively using the structures of sentences and clauses for

particular effects” (Year 9 ACEL1557). Nor do students appear to have been asked to

“Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of a wide range of sentence and clause

structures as authors design and craft texts” (Year 10 ACELA1569). Her targeted use

of class discussion does have the potential to reveal how higher order concepts are

developed in complex texts through language features including nominalisation and

clause combinations, and Myrtle is deliberately working towards including

“technicality and abstraction” (Year 10 ACELA1570) in her practice. Still, activities

and question prompts like this below from the professional learning were omitted.

These have a clear connection to the Year 10 content descriptors because they

foreground the effects of changing word and clause order.

Figure 5.4. Sample slide from Workshop #3

The reasons for Myrtle’s decisions here are unclear. Her investment in defining

the problem and conceiving a possible solution in the DBR seemed strong at the initial

interview: “… the close analysis of the two different kids in the classes. Actually, that’s

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why I think the decision was right. Because we did that process” (Myrtle). Her

subsequent diffusion of this purpose might reflect her assuredness that, though she

participated in decision-making for the intervention, she is not ‘locked in’ to presenting

it to students in a particular way. Or it might reflect the difficulty of writing learning

intentions about grammatical concepts in a way that is accessible for students. It is also

possible there is a weakness in her curriculum knowledge that was not addressed

through the phases of the DBR intervention. At the final interview, she was able to

discuss relevant content descriptors, though there was uncertainty about some of them:

“Analyse how these concepts are developed in complex texts. If I’m teaching that so

that they can write, is that what that’s about?” This is an important point to explore:

Why does a teacher with high L/PSK and an apparently strong commitment to the

purposes of the professional learning alter the focus in practice?

Myrtle’s responses categorised as applying new knowledge to plan for

instruction reveal that she can present content knowledge directly to students, draw on

the resources presented as new knowledge, and insert new content knowledge into

previously established practices.

5.4.2 Applying new knowledge: Jordan

Jordan applied the professional learning differently, though she was as decisive

as Myrtle about where it would fit in her pedagogical practice:

Essentially what we did is from weeks one to week five is each of the weeks

where we had a Reading Routine is where I did explicit grammar. I thought,

if I’m looking at a text deeply, that was where I wanted to fit in my grammar

work. (Jordan, FI)

The Reading Routine is a school-based literacy strategy, designed in 2011 by the

school’s Literacy Coach (then, me) and local education consultants Lindsay Williams

and Matthew Rigby. Essentially an adaptation of Stauffer’s Directed Reading

Thinking Activity (1969), it was introduced in 2012 to address a perceived need for all

disciplines to deliver effective reading comprehension. It features on Education

Queensland’s Evidence Hub as an example of an effective whole school approach

(Queensland Government Department of Education Evidence Hub, 2015). The

expectation at Newman SHS for the Reading Routine is that teachers in all subjects

and year levels will deliver a short reading and response activity, in the context of the


lesson, using a defined before-during-after reading process (refer Figure 5.5 below).

Though it targets reading, not writing, it is designed so that teachers can embed it in

their broader lesson objectives.

Figure 5.5. Reading Routines – five steps of effective reading (Queensland Government Department of Education The Evidence Hub, 2015, p. 4).

Jordan is secure in her professional discretion, believing “we’ve each got to

find our way or our formulae for doing it in an authentic way” (Jordan, FI). Her

rationale for how she applied the professional learning was clearly related to the

imperative of finding time in the curriculum - and space for her to build her L/PSK:

I’ve set some goals for myself since we did our workshop, to say “I want a

weekly focus.” And it will be a bit clunky until it becomes authentic, until it

becomes part of my day to day … Initially, I think I’m going to have to just

be more explicit about it and just “Once a week, this is our routine.” (Jordan,

II)

Using the Reading Routine meant Jordan could satisfy multiple imperatives

simultaneously. She prioritised introducing students to quality texts. In genre-based

pedagogies, this might be referred to as “building knowledge of the field”, in this case

knowledge of the social and cultural contexts of satirical writing via guided reading

activities (Derewianka and Jones, 2010, p. 47). Jordan’s decision to begin this way is

reminiscent of Shulman’s observation that teaching begins with the selection of text

as “a vehicle for the accomplishment of other educational purposes” (Shulman, 1987,

p. 14). She believes this approach means the enacted curriculum, what is actually

delivered in the classroom, is cohesive because:

they were exposed to quite a variety of texts and then what they’ve been able

to use (sic. do) is look at the grammar in relation to the Reading Routine for

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that week, which was connected. Everything was interconnected and it seemed

purposeful and real. It wasn’t a bolt-on. It was appropriate to their growth in

terms of their exposure to text, and then it was grammar-relevant to that text.

(Jordan, FI)

Importantly, and similar in intent to Myrtle’s approach, Jordan’s preparation of the

material in the manner described involved “structuring and segmenting the material

into forms better adapted to the teacher’s understanding and, in prospect, more suitable

for teaching” (Shulman, 1987, p. 16). The Reading Routine thus allowed her to:

connect new knowledge using a well-known strategy; select contextually relevant and

challenging text for students; and feel satisfied that the school’s expectation of her has

been met.

Jordan relied less directly than Myrtle on the professional learning materials.

This may be because her unit was about reading and creating satire, whereas the

professional learning examples drew on Romeo and Juliet. However, she did

appropriate the series of questions “about who’s engaged in the process, where is the

process happening?” and “I completely ripped off his (Tom’s16) Powerpoint … -

essentially what he did was stuff we’ve already done, so it wasn’t higher level stuff

than we’d done” to transmit teacher knowledge to students. And she “stole Cate’s

entire grammar lesson” by which she means she:

stole her manner of stepping it out but I … developed it into worksheets for

the kids. So, I liked them to have something they could work with, but no it

wasn’t just write out the text. And as you said, “Give it a go.” (Jordan, FI)

This drawing in of additional resources and learning from her peers is an important

source of LPSK-building for Jordan. The interactions provided opportunities for her

to consolidate her own metalanguage and prepare multiple forms of representation for

students.

Following her presentation of new knowledge to students about word classes,

transitivity and clauses, Jordan experimented by presenting students with text (in this

16 Here she refers to a voluntary workshop offered at a student-free day subsequent to our Workshop #3. Tom’s 90-minute session covered some of the same materials and Jordan embraced the opportunity to practise and deepen her knowledge.


example, A Modest Proposal, 1729) in a playful way, challenging them to read

unfamiliar satirical material:

The lesson began in silence. I didn’t even do my learning intention or

whatever. They already had this on their desk and I said this was a genuine

article and it was written in a newspaper and it was proposed to parliament

and this is the gentleman’s proposal. It took them … it’s huge, it’s a meaty

text, it took a lot of stamina for them to read it. And they didn’t get it right

until the very last sentence, where you work out that he is joking. We’re

talking about the potato famine and he’s talking about murdering children and

young people for food. So they didn’t really get it until the end, but it was

good exposure to a really complex text. (Jordan, II)

Her approach here prioritises engagement – challenge, exploration, and playfulness -

and has the potential to support experimentation in a way that Myhill et al. (2013a;

Ryan & Barton, 2013) claim is effective.

A Reading Routine ends with a response or ‘thinking’ task that relies on

students’ comprehension of the text. For this lesson, Jordan chose to have students

apply their knowledge about clause and sentence structure. She produced a handout

(Figure 5.6 below) “so they’ve got something physically to work with. I like, my lot

all have laptops, I like them highlighting it on a (physical) page, writing annotations

in the margin (Myrtle, II)”. Both teachers seem to value the tactile learning artefact –

the completed worksheet, the highlighted text. In this case the worksheet is an

instructional selection that also re-presents the key knowledge to students.

Task 1: In pairs identify the

* Participants (who/ what is involved in the process- verb)

* Circumstances (when/ where/ how/ why is involved in the process)

the Processes (verbs) have already been underlined for you.

Task 2: In groups of four, identify the clause types

1 – Independent (can work on its own)

2 – Dependent (cannot work on its own)

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3 – Embedded (works to add detail the sentence)

Clauses:

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the

country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with

beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and

importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to

work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to

beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves

for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in

Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.

Figure 5.6. Reading Routine extension task

Jordan, like Myrtle, embedded the new knowledge by drawing on her general

pedagogical knowledge. She asked students “to work in pairs and getting them to look

at clauses, and then in groups of four we were looking at different clause types.” She

was very clear in the rationale for her decisions and acknoweldged the problem of a

potentially weak or indirect link to writing:

My goal was that in seeing the grammar that they would then apply the

grammar. However, in each of the tasks I’ve got them to do, there’s explicit

teaching, so I think I’m doing the ‘I do’ ‘we do’. There’s a degree of ‘you do’.

Some of them were completely independent tasks, but not related to their own

writing. (Jordan, FI)

Jordan’s intention was to connect their developing declarative knowledge about

grammar with their own writing, and the effects of re-ordering within and between

clauses:

a group of four girls were working together and we took the sentence and we

took each individual word out and we thought then, “How could we jigsaw

it?” And the same could be with Jay's sentence here. Could we cut it up and

then how might we resequence the sentence to be more effective? (Jordan, FI)

The instructional selection of ‘jigsawing’ is similar to Reading to Learn’s sentence-

making, an intensive strategy designed for reinforcing foundation skills, particularly


with younger students (Martin & Rose, 2012, p. 213). The advantages of using

individual sentence strips in this way are that they are contextualised, being drawn

from the Reading Routine, and the focus is on word groups and the functions of words

in groups (p. 215). Jordan could demonstrably use this method to facilitate students’

learning as they analysed and evaluated the effectiveness of a wide range of sentence

and clause structures (Year 10 ACELA1569) and it is likely that students could see

these kinds of constructions could be applied to making sentences of their own. In this

way, Jordan achieved considerable fidelity to the relevant content descriptors.

As an instructional method, the Reading Routine seemed to offer some agility in

meeting the Year 10 content descriptors and transferring her LSK to students.

However, it is unclear whether students had sufficient opportunity to translate their

declarative knowledge to the writing skill of manipulating emphasis in their own

sentences. Nor did there seem to be a focus on analysing how higher order concepts

are developed in complex texts through clause combinations (Year 10 ACELA1570).

The limitation could be that, without Reading to Learn’s ‘next step’ strategies – joint

and individual rewriting – sentence making is too cumbersome a strategy to adapt to

the more nuanced Year 10 expectations. It may also be that the intent of the

professional learning vis a vis the manipulation of emphasis and the development of

logical relationships between ideas in writing was, though embraced as a priority, not

yet well enough comprehended to be available for instruction. Learning how logical

relations between ideas are built up by combining main with subordinate clauses would

have been difficult to do without representing text connectives to indicate cause, result,

manner, and so on - a key feature in the professional learning materials (refer Appendix

I). A follow-up workshop may have been needed about clause relations and cohesive

devices as they might support students’ communication of abstract ideas. This need

for ongoing professional learning, including revisiting some of the material, is a central

idea emerging from this study – one which I address in the final chapter of this thesis.

It is likely, however, that the identification of such gaps would be difficult to identify

and ameliorate in a school context

For Jordan, making the connection between her instruction about grammar and

students applying that to their writing tasks, especially extended writing tasks, seems

to be incidental rather than purposefully applied:

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(I)t required them to write a reflective paragraph at the end or there was a

critical question they wrote a paragraph about, then yes there’s an element of

writing. But I didn’t then get them to do this on their own writing. (Jordan, FI)

She acknowledged that: “I don’t have yet a way to engage with their own writing in a

really pure way. It’s not flowing as nicely as I would like yet (Jordan, II)”. It is here,

at the point of application - preparing specific text materials, representing the ideas for

students, and selecting instruction from amongst known methods and models

(Shulman, p. 16) - that the tension in connecting teacher LSK to instruction for writing

became apparent.

5.4.3 Instructional selection matters

The teachers in this study applied their professional learning by finding a way to

deliver the content and connect it with writing instruction. Their ‘applying’ responses

are significant for the problem of increasing LPSK for writing because there was a

strong predisposition to embed new knowledge into teaching practices that are both

highly familiar – routine even – and supported by the school. Within this relatively

safe framework, Myrtle and Jordan confidently practised and deepened their own

LPSK. Their application is also notable in that they both seemed to appreciate the

efficacy of elements of a genre-based approach to writing instruction. Genre

pedagogies offer a cycle of learning that includes negotiating field deconstruction,

joint construction and independent construction of text (Painter & Martin, 1986;

Christie & Martin, 2005) and can support students to navigate the connection from

reader to writer. Myrtle’s highly contextualised grammar instruction allowed her to

activate more elements of a genre-based teaching and learning cycle than a stand-

alone, school-based routine for reading. However, Jordan’s decision to attach her

teaching about grammar to reading allowed her to enact an ‘authentic’,

‘interconnected’ curriculum and build substantial field knowledge for the challenging

study of satire.

Diffused translation of purpose

A related aspect of Myrtle and Jordan’s application of the professional learning

is that their responses revealed some departure from its collaboratively developed

purpose. This ‘diffused translation’ related to the content descriptors in the AC:E so

that the meaning-making potential of manipulating emphasis and developing logical


relationships between ideas in writing may not have been clear to students. It also

related to a diffusion of the intent vis a vis sustained and extended application of

practice to writing. The teachers in this study appeared to be conscious of the latter,

but not cognisant of the former – a circumstance that became clearer in their responses

categorised as “reflecting and projecting for future planning” in sections 5.5 and 5.7

below. For both teachers, instructional decisions privileged declarative knowledge

about word classes and transitivity. The result was comparatively less emphasis

translated to students on the effect of word and clause order for meaning making for

their own writing.

5.5 THEME 3: TEACHERS RESPOND BY TRANSFORMING NEW KNOWLEDGE TO MAKE MEANING FOR STUDENTS

Theme 3 describes teachers’ responses as transforming the new knowledge

based on the needs of their students and other contextual constraints. Table 5.5

provides a definition of the theme, including the scope of each theme, organised as

definitional boundaries of what counts as belonging to the theme, and examples of

relevant evidence.

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Table 5.5

Transforming: teacher responses as transforming knowledge to make meaning for students

Theme Definition

Teachers transform the new knowledge by making space for it in the curriculum they offer

their classes, taking into consideration (either explicitly or tacitly) the needs of individuals

and groups of students. They narrow their final selection of LSK when they transform it

into LPSK in the enacted curriculum.


differentiating for the

needs of individual

students in the class

“I’m looking at my class differently now. I’m looking at them

in terms of: Okay, what’s my A student going to be getting out

of this? And then, you know: Why is this going to benefiting

my C students as well?” (Myrtle, II)

connecting their thinking

about the professional

learning to the perceived

characteristics of a cohort

“They might be able to understand it, they might be able to

analyse it, but I don’t think this particular group, and

potentially others, in that I haven’t taught this with another

group, I don’t know if they’re up to the skill of writing satire.

Cos that’s quite a high-level skill.” (Jordan, FI)

assuming student prior

knowledge

“I have assumed a degree of skill in Year 10 that isn’t

necessarily there and then in their work – even in our top

performing kids – the skill isn’t there and yet I’m really only

becoming conscious of that now, partly through this, that …

they need to be taught it explicitly ongoing – more explicitly

than I have been.” (Jordan, II)

limiting the scope of

learning

“I also didn’t see how the type of verbs was going to really

support what I wanted to get out of the unit, so I didn’t do it.”

(Myrtle, FI)

rearranging the content or

sequence of student

learning

JA: Just remind me about what you felt you needed to skip.

Myrtle: Half the reading of the play, unfortunately. (FI)


Transforming is considered separately from applying, though the two themes are

closely interconnected:

at the intersection of content and pedagogy, in the capacity of a teacher to

transform the content knowledge he or she possesses into forms that are

pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variations in ability and

background presented by the students. (Shulman, 1987, p. 15)

Here, transforming involves teachers considering the characteristics of their students

and, with the professional learning in mind, rearranging the curriculum as they would

have otherwise presented it. In terms of Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning

and Action, I have excised “adaptation and tailoring to student characteristics” (refer

Figure 5.2) from the more teacher-centric activities involved in preparing materials,

representing knowledge and selecting instruction. I have also added some further

consideration of the ways this seemingly student-centred transformation involves

changes to either the metalinguistic subject knowledge that is passed on from the

professional learning or to the curriculum as it would otherwise have been taught. It is

perhaps in this theme of transformation that Shulman’s description of the

“outrageously complex activity” (1987, p. 7) of teaching most clearly emerges as a

significant mediating factor in pedagogical instruction for writing.

5.5.1 Myrtle transforming new knowledge

Myrtle considered the needs of individuals and groups, and also the general

characteristics of the whole class, in her response to the professional learning:

I’m looking at my class differently now. I’m looking at them in terms of:

Okay, what’s my A student going to be getting out of this? And then, you

know: Why is this going to be benefiting my C students as well?” (Myrtle, II).

However, there was little evidence that her instructional decisions (the way she

ultimately decided to transform her knowledge to instruction) were directly influenced

by this thinking. Differentiation seemed to be something that might happen

incidentally because Myrtle’s instructional decisions generally lend themselves to

meeting the needs of a variety of learners in the class, but she did not talk about

preparing the materials differently for individual students. It may also have been that

the presence of the EAL/D teacher, Pammy, allowed for a level of individual attention

not always possible in single-teacher classrooms so that on-the-spot adjustments were

relatively easy to make. To differentiate instruction is to “recognize students’ varying

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background knowledge, readiness, language, and preferences in learning and interests,

and then to act on that knowledge responsively in planning content dimensions,

process dimensions, and product dimensions” (Dixon et al. 2014, p. 113). Learner

characteristics were recognised and they influenced Myrtle’s contribution to the needs

analysis in the DBR process; she readily identified linguistic learning needs of

individuals she felt resonated for the whole class by selecting and analysing sample

student work, but specific action in response to knowledge about student needs was

not evident in her responses.

In addition to meeting the needs of higher and lower performing students, Myrtle

considered students identified as having English as an Additional Language or Dialect

(EAL/D). This was relevant to her instructional decisions, but it is unclear whether

these already were in place for the class, or were influenced by the professional

learning:

Because I’ve got so many ESL kids in my class, and I’ve got Pammy (a

pseudonym, EAL/D Co-teacher) and um peer review and shared writing

activities are actually really good for them. So I think I tended to do more of

that than some other teachers I think. (Myrtle, FI)

Myrtle continued to be convinced that her decision to use Reading to Learn as her

primary pedagogy for writing instruction best meets the needs of her diverse

classroom. There is substantial evidence in the literature to support her reasoning. The

utility of SFL and genre pedagogy for EAL/D learners has been established by Polias

and Dare (2006) and has more recently been confirmed as efficacious for improving

reading and writing outcomes for a wide variety of learners by Martin and Rose (2012).

If individual and group differences did not significantly influence Myrtle’s

instructional decisions for writing, then what of her assumptions about their prior

knowledge and readiness to engage with the work at this level? Myrtle assumed some

prior knowledge of word classes and transitivity, but found there was little to none that

students could recall.

I was really surprised that the kids hadn’t heard of functional grammar, really

surprised … even participant, process, circumstance – only two kids in the

class could say that they had ever heard of these terms. What do you do in

primary? (Myrtle, FI)


It is of incidental interest that she blames primary schools for this gap, and not

Newman SHS’s own programs, where transitivity is taught in Year 7 and in Years 8

and 9 there is an emphasis on Appraisal (meaning making via evaluative language

choices). It is also unclear whether this assumption influenced her decisions

significantly. It is certainly feasible that this perceived deficit in knowledge

commandeered instructional time – that building declarative knowledge and practising

via transitivity filled the time she was willing to spend in class on grammar.

What does seem relevant to her transformation of the knowledge is the

grammatical work she had previously done with the class, particularly in essay writing.

The professional learning prompted her to suggest that, although she does ‘do’

grammar, “I haven’t done this explicit grammar focus.” Her “go-to points are noun

groups and nominalisations, and theme and rheme. And, you know, what academic

verbs we’re going to use, and then putting all that together in joint rewrites” (Myrtle,

FI). She used this professional learning experience to build her repertoire, selecting

“an explicit focus on sentence structure and grammar and verbs and all of that stuff.

Participant, process, circumstance – so we started off with the transitivity (Myrtle,

FI)”. Verbs had previously been her ‘way in’ for making sentence-level grammar, “but

explicitly identifying verbs in clauses? No, I haven’t. Nothing like what I’m doing

now” (Myrtle, II). She could, using her in situ pedagogy, draw on the common

language she had developed with the class - prior knowledge she can rely on or at least

know how to access. The effect may be, and this is in keeping with academic findings

about successful writing instruction (Graham et al., 2013; Ryan & Barton, 2013; UK

Department for Education, 2010) that her contextualised grammar instruction began

to be more explicit and systematic in response to the professional learning.

Myrtle made some deliberate instructional decisions to limit the scope of work,

selecting what she felt could fit and be useful. Although verbs as clause markers

featured in her transformation of the knowledge, verb types were only presented as:

an idea and the good kids are going to be good with that, and I also didn’t see

how the types of verbs was going to really support what I wanted to get out of

the unit, so I didn’t do it. I think writing, the previous term, would be really

good to do that with writing narratives. (Myrtle, FI)

This is reasonable, considering that our Workshop #3, the main professional learning

event, presented verb types as assumed or “other relevant knowledge” (refer Figure

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5.7). She may be revealing by omission here that she was not conscious that she had

diffused the original purpose of the professional learning in the more significant

respects described in section 5.4. In her pre-occupation with identifying clause

boundaries and possibly the day-to-day demands of moving through the unit, Myrtle

may simply have set aside the hypothesis that coordinated the LSK presented in

Workshop #3 into a coherent instructional goal:




achieving: more accuracy in sentence boundaries and more variety in their


Figure 5.7. Summary of LSK presented in Workshop #3

Despite explicit and implicit decisions to limit the scope and, more significantly, to

move away from the purpose of the professional learning, Myrtle reported covering

the content she had selected quite comprehensively, and connecting that to writing:

Myrtle: They had to apply it to a paragraph, exactly what you did:

Apply that to a paragraph you’ve written … And break it up in

their own writing.

JA: So, find a paragraph they’d written earlier in the unit…


Myrtle: Yep, and find your verbs, find your clauses.” (Myrtle, FI)

This careful teaching, where there seem to have been opportunities to respond to

students’ conceptions and misconceptions – perhaps allowing for on-the-spot

differentiation – kept the focus on having a positive impact on student writing, though

it was not always in the ways predicted for the DBR intervention.

There were consequences for attending to the writing instruction by spending

more time developing students’ metalinguistic knowledge, in the way the teachers

were asked to for this intervention. The result of rearranging the content and sequence

of learning was that:

I was a little bit behind everyone for most of the time because I did more

grammar than I usually did … because of all of this, my reading of the text got

a little bit behind and we had to do a quick catch-up at the end, but then, and

then that’s it. More writing and then writing an essay. And that’s what we

did!”

There was an inevitable impact on the curriculum, and she describes this in relation to

other teachers’ delivery and her own usual way of working. The impact is “half the

reading of the play, unfortunately. Even though that’s engaging and it’s beautiful and

kids love it. They love reading around; it’s not enough.” Here she is acknowledging

the tension between offering useful, enjoyable experiences that are characteristic of

successful writing instruction and the explicit teaching of “one grammar lesson a

week”, which she decided might ultimately have more impact on student writing.

5.5.2 Jordan transforming new knowledge

Jordan characterised her class as one where the “children have succeeded in a

school environment” (Jordan) and she wants for them each to excel. Her commitment

to student learning is consistent with the constructive approach to professional learning

recommended by Darling-Hammond et al. (2009), Fullan (2011), Sharratt and Fullan

(2012) and Sharratt and Planche (2016). She wants to differentiate for the needs of

individual students, especially her highest ability students. For example:

Jay will get a good grade and that will be fantastic, and we’ll go ‘Well done,

Jay.’ But if it isn’t reflective of his aptitude, well then we’re failing. So it’s

not a matter of me saying ‘Well you get an A9 or fantastic.’ I would like him

to have that level of metacognition, understanding and consciousness about

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his own grammar and his own writing, so that he can be reflective in this

process. Because it isn’t just about him doing a decent introduction. Because

that sentence particularly can be far better than it is. (Jordan, FI)

As with Myrtle, it is not clear whether Jordan’s thining about differentiation translated

to differentiation at an individual level, though this may have happened in the

classroom. However, it does seem to count as what Shulman (1987, p.102) describes

as “adapting to the general characteristics of the target learners” and “tailoring to the

actual children being taught”. Jordan’s approach to teaching the class had been

established well before the beginning of this research project:

You can pitch it high and get them to come up with you. Which they are

willing to do … most of the other classes would have that main cohort and

plenty to drag up, whereas we don’t have that. (Myrtle, FI)

Her class was perhaps more homogenous than most in the cohort because it was a

selective class. She was confident she knew what would work in lessons.

Instances of connecting instructional decisions with learner characteristics were

easily identified at the class level. Jordan recognised when the whole class was finding

an activity difficult and responded accordingly:

“A Modest proposal” is a fantastic, really challenging text, so the language is

really tricky… because it’s satirical as well. This required a significant amount

of thinking time.” (Jordan, FI)

In response, she moved between challenging and more simple text (The Outsiders) in

her transformation of the knowledge in the classroom, offering students multiple

opportunities to master the content.

In addition to the above instructional transformations are the assumptions she

made about the students and their prior knowledge. Jordan found she had:

assumed a degree of skill in Year 10 that isn’t necessarily there and then in

their work – even in our top performing kids – the skill isn’t there and yet I’m

really only becoming conscious of that now, partly through this, that … They

need to be taught it explicitly ongoing – more explicitly than I have been.

(Jordan, II)


She “test(ed) the waters first with a Reading Routine and see how we go as to what

they can and can’t do.” She found they were “alright with clauses … but getting them

to do transitivity was tough.” Jordan also compared her class with Myrtle’s, based on

an observation arranged through her PLC. She knew there were a significant number

of students with EAL/D in Myrtle’s class “so their grammar knowledge is exceptional”

(Jordan, II) even though “how they apply it” is not strong. Jordan seems here to be

engaged in a kind of peer benchmarking, where she compares the performance of her

students to Myrtle’s and concludes that the EAL/D students’ declarative knowledge of

word classes was evident, but her students were more successful writers. She may also

have been seeing evidence of the Reading to Learn pedagogy Myrtle routinely uses,

which is effective for expanding students’ vocabulary and grammar knowledge

(Martin & Rose, 2012, p. 158). There appears to be a tension here. Jordan believes her

students need more comprehensive grammar instruction. Her decision to focus on what

she perceives as foundational, declarative knowledge in transitivity and the

identification of clauses and clause types, which closely aligns with the 8-9 curriculum,

was a logical one, but it does not align fully with the Year 10 Achievement Standard.

The Achievement Standard calls for application to a wide variety of sentence and

clause structure (ACELA1569) and to how higher order concepts are developed in

complex texts through clause combinations (ACELA1570).

Jordan’s sequencing of lessons was decisive, based on a clear grasp of what there

was time for, and what was cohesive in the context of the unit: “My focus … was

particularly on exposing them to a variety of texts, getting actively engaged in that

range of text and also that high level engagement with text” and the existing teaching

routines: “From weeks one to week five is each of the weeks where we had a reading

routine is where I did explicit grammar … We’ll do words, clauses, sentences”. It is in

the text selection that AC:E content descriptors were most explicitly addressed:

We then looked at satire, particularly looking at language technique. … We

also looked at the idea of language as being inclusive or exclusive and how

the adolescent voice can be lost in that … We looked at language to empower

and disempower. And particularly there we were looking at literary texts and

we were looking at short story and poetry. Then media and representations.

(Jordan, FI)

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Here, Jordan makes a clear connection with a Literature content descriptor

(ACELA1564 Understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social

effects, and can empower or disempower people).

It is evident, although Jordan reported in the final interview that “We didn’t

feel rushed towards the end of the preparation time”, the imperatives of managing time

towards assessment affects the time available for discrete work on grammar:

Jordan: It took a lot of work and I think the work to bring them over the

line, to create something, took over any other focus.

JA: So, being a little bit satirical myself, are you saying there are

things going on in a unit of English work other than grammar?

Jordan: If you consider in the unit, in the previous work we do in his

history, sociology, cultural understandings, morals, values and

ethics, exposure to nearly 12-14 different texts, then you’re

teaching them 1. What is satire? How to write a multimodal

presentation. How to deliver it. And then 2. How to write an

analytical essay. Yes, that’s rather a lot. In 9 weeks (laughs) cos

they were out for week 10.

Jordan’s time management skill is evident in her talk about planning here. She appears

to be a very accurate judge about what can reasonably be accomplished in a given time

and is confident in her priorities for transforming knowledge to instruction in her

classroom. Juggling the complex instructional decisions is a demonstration of Jordan’s

“wisdom of practice” – the practical pedagogical wisdom (Shulman, 1987, p. 11) she

brought to the transformation of her comprehension into student learning.

5.5.3 Reality bites: transforming in context

How teachers cope with adapting their instruction to students’ needs, and more

generally dealing with the changes and challenges presented by their participation in

the research study, is the embodiment of transformation. Teacher responses in this

study indicate that, though they were cognisant of the characteristics of their class, by

the time this project happened, the teachers’ approaches had already been established;

considerations of individuals, groups and the whole class mainly confirmed

established practice. The primary instructional decisions of these teachers, regarding

where and how the LSK would fit, had already been taken at the point of application.


This is significant for the problem of increasing LPSK for writing because there may

be limited opportunity for professional learning to affect instruction if most decisions

have been made by the time the professional learning happens.

5.6 THEME 4: TEACHERS RESPOND BY EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF INSTRUCTIONAL DECISIONS

Theme 4 describes teachers’ responses as evaluating via formative and

summative assessments of students’ engagement and learning. Table 5.6 provides a

definition of the theme, including the scope of each theme, organised as definitional

boundaries of what counts as belonging to the theme, and examples of relevant

evidence.

Table 5.6

Evaluating: teacher responses as evaluating the impact of instructional decisions

Theme Definition

Teachers evaluate the impact of the decisions they make in response to the intervention by

monitoring student responses, and through formative and summative assessments. Their

measures of success include how well students enjoy and value the new material and

whether it has improved learning outcomes.


observing student engagement

and response to the new learning

“I think they’re very positive. I think they’re engaged.

They don't see it as a chore. And I do think they see it

as relevant. So they value it.” (Jordan, II)

monitoring the possible

connection between their

instructional decisions about the

new learning and students’

knowledge/

understanding/writing

“I heard them figuring it out. I heard them able to go

“That’s a verb”. And they would have worked together

to identify all of this.” (Jordan, II)

When Shulman describes evaluation, he is referring to the teacher activities

related directly to demonstrations of student learning – checking for understanding

during instruction, testing after instruction and evaluating the teachers’ own

performance vis a vis student learning (Shulman, 1987, p. 15). Contemporary concepts

137

of formative and summative assessment are helpful for interpreting teacher responses

that make a connection between the professional learning and student outcomes. This

is despite concern that formative assessment is poorly defined in much of the extant

literature (Dunn and Mulvenon, 2009, p. 1) which makes it difficult to confidently

make claims for how it might inform instructional practices for writing. Nonetheless,

Black and Wiliam’s work provides a useful frame for talking about “activities

undertaken by teachers, and/or by their students, which provide information to be used

as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged”

(1998, p. 10), the key being that the information is used to modify instruction. It is also

helpful to be clear that Shulman’s boundary for what counts as evaluation remains

relevant. What teachers might commonly describe as ‘formative’ refers to the

evaluation of evidence for the purpose of providing feedback to and informing

teachers, students and others about the teaching and learning process. ‘Summative’

refers to the evaluation of data for assessing academic progress at the end of a unit or

time period (Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009, p. 3). This distinction agrees with Andrade and

Cizek (2009), where the purpose of formative assessment is one or more of the

following:

to identify the student’s strengths and weaknesses; to assist educators in the

planning of subsequent instruction; to aid students in guiding their own

learning, revising their work, and gaining self-evaluation skills; and to foster

increased autonomy and responsibility for learning on the part of the student

(2009, p. 4).

These conceptions of evaluation, oriented as they are to the effects of data-gathering

on teachers’ decisions are used here to make sense of teachers’ responses.

Participant responses reveal that the teachers were attentive to patterns of

student participation that indicate affiliation with teacher intention – signs of

engagement as well as more tangible evidence of student learning. There are many

alternative definitions of student engagement, but here engagement will refer to a

student’s active involvement in a particular learning activity or series of instruction

(Reeve, 2012, p. 150) – a narrow definition compared with broader understandings

connected with things like student attendance and goal-directedness. In this study,

student engagement is mainly concerned with the positive responses reported by


teachers when they used their professional learning in class. Student engagement as

reported by the teachers had some of the characterstics of Reeve’s model (Figure 5.8).

It helps explain teacher accounts in this section.

Figure 5.8. Four interrelated aspects of students’ engagement during a learning activity (Reeve, 2012, p. 151)

Shulman does not refer to student engagement in his Model for Pedagogical

Reasoning and Action, but he has elsewhere described student engagement as a

precursor to learning. In 2002, he made the following assertion about student learning:

it “begins with student engagement, which in turn leads to knowledge and

understanding. Once someone understands, he or she becomes capable of performance

or action” (Shulman, 2002, p. 38). This resonates with my discoveries about teachers’

responses to professional learning. First, teachers engaged, then they observed

engagement amongst their students.

5.6.1 Myrtle evaluates

Myrtle’s detailed responses in relation to student engagement and evidence of

learning reveal a keen awareness of the impact of her instructional decisions on

individuals, groups and the class. Myrtle observed students catching her enthusiasm:

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I get really excited. I know, it’s so nerdy, but I think that carries a lot of it

because you say grammar and they groan ... and I am upbeat in my response,

every time. And they give me comments: ‘You’re getting really excited about

this Miss.’ Yes, I do. (Myrtle, II)

Myrtle said they remained engaged, even when she delivered extended instruction on

the new material: “This is good. This had kids talking … They did really well … I

thought I would be losing them at the end, and I totally wasn’t. They were with me all

the way” (Myrtle, FI). She particularly valued the responses of students “who love

grammar and get it ... And they’re not always your A kids. This one kid in class, she’s

EAL and she’s corrected me a couple of times, which is great” (Myrtle, FI). Myrtle is

reporting some aspects of engagement as Reeve describes them (refer figure 5.8),

including behavioural and emotional engagement, like on-task attention and

enthusiasm.

Engagement isn’t only about interest and attention, it involves challenge and

struggle, effort and persistence, something Myrtle can see working in her lessons:

This was great because the success criteria was just that they had to create a

new sentence that copies the original structure, and they think that’s so easy,

write a sentence – and then they really struggled. …. Kids wrote a sentence

with one verb in the middle. They didn’t necessarily build the circumstance

and the noun group. They didn’t want to start with this breakdown, they

wanted to start Romeo is … It took a lot of thinking! (Myrtle, FI)

It is notable that students’ ‘struggle’ was mediated by the presence of a qualified

EAL/D teacher in the class, and there was at this time also a preservice teacher:

It took three of us wandering around 25 plus kids going, “What have you got?

No, you haven’t hit that. What should the first one be? Think of a noun group

to describe a problem like family breakdown. It took a lot to make that happen,

but then you had kids going Aha! (Myrtle, FI)

Myrtle may be noticing here a need for targeted feedback, including a constructive

dialogue with individual students in order to encourage engagement and learning.

Myrtle’s evaluations of student engagement in relation to the new material can be

linked with how confident she feels to maintain student interest and effort and perhaps

manage student behaviour (Tsachannen-Moran, 2001; Sklaavik & Sklaavik, 2007). It


may even be the case that, just as Garvis and Pendergast could link professional

learning about junior secondary reforms in Queensland with an improvement in self-

efficacy for “motivating students” (2016, p. xviii) Myrtle’s professional learning about

language had a positive impact on her confidence with the material.

Formative and summative assessment also involved the teacher monitoring other

patterns in the verbal and written responses and modifying teaching. There is some

indication Myrtle did this intentionally: “I wanted them to see if they could do it – if

they could identify the noun group, if they could identify the verb” (Myrtle, FI).

Certainly, she can see their declarative knowledge improving and at the final interview

she recalls instances where students find the work more difficult:

Myrtle: I heard them figuring it out. I heard them able to go ‘That’s a

verb’. And they would have worked together to identify all of

this.

JA: How did they go with this (sic. Identify the clause elements)?

Myrtle: Weaker. They got the verb group. They got the natural order,

really mixed, it was a hard one” (Myrtle).

While it is unclear whether the quality of Myrtle’s formative assessment practices or

the sensitivity of her instruction to the results of that assessment (William, 2010) were

sufficient to achieve what Fullan might describe as an instruction-achievement nexus

(Fullan, 2009, p. 11) she is demonstrating a constructive orientation to student

achievement.

Though she felt positive about students’ engagement and learning in relation to

the material, their results on summative assessment were not as convincing to her:

I looked at their results. A lot of kids stepped back from what they’d done.

But then, my reply thought to that was “It’s still an exam and Shakespeare is

an inherently harder text.” I had some kids, three or four kids in the class,

jumped a whole band, a whole level up. (Myrtle)

Three students – Nick, Meyer and Daisy (pseudonyms) – had measurably improved

results. However, Myrtle was reluctant to attribute their improvement solely to her

instruction. She alluded to the significance of contextual factors - to the students’ own

efforts, and the work of the EAL/D support teacher. In her consideration of these

students’ work, she shows she understands that student performance is affected by a

variety of interdependent factors:

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Myrtle: This is Nick. He’s jumped from a mid C to a mid B, but he’s not

reliable to use as evidence because he’s an EAL kid and he does

work with Pammy and he’s very diligent. So I think that because

he works hard, he’s jumping up naturally through what he’s

doing anyway. … He (Nick) starts here: The choices are

decisions that people make in situation that greatly impact the

outcome of their lives, which leads to serious consequences. It’s

a bit vague but he’s still starting, instead of retelling plot he’s

focusing on this abstract idea of choices. We talk about this in

class. He’s got his evaluations in there – greatly impact and

serious consequences. He starts with circumstances: Despite his

good intentions of his secrecy… On the other hand, it goes

tragically wrong in the end. … Without a doubt, Shakespeare

clearly positions the reader to acknowledge that life is a sum of

all your choices.

JA: What do you like about that?

Myrtle: I like Without a doubt. He (Nick) clearly positions (the reader) -

he’s got his evaluations in there. (Myrtle, FI)

It is interesting, Myrtle’s claim that Nick is “not reliable to use as evidence”. In-class

support for EAL/D students is regular practice at the school and Nick’s “diligence”,

though important, does not render his improvement unrelated to Myrtle’s teaching. I

would suggest that Myrtle grappling with her own role in Nick’s development as a

writer is a reminder of the complexity of the teaching and learning context. A teacher

purposefully represents knowledge in a classroom, but students are participants in that

process and it is often the case that they have access to formal or informal support.

Her ambivalence aside, Myrtle evaluates Nick’s writing by referring to aspects

of clause and sentence structure, noting also the important Year 10 curriculum concept

of abstraction and the generically appropriate lanaguage of evaluation. She is less

explicit about Tom’s performance, though it is better overall:

Myrtle: Tom was a surprise. I think he was being lazy before, but he’s

jumped from a mid B to an A minus: The two lovers’ deaths has

been foreshadowed heavily throughout the story and it is

concluded that it is fate causing their deaths.


JA: There’s a tense issue there but the length of that verb group…

Do you feel like you can see what you were showing them there

in that sentence? The attempt at that?

Myrtle: The two lovers’ deaths Yep, The breakdown being foreshadowed

… fate causing their deaths. He starts well, then he loses it. A

little bit. It’s hard as well because, well he’s done well in this

one, but I’ve felt all year that he hasn’t been performing as he

should be. But then at the same time it was an exam, and the last

one was an exam as well, so why would he be doing better in

this exam than in the previous one? So something’s worked for

him.

Her comments indicate she is willing to accept some credit for the quality of

Tom’s writing, though it is highly qualified.

These accounts demonstrate a simultaneous activating of LSK and consideration

of ameliorating and alleviating factors affecting performance. Myrtle considers

multiple explanations and uses the wisdom of her practice to conclude she cannot

directly attribute student improvement to her teaching. For this study, it is enough to

be able to see that she explicitly recognises the complexity of evaluating performance.

She can also set such considerations aside and use her substantial LSK to identify what

is going right and wrong with her students’ writing and plan for future instruction. In

Shulman’s terms, “To understand what a pupil understands will require a deep grasp

of both the material taught and the process of learning” (Shulman, 1987, p. 19).

Myrtle monitored the performance of the class in the summative assessment,

noting a common error of generic structure that may have improved in this subsequent

assessment: “a lot of kids did just way too much plot in the previous one. It’s a common

crutch error.” The professional learning and peer dialogue in the interview process

may have supported her to read student writing in terms of year-level appropriate

performance:

And he’s got plot but then he’s got analysis. his lovesickness for Rosaline ...

Well, this is all Act I and Act II stuff, and he tells a bit of the plot, but then he

goes back and he explains the significance of it. It shows that he quickly

forgets his lovesickness for Rosaline. … Showing that by fate directing Romeo

to the party and by Juliet’s … He’s got his explanation in there. He’s arguing

it instead of just telling plot. And he’s a weaker student. So that’s that thing of

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abstraction, isn’t it? He’s moving from plot to explaining the significance of

something. He’s arguing it. (Myrtle, FI)

It is notable here also that there seems to be a developing orientation to some of the

semantic features Christie and Macken-Horarik (2001, p. 178) claim characterise

successful school writing, including abstraction and elaboration. Myrtle’s responses

here suggest she was finding a place for this new knowledge in her writing instruction

by using her LSK to evaluate student writing.

5.6.2 Jordan evaluates

Jordan also indicated her investment in, and instructional responses to, students’

experiences in the classroom. She wanted them to see the value in it, enjoy the work,

and feel safe and positive: “I think they’re engaged. They don't see it as a chore. And

I do think they see it as relevant. So they value it” (Jordan, II). She observeed students’

enjoyment of the learning activities, and closely monitored learning: “(T)he lesson was

great. The kids were really engaged but I thought, ‘Unless I follow up with that again

and again and again, they’re going to lose (it)’ (Jordan, II). Her observation of students

was very purposeful, meaning that she had a clear idea about both the kind of teaching

and the learning she values. She values impact and she values learning that endures

beyond the lesson. She observed that:

“The explicit teaching – felt significantly teacher heavy. So, I’m trying to,

even tomorrow I’m running a different type of activity where I’m trying to

have it less teacher led, more kid led. So, things like your one where they’re

highlighting and they’re identifying the sentence. I want them to identify.

There’s got to be a little bit of frontloading. And it’s the frontloading bit,

where I’m engaging them in that skill level – where I want them to own that,

I guess, so I can see how they can engage with text.” (Jordan, II)

Jordan’s responses characterised as evaluating demonstrate her sensitivity to the

results her observation and monitoring. This is interesting from the lens of student

engagement, as it is defined here. She seemed to be aiming for what Reeves (2012)

calls “cognitive engagement” (refer Figure 5.8) characterised by deep learning and

conceptual understanding. And even “agentic engagement”, a desire for students to

use self-regulatory strategies to monitor and take responsibility for their own learning.

She also, by planning “more kid led” instruction when the explicit teaching “felt


significantly teacher heavy” and by “see(ing) how than can engage” when she asked

them to demonstrate independence, illustrated her ability to evaluate the impact of her

instructional decisions by assessing student and teacher activity against her own goals

for instruction.

Jordan was specific about the way particular activities are received and the way

that is relevant to the culture of the classroom: “They seemed to enjoy working in pairs.

It was less intimidating for them to have a go at it, plus they’re pretty good at being

supportive of one another but they’re not slacking, so it did allow if they were unsure

that they could use the other person” (Jordan, FI). This potential for using collaboration

in the writing is supported by Graham and Perin’s (2007) meta-analysis of writing

instruction for adolescent students, which shows “that collaborative arrangements

where students help each other with one or more aspects of their writing had a strong

and positive impact on writing quality” (p. 463).

Some activities were evaluated as being more successful than others, in terms of

student engagement. This seemed to depend, possibly because of the selection of the

Reading Routines as the vehicle for learning, on the difficulty of the text selected for

examination:

They actually did well with the reading and they got it that it was satirical, but

they did find the (sic. grammar) tasks a little bit harder to do than The

Outsiders. “A Modest Proposal” was successful in terms of people engaging

in a difficult text, understanding a beautiful example of really mature satire,

the way he carries his formality. They did engage in the activities and I gave

them a little bit of scaffolding, whereas here (The Outsiders) there’s no

scaffolding in the task but this was more successful overall, in terms of getting

them to engage.” (Jordan, FI)

This is evidence that Jordan, like Myrtle, noticed and managed the interplay between

engagement and difficulty, where different texts demanded different levels of effort

and attention.

As much as Jordan’s observation of students’ hard work, interest and enjoyment

is important, she also monitored formative and summative evidence of their learning.

Like Myrtle, she could “hear them using functional grammar language” (Jordan, FI),

although she was not confident they would retain that knowledge:

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I don’t know how much of that would be retained in terms of once you’ve left

even that activity, if you were to pointedly say ‘What’s that?’ I think we would

say ‘verb’ would be my guess. They wouldn’t necessarily be using that

functional grammar language and applying it to their own work or to another

person’s work either. (Jordan, FI)

This informal monitoring is an important form of evaluation. She gathered evidence

of their declarative knowledge and performance in basic writing tasks, but is concerned

about the depth of knowledge and whether the impact on their writing would be

discernable:

We’ve had a beautiful, rich text, they can then go and highlight an embedded

clause and find it. And then they can look at ‘Find a conjunction for me.’ They

can do that. But I don’t feel yet that that’s authentic, that that’s flowing for

them. It’s well: ‘Here’s your activity. I’ve told you what to look for, now go

and look for it. Oh good, you highlighted it. Excellent.’ And then applying

that in their own writing. If I said to a kid, ‘Write a sentence. Make sure it has

an embedded clause.’ I think they could do that. But then does that flow over

yet into their own writing – that it’s organic? I’m not convinced yet that that’s

going to happen. (Jordan, II)

She might have been seeing here an issue with student depth of knowledge. An

alternative explanation is that she is alluding to the possibility of a more effective

pedagogy. Jordan’s own metacognition about the structuring effects of her

instructional selection seems to have been stimulated by the interview process as part

of this DBR. Such safe spaces for thinking aloud with peers may also be available in

her professional learning community and in her interactions with other school based

curriculum leaders. Her approach, foregrounding literature in the Reading Routine,

presents an obstacle to her achieving her overall goal. Her students have built a

declarative knowledge of grammar for reading but not yet a functional knowledge of

grammar for writing. She expressed a desire for something “more organic”, where

students work with her to build their metalinguistic knowledge and improve their

writing using self-regulation.

Myhill draws on Shulman’s original taxonomy to explain teachers’ endeavours

to use their PCK to help develop students’ metalinguistic understanding and the

disjunct between declarative and procedural knowledge for writing (Myhill et al.


2013b, p. 78-79). Jordan observed this kind of gap between learning about grammar

discretely and writing well in her students:

What I have found in the term is a disconnect. In the weeks where we have

done explicit grammar activities they are learning, they’re applying that in the

activity particularly to the text we’re using in the Reading Routine, but then

they’re not applying that in their own work and there hasn’t been that level of

self-reflection in their own work. (Jordan, FI)

Jordan identified this gap in particular students too:

(George’s) language is actually pretty good in terms of his speaking, however

his application of grammar knowledge and understanding in a class activity or

in someone else’s text is beautiful, but then it’s horrendous in terms of his own

writing.

Jordan sought proof not only that her instruction was having a positive impact, but that

her students were performing to the best of their ability. She wants their writing to

match their cognitive capacity: “You’re right; it isn’t a bad introduction, but it isn’t

reflective of his ability. And that’s where I hear these kids – he doesn’t have that level

of metacognition about his use of language” (Jordan, FI). This concern for

metacognition, of which metalinguistic knowledge is a subset and which Myhill and

others suggest “plays a role in every part of the writing process” (Myhill et al. 2012,

p. 143), may be indicative of Jordan’s developing LPSK. Having selected the Reading

Routine as a starting point for instruction, she could begin to see other possibilities –

including the use of peers and more effective feedback, particularly where students are

highly capable - for drawing the writing process closer to both the reading process and

her classroom’s collective knowledge about grammar. By continuing to provide

engaging work for her students; building on her explicit approach to language

instruction; and providing her high-ability students with space to experiment and

develop their self-regulatory capacity (Graham, et al. 2013; Ryan & Barton, 2013;

Myhill, 2103) she is working towards a range of strategies supported in the extant

literature on writing.

Jordan’s evaluations here are detailed, revealing a strong critical orientation

towards the impact of her teaching. Further, her instructional responses are sensitive

to her observations about student engagement and her monitoring of student learning.

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5.6.3 The complexity of improving writing

The teachers in this study evaluated the impact of their writing instruction

following the professional learning, observing student engagement and monitoring

evidence of student learning. The nature of their evaluations is significant for the

problem of increasing LPSK for writing instruction. The complexity of engagement as

just one element of student learning and the role for teacher expertise in formative

assessment in particular emerge are important considerations here and are reflected in

the relevant literature. In the case of Myrtle, she revealed that she can monitor student

engagement and draw on LSK to readily to explain grammatical concepts and provide

feedback using consistent language. In the case of Jordan, she likewise observed

engagement and monitored learning closely. Though she was less likely than Myrtle

to draw on LSK to explain her teacher reasoning, her responsiveness to the evidence

she collected is remarkable.

Certainly, the teachers in this study reveal a strong concern for student

engagement and learning, and an obvious orientation to improvement. Both teachers

demonstrated some expertise in formative assessment, but their expertise will need to

be very strong if it is to reliably promote student achievement for a skill as difficult to

improve as writing. For that, they may need not only to be able to mobilise formative

observations to improve student motivation but also be able to use evidence of student

learning to make fine adjustments to instruction (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Wiliam,

2010). They also need to harness student self-regulation of improvement (Andrade,

2010), a level of independence Jordan can see is desirable as a longer term goal that

requires much-improved student metalinguistic knowledge. This study shows teachers

responding to professional learning about grammar by being aware of the impact of

their subsequent decisions on student learning. They monitor learning through

formative and summative assessment and also through their attention to student

engagement with the understanding that engagement is a precursor to learning.

5.7 THEME 5: TEACHERS RESPOND BY REFLECTING AND PROJECTING FOR THE PURPOSE OF FUTURE PLANNING

Theme 5 describes teachers’ responses as reflecting on their decisions and

planning for future years, units and classes. Table 5.7 provides a definition of the


theme, including the scope of each theme, organised as definitional boundaries of what

counts as belonging to the theme, and examples of relevant evidence.

Table 5.7

Reflecting and projecting: teacher responses as reflecting and projecting for the purpose of future

planning

Definition

Teachers reflect on what they did, how successful it was, and how they'd change it next

time, including possibilities for other units, classes or the school’s work program.

Boundaries Example of evidence

wondering how this will

work (in other contexts)

“As a consequence of this Year 10 stuff, I’ve been

stewing on applying this with my Year 12s. I reckon

that… in fact that’s the plan for next Thursday, when

________ and I join our classes together. We’re going

to take that Romeo & Juliet paragraph and not do the

transitivity, but we’re going to do verbs in clauses. Cos

I think that the Year 12s would, I think that the clauses

stuff would help them. Yeah. (Myrtle, II)

reflecting on the teaching

for the purposes of future

planning

“I would have done what I’ve already done in term 1,

perhaps consolidate some of that knowledge in term 2

and then as you say do some abstraction work potentially

later on.” (Myrtle, FI)

Myrtle and Jordan reflected on the success of the intervention and projected for

the purposes of future planning. The nature of their responses as arranged in this theme

reflects the concepts of ‘reflection’ presented by Shulman in the sense that it is a

“review of the teaching in comparison with the ends that were sought” and “new

comprehension, both of the purposes and of the subjects to be taught and also of the

students and of the processes of pedagogy themselves” (Shulman, 1987, p. 19).

However, the pattern in participant responses here are so strongly oriented to future

planning, that the theme articulated as ‘reflecting and projecting’ provides a better

match to the evidence.

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5.7.1 Myrtle’s reflecting and projecting

Myrtle’s reflections indicate a commitment to ongoing professional learning

about grammar and how she might continue to make use of it in the Year 10 English

classroom and beyond. She wondered how she would do this next time and concluded

that, to make best use of the materials, she will need to prioritise opportunities for

students to write and rearrange learning about language throughout the year.

Myrtle was “happy with the lessons and that students were understanding, but I

was unhappy because I wanted more time for them to focus on their writing and for

me to engage with them on how this is actively going to improve their writing”

(Myrtle). This is a salient point for the transformation of LSK to writing instruction.

The time needed for learning about language and then applying that to writing is

substantial. However, the potential efficacy of extra time for writing, though logical

and supported by some literature (National Commission on Writing, 2003) is also

uncertain (Graham & Perrin, 2007, p. 464). Myrtle had already made concessions to

allow class time for more grammar instruction in this intervention and has previously

prioritised class discussion as a way of linking thought to writing. We can see here that

she feels more refinement is needed, more difficult choices must be made, if she is to

use classroom time in a way she feels will be optimal. Myrtle formalised her reflection

too:

I’ve got at the end of my unit a whole bunch of notes on how I’m going to

personally have to stop reading the whole thing in class and do what other

teachers do and go ‘Well, we’re just going to watch whatever acts on the film.’

which I feel really sad about because I love the language so much and I think

the kids love it. They love reading that play. But if I want them to be writing

well as well, I can’t do both. It’s very sad. (Myrtle, FI)

Myrtle’s conclusion here indicates a reality with which many teachers are

confronted. What we collectively enjoy with our students is at the heart of our work as

teachers; English teachers are not only teachers of grammar and writing, we are

teachers of people and texts we care about – and there is joy in bringing those things

together. Indeed, there is a curriculum imperative too. The AC:E charges us to teach

students to “appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations and

develop a sense of its richness and power” (ACARA, 2018). It may even be that, unless


she can find other ways to build her LPSK to incorporate purposeful, playful writing

activities (Myhill et al. 2013a), the decision to allow more time for students to focus

on their writing may be counterproductive.

To further address the problem of time, she concludes that “A lot of it needs to

shift back to the previous – the novel unit, which is sad because I’ve got these great

resources for Shakespeare (laughs)”. She reported having a clear plan that involves

applying and transforming the knowledge from the beginning of the year:

You could definitely start with the paragraph analysis and participant process

in Term 1. … Just start with the transitivity there. And then in Term 2 your

verbs and types of verbs are really good for your narratives. And you can bring

your transitivity back with your narratives. You start with your circumstance

or your noun group or the process. I think that would be quite neat. And then

into your sentence types and so on for the analytical (sic. later) in Term 2.

(Myrtle, FI)

Her comments suggest she can see more future utility for improving extended writing

within the pedagogical framework of Reading to Learn, “particularly when we’re

doing things like a joint rewrite or a rewrite in a table family. I think there’s scope to

go back and look at this and look at how improving a clause will improve your writing”

(Myrtle). In Shulman’s terms, she is bringing her new comprehension to the

knowledge, bringing a more systematic understanding of grammar as a system of

meaning making to her future planning. In documenting her reflection on the unit plan,

she is also deliberately building her LPSK.

For Myrtle, an important part of this intervention was that she was able to make

the materials available to her Year 12s, who were also writing literary interpretation

essays:

As a consequence of this Year 10 stuff, I’ve been stewing on applying this

with my Year 12s. I reckon that… in fact that’s the plan for next Thursday,

when ___ and I join our classes together. We’re going to take that Romeo &

Juliet paragraph and not do the transitivity, but we’re going to do verbs in

clauses. Cos I think that the Year 12s would, I think that the clauses stuff

would help them. Yeah. (Myrtle, FI)

It may be significant that she decided the transitivity activities would not be useful for

her older students. A lack of knowledge about transitivity appears to be a reason for

151

focusing on foundational knowledge with her Year 10 students. I wonder whether she

could be similarly convinced that it may not be necessary for Year 10 students to have

mastered transitivity before they can experiment fruitfully with word and clause order.

Overall, Myrtle’s reflections about what has been accomplished and projections

for future planning reveal she was satisfied with her teaching in this unit and her

participation in the project:

I think it’s been worthwhile though. And I think next year I want it more

refined. I can see how I can make this a really good unit in terms of their

thinking and their writing and grammar’s part in all of that. I just want to do

it better next year. (Myrtle, FI)

Myrtle believes she has offered her students something of a grammar “good to think

with and good to use” (Macken-Horarik, 2012, p. 191) and has built some conceptual

tools and knowledge she can bring to further improving her writing instruction.

5.7.2 Jordan’s reflecting and projecting

Jordan’s reflections were geared to helping her students achieve the self-

regulation and metalinguistic knowledge, the lack of which she sees as standing in the

way of their progress. She concluded that she will in future need to prioritise

opportunities for giving and receiving feedback amongst the class, including

improving the specificity of her own feedback and student self-reflection to support

continuous improvement.

Jordan could see missed opportunities for drawing effective writing strategies

more comprehensively in the unit. The impact of the professional learning has

developed her LPSK, revealing to her some ways she can in future facilitate students

to:

• practice transitivity purposefully:

I think their level of understanding about a clause would be far more powerful

if they’re identifying the process and then looking at the clause around it. But

I think the only way that’s really going to engage and be retained is constant

practice. (Jordan, FI)

• connect reading with writing in a variety of ways:


In the analysis of the task we could quite easily have … drafted just their

introduction and done the exact same task that would have consolidated that

knowledge and given them that light-bulb moment of “I can see it in my

reading and now I can see it in my writing. (Jordan, FI)

• use her own LSK to provide feedback students can apply productively:

I think if we had, if I had, looked more deeply in terms of the construction of

their paragraph then down to the construction of their sentences, before and

after their referencing, down to that clause level work, would have been more

effective and would have given them the links between work we’ve already

done on clause and then applying it in my own writing. (Jordan, FI)

Jordan wants her students to be performing to the best of their ability, and also to be

able to improve, ultimately, independently of her (“I need to be more conscious of it’s

not me doing the legwork, it’s the child doing the legwork.”). Her concern for

developing self-regulation is supported by studies of writing that demonstrate self-

regulated strategy development in writing is highly effective (Graham and Perin, 2007,

p. 467) and is strongly featured in Rijlaarsdam et al.’s account of effective teaching

and learning for writing (2005). She hopes “it will happen with that level of teaching

on a regular basis, and then the deeper level of grammatical feedback, which they’re

not getting” (Jordan FI). Jordan’s intentions here also align with elements of Stephens

et al.’s (1996) work, which demonstrates the potential efficacy of iterative cycles of

increasingly knowing the learner, and Fisher and Frey’s (2013) advice that teachers

focus not on labour-intensive drafting but on developing skills at analysing errors and

misconception for the purposes of reteaching. These reflections are both self-critical

and constructive. They indicate a development in LPSK – new comprehension of the

concepts taught and how to teach them.

5.7.3 Using reflecting and projecting to keep improving pedagogical practice for writing

The reflections of the teachers in this study and their projections for the purposes

of future planning are very different. On the one hand, Myrtle would keep her

pedagogy and rearrange the delivery of the language content throughout the year. On

the other, Jordan intends a more significant development in her approach for writing –

one which will take her teaching in a different direction than Myrtle’s. This is

significant for the problem of increasing LPSK for application in writing because it

153

reveals potentially varied ongoing professional learning needs – ones which probably

need to be made in close consultation with teachers. The question a school or system

might ask is: Will Myrtle’s resequencing of the learning effectively move her future

students up the English curriculum spiral and improve their writing? Or is Jordan’s

commitment to building a culture of feedback and self-regulation going to have more

impact?

What Myrtle and Jordan have in common is an undertaking to have students

write more, and attend more closely to grammatical resources they need to master in

order to be successful. They readily identified opportunities to apply and transform

what they know about language in ways that the literature and this experience suggests

are effective.

5.8 BUT THE LITERATURE SAID THEY WOULD COLLABORATE!

The notion of collaboration, so integral to the Newman SHS’s PLC structure, to

the needs analysis processes, and to the general literature on professional learning, was

evident in the data. However, it was not strong enough to emerge as a discrete theme.

Teachers learning and working together to improve student learning outcomes is

valorised as a vital characteristic of effective professional learning (Darling et al.,

2009; Mourshed et al., 2010) and I felt certain that teacher responses organised around

collaboration would find a place amongst the themes presented in this chapter. There

was some evidence of peer supported learning through asynchronous sharing and

benchmarking. However, beyond this, there was limited evidence collaboration

transpired as an influential aspect of pedagogical reasoning in the way that was

suggested in the literature.

This is not to say that collaboration was not significant to the intervention.

Collaboration was a key component of the DBR process as it was applied here. This is

typical in DBR, where the design process involves meaningful collaboration between

researchers and practitioners (Cotton, Lockyer & Brickell, 2009, p.3; Collins et al.,

2004; Cobb et al., 2003; The Design-based Research Collective, 2003). There was a

robust needs analysis and collectively determined definition of the problem. Teacher

responses strongly affirmed the centrality of that process to their embracing of the

particular linguistic learning need: “Because we did that process” (Myrtle) “For me,

it’s 100% the right decision” (Jordan). Further, the participants had regular


opportunities to interact with each other about the materials. Indeed, Jordan was able

to observe Myrtle delivering a lesson, and Myrtle observed another teacher from the

PLC who had voluntarily attended the needs analysis and associated workshops. In

that respect, the participants were engaged with each other around the common

motivation of building their LSK for improving student learning outcomes.

In other respects, the participants were highly autonomous. They made their

instructional decisions independently, possibly finding a place in their pedagogy for

the new knowledge even before the needs analysis process had been completed.

Lortie’s classic account of the everyday work of teaching in his book Schoolteacher:

A sociological study (1975) comes to mind. In it, he expounds the notion of

individualism as an obstacle to improvement, describing teachers’ work as “isolated

from other adults; the initial pattern of school distribution represented a series of 'cells'

which were construed as self-sufficient” (Lortie in Mirel & Goldin, 2012). This study,

and schools more broadly, through the facilitation of PLCs and other innovations, now

provide more opportunities for teachers to work together at improving their practice

and review student work (Sharratt & Planche, 2016) than they did in Lortie’s time.

Still, it may be that there is a tendency to what Hargreaves (2010) describes as

‘contrived collegiality’, where teachers are grouped in professional learning

communities and led to conduct activities together, but the culture of collaboration is

not deep. On a professional level, isolation is still the norm (Bisaso, 2016, p. 137).

The outcomes of this study suggest possibilities for supporting more

collaborative activity so that the teachers’ demonstrated capacity and willingness to

learn with and from each other can make an ongoing contribution to L/PSK. For

example, formalising a lesson study or resource sharing and co-design may help to

overcome barriers to L/PSK development related to time, curricular focus and teacher

uncertainty with new knowledge. This facilitiation of such group ways of knowing is

well within the scope of school based inquiry generally and DBR in particular.

5.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY: TEACHERS RESPONDING TO LSK FOR WRITING

This chapter has presented five interrelated themes that resonate strongly with

Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and Action. The teachers involved in

this study reasoned their way through an intervention where they built LSK and

delivered writing instruction. Theme 1 showed how they engaged with the new

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knowledge. Theme 2 showed how they decided to apply the knowledge, relying on

familiar pedagogy and established routines. Theme 3 showed how they as teachers

transformed the curriculum in ways that met the needs of students. Theme 4 showed

how teachers evaluated student engagement and learning. The final theme, 5, presented

evidence of reflecting and projecting as part of an ongoing commitment to building

LPSK and harnessing the affordances of contextualised grammar instruction for

writing.

Considered together, these themes tell a story of teaching contextualised

grammar for writing as an extraordinarily complex undertaking, especially when one

considers that we are focusing on only a very small slice of the teacher knowledge

needed to teach the curriculum at this level. Myrtle and Jordan’s decisions reflect an

intersection between their individual teacher characteristics and the contexts of school

and classroom.

Chapter 6 will summarise the major insights provided by the study and address

the central research question and sub-questions. Limitations of the project will be

examined, and the implications for ongoing research and theory will be considered.

Recommendations will be made for how providers of teacher professional learning,

schools and Heads of English departments might better support the work of teachers.

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Conclusions

This study has investigated the problem of improving instruction for writing by

examining two teachers’ responses to a collaboratively designed professional learning

intervention. In doing so, it has revealed a number of themes related to teachers’

linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge

(LPSK). The central research question and supporting sub-questions of this study have

foregrounded the analysis of teachers’ responses to the intervention. The study has

further been informed by a view of teacher reasoning presented in Shulman’s (1987)

Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and Action and mediated by contemporary

theoretical understandings about the utility of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as

a framework for building knowledge about language.

Chapter 6 will summarise the major insights provided by the study in answer to

the central research question: How do teachers respond to professional learning about

language that is provided to support the writing instruction they deliver in the

classroom? (section 6.1) and make a connection to the sub-questions that underpin the

central research question (section 6.2). Sections 6.3 and 6.4 suggest some modest

insights about the theory and contributions to the Design-based Research (DBR)

literature arising from the analysis of this data. Section 6.5 turns to the practical

implications of the evidence collected and data analysis, such as they may inform the

work of teacher trainers, schools, and Heads of English. The limitations of this study

are presented in section 6.6. Finally, section 6.7 offers some suggestions for future

research.

6.1 THE CENTRAL RESEARCH QUESTION: A SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Here are collected the most significant empirical discoveries from this study,

situated within the broader fields of teacher knowledges and SFL as it pertains to the

teaching of writing in secondary English classrooms.

Jones, Lines, Myhill and Watson (2012) left a tantalising gap following their

influential study of contextualised grammar instruction, which demonstrated that

explicit and contextualised grammar instruction had a positive effect on student

158 Chapter 6: Conclusions

writing performance and that teacher LSK was a significant mediating factor. They

challenged future researchers to allow teachers to take ownership of the pedagogical

principles by developing the materials themselves, with guidance (Jones et al., 2012,

p. 163). This study attempted to fill a part of that gap by inviting the teachers to

collaborate on a DBR intervention – one targeted at teacher knowledge, not student

performance - and then use their professional discretion in the subsequent teaching.

This is what I discovered: the two teachers in this study reported they were

convinced of the utility of the learning and involved in deciding the focus. In fact,

engagement may have been the most straightforward part. Subject matter such as LSK

is highly valued by English teachers (Love et al. 2015) and these teachers in particular.

The intervention aimed to support them to use evidence from student writing to find a

linguistic learning need for themselves and their students. They made meaning by

selecting aspects of their existing pedagogy, suitable texts, and additional resources.

However, teacher responses to new learning resulted in a diffused translation of

the intent of the professional learning at the points of application and transformation

for teaching purposes. There may have been a tendency by the participants to prioritise

that portion of the new knowledge they were comfortable with, that they felt their

students were ready for, and that they had time to prepare and deliver in the classroom.

The result is that the grammatical resources were introduced and connected with

writing instruction, but not in a way that consistently addressed the content descriptor/s

for the year level. Curriculum time was used to build declarative knowledge with fewer

opportunities for application and practice to writing. In this way, the knowledge was

reshaped, an effect referred to in this thesis as ‘difussed translation’. The teachers

evaluated student engagement and learning and reflected and projected for the

purposes of future planning and application to new contexts. But they did not return to

the purposes of the professional learning vis à vis the Year 10 curriculum, which

prioritises the use of language to communicate higher order concepts and appreciate

fine distinctions in meaning. This indicates an ongoing role for professional learning,

the need for further opportunities for formal reflection, and - as suggested in Chapter

5, section 5.8 - the utility of ongoing collaboration to maintain fidelity to agreed intent.

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6.2 THE RESEARCH SUB-QUESTIONS: A SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

The results of this study have been thoroughly presented in Chapter 5, and my

summary answer to the research question presented here in section 6.1. Two sub-

questions supported the design of the intervention and the preparation of semi-

structured interview questions. These have also been addressed implicitly through

Chapter 5. Below, I answer each sub-question in turn, by way of providing clarity and

highlighting any additional observations.

6.2.1 Sub-question 1: How do teachers use information, data and resources to make decisions about LSK and LPSK?

Using information from curriculum documents

The teachers in this study used information in curriculum documents, system

and school level, mainly when they were directed to in the needs analysis. They readily

connected information in the content descriptors and achievement standards with what

they saw in student work. Outside of this process, they did not acknowledge referring

directly to curriculum documents, though there is evidence that they understand and

work with the formal curriculum. My own positionality comes into play here. I know

about their history of engagement with curriculum planning at the school, and that they

have worked closely with the AC:E to design unit plans, assessment tasks and criteria

sheets. Indeed, when they were asked to identify the relevant AC:E content descriptors,

they could do so. The year level achievement standards and content decriptors were

clearly present in unit plans and assessment instruments, but were not a feature of

teacher talk about P/LSK as it pertained to writing instruction. Nor is there evidence

teachers returned to these ‘local documents’ when they selected their implementation

strategies.

Connecting curriculum with students

Teacher responses in Theme 1 – engaging – illustrated a positive attitude to using

student performance data to evaluate student learning at a point in time. By

participating in a robust needs analysis, where they investigated a specific linguistic

learning need, they were able to identify patterns of weakness in student writing that

could be addressed for the intervention. In collaboration with me, as a provider of


professional learning, and with other members of their PLC, they were able to

hypothesise the following:

If we know more about the ways we use a range of sentence and clause structures

to manipulate emphasis and to develop logical relationships between ideas, then

we can help a range of students improve their writing by achieving: more

accuracy in sentence boundaries and more variety in their presentation and

sequencing of ideas.

“Help(ing) a range of students improve their writing” was central to the design of this

hypothesis because it reflected teachers’ desire that that the knowledge be equally

helpful to their diverse learners, including academically successful students, EAL/D

students and students at risk of failure in Year 10. They further engaged in context-

specific data about student performance in Theme 4 – evaluation - when they explained

the performances of the group, identified and explained elements of individual student

writing performances, and projected for future planning purposes.

Selecting grammatical resources

The linguistic resources the teachers in this study selected were related to clause

and sentence structure. They chose to learn about sentence level meaning making

focused on two content descriptors in the Australian Curriculum: Analyse and evaluate

the effectiveness of a wide range of sentence and clause structures as authors design

and craft texts (ACELA1569); and Analyse how higher order concepts are developed

in complex texts through … clause combinations (ACELA1570). This focus on the

“technical specifics” (Love et al., 2013, p. 180) of sentence level grammar addresses

an issue of confidence and competence that is common among teachers. The teachers

in this study also found evidence in their students’ writing that accuracy and the

development of a logical relationship between ideas, so the choice was a suitable one.

While the ability to identify, name and explain the workings of the clause is

indeed important, there were other possibilities. For example, different elements from

ACELA1570, including nominalisation, technicality and abstraction are connected

with the semantic features of successful narrative and interpretive texts in senior

English writing (Christie & Macken-Horarick, 2011; Ferguson, 2001). Other ways of

knowing about sentence and clause structure as per ACELA1569 might have been

useful too. We could have examined, for example, the use of active and passive voice

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to change the focus of a sentence, or attended explicitly to the concepts of theme and

rheme. Finally, the interpersonal metafunction was not, but could have been, selected.

We could have examined Appraisal theory to study ACELA1564 - understand how

language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or

disempower people (ACARA, 2018). However, at this time, the professional learning

needs of these teachers, their students, and the demands of the curriculum intersected

most strongly around sentence level grammar – resources of the ideational

metafunction that contribute to sense-making at and between the clause.

Using linguistics subject knowledge and linguistic pedagogical subject knowledge

Findings concerning LSK and LPSK are concerned with the central purpose of

the intervention, which was to have an effect on what teachers know and what they

can do with what they know, matters which have been explicated in Chapter 5. The

teachers in this study used their existing LSK to identify strengths and weaknesses in

student writing. Their LPSK was also drawn in from the beginning of the study

because they needed to activate the wisdom of their practice (Shulman, 1987) to

identify specific knowledge they could effectively deliver in the classroom.

Furthermore, they drew on their self-awareness of gaps in their own knowledge.

Throughout the course of the study, the teachers continued to use what they knew

about language and teaching to make decisions. In Theme 2 – applying – they reported

decisions to appropriate and experiment with teaching materials. They delivered

lessons where they formalised and practised using technical language connected with

clause and sentence structure. They planned instruction that incorporated new material

at what they decided were appropriate junctures and in ways that would engage and

teach their students. Theme 3 – transforming – responses showed their responsiveness

to the circumstances of the classrooms, including student characteristics and the

demands of delivering units of work. Their decisions, albeit likely implicitly or

unconsciously made ones, to depart from the more nuanced aims of the professional

learning enterprise was connected to aspects of LSK and PLSK too. It may be that they

just did not know the material well enough to teach it at the target level. Certainly,

there is evidence that they decided their students’ prior knowledge of clauses and


sentences was poor, and they applied their pedagogical knowledge to ‘pitch’ their

lessons aptly.

6.2.2 Sub-question 2: What are the outcomes for teachers of increasing their LSK and LPSK?

The impact of LSK on teachers’ planning and delivery decisions

The impact of LSK on planning and delivery decisions has largely been

answered above. It is difficult to answer this question of impact more precisely since

there isn’t data here to use as a comparison; I don’t have information about teachers

whose LSK did not change. However, throughout the course of the intervention, the

participants declared improved confidence in their LSK. This became clear in Jordan’s

responses categorised as ‘applying’ – her improved LSK giving her the confidence to

‘have a go’. For Myrtle, in Theme 4 – evaluating – her interpretation of students’

engagement was closely associated with the confidence she projected to students.

Myrtle was also able to draw on her EAL/D support and preservice teachers to check

student understanding of the new knowledge. The change, then, was that they decided

to use the knowledge in their lessons immediately following Workshop #3. Responses

at the initial interview, conducted in the same week, showed their planning decisions

were made quickly, integrated into their existing pedagogy and strategies.

Responses also showed that the participants used their increased LSK to evaluate

student writing (Theme 4) and reflect and project for future purposes in Theme 5 –

reflecting and projecting. In the final interview, Myrtle was able to be very specific

about her students’ writing. Jordan had developed a refined purpose for her LSK in

her feedback to students, one that was already revealed as part of her thinking in the

initial interview. Both teachers were able to say how they would use their knowledge

in future iterations of their units and years.

Finding LPSK

By way of additional summary observation, the findings of this study were that

LPSK, as a function of LSK, was deliberately built by teachers in response to the

professional learning. This happened when the teachers activated existing pedagogical

practices in Theme 4 – applying - and resulted in demonstrable instances of improved

LPSK in both cases. Myrtle drew in older exemplar materials to be more specific with

her students about “verbs in clauses” – her interpretation of transitivity. She also made

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a robust case, using her new comprehension, for improving her future pedagogical

practice for writing by restructuring the systematic delivery of instruction about

language throughout the year. Jordan’s improved LPSK was notable in her capacity to

persuade her students about the efficacy of learning about grammar, and in her

experimenting with ways to deliver the content to students via challenging reading –

building field knowledge about grammar and the unit context simultaneously - and

cooperative strategies. Similar to Myrtle, she could articulate clearly how she would

in future use her PLSK to continue to improve her pedagogy for writing in a holistic

manner, aiming for cognitive and agentic engagement (Reeve, 2012) via the strategic

use of feedback and more explicit instruction.

6.3 THEORETICAL INSIGHTS FOR SHULMAN’S MODEL OF REASONING

This thesis offers a contribution to research because it documents English

teachers who are trying to improve their pedagogical practice for writing by building

their LSK. Amid broader concerns about the intractability of the problem of improving

student writing; the capacity of teachers to provide effective instruction for writing;

and the difficulty of providing professional learning that will reliably yield

improvements in writing across a range of student ability, this thesis provides insight

about:

• how experienced practitioners build their knowledge base for teaching;

• the decisions teachers make following a professional learning event; and

• LSK and LPSK as categories of knowledge for writing instruction.

The theoretical framework provided by Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning

and Action foregrounded the investigation into the ways in which two participants

“reasoned like teachers”. The findings suggest that professional learning endeavours

are enabled and constrained by the contextual influences of local practices and the

complexities of the classroom. They are also affected by individual teacher

characteristics. Factors like confidence, enthusiasm for the subject matter, and

approaches to planning are important. The study showed how P/LSK was built by two

different teachers at the same school, revealing patterns of application and

transformation for writing.


In particular, the findings reveal a propensity for the purposes of professional

learning to be diffused in the teacher reasoning process. The demands of the formal

curriculum can be subsumed beneath the realities of teachers’ developing knowledge

base, students’ prior knowledge, and the ever-present temporal realities associated

with moving through the unit of work. However, the teachers in this study were also

able to:

• articulate the enactment of sophisticated responses to the challenge of

improving writing instruction and otherwise deliver curriculum rich in

literary inspiration and cognitive challenge

• quickly find a space for new knowledge in their established pedagogies,

which had already been tailored for the needs of their class and which met

expectations of them as members of their school’s professional community

• leverage their instructional design to achieve “new comprehension, both of

the purposes and the subjects to be taught, and also of the students and the

processes of pedagogy themselves (Shulman, 1987, p. 19).

The findings confirm that Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and

Action remains relevant and useful for understanding “those who understand”

(Shulman, 1986) as seen in the teachers’ accounts. In Chapter 5, the data revealed five

themes related to this. While Shulman’s enduring, intuitive model was generally

supported in the teachers’ accounts, I needed some extra conceptual tools to explain

the attitudes and motivations they brought to their comprehension of the new

knowledge. Additionally, to explain how the agreed purpose of the professional

learning broke down - the point at which “the neophyte’s stumble becomes the

scholar’s window” (Shulman, 1987, p. 4) – I found it helpful to tease out the concept

of transformation as Shulman originally presented it into separate processes.

In Figure 6.1, I offer an adaptation of Schulman’s model based on the analysis

of the data in this study. The data revealed additional components at work in the

decision-making process. This may be because the teachers were intentionally

involved in comprehending and transforming new knowledge, whereas Shulman’s

model is built on “portraits of expertise”, where teacher knowledge is assumed.

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Figure 6.1. An adapted representation of pedagogical reasoning in response to professional learning

Figure 6.1 is presented as a non-linear cycle. The arrows reflects a general

cyclical movement in response to professional learning that is ‘on time’ and ‘on the

mark’ in terms of building a knowledge base for teaching that meets the needs of the

teachers and is proximal to a learning event where teachers can use their knowledge

(Jetikoff & Smeed, 2012). Teachers reason through a unit of instruction in more or less

the order described here, but the block arrows remind the reader that the model is not

unidirectional. The teachers in this study did not just move through the model one

section at a time. Even as they were in the earliest stages of engagement, for example,

teachers were simultaneously applying their knowledge to strategy selection and

making transformative decisions for their cohort groups. Applying and transforming

are particularly interdependent, as are evaluation, and projecting and reflecting.

The model might work to describe teacher responses to professional learning

about language in the following way: Teachers respond by engaging with the intent of

the professional learning opportunity. In this case, Myrtle and Jordan engaged with the

goal of increasing their knowledge about key aspects of clause and sentence structure.

They did this by considering the relevant Achievement Standards and Content


Descriptors from the Australian Curriculum: English. They used their developing

comprehension of a set of grammatical resources to examine student writing, then they

built their knowledge base via a workshop and related professional learning activities.

Teachers do ‘comprehend critically a set of ideas’ in this first process, but what

Shulman would categorise as ‘comprehension’ is mediated by teachers’ initial attitudes

to the knowledge, including their reasons for engaging and what they may regard as

the intrinsic value of knowledge about language for improving writing. In this way,

elements of Shulman’s comprehension process are subsumed within a broader

category of engaging in this model.

I have added applying to the reasoning process, teasing out Shulman’s concept

of transformation, so that I could foreground the distinct and early decision on the part

of both teachers in this study to attach their new knowledge to familiar pedagogy -

practised, school-supported routines and strategies for literacy teaching. Text

selection, which Shulman presents as a comprehension activity, is drawn into this

process of applying knowledge here. This may be a function of the field because text

is so much the target of learning intent in English that meaning must be made about

text as much as topic and students produce text in response to selected text.

Transforming then is represented as the reasoning teachers use to consider the

characteristics of their students and rearrange the curriculum as they would have

otherwise presented it in response to new knowledge about language. Transforming in

this case is a process of contextual response, where differentiation for individual and

group student needs may or may not happen. The teachers in this study appeared to

transform when they justified their ‘applying’ decisions by referring to the

characteristics of their cohort. Acts of individual differentiation were not evident,

though they are likely have happened in classroom interactions. The value of looking

at transformation this way is that such reasoning and action becomes more visible and

potentially measurable.

It is helpful to consider evaluation as formative and summative assessment

together, but teacher concern for student engagement is also a legitimate part of

evaluation processes. Indeed, the teachers in this study seemed to value student

engagement as highly as measurable improvement. This conception of evaluation as

data gathering for both immediate use (that is, for in-lesson responses and within-unit

lesson planning) and future purposes (that is, reflecting and projecting) captures

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teachers’ observation and monitoring of the impact of their instruction in response to

new knowledge.

Shulman’s ‘reflection’ and ‘new comprehension’ have been re-conceptualised

here as reflecting and projecting because this captures what I saw in the teachers’

reasoning; that is, a strong tendency to wonder how their professional learning could

be applied in other contexts (reflecting) and clear plans for how to do it better in the

future (projecting). After engagement, it is at this point where teachers are most

deliberately building their LPSK (Shulman might say they are achieving ‘new

comprehension’). At this stage, a more subtle and nuanced appreciation of the value

and place of the knowledge makes a contribution to the wisdom of their practice.

Formal ways of reflecting – individually on unit and lesson documents, with peers at

PLC meetings, and with experts of curriculum leaders - can help this process be more

productive.

6.4 METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

6.4.1 Contributions to the body of DBR research

In 2000, in his reflective piece on the role of domain knowledge in teacher

development, Shulman called for educational researchers to continue what he called

wisdom-of-practice research by expanding the field of inquiry that was then referred

to as ‘design experiment’ (Brown, 1992; Cobb, et al., 2003; Reinking & Bradley,

2008). He appreciated the potential of the emerging methodology because “we

encourage practitioners (not just permit them) to fix the theories that we designed as

they put them into practice and see where they don’t work. Then we constantly revise

the curriculum and instruction” (Shulman, 2001, p. 135). Significant developments

ensued, including the application of the methodology so that literacy research could

inform instructional practice (Reinking & Bradley, 2010). Forward to 2012, and

Anderson and Shattuck’s review documented a continuing interest and growth in what

is now routinely referred to as Design-based research (DBR), most of it in the United

States. Studies predominated in the science and technology curriculum areas – over

50% of the extant literature – while only 10% were English language and literacy

studies (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012, p. 23). This result is somewhat surprising, given

such strong early contributions.


This study is of literacy pedagogy, which may be underrepresented in the DBR

literature considering its “significant potential as a research methodology in the field

of English Curriculum” (Jetnikoff, 2015, p. 9) and the insight it can provide as

demonstrated in studies such as Hannant’s dissertation on curriculum literacies (2014).

By focussing on teachers’ accounts of the decisions they made in response to

professional learning, this study gathered knowledge about the process by which

teachers acquire, apply and transform knowledge in a way that educational theory

suggests “can help create and extend knowledge about developing, enacting, and

sustaining innovative learning environments” (The Design-Based Research

Collective, 2002, p. 5).

I claim a modest contribution to DBR research that gives “attention to the

process variables that explain how and why interventions work and don’t work”

(Anderson & Shattuck, 2008, p. 34). Through Chapter 5 and in my adaptation of

Shulman’s Model for Pedagogical Reasoning and Action (refer Figure 6.1) a careful

analysis of teacher talk explained how some of the year-level-appropriate purposes of

professional learning appeared to be diffused in the reasoning process.

6.4.2 Insights about DBR Methdology

As a relatively new form of research, contributions, even modest ones, are

valuable. Critical insights into the practical and theoretical aims of the methodology

itself are also important. There is substantial practical appeal in DBR because it invites

a researcher to work collaboratively with practising teachers to solve a pedagogical

problem. It is ideally suited to small scale projects, in particular ones conducted by

relative novices like me (Jetnikoff, 2015). The concern here was for the impact on

teachers, not on students directly, a potentially fruitful angle compared with the usual

method. DBR enabled me to closely examine teachers’ responses to new knowledge,

where both the teachers and I were concerned for the ultimate impact on students.

DBR also concerns itself with the development of theory about the process of

learning, ideally connected with “greater understanding of a learning ecology – a

complex interacting system involving multiple elements of different types and levels

– by designing its elements and by anticipating how these elements function together

to support learning” (Cobb, et al., p. 9). As such, this study concerned itself not only

with whether or not there was an impact on teachers’ decisions about pedagogical

practice for writing but also with explaining how the design did and did not work.

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Here, I put Shulman’s Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action “in harm’s way”

(Cobb, et al. p. 10). Of course, it proved itself to be very robust. Still, DBR did support

useful insights about Shulman’s model for a contemporary setting and to twenty-first

century concerns.

Finally, it is worth noting here a methodological concern about DBR that

resonated in this study. While I was able to use the affordances of the methodology for

my small-scale research, small scale necessarily means small impact. My teachers’

LSK and LPSK did change, and there was an impact on instructional decisions, but I

cannot make a claim to enduring impact on pedagogy nor or on actual student writing

outcomes. Anderson and Shattuck demonstrated that DBR interventions, which

activate field-specific theory and literature in the service of the educational problem,

yield quite reliably positive results (2012). However, for DBR to realise its potential

as a methodology, it may ultimately be important that the scale of studies lend

themselves to “disruptive and wholesale change” (Anderson and Shattuck, 2-12, p. 24)

beyond the scope of this enterprise.

6.5 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

This study has provided evidence regarding teachers’ responses to professional

learning about language that was offered to improve their pedagogical practice for

writing – a difficult and enduring educational problem for the English classroom. It

has demonstrated a pattern of positive engagement and supports a claim that we should

engage teachers in determining what they will learn based on the curriculum, their own

prior knowledge, and the writing of students in their cohort. However, as outlined

above, this study also revealed substantial challenges for teachers in their application

and transformation of knowledge to writing instruction. There are implications for

practice in relation to professional learning as an endeavour, and for leaders at and

beyond the school.

6.5.1 Selecting knowledge for professional learning.

The Australian Curriculum: English in Year 10 has 31 content descriptors, six

directly related to language. Two were selected for this study, and even then only the

tightly focused parts of them that responded to the particular linguistic learning needs

the literature recommends we identified in a needs analysis process (Fogel & Ehri,


2000; Fearn & Farnan, 2007). Still, the teachers’ planning decisions resulted in a

diffused translation of the knowledge to writing instruction.

An observable tension is noteworthy in the disparity between what is expected

of teachers in the formal curriculum and what is realistic for them to accomplish in

practice. Indeed, in their response to the Review of the Australian Curriculum, the

Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (2014) acknowledged the crowded

curriculum as an issue for the whole curriculum:

Queensland consultation on every draft curriculum document has identified

that there is too much content within and across year levels. This feedback has

not led to a significant reduction in the published curriculum. However, once

the curriculum was endorsed, Queensland has adhered to the agreement to

implement the Australian Curriculum without modification. Having

implemented four learning areas and beginning implementation of a fifth, it is

now very clear that the curriculum is overcrowded. (p. 3)

In this context, where there is too much content and not enough time to teach it,

how can a productive focus for professional learning be established? Grammar is a

large field and complicated - and it isn’t the whole of subject English. This raises

questions for teachers and schools such as: Is it better to develop a strong

understanding of language as a system, so they can make judicious selections for their

students? Or should they focus on the elements in the AC:E?

The implications of this study for selecting content for professional learning

experiences about language are:

• Include teachers in the decision-making process about content for

professional learning; they are well-equipped for such activity and it has a

positive effect on their engagement.

• Situate decision-making about relevant content descriptors within a

systemic functional linguistics framework, so that teachers simultaneously

develop their own LSK and their specific knowledge of the content

descriptors in the Language strand at the relevant year levels.

• Follow Wiliam’s (2008) advice that teachers should be working on only a

small number of changes simultaneously.

171

6.5.2 Foregrounding and sustaining a focus on the intent of the learning

A significant discovery in this study was that the teachers were not able to

translate the full affordances of the selected grammatical elements to writing

instruction. There seems to have been a tendency to offer students declarative

knowledge about language, in particular the transitivity system, rather than year-level-

appropriate content applied to writing instruction. This phenomenon may be related to

teachers’ growing knowledge about language as a system – and its relationship to the

Australian Curriculum: English - and the significant challenges involved with

maintaining specific goals in this context.

This finding suggests professional learning experiences should have the

following characteristics:

• By design, the intent of the learning at the year level standard should be

foregrounded throughout the professional learning experience and revisited

afterwards.

• Give consideration to the ways different pedagogical approaches, including

familiar pedagogy, can be used to apply and transform teacher knowledge

• Anticipate a tendency to pass on incomplete or lower order knowledge. Tell

teachers to expect gaps as they transfer their knowledge to students. Offer

amd explore together suggestions for resolving this tension.

• The learning cycle of the teacher should be anticipated as long, where the

content is complex. Quick-fix ideas offered in a professional learning

environment are unlikely to have impact.

• Schools should provide ongoing support for teachers to find a balance

between the competing interests in their curriculum. Provide opportunities

for them to identify and preserve the time for students to write, and give and

receive feedback about writing.

6.5.3 A role for curriculum leaders

My dual role as Head of English and researcher in this project suggested some

ways I could improve the capacity of teachers to apply and transform their LSK to

writing instruction more effectively. Future strategies might include:


• Attend to the sequential development of foundational metalanguage through

work programs.

• Agree upon and monitor (a small amount of) carefully selected knowledge

that underpins grammatical instruction for writing at each level, so that

teachers ‘up the spiral’ can have reasonable expectations and proceed with

minimal revision.

• Start the cycle again - conducting small studies like this in schools to utilise

the uniquely placed professionals who can lead successful theory-into-

practice research.

• Consider the roles of the classroom teacher, the EAL/D teacher and other

co-teachers and support staff in translating grammar knowledge to the

classroom.

• Explore more fully the affordances of collaboration amongst PLC members,

co-teachers and support staff for improving student outcomes in writing.

6.6 LIMITATIONS

This study has several limitations which need to be acknowledged. The first, a

function of my positionality, is that I was faithful in my determination to interfere as

little as possible in the normal activities of the PLC and the decisions teachers made.

This had the advantage of offering a design based on their usual routine, but it also

limited the access I had to supporting documentation beyond the interviews, and the

lesson plans and activities the teachers referred to or offered me. A notable example

was that PLC minutes were so brief as to be not useful as a cross-checking mechanism.

My conclusion, that there was limited collaboration between participants and with

other PLC members about the professional learning beyond our needs analysis and the

PLC’s mutual observation process, was based only on the accounts of the two teachers

and my insider knowledge. Therefore, I could not include this as an extra data set to

reduce the impact of potential bias (Bowen, 2009) in the way that I had planned. I

relied on interview data, supported only with lesson artefacts provided by teachers,

observations about the content of student work, and the preliminary data gathered

through the needs analysis processes.

173

Interviews as a primary data source may be problematic for a number of reasons

identified by Svend (2013). An interview is an isolated, unrepeatable event, and the

contextual impact of the interviewer can be overlooked. This was remedied by

“including the interactional flow with questions and responses in the interview

analysis” (Svend, 2013, p. 147). For example, I used the following exchange, where a

comment of mine had the potential to be material rather than neutral as a prompt:

Myrtle: Whatever comes my way I will use.

JA: The random vacuum approach to professional development.

Myrtle: It’s grammar! (laughs)

This comment I afterwards drew in, to make it clear I did not consider her approach to

be ‘random’. In another exchange, including my prompting was significant because I

needed to demonstrate that I had tried to draw out technical specifics from the

participant:

JA: You can see him (Jay) grappling with the abstraction there, but

not quite being able to package it.

Jordan: Yes, and could he have chosen two shorter sentences? Would

that have been more powerful? We’ve got another very long

detailed sentence here. As you say, what’s at the forefront of

your sentence. You’re right; it isn’t a bad introduction, but it isn’t

reflective of his ability. And that’s where I hear these kids – he

doesn’t have that level of metacognition about his use of

language.

Transparent reportage such as this, combined with a keen consciousness of my “stake

and interest” (Svend, 2013, p. 149) in the outcome of study, were important to the

credibility of my analysis.

A second limitation is the very small scale of this study. Rich insights were

possible, but only about two people in one context. The results are not statistically

generalisable, but they are grounded in a theoretical understanding of teacher

knowledges as they pertain to writing instruction. Face validity is a second support for

generalisability (Svend, 2013). It has been possible to identify issues through these

cases that will resonate for professional learning and teaching practice more broadly.

For example, teachers are typically experienced learners, familiar with the experience


and aftermath of attending professional learning events. Teachers and leaders in

similar contexts may be able to draw parallels and identify divergence from their own

experiences.

Third, in the context of a DBR intervention, small scale and relatively short time

frame means limited iterations and a less-than-ideal linearity in the design. I was able

to demonstrate collaboration and responsiveness across my three workshops. For

example, revelations from the PLC’s responses to the needs analysis tool followed the

focus established in Workshop #1 and the beginning of the intervention. These

provided a “formative test” (Easterday, et al. 2014) that suggested members were not

confident in identifying and explaining technical aspects of language. So, Workshop

#2 deliberately engaged teachers in practising and beginning to extend their use of

metalanguage. The analysis documents generated at this point fed into the design of

Workshop #3, the eventual design matching closely with the problem of practice

identified for this study.

Still, I faced a typical challenge of DBR studies in that “the iterative nature can

exceed the resources or the time available to researchers” (Anderson & Shattuck, p.

21). My research design called for limited disruption to the regular cycle of teaching

and learning. Ideally, the project and data gathering would be doubled in length, so

that teachers could complete the full set of workshops ahead of their Term 2 (instead

of Term 3) teaching. Then I could have tested and refined my design further,

potentially noticing teachers’ departure from the agreed purpose of the learning and

building that into a Workshop #4. As it was, I achieved a more or less continuous

design evolution by adjusting the professional learning through the needs analysis and

teachers refined their application and mobilised their increased knowledge as they

practised.

6.7 FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Based on this study, I propose that future research into the application of

professional learning about language to writing instruction would benefit from the

following:

175

1. Longer, larger-scale DBR and other qualitative and experimental research forms

“which will investigate the pedagogical conditions which support or hinder the

transfer of grammatical knowledge into written outputs.” (Myhill, et al., 2012, p.

142). The pedagogical conditions need to take account of the particular learning

contexts in which the grammar teaching occurs - school demographics, teaching

teams, professional learning programs in place. In particular, I am keenly

interested in a study such as this one extended to observations of classroom

practice, tracking the development of teachers’ P/LSK over time and assessments

of students’ writing. There is also potential, over much longer time frames, to track

the progress of individuals and groups of students.

2. In keeping with Mhyill, et al.’s specific suggestion that “teachers design and

develop the teaching materials for any intervention themselves, with guidance

from the research team, thus taking ownership of the pedagogical principles which

inform the study (2012, p.163)”, conducting an intervention that involves the

continuing expertise of the researcher more closely throughout the ‘build’ phase,

where teachers are delivering their instruction, and formalises collaboration

throughout the intervention rather than as a feature of the needs analysis and the

context.

3. Exploring more fully the potential of professional learning that targets a specific

linguistic learning need to build LPSK purposefully for writing instruction for a

selected genre, for example a literary interpretation.

4. Exploring more thoroughly the “diffused translation” aspect of pedagogical

reasoning and action identified in this study to identify the barriers to translation

and how teachers navigate through this phase successfully.

5. The presence of an EAL/D co-teacher in one participants’ class was a potentially

significant contextual factor that was largely unexplored in this study. I would

anticipate significant value in a study on the impact of a second teacher in diverse

classroom settings, including those with high proportions of EAL/D students or

students with a disability, where teachers are engaged in building their discipline-

specific knowledge base.


6.8 CONCLUSION

The motivation for this study arose from a long observation and experience of

the exertions of high school English teachers. To them falls much of the formidable

responsibility for the crucial difference-making of improving students’ writing.

Standardised testing, curriculum demands, systemic priorities and literature all attest

to the implacability of writing as an instructional problem. In this context, research has

re-established the importance of English teachers assembling a sufficient body of

linguistic subject knowledge.

This research has contributed to the evidence base of effective professional

learning for writing instruction. It goes some way to addressing the gap opened by

Debra Myhill and her colleagues in the UK, when they confirmed that contextualised

grammar instruction could have a positive impact on student writing. They could

support their claim, and show that teachers with higher LSK have more impact.

However, their study did not not show teachers might activate their knowledge when

they designed their own instructional materials. Nor did they investigate how teachers

might usefully build their LSK and LPSK.

Teacher responses to professional learning aimed at improving LSK for writing

instruction in this study largely support the continued relevance of Lee Shulman’s

Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action for explaining how teachers transform

what they know to make meaning for their students. The findings emphasise the

centrality of teacher engagement and established teaching practices to building a

knowledge base for literacy instruction. They also indicate how the processes of

applying and transforming knowledge might lead to a diffused translation of the

teaching purposes defined in the curriculum and by teachers themselves, in a way that

could be used to improve professional learning.

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Appendices 189

Appendices

Appendix A: Sample criteria and standards sheet for a comparable task at Newman State High School

Year 10 English, Task 4, Analytical Expository. Student work has the following characteristics: A - write, create very effectively (ie. with discernment)

B - write, create effectively (ie capably - with proficiency)

C - write, create (with reasonable effectiveness) – basic, straightforward

D - write, create (with some effectiveness) showing inadequacies

E - write, create (with little effectiveness) showing many inadequacies

Tex

t Str

uctu

re

Make discriminating, sustained use of an analytical expository text structure (thesis, supporting arguments, reinforcement) to analyse the role of minor characters and the results of their actions in the play - explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives about the social/moral/ethical issue through, in the main, cohesive, logical argument

Make proficient, sustained use of an analytical expository text structure (thesis, supporting arguments, reinforcement) to analyse the role of minor characters and the results of their actions in the play - explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives about the issue through, in the main, cohesive, logical argument

Make straightforward use of an analytical expository text structure (thesis, supporting arguments, reinforcement) to analyse the role of minor characters and the results of their actions in the play - explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives about the issue through, in the main, cohesive, logical argument

Make uneven use of an analytical expository text structure (thesis, supporting arguments, reinforcement) to analyse the role of minor characters and the results of their actions in the play - explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives about the issue through, in the main, cohesive, logical argument

Make fragmented use of an analytical expository text structure (thesis, supporting arguments, reinforcement) to analyse the role of minor characters and the results of their actions in the play - explain different viewpoints, attitudes and perspectives about the issue through, in the main, cohesive, logical argument

Idea

s and

in

form

atio

n

Demonstrate a discriminating and precise selection and blending of analytical elements - integrating direct and indirect evidence - to support, reinforce and enhance the central argument.

Demonstrate a proficient and detailed selection and blending of analytical elements - integrating direct and indirect evidence - to support, reinforce and enhance the central argument.

Demonstrate straightforward selection and blending of analytical elements – direct and indirect evidence - to support, reinforce and enhance the central argument

Demonstrate limited selection and blending of analytical elements – direct and indirect evidence – to support, reinforce and enhance the central argument.

Demonstrate very limited selection and blending of analytical elements – direct and indirect evidence – to support, reinforce and enhance the central argument.

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Glossary?a=F10AS&t=Explain





190 Appendices

Select, organise and synthesise insightful and detailed relevant information, ideas and evidence about the ways the author has made meaning about the world (events, situations, people etc.) from a particular viewpoint, explaining their use of evaluative language: - feeling and emotion, judgements of characters’ behaviour, appreciations of times and places (appearances, relationships and things)

Select, organise and synthesise detailed relevant information, ideas and evidence about the ways the author has made meaning about the world (events, situations, people etc.) from a particular viewpoint, explaining their use of evaluative language: - feeling and emotion, judgements of character’s behaviour, appreciations of times and places (appearances, relationships and things)

Select, organise and synthesise basic relevant information, ideas and evidence about the ways the author has made meaning about the world (events, situations, people etc.) from a particular viewpoint, explaining their use of evaluative language: - feeling and emotion, judgements of character’s behaviour, appreciations of times and places (appearances, relationships and things)

Select, organise and synthesise limited relevant information, ideas and evidence about the ways the author has made meaning about the world (events, situations, people etc.) from a particular viewpoint, explaining their use of evaluative language: - feeling and emotion, judgements of character’s behaviour, appreciations of times and places (appearances, relationships and things)

Select, organise and combine very limited, and often irrelevant information, ideas and evidence about the author has made meaning about the world (events, situations, people etc.) from a particular viewpoint, explaining their use of evaluative language: - feeling and emotion, judgements of character’s behaviour, appreciations of times and places (appearances, relationships and things)

Comments:

Appendices 191

Appendix B: Year 10 Language strand content descriptors (ACARA, 2018)

Language variation and change

Understand that Standard Australian English in its spoken and written forms has a history of evolution and change and continues to evolve (ACELA1563)

Language for interaction

Understand how language use can have inclusive and exclusive social effects, and can empower or disempower people (ACELA1564)

Understand that people’s evaluations of texts are influenced by their value systems, the context and the purpose and mode of communication (ACELA1565)

Text structure and organisation

Compare the purposes, text structures and language features of traditional and contemporary texts in different media (ACELA1566)

Understand how paragraphs and images can be arranged for different purposes, audiences, perspectives and stylistic effects (ACELA1567)

Understand conventions for citing others, and how to reference these in different ways (ACELA1568)

Expressing and developing ideas

Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of a wide range of sentence and clause structures as authors design and craft texts (ACELA1569)

Analyse how higher order concepts are developed in complex texts through language features including nominalisation, clause combinations, technicality and abstraction (ACELA1570)

Evaluate the impact on audiences of different choices in the representation of still and moving images (ACELA1572)

Refine vocabulary choices to discriminate between shades of meaning, with deliberate attention to the effect on audiences (ACELA1571)

Understand how to use knowledge of the spelling system to spell unusual and technical words accurately, for example those based on uncommon Greek and Latin roots (ACELA1573)

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=Standard+Australian+English

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/curriculum/contentdescription/ACELA1563


http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=context

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=mode


http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=text

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=language+features




http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=sentence


http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=design


http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=language+features

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/glossary/popup?a=E&t=nominalisation






192 Appendices

Appendix C : Newman State High School Professional Learning Community summary statement

Appendices 193

Appendix D: Semi-structured interview planning documents

INITIAL SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

OPENING SEGMENT The purpose of the study is to describe how teachers make decisions to plan and deliver literacy instruction when it is intentionally focussed on transmitting teacher LSK with the aim of improving student writing. I already know, from your survey document and needs analysis workshop, a little about the characteristics of the class you teach – the way you own professional learning interests intersect with their needs and the demands of the curriculum. 1. I wonder how you would describe your experiences with grammar – the development of your own linguistic subject knowledge. 2. What are you thinking now, about how this will unfold? MIDDLE SEGMENT We decided together, at the needs analysis workshop, to focus on __________________. 3. Are you confident that the decisions we made are the right ones? 4. Have you done some prior work on this with this group? A. How did that go? CONCLUDING SEGMENT You have participated in a workshop on ________ and you have some readings about __________. 5. How confident are you feeling now about your knowledge of _______________? A. Is there any particular aspect of the language teaching you’re concerned about getting right? 6. Is there any other assistance I can provide you with in your planning or delivery that might be helpful? Additional questions that may be useful for prompting, or keep for final interview Opening segment A How do you intend to work with me? B What problems might come up? Middle segment 3A. Where in the AC:E is this work? B. What are you deciding to leave out, or do less of, that might also be important? C. How does the nature of your class affect your decision-making? D. Are there any aspects you’ll think they’ll particularly struggle with, or enjoy? 4. You’re still in the orientation phase of your unit, but is there anything you’ve already done that’s relevant, or potentially relevant? 5. What are your initial thoughts about what you plan to do in the instruction for this? A. What opportunities does the studied text present in its language patterns? B. Are there some particular strategies you’d like to use? C. Can you show me on the unit plan where this will go? Concluding segment 7. How will you know your students have grasped that? A. How will you know they can apply it?

194 Appendices

FINAL SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW OPENING SEGMENT The purpose of the study is to describe how teachers make decisions to plan and deliver literacy instruction when it is intentionally focussed on transmitting teacher LSK with the aim of improving student writing. You have already participated in needs analysis activities, at the end of which we decided on this hypothesis: If we know more about the ways we use a range of sentence and clause structures to manipulate emphasis and to develop logical relationships between ideas, then we can help a range of students improve their writing by achieving: more accuracy in sentence boundaries and more variety in their presentation and sequencing of ideas. Available materials: a hard copy of the unit plan relevant lessons some student work – preferably the work of students we reviewed in the needs analysis, but you can also bring others if there’s something interesting there you might want to show me Your copy of Romeo & Juliet. 1. You’ve brought your unit plan for last term. Can you talk me through the basic sequence? 2. How did you decide which grammatical resources to focus on in the unit? Which content descriptors were relevant? How confident did you feel in your knowledge of clause and sentence structure and any other significant grammatical resources? MIDDLE SEGMENT 3. I’d like you to talk me through a particular lesson (or sequence, if you like) where you were focusing on grammar and writing. 4. Are there any other lessons or learning experiences you think were important for building their knowledge about clause and sentence structure? Or other grammatical resources you decided were important? 5. What metalanguage did you use to talk about clauses and sentences? How did students respond? Was it confusing or helpful? 6. Regarding the specific teaching you did around clause and sentence structure, how satisfied were you? 7. Do you think the work you did in this unit had an impact on their writing? Can you show me what you were talking about in a student’s work? CONCLUDING SEGMENT 8. Did you run out of time? What did you have to skip? Were there other reasons for leaving out material you would have liked? 9. What would you do differently next time? 10. What do you think they need to learn next? What more would you need to know about clause and sentence structure to teach it as well as you’d like?

Appendices 195

Appendix E: Sample of Year 10 student writing above the Achievement

Standard

196 Appendices

Appendix F: Needs analysis tool

NAME (will be de-identified if used for research purposes): ________________________________

Needs analysis tool questions, to be used to guide focus group discussion, and as supporting documentation for this study. Note that the survey has not been designed to measure teachers’ linguistic subject knowledge (LSK) before and after the professional learning. Its purpose here is to stimulate thinking and discussion.

The survey is an adaptation of the document provided by Kristina Love and Mary Macken-Horarick. It was used in the study associated with the following paper: Love, K., Macken-Horarik, M. and Horarik, S. (2015). Language knowledge and its application: A snapshot of Australian teachers’ views. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 38 (3), 171-182.

1. About your class 1.1 How would you classify the students in your selected class?

Appendices 197

None (1) Very few (2)

About half (3)

More than half the class (4)

Majority of class (5)

Students are gifted &

talented (1)

Students speak English

as an additional

language (2)

Students are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (3)

Students have learning

Difficulties (4)

Students struggle with

literacy (5)

Students come from

economically poor families

(6)

1.2 Please comment on any factors that you think influence your students' achievement in English (e.g. enrichment programs or lack of these, team teaching, truancy, mixed ability classes, student background, teacher assistance or lack of it, learner motivation, teacher professional learning, or lack of it, background, teacher assistance or lack of it, learner motivation, teacher professional learning, or lack of it).

198 Appendices

2. About your views on what's important in school English

2.1 How important are the following to student success in English in your selected class?

Not

important (1)

Somewhat important

(2)

Important (3)

Very important

(4)

Extremely important

(5)

Having natural talent in English as a

student (1)

The influence of a gifted

and committed

English teacher (2)

Being taught explicitly and systematically

about the English

language (3)

Developing a 'feel' for English through

experience (4)

Appendices 199

2.2 To what extent is grammar important in your teaching of this class? Not Important (1) Somewhat important (2) Important (3) Very important (4) Extremely important (5) 2.3 Knowledge about language is part of English but teachers vary in their views about what is more or less important. How would you rate the importance of your students being able to ... (Refer to questions on facing page). 2.4 Overall, what are the most important aspects of language that your students need to learn about?

200 Appendices

Not

important (1)

Somewhat important

(2)

Important (3)

Very important

(4)

Extremely important

(5)

Identify and name the structural stages in

various kinds of texts (e.g.

narrative, exposition and text

response)? (1)

Name different types of

sentences (e.g. simple, compound,

complex) and explain

grammatically how they are different? (2)

Describe the grammatical components of sentences (e.g. subject,

finite verb etc.)? (3)

Describe and use the

different aspects of

cohesion in texts (e.g. referring

words, word associations, ellipsis etc.)?

(4)

Appendices 201

Apply knowledge

about language in composing texts? (5)

Learn to analyze

language choices in

texts critically? (6)

Understand how visual

and multimodal texts work?

(7)

2.5 Please indicate how you teach students in your selected class about the following aspects of language.

202 Appendices

Not at all (1)

Incidentally (2)

At the point of need (3)

As one part of the writing

process (4)

Explicitly and systematically

(5)

I teach my students

about the structure and organization of texts: (1)

I teach my students

about cohesion: (2)

I teach my students how to structure and develop

different types of

sentences: (3)

I teach my students how

to use different parts of speech

appropriately: (4)

3. About your priorities and levels of linguistic confidence 3.1 How important are the following learning activities for your selected class? (See statements on facing page). 3.2 Please provide additional comments about how you approach language teaching (including grammar) in English (e.g. modelling language choices in texts, jointly constructing appropriate texts with students, guided reading and writing strategies, 'Drop everything and read or write', or other strategies).

Appendices 203

Not

important (1)

Somewhat important

(2)

Important (3)

Very important

(4)

Extremely important

(5)

Integrating grammar into the study of

literature (e.g.

exploring language choices in fiction or

poetry) (1)

Teaching students explicitly

about grammar in texts (e.g.

highlighting grammatical

choices in texts) (2)

Giving students grammar exercises (e.g. from grammar

resources or textbooks)

(3)

Integrating grammar into the study of

multimodal texts (e.g. exploring

words and images in

picturebooks or websites)

(4)

204 Appendices

Additional space, if needed, for 3.2, about how you approach language teaching.

Appendices 205

3.3. Please indicate your levels of confidence in teaching knowledge about language to your selected class – over.

206 Appendices

Not

confident at all (1)

Somewhat confident

(2)

Confident (3)

Very confident

(4)

Extremely confident

(5)

When dealing with

different types of

texts in the classroom, I

feel ... (1)

When dealing with

the structure of written texts

in the classroom, I

feel ... (2)

When dealing with

the grammar

of visual and multimodal texts in the classroom, I

feel ... (3)

When dealing with

cohesive resources in

the classroom, I

feel ... (4)

When dealing with

the structure of sentences in

the classroom, I

feel ... (5)

Appendices 207

When dealing with appropriate

use of different parts of

speech in the

classroom, I feel ... (6)

3.4 Overall, how would you rate your current levels of confidence in teaching students in your class about grammar? Not confident at all (1) Somewhat confident (2) Confident (3) Very confident (4) Extremely confident (5) 3.5 Please list any areas of language knowledge (other than those listed above) that you find particularly challenging? 4. About your professional development needs 4.1 Please indicate below what kinds of support you need in teaching your students about language including grammar (e.g. particular kinds of professional development, material resources or additional staff etc.).

208 Appendices

Appendix G: Workshop #1 Presentation

Appendices 209

210 Appendices

Appendices 211

212 Appendices

Appendices 213

214 Appendices

Appendices 215

216 Appendices

Appendix H: Workshop #2 Presentation

Appendices 217

218 Appendices

Appendices 219

220 Appendices

Appendices 221

Appendix I: Workshop #3 Presentation

222 Appendices

Appendices 223

224 Appendices

Appendices 225

226 Appendices

Appendices 227

228 Appendices

Appendices 229

230 Appendices

Appendix J: Sample codes

Agency in professional learning and decisions

Attitudes and values about language instruction

Awareness of trends in language instruction

Characteristics of class or cohort

Childhood and life expereicnes

Class work prior to the intervention

Collegial learning and decisions including PLC

Concern for and evidence of impact

Confidence and master of LSK

Defining LSK, linguistic, language, grammar

Differentiated instruction

Discrete grammar instruction

Explicit and systematic grammar instruction

Feedback and formative assessment

Implicit vs explicit LSK

Lesson and unit planning

Professional learning – response to, impact of

Professional learning – form of

Reference to grammatical element

Reflection

School or faculty characteristics

Self-efficacy

Strategy or pedagogy

Student engagement

Student knowledge or skill

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BUILDING LINGUISTIC SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE FOR WRITING ... · The findings reveal a strong connection between theory and observable practice. ... 2.4.2 Transformational-generative grammar