Powerful Knowledge in the Curriculum for Excellence
POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE IN THE CURRICULUM FOR EXCELLENCE
Rick Instrell
This is an expanded version of a paper delivered at the United Kingdom Literacy Association conference at the University of Chester on 15 July 2011.
Abstract
The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is the current Scottish curricular initiative for 3-18 year-olds. Although most educationists agree with its progressive goals, its documents have been criticised as being vague, anti-intellectual and ignorant of subject disciplines.
This paper will argue that all curriculum designers would benefit from insights from educational linguistics, a hybrid field formed by fusing educational sociology and linguistics. The most potent ideas come by combining Basil Bernstein’s analysis of knowledge structures with ideas from linguistics. Linguistics is a vast discipline but three related fields are of particular relevance: systemic functional linguistics (SFL), critical discourse analysis (CDA) and multimodal social semiotics (MMSS). Each comes with a formidable battery of methodologies and jargon. Despite this their key concepts and applications can be translated into a teacher- and learner-friendly form (Instrell 2008, 2010).
The paper will apply educational linguistics ideas to the teaching of high-level intellectual processes such as abstraction and metacognition and then extend the ideas into an analysis of subject English.
Critics have labelled the CfE as anti-intellectual but few have actually suggested how to repair its obvious shortcomings. This paper is a constructive attempt to put academic disciplines and the pursuit of excellence back into the Scottish curriculum.
Context: Curriculum for Excellence
The ideas explored in this paper have been developed within the context of the Scottish Government’s curriculum development for 3-18 year-olds, grandly titled the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). It is claimed that the CfE focuses on learners’ needs by providing a coherent, more flexible
Rick Instrell
This is an expanded version of a paper delivered at the United Kingdom Literacy Association conference at the University of Chester on 15 July 2011.
Abstract
The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is the current Scottish curricular initiative for 3-18 year-olds. Although most educationists agree with its progressive goals, its documents have been criticised as being vague, anti-intellectual and ignorant of subject disciplines.
This paper will argue that all curriculum designers would benefit from insights from educational linguistics, a hybrid field formed by fusing educational sociology and linguistics. The most potent ideas come by combining Basil Bernstein’s analysis of knowledge structures with ideas from linguistics. Linguistics is a vast discipline but three related fields are of particular relevance: systemic functional linguistics (SFL), critical discourse analysis (CDA) and multimodal social semiotics (MMSS). Each comes with a formidable battery of methodologies and jargon. Despite this their key concepts and applications can be translated into a teacher- and learner-friendly form (Instrell 2008, 2010).
The paper will apply educational linguistics ideas to the teaching of high-level intellectual processes such as abstraction and metacognition and then extend the ideas into an analysis of subject English.
Critics have labelled the CfE as anti-intellectual but few have actually suggested how to repair its obvious shortcomings. This paper is a constructive attempt to put academic disciplines and the pursuit of excellence back into the Scottish curriculum.
Context: Curriculum for Excellence
The ideas explored in this paper have been developed within the context of the Scottish Government’s curriculum development for 3-18 year-olds, grandly titled the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). It is claimed that the CfE focuses on learners’ needs by providing a coherent, more flexible
References: Anderson, L.W. & Krathwohl D. R. (eds.) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom 's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman. Association for Media Education in Scotland (2011) Breaking Barriers: Multimodal and Media Literacy in the Curriculum for Excellence (Revised edition July 2011). Belsey, C. (2002) Critical Practice (2nd edition). London: Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1999) ‘Vertical and horizontal discourse: an essay’. In British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 20, no. 2, 157-173. Bernstein, B. (1996) Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. London: Taylor and Francis. Biggs, J. B. & Collis, K. E. (1982) Evaluating the Quality of Pupil Learning Experiences: the Solo Taxonomy. New York: Academic Press. Bloom, B. S. (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: McKay. Bruner, J. (1960) The Process of Education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Christie, F. & Martin, J. R. (eds.) (2007) Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistics and Sociological Perspectives. London: Continuum. Christie, F. & Macken-Horarik, M. (2007) ‘Building verticality in subject English’. In F. Christie & J. R. Martin (eds.) (2007) Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistics and Sociological Perspectives. London: Continuum. Chapter 8. Christie, F. & Maton K. (eds.) (2011) Disciplinarity: Systemic Functional and Sociological Perspectives. London, Continuum. Eggins, S.(2007) An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics (2nd edition). London: Continuum. Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K. (1993) ‘Towards a language-based theory of learning’. In Linguistics and Education, 5, 93-116. Halliday M.A.K. & Mathiessen C.M.I.M. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edition). London: Hodder Arnold. Instrell, R. (2008) ‘Something old, something new, something excellent? – Part 1’ in Media Education Journal, 43, Summer 2008, 9-16. Instrell, R. (2010) ‘Something old, something new, something excellent? – Part 2’ in Media Education Journal, 48, Winter 2010/2011, 3-11. Jenkins, H. et al. (2006) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MacArthur Foundation. Jewitt, C. (ed.) (2009) The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis. London: Routledge. Kelly, A.V. (1999) The Curriculum: Theory and Practice (4th edition). London: Sage. Kress, G. (2010) Multimodality: a Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003) Metaphors We Live By (2nd edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lei, E. R. (2011) Metacognition: a Literature Review. Pearson: London. Macken-Horarik, M. & Christie, F. (2011) ‘Disciplinarity and the case of school subject English’. In F. Christie & K. Maton (eds.) (2011) Disciplinarity: Systemic Functional and Sociological Perspectives. London, Continuum. Martin, J.R. (2011) ‘Bridging troubled waters: interdisciplinarity and what makes it stick’. In F. Christie & K. Maton (eds.) (2011) Disciplinarity: Systemic functional and sociological perspectives. London, Continuum. Martin, J.R. & Halliday M.A.K. (1993) Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. London: Falmer Press. Maton, K. and Muller, J. (2007) ‘A sociology for the transmission of knowledge’. In In F. Christie & J. R. Martin (eds.) (2007) Language, Knowledge and Pedagogy: Functional Linguistics and Sociological Perspectives. London: Continuum. Chapter 2. Miller, D. J. & Robertson, D. P. (2010) ‘Using a games console in the primary classroom: effects of ‘Brain Training’ programme on computation and self-esteem’. In British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 41, no.2, 242–255. New London Group (1996) ‘A pedagogy of multiliteracies: designing social futures’. In B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (eds.) (2000) Multiliteracies. London: Routledge. Paterson, L. (2010) Assessment and Curriculum for Excellence. Lecture to SSTA conference 7 May 2010. Accessed 12/07/2011 athttp://www.ssta.org.uk/news.php?item.159.5. Priestley, M. & Humes, W. (2010) ‘The development of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: amnesia and déjà vu’. In Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 36, no. 3, 345–361. Royal Society of Edinburgh (2008) Comments on Curriculum for Excellence draft experiences and outcomes for Literacy and English, for Expressive Arts and for Social Studies. Edinburgh: Royal Society of Edinburgh. Scottish Government (2009) Literacy Across Learning. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. Scottish Qualifications Authority (2004) Arrangements for Higher Media Studies. Glasgow: SQA. Scottish Qualifications Authority (2010) Arrangements for Higher English. Glasgow: SQA. Scottish Qualifications Authority (2011) 2011 English Higher Writing Folio Finalised Marking Instructions. Glasgow: SQA. Scottish Screen (2009) Moving Image Education in Scotland. Glasgow: Scottish Screen. Van Leeuwen, T,. (2005) Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge. Young, M. (2008) ‘From constructivism to realism in the sociology of the curriculum’. In Review of Research in Education, Vol. 42, no. 1, 1-28.