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Evolution and Contingency: Poetry, Curriculum and Culture in Victoria, Australia

Mary Weavena; Tom Clarka a School of Communication and the Arts, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia Online publication date: 14 March 2011

To cite this Article Weaven, Mary and Clark, Tom(2011) 'Evolution and Contingency: Poetry, Curriculum and Culture in

Victoria, Australia', Changing English, 18: 1, 75 84 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/1358684X.2011.543513 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1358684X.2011.543513

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Changing English Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2011, 7584

Evolution and Contingency: Poetry, Curriculum and Culture in Victoria, Australia

Mary Weaven and Tom Clark*
School of Communication and the Arts, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
tom.clark@vu.edu.au Dr 0 1000002010 18 TomClark 2011 & English Original Article 1358-684X (print)/1469-3585 (online) Changing Francis 10.1080/1358684X.2011.543513 CCEN_A_543513.sgm Taylor and Francis

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This article explores the changing place of poetry studies in the broader English curriculum of Victoria, Australia. Its focus is on how students learning to become English teachers engage with poetry studies. Setting this problem within the context of pedagogical theory and evidence about the evolving Victorian curriculum, we have interviewed six first-year students to explore their perspectives on the study of poetry. A clear finding is that exposure to the study of poetry is very limited in Australias secondary school system. A more surprising finding is that students do not clearly recognize their exposure to poetry studies as such. Keywords: poetry; English curriculum; teacher education The value of teaching poetry in schools is rarely questioned. Its role and significance may not always be fully understood but its right to a place in the English curriculum is taken for granted. (Fleming 1992, 31)

Prompted by a concern that poetry may in fact have lost what Fleming sees as its right to a place in the English curriculum that the era of taken for granted may be drawing to a close our research explores the evolving place and purpose of poetry studies in the evolving curricula of English and Literary Studies. Taking anything for granted may be unacceptable practice in contemporary pedagogical design (not that anybody is innocent of it), but that does not mean the education system gains by losing the study of poetry, especially if that is because participants in the education system have lost much understanding of its value. This article looks at poetry teaching in a contemporary setting to try to make sense of several emerging trends. It presents original research we have conducted, by interviewing Bachelor of Education students who are learning to teach secondary English classes after graduation. To set this research in its context, we begin by examining the state of poetry in the Victorian senior secondary curriculum in some detail. The changeable and contingent nature of that curriculum is particularly acute in 2010, because Australia is about to mandate a national secondary English studies curriculum for the first time. We note that the study of poetry has fallen away under an approach to curriculum that has advanced a utilitarian conception of literacy over several decades. While the UKs OfSTED Report, Poetry in Schools A Survey of Practice (Office of Standards in Education 2007) suggests that pressure from external exams leads to a reluctance to teach poetry, we contend in this article that deeper and more complex issues may also be responsible for that shift.
*Corresponding author. Email: tom.clark@vu.edu.au
ISSN 1358-684X print/ISSN 1469-3585 online 2011 The editors of Changing English DOI: 10.1080/1358684X.2011.543513 http://www.informaworld.com

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One common thread running through the literature that we have surveyed for this article through the OfSTED Report, through earlier reports in England and elsewhere (Benton 2000; Kelly 2005; Thompson and Millward 1994), and through scholarly articles about poetry teaching that we have reviewed in preparing this paper and previously (Weaven and Clark 2009) is the proposition that studying poetry has benefits for other aspects of student life and learning, especially the broader range of communicative skills, knowledge and understanding that the study of English is supposed to cultivate. Most commentators who address the place and purpose of poetry studies treat it either as the most powerful instrument for developing advanced language communication, or as one among a select few of such instruments. However, far from enjoying a privileged position, poetry has, for some time now, suffered a tendency to be squeezed out, becoming technique rather than enjoyment based, due to particular curriculum and testing regimes (Benton 2000, 86). More recently, Warner has noted the impact of question-setting on the exams, in terms of the kind of engagement that students can expect to experience with poetry (Warner 2009). Gordon has expressed a concern of a different kind (Gordon 2008), relating to the need for children to hear poetry in order to appreciate it fully. Because our work offers a critical reflection on the educational outcomes and ramifications of various syllabus decisions, we begin by explaining the current curriculum structure in one Australian state Victoria. In seeking a deeper understanding of the role that the study of poetry plays in education more generally, we are particularly interested to observe the contemporary pressures towards a more centralized curriculum structure. These do not currently appear to support the teaching of poetry but could they? In some states in Australia, notably Victoria, curriculum and syllabus decisionmaking has become comprehensively and deliberately decentralized (Yates and Collins 2010). This, we suggest, has had an impact on the teaching of poetry. Individual teachers in Victorian schools are responsible for all syllabus decisions; in curriculum matters they are guided by a publicly accessible set of standards. Anyone students, parents and the wider community can access this information via the World Wide Web. These standards are the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) 2005). When and how various texts, skills and forms of knowledge will be taught is entirely up to the teacher throughout the compulsory years of schooling. At the operational level, the school principal oversees this process, and the next level of responsibility lies with the school council. All government schools in Victoria are governed by a school council, which is given the power to set the key directions for the school, and is a legal entity in its own right. A school council directly influences the quality of education that a school provides to its students (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development 2006). When students enter the post-compulsory level, that is, the final two years of schooling, both they and their teachers must conform to guidelines set by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. This is the body which offers a list of texts again, publicly available and from this list teachers must choose those texts which they consider will be appropriate for their students. For advice on text selection, teachers are directed to the study guide, where they are informed of the criteria that the text selection committee applies when choosing texts for the list. In the following extract, the terms Units 3 and 4 refer to the final two semesters of secondary schooling and are generally studied in Year 12 though there is an option to study these in Year 11 as long as the previous two units have been completed. Again it should be emphasized

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that all these documents are publicly available: anyone with access to the World Wide Web can read the full list of texts from which teachers must choose, and they can also read the criteria employed during their selection.
Across the Units 3 and 4 sequence, English students must read and study at least four selected texts. The term selected text refers to a text chosen from the Text List published annually by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in the VCAA Bulletin At least one of the selected texts in each unit should be an imaginative print text such as a novel, a play or a collection of short stories or poetry. (VCAA 2006, 23)

VCAA is the body that administers the university entrance examination to which we refer later in this article. There is nothing at least on the surface that could be considered hidden or surreptitious about these decisions; there has been a genuine attempt to make this information public. The point we wish to stress at this stage is that because novels, plays and short stories fall into the category of imaginative print text they are treated as being interchangeable with poetry. Smagorinsky refers to the abundant scholarship in semiotics [that] has expanded the notion of text to account for all manner of sign configurations (Smagorinsky 2009, 523). Medway laments the situation where studying Sylvia Plath can be assessed and accredited as commensurable with learning some procedure in Hospitality and Tourism (Medway 2010, 11). This is somewhat comparable to the current situation in Victoria, where a student can study, for example, a contemporary novel or non-fiction offering, and this is treated as commensurable with collections of poems, such as the two offerings for 2010: Kenneth Slessors Selected Poems and Judith Wrights A Human Pattern Selected Poems. This situation has not been imposed by a hostile outside authority, as was the case in Medways example; those within the English teaching profession have made the decision. Film and print texts are semi-interchangeable on the VCAAs list. The temptation for teachers to select films is acknowledged as being so strong that the first piece of advice to teachers relates specifically to film text: A film text may be selected from List 1 or List 2 but not both. Students are not permitted to write on more than one film in the examination. No such admonishment is needed to limit the study of any other type of text. The two other pieces of advice relating to text selection are as follows: At least one of the selected texts in each of Units 3 and 4 should be an imaginative print text such as a novel, a play, a collection of short stories or poetry. At least one of the selected texts should be by an Australian or about Australians (VCAA 2006, 23). From a different direction entirely, Michael Apple reminds us that Texts are really messages to and about the future. As part of a curriculum they participate in no less than the organized knowledge system of society. They participate in creating what a society has recognized as legitimate and truthful (Apple 2003, 182). Elsewhere, we have extended this argument for poetic texts, using theory from Nicolas Abraham to argue that poetry constructs a rhythmizing relationship of the present to both its future and its past (Clark 2010). Apple explores an example from the 1930s where conservative groups in the United States mounted a campaign against the socialist, anti-American, anti-business textbook series written by Harold Rugg (Apple 2003). No such campaign has been necessary against the teaching of poetry in Australia; it has, when not centrally enforced, just quietly withered on the vine. Significantly, Apple (2003, 184) also notes that:

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The changing ideological climate has had a major impact on debate over what should be taught in schools and on how it should be taught and evaluated the text has become the centre of ideological and educational conflict in a number of other countries

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Where Apple could identify clearly the forces that led to the removal of Ruggs texts, it is a little more difficult to identify why poetry has fallen from favour in Victorian schools. Our argument is that there are good reasons for retaining it, but we recognize that the changing ideological climate to which Apple refers may hold at least part of the answer and is therefore worthy of close investigation. In addition, we note the allusion to the fetish-like quality of educational discourse disparaged by New Zealand scholar, Terry Locke, as the impact of a fetish of discrete, behaviourist, learning outcomes. This fetish, he argues, is reflected in ladders of achievement objectives in curriculum statements, and competence-based standards statements in qualifications criteria (Locke 2007, 109). He links it to a decline in the teaching of poetry in secondary schools in New Zealand, as outlined by ONeill (2006). From yet another angle, Dias and Hayhoe contend that a prime cause of the unpopularity of poetry in the classroom lies in the critical theory that is implicit in much teaching of poetry in secondary schools (1988, 5). This strikes us as a simplistic judgment, but it attracts many adherents. What Locke has identified as the fetish of learning outcomes corresponds substantially with some of the findings from the OfSTED Report, where, among other things, it was found that at the senior levels, teachers considered the study of poetry to be a luxury and one, by and large, that they have eschewed:
However, once pupils have embarked on their GCSE course, most teachers feel that there is too little time in a crowded examination timetable for what they perceive as a luxury. (Office of Standards in Education 2007, 9)

Currently, Australia is on the brink of introducing, for the first time in its history, a national curriculum. For teachers of English this means that the content and pedagogy of the English course issues which are never really dormant are once again receiving close public scrutiny (Beavis 2008; Snyder 2008). As described above, curriculum development in English in Australia has, until now, taken a starkly different course from that described by Dymoke (2002) where she outlines the ossification of poetry teaching caused by the centralization of curriculum, combined with the examination system and what has become a surrogate compulsory poetry anthology for the entire nation. This, she explains, has led to a situation where poetry has become solely, and one could argue, deadeningly, linked with written response on terminal examination papers (Dymoke 2002, 85). Whereas in Australia poetry has gone not with a bang but a whimper, in the UK it appears to have slowly ground to a creaking halt, but by very different means. Kelly (2005) confirms much that Dymoke reports. Noting the sharp differences between curriculum approaches in the UK and Australia, is it so curious that the same essential outcome a decline in the teaching of poetry has occurred in both countries? Curriculum structures and the forces that influence them also come under sharper scrutiny when a national curriculum is being shaped. Yates and Collins (2010) have noted that curriculum theorizing in the period leading up to the introduction of this National curriculum has been based on: a combination of a rather utilitarian and progressivist, child-centred mind-set on the one hand, and a growing impact of evidence-based auditing and bench-marking on the other (90). This, they say, has

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resulted in a striking separation of content from the curriculum: the dislodging of the curriculum from a base in content knowledge into procedural knowledge is unmistakeable (93). Where, in such a climate, should the teaching of poetry be located, and what are the ideological influences behind such a positioning? The body overseeing the implementation of the national curriculum in Australia takes direction from the National Statement on the Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008). In a series of pronouncements outlining the need for a national curriculum, there is a predicable and not unwelcome emphasis on literacy as a cornerstone of schooling for young Australians (MCEETYA 2008, 5) and this sits alongside other statements about boosting economic capacity and international competitiveness as measured by benchmarks set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). What we would contend, however, is that any definition of literacy needs to be able to accommodate the subtleties and the strengths that Terry Eagleton notes are present when poetry is taught. Eagleton sees poetry as the most semantically saturated form of writing we have, yielding more information in a condensed space than any other kind of text (2007, 57). In comments reminiscent of Freires insistence that, in order to be fully human, we must act upon the world (Freire 1970), Eagleton goes on to establish the study of poetry as a way of learning about how to act upon the world (2007, 689):
So it is as though poetry grants us the actual experience of seeing meaning take shape as a practice, rather than handling it simply as a finished object. Poetry is an image of the truth that language is not what shuts us off from reality, but what yields us the deepest access to it. It is the very essence of words to point beyond themselves; so that to grasp them as precious in themselves is also to move more deeply into the world they refer to.

As part of our background research we looked to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authoritys Exam Assessment Report. Every year the VCAA Exam Assessment Report provides information on the texts students have written on in the exam. As far as we are aware, no authority has collected data on the extent to which Victorian students may be studying poetry texts during Years 11 and 12 but not writing on them during the exam. It is possible therefore that the figures below, relating to the popularity of poetry texts in the exam, are not an accurate reflection of the texts that students are studying throughout the year. They are, however, the best that we could access, and they do reflect what happens in the exam. From 2001 through to 2007, poetry rated as one of the least popular texts in both Part 1 and Part 2 of the exam (VCAA 20017). Changes to the English Requirement, introduced in 2006 (VCAA 2006) appear to have had little impact on this situation. The exception to this is 2005, where poetry is not mentioned among the least popular texts for Part 1, but is still in that category for Part 2. Given that only two poetry texts are offered, this means half of the poetry falls into this category year after year. In 2006 and 2007 Victorian teachers wishing to study poetry with their Year 12 students had a choice of either Paul Kellys song lyrics: Dont Start Me Talking: Lyrics 19842004 or Sylvia Plaths Selected Poems (Table 1). 2006 and 2007 are not only significant for the inclusion of contemporary song lyrics on the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) list. They are also the two years where the Exam Assessment Report provides the names of not only the least popular texts, but also the texts on which students who achieved the highest mean score had written. The texts for which students received the highest mean marks in 2006 (Section 1, Parts 1 and 2) were: Sylvia Plath: Selected Poems; Tess of the DUrbervilles; I for Isobel; The Plague; and

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Unpopular poetry texts in VCE examinations. Other poetry text available for study Bruce Dawe, Sometimes Gladness Bruce Dawe, Sometimes Gladness Bruce Dawe, Sometimes Gladness Philip Hodgins, Dispossessed Philip Hodgins, Dispossessed Paul Kelly, Dont Start Me Talking: Lyrics 19842004 Paul Kelly, Dont Start Me Talking: Lyrics 19842004

Table 1.

Poetry text identified amongst least popular in Exam Assessment Report 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
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Emily Dickinson, A Choice of Emily Dickinsons Verse Emily Dickinson, A Choice of Emily Dickinsons Verse Emily Dickinson, A Choice of Emily Dickinsons Verse John Silkin, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry John Silkin, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry (only in Part 2) Sylvia Plath, Selected Poems (1985) Sylvia Plath, Selected Poems (1985)

2007

Source: Exam Assessment Reports (VCAA 20017).

The Quiet American. The texts for which students received the highest mean marks in 2007 (Section 1, Parts 1 and 2) were: Sylvia Plath: Selected Poems; Hard Times; Hamlet; The Plague; and The Stories of Tobias Wolff. In both 2006 and 2007, Plaths poetry appears in this highest mean score category for both parts of Section 1. As yet it is not clear what can be made of this data, but it suggests a link, however tenuous, between the study of poetry and the ability to write well, at least in an exam. We are curious to unpack such statistics. A simplistic approach would suggest that only the strongest students write on the more challenging texts, leading to higher average results for those texts across the State. We believe that a broader range of factors must be in play, starting with the selection of texts that a given teacher or school makes for a given class or cohort. The Examiners Reports hold open another fascinating possibility: namely that the study of poetry may be connected to enhanced reading and writing skills more broadly. It is this latter question that we are most eager to explore. Poetry and Poetics is a compulsory unit of study for all undergraduate students of Literary Studies at Victoria University. Students normally undertake this unit in the second semester of their first year. About two thirds of the students who study Poetry and Poetics are enrolled in the Bachelor of Education course, and these are the people we targeted in our research. Because a compulsory first-year unit (or semester subject) wholly dedicated to poetry is unique to our institution within Australia, we were keen to examine the reactions of our students, both before and after the event. We were also interested to learn about any of their previous experiences of studying poetry in terms of how this might make an impact on their current attitude. We wondered whether these experiences would lead them to think favourably on the further study and eventually the teaching of poetry. As is usual with this sort of research, our delving revealed more than we had initially anticipated. We began by calling for volunteers to participate in semi-structured interviews during the week prior to the first poetry tutorial for Semester 2 (July to November),

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2009. Mary conducted the interviews on campus but on a confidential/anonymous basis, one-to-one and face-to-face. We kept sound recordings of the interviews, which were subsequently transcribed. Six kind souls consented, on the understanding that they would also be available for a follow-up interview after the conclusion of the semester, in 12 weeks time. Of the original six, five were indeed able to return for the follow-up interview; the sixth had transport difficulties and declined. We had obtained ethics approval for this research through Victoria University. Importantly, while this is a unit both of us have taught, neither of us were teaching it (or any of its students through other units of enrolment) during the semester of this research. That meant we had not met any of the interviewees prior to recruiting them for this research. For the first round of interviews we had five open-ended prompts or questions: (1) Please tell us about your current expectations and attitudes towards the study of poetry. (2) What do you think might have contributed to these expectations? (3) What experience of studying poetry have you had in the past? (4) How do you think this experience has influenced your present expectations and attitudes? (5) How would you describe the sort of person who might gravitate towards or enjoy studying poetry? The first and last questions were intended to give us a sense of the sort of image that these students had of the study of poetry. The other prompts were aimed at drawing out stories or narratives of the influence that the study of poetry had had on their perceptions of literature in general. In analysing the data, two features have surprised us. One is the lack of poetry study that students reported from their secondary school experience. Some stated categorically that they had not studied it at all; others recalled a few isolated poems. Most referred to experiences with poetry in the primary setting but an absence of poetry in the secondary school. The one exception to this is an immigrant student, Gaynah, who had completed all her primary and secondary schooling in her country of origin before moving to Australia. There, she said, poetry was an integral part of all language sessions the equivalent to our English study. Debates were held regularly on the literary merits of various poems. Her experience with this activity led her to make the following statement:
[Poetry] gives you the best way to put your feelings into words as well.

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During her first interview, we asked Gaynah: So what do you expect you might get from the study of poetry here? In reply, she acknowledged that she had found the study of poetry in the past not only to be fun but also formative in the development of vocabulary and writing skills:
Definitely vocabulary and writing skills, because I need that a lot. And I actually find it fun, reading other peoples words and translating to your own [ideas], what youre trying to get from there.

Gaynahs responses contrasted sharply with our first interview with Nathan, who completed all his schooling in Australia and claimed:

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With English we read heaps of books but never really experienced poetry.

Little wonder that when asked to elucidate his current expectations on the study of poetry he said:
To be honest with you Im expecting to be bored and confused.

By the time we conducted our second interview with Nathan at the end of the semester, his viewpoint had shifted. He remembered his previous attitude, and was quite clear about how the study of poetry fitted in with, and also expanded upon, what he already knew of literature:
Yeah, because I was saying I hadnt studied poetry before [and] I had no idea what to expect, Id never been exposed to it I guess I just realised that its more important than I initially thought, to study poetry, because I never really thought of it as such an influential type of writing. But yes, reading all these different kinds of poems and seeing the behind the scenes sort of thing about how its all written and the different rules and stuff like that, you appreciate how it fits into the whole literature aspect.

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A finding worth noting (and worthy of further research in its own right) is that students tend to undervalue or misrecognize the experiences of poetry in their lives before studying it in the focused manner of Poetry and Poetics. One of our respondents, Albert, has extensive experience of playing music in a band, for which he is the main songwriter. During his first interview, it was only after we suggested a link between poetry and the always metrical, often rhymed verses and choruses he composes that he seemed confident to discuss that link which he then did quite passionately.
Doing poetry is exciting, I guess, because Im excited about doing it and seeing how its structured and pretty much having to learn from the basics.

The misrecognition also includes previous study of poetry in a formal school setting. During her first interview, Gaynah (whom we have quoted above discussing the value of poetic expression) did not initially recognize that the poetry she had studied at school in her country of origin was any form of preparation for the approaches to reading and analysis that she would learn in Poetry and Poetics at Victoria University. Again, once we suggested the link to her, she discussed it confidently because she recognized it clearly but not beforehand, as this quote from the early stages of her first interview reveals:
Gaynah: Interviewer: Gaynah: This is my first time studying poetry. First time ever? Yes.

The two main findings here are clearly related. On the one hand, students come into Poetry and Poetics without much previous experience of poetry in their secondary English studies. On the other, students do not tend to recognize the relevance of the experiences they have had with poetic texts. This pair of factors must be a significant influence on student demand for poetry and yet the putative lack of student demand has been the lead excuse for an on-going running down of the study of poetry that we see in Victoria and other education systems. If the study of poetry is valuable, this political and economic cycle needs breaking.

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And what did the students think they got from Poetry and Poetics? Their answers were divergent of course, but all our second interviews shared an appreciation that reading different kinds of texts gave rise to different ways of reading texts, and that reading often-difficult texts cultivated stronger and more independent reading practices. Asked how the unit had compared with her expectations, Jacintas response was typical of the second round interviews:
Jacinta: Its sort of what I expected it to be but I didnt expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I expected it to be really boring but it was really interesting. Interviewer: You dont have to say that. Jacinta: But Im being serious. Im not lying. Id tell you if I hated it. I didnt hate it; I liked coming to the classes and it was interesting. I liked some weeks better than others because some things interested me more than others, but still I found that in the ones that I wasnt as keen on, they were still interesting.
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Jacintas happy surprise aligns her experience with findings from the OfSTED Report, which noted that, Generally, pupils in the schools visited enjoyed poetry, especially where teachers used active approaches (Office of Standards in Education 2007, 3). Although the reference there is to primary schools, we suspect that the same is very likely to be true of those few secondary schools in Victoria where poetry is taught to VCE English students. Nathans second interview also exemplifies this attitude of enjoyment. He described the study of poetry as a way of learning that led to what he called a better understanding of how to appreciate other forms of writing:
Thats what Im saying, yes, and thats how you can sort of appreciate the importance of the written word because its the ultimate form of quality over quantity. So thats why I found it really fascinating.

Nathans insight, surely, is at the heart of a pedagogical rationale for studying poetry: a sense of communicative quality (at the expense of quantity, if need be), of reading closely, of learning both how to handle and how to appreciate the heightened ambiguity of the poetic mode of expression. People who study poetry have the opportunity to learn deeper truths about, and develop more hard-won skills in, the difficult business of communication than those who do not. As the Victoria University experience of Poetry and Poetics shows, unless education systems expose students to the study of poetry in depth, it is a value that eludes or escapes most, unnoticed and unmissed. When those same students go on to become the English teachers, the school leaders, the curriculum developers and the role models for future English teachers, in their turn, this pedagogical bypassing becomes profoundly entrenched. One of the guiding aspirations we have for our research is to find clearer and more verifiable ways of establishing this point. The voices of these Poetry and Poetics students have demonstrably advanced that search. Notes on contributors
Dr Mary Weaven is a Lecturer in the School of Education at Victoria University (Melbourne), researching and teaching in the field of English education. Dr Tom Clark is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication and the Arts, also at Victoria University, researching and teaching in the fields of rhetoric and poetics. This article arises from an ongoing project of research into the place and purpose of poetry in the English Studies curriculum.

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M. Weaven and T. Clark

References
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