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INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON
ENGLISH TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

The fourth volume in the successful IFTE series provides an international perspective on the
knowledge and professional development of the English teaching workforce. It provides a
state-of-the-art review of English teaching and teachers and how they are developed over time.
With contributions from leading scholars around the world, this volume is divided into
four sections that follow the journey of an English teacher from being a student, to the latter
stages of professional development and becoming a teacher. It sheds light on how different
elements such as school culture, professional development, higher-level qualifications, pro-
fessional associations and government policies contribute or detract from retention and job
satisfaction.
International Perspectives on English Teacher Development serves as ideal reading for the
research and teacher education community along with teachers and student teachers globally.

Andrew Goodwyn is the President of The International Federation for the Teaching of
English and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is also a Professor and a Head of
The School of Education and English Language and a Director of The Institute for Research
in Education at The University of Bedfordshire, UK.

Jacqueline Manuel is a Professor of English Education in the Sydney School of Education

and Social Work at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Rachel Roberts is the subject lead for the Secondary English PGCE.

Lisa Scherff teaches English and AP Research at South Fort Myers High School in Florida,
USA.

Wayne Sawyer is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at Western Sydney

University, Australia.

Cal Durrant is the Secretary of IFTE (International Federation for the Teaching of English).

Don Zancanella is an Emeritus Professor in the College of Education and the Department
of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico, USA.
The National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE), founded in 1963, is
the professional body for all teachers of English from primary to Post-16. Through its
regions, committees and conferences, the association draws on the work of classroom
practitioners, advisers, consultants, teacher trainers, academics and researchers to
promote dynamic and progressive approaches to the subject by means of debate,
training and publications. NATE is a charity reliant on membership subscriptions. If
you teach English in any capacity, please visit www.nate.org.uk and consider joining
NATE, so the association can continue its work and give teachers of English and the
subject a strong voice nationally.
This series of books co-published with NATE reflects the organisation’s dedication
to promoting standards of excellence in the teaching of English, from early years
through to university level. Titles in this series promote innovative and original
ideas that have practical classroom outcomes and support teachers’ own professional
development.
Books in the NATE series include both pupil and classroom resources and academic
research aimed at English teachers, students on PGCE/ITT courses and NQTs.
Titles in this series include:

Teaching English Language 16–19, 2nd edition

A Comprehensive Guide for Teachers of AS and A Level English Language
Martin Illingworth and Nick Hall

Teaching English Language and Literature 16–19

Edited by Furzeen Ahmed, Marcello Giovanelli, Megan Mansworth and Felicity Titjen

Knowledge in English
Canon, Curriculum and Cultural Literacy
Velda Elliott

International Perspectives on English Teacher Development

From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional
Andrew Goodwyn, Jacqueline Manuel, Rachel Roberts, Lisa Scherff, Wayne Sawyer,
Cal Durrant and Don Zancanella

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

National-Association-for-the-Teaching-of-English-NATE/book-series/NATE
INTERNATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES ON
ENGLISH TEACHER
DEVELOPMENT
From Initial Teacher Education to
Highly Accomplished Professional

Edited by Andrew Goodwyn, Jacqueline Manuel,

Rachel Roberts, Lisa Scherff, Wayne Sawyer,
Cal Durrant and Don Zancanella
Cover image: © Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Andrew Goodwyn, Jacqueline Manuel,
Rachel Roberts, Lisa Scherff, Wayne Sawyer, Cal Durrant, and Don Zancanella;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Andrew Goodwyn, Jacqueline Manuel, Rachel Roberts,
Lisa Scherff, Wayne Sawyer, Cal Durrant, and Don Zancanella to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-367-76690-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-76691-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16814-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003168140
Typeset in Bembo
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
This volume is dedicated to all English teachers and celebrates their passion and exper-
tise. It is also especially dedicated to those teachers who go that ‘extra mile’, who belong
to professional associations, who help inspire beginning teachers, contribute to, or lead,
teacher education and professional development and who talk and write about English
teaching.
One such figure was Ken Watson, an Australian who made a huge contribution to
English teaching, and who sadly passed away in 2021 while this book was being pre-
pared. Ken was a very strong advocate of the importance of professional associations,
both in their role in professional development and also in their public advocacy roles.
Ken was on the Council of both his state (the New South Wales English Teachers
Association) and national associations (the Australian Association for the Teaching of
English) throughout the 1960s and 1970s, becoming Vice-President of the national
body. He was awarded Life Membership of both associations. Ken always had an
international outlook. He was a co-founder in the early 1990s of what was then the
International Association for the Improvement of Mother Tongue Education and has
since become the International Association for Research in L1 Education. Most impor-
tantly for this book, Ken played a significant role in the constitution of IFTE in its early
days as an official association and to him this book is dedicated.
In Ken Watson’s time, The International Federation for The Teaching of English
was a formal organisation comprising: The Australian Association for the Teaching of
English, The Canadian Council for Teachers of English Language Arts, The National
Association for the Teaching of English [UK], The National Council for the Teaching
of English* [US] and The New Zealand Association for the Teaching of English.
Currently, IFTE is a more informal group but is active in publication and running
an international conference, every three or four years; previous conferences over the
past 30 years were in New York, Melbourne, Winnipeg, the University of Warwick,
Auckland [2011], New York [2015] and the UK [in June, 2018 Birmingham]. The most
recent conference was hosted by The Australian Association in Sydney in July 2020, as
a virtual event.
NOTE: ELATE [English Language Arts teacher Educators] [formerly CEE
Conference on English Education] is a sub-division of NCTE which now belongs to
IFTE; it represents the research and teacher education community which has a mem-
bership itself of 1,200, representing almost all institutes of Higher Education that have
teacher education programmes.
CONTENTS

Editor and Contributor Biographies x

Introduction: The Remarkable Careers of English Teachers 1

Andrew Goodwyn

Section 1
What Makes an English Teacher 11

1 ‘I Can’t Imagine a Better Profession’: Factors Influencing

the Decision to Teach English 13
Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

2 Literature, University Education and the Making of

English Teachers 25
Wayne Sawyer, Larissa McLean Davies and Philip Mead

3 English Teachers as Readers: Identity and Knowledge 38

Matthew Sroka, Judith Franzak and Don Zancanella

4 Stylistics as Pedagogy: The Value of Literary Linguistics for

the Secondary Literature Classroom 49
Marcello Giovanelli

5 Becoming an English Teacher: An Arts-informed and

Inquiry-based Model of Initial Teacher Education 61
Janet Dutton and Jackie Manuel
viii Contents

Section 2
Initial Teacher Education 77

6 A Critical Overview of ITE in England 79

Rachel Roberts

7 On Mirages and Monsters: English Language Arts

for the Untimely 93
Dennis Sumara and Rebecca Luce-Kapler

8 Developing English Teachers in New Zealand: The Battle

for Professional Knowledge 105
Terry Locke

9 Balancing Intervention and Agency: Reform Agendas

and Innovations in Initial Teacher Education in Australia 120
Wayne Sawyer, Jacqueline Manuel and Cal Durrant

10 The Complex Enterprise of US Secondary English

Teacher Education 134
Marshall A. George, Melanie Shoffner and Lisa Scherff

11 Blending the Old with the New: Year-long Secondary

English Internships in Western Australia 146
Cal Durrant and Susan Ledger

12 Disruptive Synergy: Reframing the Policy-Practice Discourse

to Transform Teacher Education 159
Tiffany Karalis Noel, Amanda Winkelsas and Julie Gorlewski

Section 3
Life as an English Teacher 173

13 A Praxis of Pre-service English Teacher Writing: Walter

Benjamin and ‘Operating Writers’ in an Age of Standardisation 175
Graham Parr, Scott Bulfin and Fleur Diamond

14 Sustaining Professional Learning for Sustainable Rural

Contexts: The Power of the National Writing Project in
Developing Adaptive Expertise 188
James E. Fredricksen and Tanya Baker
 Contents ix

15 An Activist Democratic Model of Teacher Professional

Learning: The Teaching and Learning Caskets Imaginarium 200
Jacqueline Manuel, Claire Hansen and Liam E. Semler

16 Developing Teachers’ Writing Lives: A Case Study of

English Teacher Professional Learning 215
Don Carter and Joanne Yoo

17 The Fate of Critical Literacy in an Age of Standards-based

Hegemonies: The New Zealand Context 226
Susan Sandretto, Derek Shafer and Terry Locke

Section 4
Great Teachers of English 241

18 The Attrition of the Expertise of Teachers of English:

From the Rich Pedagogy of Personal and Social Agency to
the Poverty of the Powerful Knowledge Heritage Model 243
Andrew Goodwyn

19 Expert English Teachers as/in Groups 257

Wayne Sawyer

20 Long Time Becoming: The Role of Cultural Memory and

Professional Learning in Sustaining English Teaching 268
Fleur Diamond, Scott Bulfin and Graham Parr

21 Teachers of Writing Also Write: Insights from the Toronto

Writing Project 281
Ben Gallagher, Ashleigh A. Allen and Rob Simon

22 The Courage to Teach Today: What Do Teachers Need? 294

Ken Lindblom and Leila Christenbury

Index307
EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTOR
BIOGRAPHIES

Ashleigh A. Allen (she/her) is a writer, poet, educator, researcher and doctoral

candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of
Toronto. She has taught creative writing in classroom and community settings
for over a decade, first in New York City and, more recently, in Toronto. In both
places, she has sought alternative ways of being together with others that centre the
lives, desires and futures of the people, communities and land. Her research inter-
ests are teacher education, curriculum studies, literacy, arts education, pedagogy,
community research and care. She has been co-coordinator of the Toronto Writing
Project since 2018.

Tanya Baker is a teacher, writer and non-profit leader with more than 25 years
of experience working in education. She worked for more than a decade as a
high school English teacher and a literacy coach in schools in Maine where she
learned to teach through practice, study and, luckily, involvement in the University
of Maine Writing Project.
As the director of national programs at the National Writing Project, Tanya has
worked with myriad funders and in collaboration with teacher-leaders to build and
manage programs that connect educators to work together on areas of interest and
problems of practice that trouble and intrigue the Tanya has a particular interest in
what might be considered the liminal spaces of teaching writing, including writing
in the disciplines—especially writing as an integral part of doing science and history
and instruction that crosses boundaries, taking writing out of school and then back
in again.
For the past 20 years, Tanya has been committed to and shaped by the National
Writing Project’s mission (The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge,
expertise and leadership of our nation’s educators on sustained efforts to improve
 Editor and Contributor Biographies xi

writing and learning for all learners) and vision (The NWP envisions a future
where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner and active partici-
pant in a digital, interconnected world) and holds a deep commitment to practices
that respect teachers and students. She strives to design learning experiences that
begin with a presumption of competence and are relentlessly collaborative and
deeply joyful.

Scott Bulfin is an associate professor of English education in the School of

Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education at the Faculty of Education at
Monash University. His research and teaching focus on English teaching, teachers’
work and the sociology of educational technologies.

Dr Don Carter is a senior lecturer in education at the University of Technology

Sydney. He has a PhD; Master of Education (Honours; Literacy/ESL); Master of
Education (Curriculum); Bachelor of Arts; and a Diploma of Education. Don is a
former Inspector, English at the NSW curriculum and standards authority (NESA)
and led a range of projects including the development of the current English K-10
Syllabus. His research interests include the effects of standardised testing, literacy
pedagogies and curriculum theory and history. Don has published extensively on
a range of issues including curriculum reform, English education and mass liter-
acy testing and provided commentary and analysis across the full range of media
platforms. He has taught in government and non-government schools as a Head
Teacher English and has worked as an ESL consultant for the NSW Department of
Education.

Leila Christenbury is a Commonwealth Professor Emerita (Virginia common-

wealth University) and the author, co-author or editor of fifteen books and the
author of 100 chapters and articles on the teaching of English. A past president
of the National Council of Teachers of English and past editor of English Journal,
she is the recipient, among other honours, of the David H. Russell Award for
Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English. With a lifelong interest in the
secondary English classroom, at one point she returned to teach high school and
has also spent significant time observing teachers and students in a wide range
of school settings. At the university level, she has served as department chair and
interim dean. She is retired after 45 years in education and currently volunteers
at her state Library of Virginia, researching and writing short biographies of
women who worked in Virginia’s suffrage movement and African-American men
who served as legislators in Virginia’s Reconstruction Era. She can be reached at
lchriste@vcu.edu.

Fleur Diamond is a lecturer in the School of curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive

Education, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia. She leads and
teaches into coursework units in English education in the secondary years and
xii Editor and Contributor Biographies

literacy studies. Prior to her current role, she taught English for 14 years in secondary
schools in Melbourne. Her research interests include English teacher and teacher
educator identities, pedagogies of teacher education and literacies, including the
confluence of established and emergent literacy practices. Her most recent project
is ‘The cultural memory of English teaching’ (with Dr Scott Bulfin).

Cal Durrant retired as an associate professor in English curriculum and a Director

of the Literacy Research Hub at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney in
2013, but continued as part-time Research Officer of the innovative Pilbara Cities
Internship Program in the School of Education at Murdoch University in Perth,
Western Australia, until 2017. He is currently the Secretary of IFTE (International
Federation for the Teaching of English) and a foundation co-editor of the IFTE
book series on English Education for Routledge. He also spent 16 years on the
AATE (Australian Association for the Teaching of English) Council as Research
and Initiatives Officer and then Commissioning Editor of the highly acclaimed
Interface series. Cal’s research covers the areas of English literacy and technology and
media education, and over the past three decades, he has been involved in projects
that have applied ICTs to a range of teaching and learning contexts.

Janet Dutton is a senior lecturer in secondary English, Department of Educational

Studies, Macquarie University. She holds BA, Dip Ed, MA, Grad Dip Ed and
PhD in education and was the English Chief Examiner, NSW Higher School
Certificate. She is a Program Director of the Master of Teaching. Her research
focuses on teacher motivation, English curriculum and creative English pedagogy
in high-stakes contexts.

Judith Franzak is a professor of literacy studies at Salisbury University. Her

research interests include adolescent and adult readers, literacy in rural contexts and
secondary English language arts pedagogy. She is currently serving as senior editor
of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.

James E. Fredricksen is a professor of English education at Boise State University

and focuses his work on how people learn together, particularly as writers and as
teachers. He also collaborates with pre-K–12 teachers as a co-director of the Boise
State Writing Project where they work to develop and deepen educators’ expertise
by creating a network of professional support that fosters curiosity and inquiry,
builds relationships and collaborative opportunities and works to make classrooms
and school systems places of hope and possibility for everyone.

Ben Gallagher is a PhD candidate in curriculum and pedagogy at the Ontario

Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His dissertation
research investigates reading and writing practices in community poetry workshops,
drawing on the fields of critical literacy, teacher education and creative writing.
He has been co-coordinator of the Toronto Writing Project since 2018.
 Editor and Contributor Biographies xiii

Marshall A. George is the Olshan Professor of Clinical Practice at Hunter College

of the City University of New York. Marshall has worked in the field of English in
Education for more than 35 years. Beginning as a high school teacher of English
in 1987, and later a middle school teacher and administrator, Marshall became a
teacher educator in 1997, rising to the rank of Full Professor at Fordham University
before moving to Hunter College-CUNY. He has published extensively in peer-­
reviewed journals, has written and co-authored a number of book chapters and has
presented his work at educational conferences around the world. His scholarship
has focused on literature for young adults and adolescents and the preparation of
teachers of English language arts. He has held various leadership and service posi-
tions in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), including Chair of
the Conference on English Education (CEE) and member of both the NCTE and
CEE Executive Committees. He has also been on the Board of Directors of the
Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE and served as an editor of the
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education.

Marcello Giovanelli is a senior lecturer in English language and literature at Aston

University, UK. He has research interests in applications of Text World Theory and
Cognitive Grammar to literary discourse and in language and literature in education.
His books include Text World Theory and Keats’ Poetry (Bloomsbury, 2013), Teaching
Grammar, Structure and Meaning (Routledge 2014), Cognitive Grammar in Stylistics: A
Practical Guide (with Chloe Harrison, Bloomsbury 2018), New Directions in Cognitive
Grammar and Style (with Chloe Harrison and Louise Nuttall, Bloomsbury 2021)
and The Language of Siegfried Sassoon (Palgrave, 2022). He has published widely on
cognitive stylistics and applied linguistics in major international journals.

Andrew Goodwyn is currently a President of The International Federation

for the Teaching of English and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is
a professor and a head of The School of Education and English Language and
also Director of The Institute for Research in Education, at The University of
Bedfordshire, he is also Emeritus Professor at The University of Reading where he
was Head of Education [2007–2015]. He is convenor of the English in Education,
Special Interest Group as part of The British Educational Research Association
and Research Officer for The National Association of English Teaching. After
12 years’ teaching English in comprehensive schools in Coventry and London,
he moved to work in teacher education and research. He has been a member of
NATE for 35 years and is a former Chair. His research focuses on first language
education and on the concept of teacher expertise. He has published extensively
including single authored and edited books, contributed to many scholarly jour-
nals and given lectures and presentations around the world. He is on the editorial
board of numerous journals.

Julie Gorlewski, PhD, is a professor and a chair of the Department of Learning

and Instruction in the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo.
xiv Editor and Contributor Biographies

Research interests include teacher education, the cultivation of critical dispositions

and the role of assessment in perpetuating and interrupting educational inequities.
A former middle school and high school English teacher, she has published 15
books and numerous articles and served as co-editor of the National Council of
Teachers of English flagship publication, English Journal. As a scholar-activist, she
has led a wide range of initiatives supporting equity and justice in and through
education.

Dr Claire Hansen is a lecturer in English and writing at James Cook University. She
is also a member of the collaborative education project, Shakespeare Reloaded. Her
first monograph, Shakespeare and Complexity Theory, was published by Routledge in
2017. She is currently working on a place-based Shakespeare education project. Her
recent work on place and pedagogy in regional Australia was published in Text Journal.

Professor Susan Ledger is an advocate for the teaching profession and committed to
researching education policies and practices related to teaching and preparing to teach
diverse students and diverse contexts. She has led English and second language learn-
ing programs throughout her career and draws from lived experiences in rural, remote
and international school settings and university contexts. She has been involved in the
development and delivery of the First Steps Literacy program, developed Indonesian
and Second language materials for the Department of WA and developed a Series of
Big Books for the Asian Education Foundation. She has designed and implemented
language programs at the school, district and state levels. In higher education, she
has led primary literacy programs, taught Indonesian programs and run second lan-
guage acquisition workshops. Susan is currently researching Reading Aloud practices
and policies in schools and how we teach writing and transcription skills in primary
schools. She feels strongly about the need for all teachers to be fully understand how
language is acquired so that students can fully engage in learning.

Rebecca Luce-Kapler is a Dean of Education, Queen’s University, a professor

and a writer. She is the winner of the Michener Medal in Fine Arts for writing
and has published more than 50 poems and two books of poetry, most recently,
The Negation of Chronology: Imagining Geraldine Moodie.

Ken Lindblom is a professor of English at Stony Brook University (State University

of New York), where he teaches courses in rhetoric, writing and young adult lit-
erature. He was editor of English Journal from 2008 to 2013 and is a past executive
board member of the English Language Arts Teacher Educators of the NCTE.
He is co-author of five books on the teaching of English. At Stony Brook, he was
director of the English Teacher Education Program for 12 years and then served as
Dean of the School of Professional Development. He blogs at www.edukention.
com and can be reached at kenneth.lindblom@stonybrook.edu.
 Editor and Contributor Biographies xv

Terry Locke has had a longstanding interest in creativity, the arts, writing pedagogy
and interdisciplinary literacies. For 12 years, he was coordinating editor of the jour-
nal English Teaching: Practice and Critique. He has been widely published in a range of
journals. Recent publications include Developing Writing Teachers (Routledge, 2015)
and (co-editing with Teresa Cremin) Writer Identity and the Teaching and Learning
of Writing (Routledge, 2017). He is also a poet, his most recent publication being
Tending the Landscape of the Heart (2019, Steele Roberts).

Jacqueline Manuel is a professor of English education in the Sydney School of

Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is a Program
Director of the Master of Teaching (Secondary) Initial Teacher Education Program
and co-ordinates and teaches secondary English curriculum. Her areas of research,
scholarship and publications include: teacher professional development; theory,
pedagogy and student achievement in literary education, reading and writing; cre-
ativity in English education; Shakespeare in English education; and English curric-
ulum history.

Larissa McLean Davies is an associate professor/language and literacy education

at the University of Melbourne where she was previously Associate Dean/Learning
and Teaching in the Graduate School of Education. Her research spans the fields
of English education, literary studies and the teaching of Australian literature. She
has been a councillor on the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English and
an academic representative on panels for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
Authority. She is a former Editor of English in Australia and is currently leading the
Australian Research Council project Investigating literary knowledge in the making of
English teachers. She is a co-editor of Teaching Australian Literature: From Classroom
Conversations to National Imaginings for Wakefield Press.

Philip Mead was an inaugural Chair of Australian Literature and formerly a Director
of the Westerly Centre at the University of Western Australia. He is currently an
Emeritus Professor, University of Western Australia and a Honorary Professorial
Fellow in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne.
In 2015–2016, he was Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of
Australian Studies at Harvard University. Philip’s expertise is in literary studies with
a focus on Australian literature and the tertiary and secondary literary nexus. He
is currently a Research Officer for the Australian Association for the Teaching of
English (AATE) and is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council
project Investigating literary knowledge in the making of English teachers. Recent publi-
cations include: the co-authored Antipodal Shakespeare: Remembering and Forgetting
in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, 1916-2016 (Arden/Bloomsbury) and the
co-edited The Social Work of Narrative: Human Rights and the Cultural Imaginary
(Ibidem/Columbia University Press).
xvi Editor and Contributor Biographies

Tiffany Karalis Noel, PhD, is a Director of Doctoral Studies and Clinical Assistant
Professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction at University at Buffalo.
Her research interests include teacher education, professional socialisation and
identity development, mentoring relationships in STEM higher education and the
role of equity and inclusion in cultivating supportive and sustainable educational
environments. Her most recent publication, ‘Using Theories of Human, Social,
Structural, and Positive Psychological Capital to Explore the Attrition of Former
Public School Practitioners’ illuminates early-career challenges that affect K12
professionals and provides suggestions for educational leaders to improve the cli-
mate of current conditions.

Graham Parr is an Associate Dean (International) in Monash University’s Faculty

of Education and an associate professor of English education in the School of
Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education. He has led numerous collabora-
tive, cross-sectoral projects with English teachers and professional associations in
praxis-based partnerships. Book publications include: Re-imagining professional expe-
rience in initial teacher education: Narratives of learning (2018); Language and creativity in
contemporary English classrooms (2014); English for an Australian Curriculum: National
agendas, local settings (2011); and Inquiry-based professional learning: Speaking back to
standards-based reforms reforms (2010).

Rachel Roberts was an English teacher for 10 years before moving into HE; she
is now Associate Professor of English Education at the IoE, University of Reading,
where she runs the Secondary English PGCE and is a Deputy Director of the MA in
Education. She is also chair of the National Association for the Teaching of English
(NATE). Her research interests include mentorship, Initial Teacher Education, L1
English curriculum and pedagogy.

Susan Sandretto teaches and researches at the University of Otago College of

Education. Her research interests include critical multiliteracies, critical literacy,
gender issues in education and practitioner research. Her book, Planting seeds:
Embedding critical literacy into your classroom programme (2011), weaves together theo-
ries and practices of critical literacy in the New Zealand context. Susan is a former
primary school teacher.

Wayne Sawyer is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at Western

Sydney University, where he taught English education for 25 years. Wayne is a past
President of the New South Wales (NSW) English Teachers Association (ETA) and
past Chair of the NSW Board of Studies English Curriculum Committee. He is an
Honorary Life Member of both the NSW ETA and the Australian Association for
the Teaching of English (AATE). Wayne’s doctoral research was on English curric-
ulum history in NSW and he currently researches in the areas of secondary English
curriculum, curriculum history, literacy policy, literary knowledge and pedagogy
 Editor and Contributor Biographies xvii

in low SES schools. His recent books include the co-authored Engaging Schooling:
Developing Exemplary Education for Students in Poverty and the co-edited The Future of
English Teaching Worldwide: Celebrating 50 Years from the Dartmouth Conference—each
for Routledge. He is currently working on an Australian Research Council project
concerning literary knowledge and the making of English teachers.

Dr. Lisa Scherff began her teaching career in Florida in 1996, and after earning
her PhD in 2002 she moved to the college level, working 11 years as a teacher
educator at the University of Tennessee, the University of Alabama and the Florida
State University. In 2013, she returned to the public school system, where she
taught several courses in the AICE and AP programs and served as department
chair. Most recently, she began teaching at the Community School of Naples.
Lisa has been very active in the academic community, serving in a variety of
elected, appointed and volunteer positions with the National Council of Teachers
of English (NCTE), including President of the Alabama Council of Teachers of
English and Chair of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award. She has pub-
lished more than 25 peer-reviewed articles and co-authored/co-edited seven books.
An award-winning educator, she received the UA College of Education’s Faculty
Excellence Award (2008) and the American Library Association’s Intellectual
Freedom Award (2008) and was selected as Lee County Schools’ Secondary English
Teacher of the Year (2016). Her research foci include teacher preparation and devel-
opment, opportunity to learn and discussion and analysis of young adult literature.

Liam E. Semler is a professor of early modern literature at the University of

Sydney and a leader of the Better Strangers project which hosts the Shakespeare
Reloaded website. He is an editor of The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources
and Documents 1500 –1700 (Routledge, 2019), an author of Teaching Shakespeare
and Marlowe: Learning versus the System (Bloomsbury, 2013) and a co-editor (with
K. Flaherty and P. Gay) of Teaching Shakespeare beyond the Centre: Australasian
Approaches (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Derek Shafer is a lecturer at the University of Waikato’s Division of Education,

specialising in secondary initial teacher education, English curriculum practice,
critical literacies and pedagogies. His interests and current PhD research build on
his experience as a secondary English teacher, focusing on supporting secondary
teachers’ critical thinking and pedagogy in practice.

Melanie Shoffner is a professor of education at James Madison University in

Harrisonburg, Virginia (USA), specialising in English language arts education.
Prior to JMU, she held a joint appointment as an Associate Professor of English
Education in the Departments of English and Curriculum & Instruction at Purdue
University (West Lafayette, Indiana, USA). Dr. Shoffner is the editor of English
Education, the flagship journal of the professional organisation English Language
xviii Editor and Contributor Biographies

Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE). In 2016–2017, she was a Fulbright Scholar in

Romania, teaching courses in adolescent literature and secondary ELA pedagogy.
Dr. Shoffner’s scholarship examines the dispositional development and reflective
practice of preservice teachers. Her work has resulted in four edited books and
numerous articles and book chapters, as well as international and national seminars,
workshops and conference presentations.

Rob Simon is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching

and Learning, an Academic Director of the Centre for Urban Schooling and a
Director of the Toronto Writing Project at the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education of the University of Toronto. His scholarship explores critical literacy
and participatory research with youth and teachers. More information is available at
www.addressinginjustices.com and www.torontowritingproject.com.

Matthew Sroka is a high school English teacher on the Eastern Shore of Maryland
at Queen Anne’s County High School. A recent graduate from Salisbury University’s
EdD program in Contemporary Curriculum Theory and Instruction: Literacy, his
research interests include the reading habits and identities of English teachers.

Dennis Sumara is a professor of language and literacy education at the University

of Calgary. His areas of research and teaching include literacy education, queer
studies in education, curriculum theory and teacher education.

Amanda Winkelsas, PhD, is a director of the UB Teacher Residency Program

and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Learning & Instruction at
the University at Buffalo. She also serves as the Graduate School of Education’s
Assistant Dean for Outreach and Community Engagement. A former middle- and
high-school English teacher, her current teaching and research efforts focus on
cultivating diversity in the teaching profession, community-centered models of
teacher education and understanding the impact of such models on teacher quality,
diversity and retention.

Dr Joanne Yoo has qualifications in teaching English and ESL to secondary stu-
dents. She began her career teaching academic literacy and research writing in
South Korea, where she explored the methodologies of autoethnography and
narrative inquiry. She has taught in pre-service teacher education across a wide
range of subjects in the primary and secondary teacher education program at UTS.
Joanne’s research interests include developing collaborative teaching partnerships,
teaching as an embodied practice, action research and arts-based research method-
ologies, such as narrative inquiry and autoethnography. She is involved in profes-
sional development for practising teachers in Australian schools on effective writing
pedagogies, teacher research and project-based learning. Her research projects have
included developing teacher and student skills as creative writers and developing
 Editor and Contributor Biographies xix

teachers as writers to strength their approaches to teaching writing. She is currently

working on a project with Australian and Korean teachers in inquiry-based learning
and intercultural awareness for primary school-aged children.

Don Zancanella is a professor emeritus in the Department of Language, Literacy,

and Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico. A former middle-school
and high-school teacher, his areas of interest include the teaching and learning of
literature, English language arts teacher education, the teaching of writing, writing
in literary forms, education policy and testing. In addition to his research and writ-
ing about literacy, he is the author of a collection of short fiction and two novels.
He can be contacted at zanc@unm.edu.
INTRODUCTION
The Remarkable Careers of English Teachers

Andrew Goodwyn

This volume, the fourth in the IFTE series (see Dedication), ambitiously offers
an insight into the education of English teachers, knowing that it is a subject that
would well deserve several volumes to itself. We have divided the volume into
four sections to provide a sense of the journey of the English teacher from being
a student of language and literature and encountering significant teachers, to the
latter stages of professional wisdom and expertise when one might become such an
inspirational teacher. The volume is not a typical ‘Handbook’, with serried rows of
descriptive chapters about each country exhaustively describing this is what we do
in country ‘x’, it successfully achieves a far more stimulating approach by balancing
being comprehensive with providing deep insights into teacher knowledge and
expertise in specific and nonreductive contexts. As a truly international volume, it
ranges across the globe, recognizing cultures and contexts and their special charac-
ters but identifying many unifying themes and dimensions in reviewing the fun-
damental elements that determine the education and expertise of English teachers.
The volume was conceived and initiated before the pandemic and does not try
to encompass the disruptive power of that great crisis. It will be a long time before
the pandemic can be judged for its impact on teacher understanding and exper-
tise. The chapters in this volume celebrate and analyze the depths of professional
knowledge and wisdom accrued over the last, and into this, century. The subject
of English itself was already facing some severe challenges and external pressures
to conform to neoliberal ideas of what should be its content and how it must be
assessed. A considerable proportion of the chapters demonstrate how English teach-
ers have struggled and resisted these pressures, holding on to their personal and
professional integrity and maintaining their expertise. However, there is also plenty
of evidence that these pressures are distorting and damaging teacher autonomy and
passion for their subject, making this volume especially timely as the world learns
to ‘live with Covid’.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003168140-1
2 Andrew Goodwyn

Section 1: What Makes an English Teacher?

The volume opens with a thorough review (Manuel and Dutton) of the interna-
tional literature concerning what makes an English teacher choose the profession.
The findings have been very consistent over many years that a passion for and
love of English and literature; a desire to work with young people; and the goal of
‘making a difference’ are the most commonly identified motivations for becoming
an English teacher. These findings demonstrate that a large part of ‘what makes
an English teacher’ continues to be the deeply felt intention to pursue a person-
ally meaningful, intellectually rewarding and socially oriented career that will be
demanding – there is a passionate desire to be constantly challenged. Another very
consistent factor is the powerful memory of a remarkable teacher of English, typ-
ically one who made literature come alive for the student. One theme of anxiety
in this volume is about the constraints on current English teachers that may signifi-
cantly reduce the power of that influence in classrooms where literature has become
more of a functional interaction about ‘knowledge’.
Chapter 2 (Sawyer, McClean Davies and Mead) focuses on the ongoing uncer-
tainty about the relationship between English Literature departments in universities
and teacher education programs. Based on a major Australian research project, it
highlights the patchy relationship between these two elements of the education
of English teachers, some of course do not come through a Literature degree.
However, across the globe, as chapter 1 illustrates, the great majority do take the lit-
erary route but what they have actually studied is massively varied. In essence, what
matters is that they have experienced a wide and challenging range of texts and are
in a good place to adapt that knowledge to high school teaching. It is interesting
how rarely English teachers reference their university teachers as their inspirations.
The other factor the chapter touches on is whether literature departments should
be thinking about the employability of their graduates and so offering units aimed
at helping future teachers.
Chapter 3 (Sroka, Franzak and Zancanella) provides connections with chapters 1
and 2 but the focus is on English teachers as lifelong readers. That early ‘love of
reading’ before becoming a teacher comes through clearly, but also how the reading
teacher evolves and adapts through life history. This chapter discusses the reading
lives of 5 US high school teachers, once more providing the detail of a case study
approach but demonstrating the more global theme of the sustaining relationship
of English teachers to texts throughout their professional and personal lives. This
chapter reveals, as with much of my own research, that relationship is complicated
and troublesome. That old guilt trip about only reading ‘quality’ literature persists
but the delight and pleasure of enjoying many texts also persist. An area of exper-
tise that emerges from the chapter is in US terms YA texts (Young Adult), but a
common theme internationally. It is clearly an established genre with extraordinary
power, with Harry Potter being a supreme example, but also blurring lines when
key school texts, for example, ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’, become part of a high
school canon for adolescent readers.
 Introduction 3

Chapter 4 in this opening section identifies that old grey elephant in the room
‘Language’. It is all very well celebrating English teachers’ formative experiences as
readers of literature and later as Mathiesson put it so well in 1985, being preach-
ers of culture, but much of their classroom lives are spent with the raw material
of literature, that is the English language. Marco Giovanelli’s chapter provides a
challenging and stimulating address to the balancing act of literature and language.
He argues for the value of specialist language study for young people and then the
potential for undergraduate literature degrees to provide more linguistic studies.
He then offers examples of classroom work with teachers such as the experiences
of working on Text World Theory and the Cognitive Grammar project, demon-
strating the value of providing explicit opportunities for teachers to develop their
expertise in language and stylistics so as to develop meaningful ways of drawing
on stylistics as a pedagogical tool in the English classroom. He also touches on the
longstanding debates about grammar, one of the political footballs that periodically
lead to English teachers getting a good kicking for not ‘enforcing’ standard English.
We are partly reminded of the dominance of English as a first language in the five
IFTE countries, however diverse their populations. We might say that literature in
English, from all five countries, has a predominant influence on novice and experi-
enced English teachers and forms the core of their professional identity. This must
be acknowledged as a great and sustaining strength, not least because of its pro-
foundly affective qualities and its intractable relationship to the person who is the
reader and the teacher. However, most English teachers plainly see their education
as lacking knowledge about language.
Chapter 5 in this section, ‘Becoming an English teacher: An Arts-informed and
inquiry-based model of Initial Teacher Education’, provides a perfect bridge to the
next section. Jackie Manuel and Linda Dutton explore a model of initial teacher
education (ITE) – the ‘Arts-informed Inquiry-based’ model – for pre-service sec-
ondary English teachers at the University of Sydney, and the model takes as its
starting point that teacher identity – what beginning teachers believe about teach-
ing and learning and self-as-a-teacher – is of vital concern to teacher education;
it is the basis for meaning making and decision-making. Teacher education must
begin then, by exploring the teaching self. This model is both ITE and English
teacher identity formation and beginning teachers think about the self-contextually
and developmentally and, through writing extended narratives, stretch their imag-
inations to consider alternative conceptions of teaching and self-as-teacher. This
chapter exemplifies how the Personal Growth model of English for school students
is also the best model for the growth of beginning and career English teachers.

Section 2: The Beginnings of Expertise: The Fundamental

Importance of Initial Teacher Education
This section offers insights into the ITE of English teachers in the major IFTE
countries revealing a plethora of programs and methods. As with all other sub-
jects, there is the vexed relationship between university-based time and that in
4 Andrew Goodwyn

school settings – sometimes described as theory (university) and practice (school).

However, the chapters reveal that such a distinction is neither accurate or helpful.
Equally the chapters consider how teaching has become a graduate subject but one
that might be honestly conceptualized as in the second tier of professions – heavily
relied on by society but also taken for granted. English ITE attracts considerable
political attention, particularly in England as a nation-state and at ‘state’ level in the
USA. The nature of subject English continues to defy simplistic reduction leading
to overt attempts to define it through external institutions, accrediting bodies and
inspectorial regimes.
Chapter 6 from Rachel Roberts describing England reveals an especially fraught
scenario where persistent government intervention over more than 30 years has
seen constant demands and constraints and an underlying move to drive ITE out
from universities and into schools exclusively. The great majority of beginning
teachers have just one academic year to become Newly Qualified Teachers, about
half experiencing the HE route, the PGCE, but many on routes such as School
Direct and Teach First where ‘training’ sessions are limited to a few days.
Dennis Sumara and Rebecca Luce-Kapler (Chapter 7) offer radical visions for
the future of Canadian English Language Arts Teachers. They first deconstruct
what they see as the patronizing and self-congratulatory default of Canadian culture
and its schooling to position itself as a fine, liberal and inclusive society par excel-
lence. They challenge English teachers to recognize and address the ‘monsters’ in
the room that allow for such a complacent attitude. They argue that

we have become intensely aware of our ageism; our systemic racism towards
Black, Asian and Indigenous peoples; our unwillingness to acknowledge that
homeless people are people; and that our frontline workers include black and
brown poorly paid immigrant women and men who often work in unsafe
conditions.

They argue for English teachers to accept a radical agenda in their classrooms and
to address the monsters in society from the past and the present.
Terry Locke (Chapter 8) reviews New Zealand’s model of teacher education to
reveal similar pressures on the schools beginning English teachers must work in via
assessment demands and heavy pressure on teacher autonomy. However, his focus
on the views of the key teacher educators providing ‘teacher training’ demonstrates
a very strong commitment to a progressive model of English, profoundly contex-
tualized in the local cultural context of New Zealand. He notes the marketization
impacting on the literature departments that future teachers come from and reflects
on his own long experience in the field of teacher education where pressures devel-
oped from research demands and Ministry of Education requirements. His research
shows the steady narrowing of the conceptualization of teacher professionalism in
New Zealand and how it has influenced ITE, but in this international volume, the
context that the teacher educators provide still seems to offer much autonomy and
intellectual opportunity to beginning English teachers.
 Introduction 5

Chapter 9, ‘Reform agendas in Initial Teacher Education in Australia’ by Wayne

Sawyer, Jacqueline Manuel and Cal Durrant, reminds us of the oppressive seman-
tic that the term ‘reform’ now conveys in education. It demonstrates not just the
extraordinary increase in externally driven requirements on providers of ITE across
Australia at national and state levels but also the mammoth expansion of bureau-
cracy and regulation. As the authors articulate, there is much in the various ‘stand-
ards’ to be achieved and ‘evidence’ to be provided that is what the English-teaching
profession would agree is important. However, that is the law and the spirit of these
measurable outcomes is very much infused with the notion that ITE providers are
not ‘raising’ standards, which means that standards in schools are ‘falling’ – and so
the downward spiral continues. A subject like English with such flexibility and flu-
idity and where the personal expression of the teacher is part of the joy of the work
is being homogenized into uniformity.
One theme that dominates this section is complexity and chapter 10 ‘The
Complex Enterprise of US Secondary English Teacher Education’ certainly
demonstrates how ITE for future English teachers must feel bewildering to experi-
ence. Marshall George, Melanie Shoffner and Lisa Scherff review many complex-
ities from what ‘English’ may be called to conflicting national-level and state-level
demands and regulations. And as they point out English itself will constantly evolve:

Traditionally integrating the study of literature, composition, and language (a

component that ranges from grammar and vocabulary to speech and debate),
English has evolved through the years to also incorporate the study of me-
dia, technology, and multiple literacies. Students in today’s secondary school
English classes are as likely to read adolescent literature as canonical novels,
compose tweets as well as essays, analyze print and digital advertisements as
well as poetry, create short films as well as group presentations.

These points remind us that no matter how regulated and stipulated governments
at national or state level try to make what it means to become an English teacher,
the subject itself will be what attracts and inspires future generations. These future
teachers were enthralled and inspired by English in school, then by study in higher
education and they enter teaching for its intrinsic value to develop future literate
and literary citizens.
Teacher internships are not a new phenomenon and have been an alternative
approach to ITE programs for over a century. In ‘Blending the Old with the New:
Year-long Secondary English Internships in Western Australia’, Cal Durrant and
Susan Ledger (Chapter 11) remind us that ITE is always dominated by the theory–
practice relationship. How is an ‘internship’, different to a ‘placement’, the terminol-
ogy related to internships includes: extended placements, school monitors, bonded
programs, apprenticeship models, training-school models, teach for all models, clin-
ical models and residences. The authors explore the view that 12-month extended
placements or ‘internships’ are a viable and sustainable option for ITE practicums
that can better prepare 21st-century pre-service teachers for being both work- and
6 Andrew Goodwyn

classroom-ready by their first year of teaching. The many quotations in the chap-
ter from the interns illustrate how their formative identity as English teachers is a
constant challenge.
Can teacher educators and classroom teachers be heard by policymakers? In
‘Disruptive Synergy: Reframing the Policy-Practice Discourse to Transform
Teacher Education’ (Chapter 12), Julie Gorlewski, Tiffany Karalis Noel and Amanda
Winkelsas offer some radical ideas about how English teachers might be able to stay
true to their early career values as Agents of Change. They state confidently:

Decades of research have contributed to the identification of effective prac-

tices for teachers in the area of English Language Arts. We know what works,
and we know much about what does not work. Educators at all levels are
familiar with how schools perpetuate social inequities, and English teachers
understand the ways that language and literacies reproduce existing power
relations inside and outside of academic institutions. It is evident that, despite
the dedication of generations of English teachers, teacher educators, research-
ers, and policymakers, English instruction and assessment remains persistently
resistant to reform.

They argue for a new synergy, perhaps led by English specialists, that can dis-
rupt positivist, antidemocratic policy practices that perpetuate social injustice and
early-career teacher attrition, thereby tracing a path toward equity for all groups
affected by educational policy.

Section 3: Life as an English Teacher: Continuous Learning and

Professional Growth
In any consideration of the formative identity of English teachers, reading features
hugely, as demonstrated in this volume. Writing always occupies a less central place
and yet it must be seen as absolutely central to the value of English teaching. In
chapter 13, Parr, Bulfin and Diamond draw on the long-standing influence of
Marxist critic and commentator, Walter Benjamin, and especially his concept of
the author as producer to describe their work over many years with pre-service
English teachers. They propose five interconnecting discourses that underpin how
they engage their student teachers with their writing practices: (i) writing as text
production, (ii) writing as social action, (iii) writing as professional learning, (iv)
writing as identity work and (v) writing as knowledge work. Fundamentally, they
critique recent trends in the teaching of writing in schools across the world, arguing
that in many countries, the agency of writers in schools and in teacher education
is under significant threat from an ideological imperative to standardize writing
and writing pedagogy. In critiquing this trend, this chapter belongs in a section on
the lives of English teachers. The authors demonstrate that although their student
teachers feel the pressure to confirm to mandated writing assessments, they never
 Introduction 7

the less display great creativity and agency in writing in many different forms that
challenge standardized assumptions and impositions.
One of the unintended consequences of the legacy of the romantic elements of
the English literary canon are some rather sentimental constructs of English rural
life. Rural communities are themselves not sentimental; life is too demanding. In
English in education, we may also be rather too absorbed by that great majority of
our students who are decidedly urban. So, it is a great addition to this volume to
include chapter 14 by Fredricksen and Baker, which offers a thorough examination
of deep and profound professional learning amongst rural high-school teachers that
sustains them and their students. The chapter also celebrates the long and pro-
found benefits of the National Writing Project, here refined to develop the adaptive
expertise of potentially isolated English teachers and students in rural schools whose
communities are experiencing challenges as profound as any of those in the cities.
The authors rightly point out that educators in rural and remote schools, for exam-
ple, in South Africa, Scotland, Canada, USA, Pacific Island Nations and Australia,
each create opportunities for students to work on the challenges their communities
face in the aims of being environmentally, socially, culturally and economically
sustainable.
This volume is full of inspiring accounts of English teachers and their passion for
their subject and one – almost obsessive – locus of emotional gravity is Shakespeare.
In chapter 15, Manuel, Hansen and Semler not only provide a remarkable account
of teacher’s professional development focused on Shakespeare, but they also capture
the joyfulness of teacher learning and inspiration. Few chapter titles capture both
the radical energy of English teachers and their imaginative and poetic devotions,
but ‘An activist democratic model of teacher professional learning: The Teaching
and Learning Caskets Imaginarium’, certainly celebrates both comprehensively.
As with a number of other chapters, they challenge the techno-rationalist, mana-
gerialist and standards-driven version of teaching that has given rise to ubiquitous
technologies of performativity. Their activist democratic model stands in direct
contrast to that prevailing ideology and its hallmarks include: nonhierarchical,
inclusive decision-making processes; active trust, respect and reciprocity; inquiry
and research-oriented experiences; and teachers working collectively and creatively
with external partners to seed novel ideas, propagate fresh perspectives on the famil-
iar and the conventional and enrich teaching practice.
It is of great value in this volume to have chapter 16 devoted to developing
teachers as writers who are then more confident teachers of writing. Carter and
Yoo provide a case study of such a development, once more connecting with
the tradition of the US National Writing Project. They also confront what they
deem, ‘coercion’, which signals teacher’s unwilling participation in high-stakes
systemic compliance requirements including Australia’s standardized testing pro-
gram (NAPLAN) and the NSW school leaving credential examinations; as well as
the implementation of local classroom requirements such as tests, assignments and
teacher-directed activities. Their approach was to involve volunteer teachers who
8 Andrew Goodwyn

wished to build their knowledge, skills and confidence in their own writing. The
project’s success led to teachers realizing an identity as a writer and demonstrated
the positive flow-on effects for their students. This was achieved by teachers and
students writing in a partnership model through sharing ways of facilitating authen-
tic and innovative writing strategies and practices. As with a number of chapters,
Carter and Yoo both demonstrate and facilitate how authentic models of English
teaching can still thrive and resist ‘coercion’.
No volume considering the education of English teachers would be complete
(chapter 17) without some focus on ‘critical literacy’. In ‘Critical literacy in an age
of narrowed outcomes for English: The Aotearoa New Zealand context’, Susan
Andretto, Derek Shafer and Terry Locke critically examine the New Zealand cur-
riculum and state-mandated assessment policies and practices to identify the extent
to which the underlying discourses are conducive to the enactment of critical liter-
acy practices in primary and secondary classrooms. They argue that critical literacy,
however, well known amongst theorists, has an insecure place in subject English
classroom practice in most Anglophone settings but Australia and South Africa are
the exceptions. They state there is little evidence that critical literacy has become
embedded in American and Canadian English classrooms. The same can be said
for England where the National Curriculum has long been heavily oriented to
cultural heritage and the traditions of canonical literary criticism. Fundamentally,
they argue that critical literacy is an urgent ethical and moral imperative for all
English/literacy teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand but also in other educational
settings.

Section 4: Great Teachers of English: Celebrating Teacher Expertise

Chapter 18 (Andrew Goodwyn) reviews conceptualizations of the developing
expertise of English teachers and uses, as a lens, the history of selected professional
development initiatives over 40 years, some local, some national, some interna-
tional. It analyzes a relatively recent, potentially damaging distortion to the nature
of the expertise of English teachers, charting the way that the progessive model of
pedagogy, which is central to good English teaching, has been increasingly over-
taken by the ‘knowledge rich’ movement, leading to English itself being dimin-
ished and dessicated, reducing its attraction to students and future teachers. Two
interlinked factors are at work. One is the neoliberal attack on the humanities as
not sufficiently vocational. The second is the reduction in teacher expertise and
agency, producing a mediocre classroom experience for teachers and students. One
neoliberal feature in England is the emergence of The Lead Practitioner of English,
and typically, these are proponents of the ‘Knowledge Rich’ curriculum movement,
which is critiqued in the chapter. It is argued that the value imbued expertise, char-
acterized as The Personal and Social Agency model, is being replaced by a Powerful
Knowledge Heritage model. Essentially, the rich and fluid, student-centred peda-
gogy of expert English teachers, developed over many years, is being constrained
and reduced to a dull, knowledge transmission ‘delivery’ mode.
 Introduction 9

Wayne Sawyer’s chapter (chapter 19) explores collective models of English

teachers and the issue of the effectiveness of English teachers as subject departments,
or as related groups such as action research groups, in shaping and determining
meaningful academic engagement and/or strong academic outcomes for students.
He questions how strong engagement and/or outcomes are achieved, is this to
some degree because of the work of groups of teachers, discussing three research
projects/programs that raise these issues. The first reports on the work of a number
of teachers whose students achieved consistently outstanding outcomes in the end-
of-schooling high stakes tests. The second follow-up project reports on groups of
teachers (such as in English Faculties) – who achieved outstanding outcomes in the
junior high school. The last project reports on a program of research in low-­socio-
economic status contexts, which focuses on strong student engagement related to
teachers being part of collaborative action research. As the volume makes clear,
English teachers learn huge amounts from each other and from their shared relent-
less care and concern for their students. Experienced English teachers are also the
essence of reflective practitioners as the chapter’s account of action research models
makes explicit.
In ‘Long time becoming: The role of cultural memory and professional learn-
ing in sustaining English teaching’ (chapter 20), we examine the history of English
teaching through its most experienced practitioners. Fleur Diamond, Scott Bulfin
and Graham Parr explain how ‘The cultural memory of English teaching’ study
helped them conceptualize professional learning across the span of long careers
and examine the role of professional learning in sustaining English teachers. Their
research with veteran teachers reveals that professional learning was, for the study
participants, inseparable from genuine intellectual engagement and opportuni-
ties to connect subject English to wider concerns about the role of education.
These commitments were expressed in and through collegial work in schools and
beyond. Understanding professional learning work was also identity work – a work
of becoming – demonstrating the open endedness and sociality of learning to teach
and becoming a teacher. Learning to see one’s self as a teacher of English was cou-
pled with intellectually engaging work on the problems of practice facing other
English teachers, as well as the wider significance of subject English for an inclusive
and democratic education system. It must be stated that remembering is not nostal-
gia, and it is simply clear that English teachers had profound agency and their belief
in the possibility that society could be changed was equally profound. The energy
and optimism of these memories must inspire future teachers to hold on to a love
of English teaching that will sustain them through this current period of dismal
conformity and distrust.
In ‘Teachers of Writing Also Write’, we have chapter 21 that adds poetic force
to one theme of the volume that concerns the global contamination that is for-
mulaic writing in classrooms. Ben Gallagher, Ashleigh A. Allen and Rob Simon
explore their insights from the Toronto Writing Project and welcome readers into
the freeing space of their workshops. For some older readers, there will be a power-
ful resonance with the decades of the sixties and seventies when similar ideas about
10 Andrew Goodwyn

writing as a personal expression and making of meaning had real credibility and
effects on teachers’ practice around the world. The chapter considers the authors’
work together in the Toronto Writing Project and an ongoing series of creative
writing workshops for teachers and teacher educators. Their work draws on cur-
rent scholarship on the writing practices of teachers of writing the importance of
attending to the act of writing itself separate from any specific writing goals or
forms of writing, the links between writing pedagogy and explorations of social
issues and injustices and the importance of collaboration and community to the
practice of writing. This chapter adds another voice to the chorus in the volume
urging English teachers to enjoy the act of writing themselves in both senses, that is
doing writing and writing into their identity self. The chapters across the volume
also argue for a form of pedagogy where the teacher and students are learning to
write together and the achievement is shared and celebrated.
It is fitting to conclude this volume with chapter 22 that is a clarion call to
English teachers to demonstrate their courage. It is important to distinguish
between the simple courage of being a teacher, facing classes in hostile environ-
ments, the graft and sweat of learning to teach day in and day out however one is
feeling – the painful progress from novice to accomplished teacher – and the cur-
rent global scenario of a form of teacher phobia. The teaching profession has been
assaulted and gagged and bound by proliferations of attacks and controls. English
teachers, those notoriously student-centred and progressive educators, have been
neoliberal enemy number 1. In this chapter, Ken Lindblom and Leila Christenbury
face these challenges head on and ask ‘The Courage to Teach Today: What Do
Teachers Need?’ They articulate that courage, of different types, is needed in the
current teaching of English and identify and explore six forms of courage required
to be a strong, effective, sustained veteran English teacher in today’s social, political
and economic climates: Content Courage; Expertise Courage; Social/Emotional
Courage; Reputation Courage; Advocacy Courage; and Self Courage. Some of the
emphases in this chapter are strongly from the USA, but the overall message and the
deeper concerns about the embedding of white supremacy in the literature and lan-
guage of English are of profound importance to every English teacher, everywhere.

Last Words
One of the great pleasures of teaching English, at whatever age level, is the sheer
variety and range of the subject and also the wonderful unpredictability of what
students will say and do – there really is ‘never a dull moment’. At least that was
generally true, but some recent external demands seem determined to make English
dull to teach and even duller to study. This volume demonstrates that English teach-
ers have extraordinary depths of knowledge, expertise and passion for their subject
and will do everything they can to make English the best subject to teach with its
own very special pedagogy and classroom character.
SECTION 1
What Makes an English Teacher
1
‘I CAN’T IMAGINE A BETTER
PROFESSION’
Factors influencing the decision to teach English

Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

Introduction
I have decided to become an English teacher because I love English and I love work-
ing with people, so I can’t imagine a better profession.
(Pre-service English teacher, quoted in Dutton, 2017, p. 45)

As a starting point for this section of the volume exploring ‘what makes an English
teacher’, our focus in this chapter is on the factors influencing the decision to
become a teacher of secondary school English. We know from research literature
that the initial motivations prompting the decision to teach play a critical role not
only in mediating the pre-service and early-career stages of teacher development
(cf. Gore et al., 2016; Mansfield et al., 2012) but also in determining the level of
commitment to teaching over the span of a career (Day, 2017). From her review
of the literature in the field, Heinz found that initial motivations are ‘substantially
influential in the subsequent development of pre-service teacher education students
and, eventually, when they become teachers’ (p. 259). Amidst widespread concerns
about teacher shortages and turnover rates, this relationship between the durability
or otherwise of initial motivations and patterns of teacher recruitment, retention
and attrition is of particular significance for the English teaching profession, given
the subject has mandatory status in the curriculum in most English-speaking coun-
tries around the world and English teachers constitute the largest cohort of subject
teachers in our schools.
Our interest here is confined to a synthesis of the key findings from a number
of empirical studies conducted with intending, pre-service and early-career English
teachers. Each of these studies has sought to more fully understand the reasons why
individuals are attracted to the English-teaching profession and offer a range of

DOI: 10.4324/9781003168140-3
14 Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

insights that can inform current and future policy directions and practice in English
teacher recruitment, retention and professional development.

Research on the motivation to teach

There is a substantial corpus of literature reporting on empirical studies of the ini-
tial motivations to teach, regardless of the subject specialisation (cf. Brookhart and
Freeman, 1992; Bullough, 1997; Bullough and Hall-Kenyon, 2011; Clandinin et al.,
2015; Ewing and Smith, 2003; Flores and Day, 2006; Flores and Niklasson, 2014;
Glutsch and König, 2019; Gore et al., 2016; Heinz, 2015; Kyriacou and Coulthard,
2000; Kyriacou and Kunc, 2006; Kyriacou, Kunc, Stephens and Hultgren, 2003;
Lortie, 1975; Manuel and Hughes, 2006; Maxon and Mahlios, 1994; Richardson
and Watt, 2006, 2012; Reid and Caudwell, 1997; Serow, 1994; Sinclair, 2008;
Sugrue, 1997; Tudhope, 1944; Valentine, 1934; Watt and Richardson, 2007, 2008,
2012; Yee, 1990). There are far fewer international studies that specifically examine
the initial motivations to teach secondary school English. Of these, there is a pre-
dominance of research conducted in England (Ellis, 2003; Goodwyn, 2004, 2012;
Goodwyn and Findlay, 1999; Jarvis and Woodrow, 2005; Manuel and Brindley,
2005; Reid and Caudwell, 1997) and Australia (Doecke, Loughran and Brown,
2000; Dutton, 2017; Manuel, 2003; Manuel and Carter, 2016; Moon and Harris,
2016; O’Sullivan, 2007; Watt and Richardson, 2012).
Survey- or questionnaire-based inquiries figure prominently, with many stud-
ies asking participants to rank a series of motivations from most to least important
in their decision to teach. The handful of qualitative studies in the field adopt
a case-based methodology (Dutton, 2017; O’Sullivan, 2007). There is one com-
parative study of pre-service English teachers in England and Australia (Manuel
and Brindley, 2005). Across the studies, a range of cohorts are represented:
undergraduate English majors (cf. Ellis, 2003); undergraduates commencing or
part-way through an undergraduate initial teacher education (ITE) programme
(cf. Goodwyn, 2004, 2012; Moon and Harris, 2016); pre-service teachers in
graduate-entry ITE programmes (cf. Dutton, 2017; Manuel and Brindley, 2005;
Jarvis and Woodrow; 2005); and early-career teachers (cf. Manuel and Carter,
2016). To date, there have been no longitudinal studies tracking the role of sec-
ondary English teachers’ initial motivations from entry into ITE, through the
pre-service, early-career and subsequent career stages.
Before turning to the key findings of studies of secondary English teachers’ moti-
vations, it is instructive to frame the discussion with an overview of the major
themes of research on initial teacher motivation more generally.

A snapshot of research on the factors influencing the decision

to teach
The international literature in the field has typically applied a taxonomy of ‘intrinsic,
altruistic and extrinsic’ motivations to categorise and interpret individuals’ reported
 ‘I can’t imagine a better profession’ 15

reasons for choosing to teach (Heinz, 2015). Over many decades, research findings
demonstrate a remarkable consistency in the dominance of intrinsic and altruistic
motivations as the over-riding ‘pull’ factors of teaching as a career. Intrinsic moti-
vations, the most prominent motivations documented in the research literature,
encompass the individual’s love of their subject and an attachment to the perceived
inherent value of the subject as a ‘way of naming and framing the world’ (Palmer,
1998, p. 42) and shaping one’s identity. Intrinsic motivations can be understood to
emerge from the individual’s values and subjectivities and are therefore ‘rooted in
personality and experience’ (Kagan, 1992, p. 163). Intrinsic motivations can also be
fuelled by:

• the individual’s passion, enthusiasm and personal desire (Davies, 1996; Dutton,
2017; Goodwyn, 2004, 2012; Yee, 1990);
• hopefulness and optimism about the potential of education to alter lives for the
better (Manuel and Brindley, 2005);
• the appeal of agency, self-efficacy and self-determination (Watt and Richardson,
2012);
• the promise of work satisfaction through meaningful ‘connectedness’ with
students and colleagues (Palmer, 1998); and
• a view of teaching as a ‘calling’, a ‘vocation’, a ‘mission’ and a ‘dream’ (Bullough
and Hall-Kenyon, 2011; Mathieson, 1975; Protherough and Atkinson, 1991).

In relation to the last point about the conceptualisation of teaching and the self-as-
teacher, Serow (1994) reported that pre-service teachers who perceive teaching as
a ‘calling’:

display significantly greater enthusiasm and commitment to the idea of a

teaching career, are more mindful of its potential impact on other people,
are less concerned about the sacrifices that such a career might entail, and are
more willing to accept the extra duties that often accompany the teacher’s role.
(p. 70)

The second most commonly invoked reasons for choosing to teach are altruistic.
These motivations are characterised by a socially oriented purpose or what Lortie
(1975/2002) termed the ‘service’ and ‘interpersonal’ themes (pp. 27–32). Altruistic
motivations have strong historical associations with teaching based on nineteenth
century notions of ‘teaching as a special mission’ (Lortie, 1975, p. 29). Altruistic
motivations include the desire to:
• ‘make a difference’ by contributing to the betterment of individual lives
and society more broadly;
• enhance social equity; and
• forge a meaningful, service-based career centred on working with young
people.
(cf. Heinz, 2015)
16 Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

Altruistic motivations are typically co-extensive and consonant with intrinsic moti-
vations, with the former directed to horizons and ideations beyond the immediacy
of the self, and the latter deeply integral to the teacher’s personal and professional
identity (Dutton, 2017). Taken together, intrinsic and altruistic motivations ‘repre-
sent[s] a distinctive and deep service ethic’ (Bullough and Hall-Kenyon, 2011, p. 128)
commensurate with an optimistic belief in the transformative power of individual
and collective agency. In relation to this service theme, and bound up with the view
of teaching as a vocation, Heinz (2015) notes that ‘from the perspective of a social
justice agenda, teachers are … expected to be social activists who are committed to
diminishing educational disadvantage as well as broader inequities of society’ (p. 258).
Far less evident in individuals’ reported reasons for choosing to teach are extrin-
sic factors such as material benefits; remuneration; ‘time compatibility’ (Lortie,
1975/2002, p. 31); the portability or transferability of qualifications; the status of
the profession; job security; and teaching as a fallback career (cf. Brookhart and
Freeman, 1992; Bullough and Hall-Kenyon, 2011; Dutton, 2017; Flores and Day,
2006; Goodwyn, 2004, 2012; Heinz, 2015; Kyriacou and Coulthard, 2000; Lortie,
1975/2002; Manuel and Brindley, 2005; Manuel and Carter, 2016; Manuel and
Hughes, 2006; 2012). Some research studies, however, suggest that extrinsic factors
assume more significance the longer a teacher has been in the profession (Bullough
and Hall-Kenyon, 2011; Day, 2017; Heinz, 2015). While salary, for example, may
not figure prominently as a ‘pull’ factor in the initial decision to teach, it becomes
a more salient variable for some in proportion to the longevity of a teacher’s career
(Heinz, 2015; Lortie, 1975/2002).
This hierarchy of intrinsic, altruistic and extrinsic motivations for choosing to
teach has remained stable in the findings of studies in the field over many dec-
ades. Equally consistent have been findings that reinforce the status of teaching as
a career that individuals are attracted to rather than because it is easy to enter or an
easy ‘fallback’ career (Sinclair, 2008; Watt et al., 2012). Instead, it is regarded as a
career of choice, often made in the face of strong experiences of social dissuasion
(Richardson and Watt, 2006); largely independent of salary considerations, and in
the knowledge that it will be a highly demanding but rewarding career (Manuel
and Hughes, 2006; Richardson and Watt, 2006). Of note in the research studies is
that a career in teaching has been and continues to be a choice made by far greater
numbers of females than males. This is most marked for early childhood teachers
and less so for secondary school teachers (Richardson and Watt, 2006).

Factors influencing the decision to teach English

The findings of studies with prospective teachers of English strongly align with the
findings of studies with secondary teachers more generally in that the most highly
ranked reasons for choosing to teach English are intrinsic and altruistic. Within
these intrinsic and altruistic categories, however, the motivations of secondary
English teachers tend to reveal a greater emphasis on an intrinsic attachment to the
subject than is the case for teachers in other curriculum specialisations (Ellis, 2003).
 ‘I can’t imagine a better profession’ 17

For example, when aspiring teachers of English articulate their motivations, they
commonly speak of ‘a passion or love for English (literature)’, along with allusions
to ‘dreams’, ‘visions’ and ideations of teaching as an enduring cycle of influence
(Manuel, 2003). The following reflections of pre-service English teachers are illus-
trative of these themes:

I have decided to become an English teacher because of my passion for

English.
(Pre-service English teacher, quoted in Dutton, 2017, p. 125)

My answer, then, to what kind of teacher I want to be is that I will start with
the essential ingredient of love and place a strong emphasis on social inter-
action, empathy towards others and the fascination of English as a subject.
(Pre-service English teacher, quoted in Manuel, 2003, p. 139)

Intrinsic and altruistic motivations to teach English

The findings from more than 30 years of empirical research reinforce the primacy of
these kinds of emotion-laden intrinsic motivations to teach English. In Goodwyn’s
(1992, 2012) studies with cohorts of pre-service English teachers in England, for
instance, the top-ranked motivations were:
1. Love of/enthusiasm for/passion for the subject
2. Working with young people
3. Love of literature/reading
4. Being good at the subject.
(2012, p. 219)

Similarly, in a study with 339 pre-service English majors in undergraduate ITE pro-
grammes in England, Ellis (2003) found that in response to an open-ended question
about the motivations to teach English, 75% of participants identified a ‘love of/
enthusiasm for the subject of English’ that encompassed ‘love of/enthusiasm for the
subject ‘, ‘love of literature’, ‘love of language’, ‘love of drama’, ‘love of creative
writing’ and ‘love of poetry’ (p. 10). The next most common responses were: ‘want
to work with children’ (34.9%); ‘want to make a contribution to society’ (16.7%);
and ‘my own English teacher inspired me’ (14%) (p. 10).
A slightly different ranking was evident in Manuel and Carter’s (2016) research
with 22 early-career English teachers in Australia who reported the most important
factors influencing their decision to teach were:
1. Making a difference in people’s lives
2. Love of literature
3. Love of a wide range of texts
4. Love of English as a subject.
(p. 94)
18 Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

The elevation of the altruistic motivation (making a different in people’s lives) may
reflect the shift in emphases brought about by the cohort’s transition from ITE to
accredited professional, working in schools.
A decade earlier, a comparative study of newly enrolled pre-service English
teachers in graduate-entry ITE programmes at the University of Cambridge and
the University of Sydney (Manuel and Brindley, 2005) found that despite the differ-
ences in geographical and educational contexts, there was a uniformity of reported
motivations:
1. Personal fulfilment/fulfilment of a dream
2. Enjoyment/love of/passion for English
3. Working with young people
4. Desire to contribute to society.
(p. 42)

This study highlighted another recurring theme in the research literature on ini-
tial motivations: the potential influence of the pre-service teacher’s own experi-
ences of English as a student and that of an English teacher. From the sample, 87%
agreed that ‘there is, or has been, a significant teacher or mentor who influenced
the decision to become a teacher’ (p. 44). Significant others, often in the form of
‘iconic teachers’ (Cook, 2009), are not only frequently cited as an influence but also
recalled when pre-service teachers conceptualise the kind of teacher they would
like to become (Dutton, 2017; Flores and Day, 2006).

Enacting a cycle of influence

Two more recent studies (Moon and Harris, 2016) underline the role of inspi-
rational teachers and positive experiences of teaching and learning as a student.
Moon and Harris (2016) reported that 54 of the 71 participants (76%) in their
Australian study attributed the influence of a memorable teacher to their decision
to teach (p. 50). Likewise, Watt and Richardson (2012) found that the second
highest-ranked motivation for 113 pre-service teachers of English was their prior
experiences of teaching and learning, of which a teacher is an implicit part (p. 365).
These insights point to the extent to which an effective English teacher can
shape an individual’s ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975/2002) as a stu-
dent: the resultant tapestry of beliefs, values, expectations and lay theories can play a
pivotal role in the choice of teaching as a career. This cycle of influence is captured
in a pre-service English teacher’s reflection on their reasons for teaching:

I was lucky enough to have a fantastic teacher who was supportive in my

development … to show me how literature can enrich your life. I would
like to give other students the same opportunity … and hopefully trigger a
lifetime desire for reading.
(Pre-service English teacher, quoted in Dutton, 2017, p. 125)
 ‘I can’t imagine a better profession’ 19

The prevalence of such references in the literature to a ‘fantastic teacher’ as a key

motivating factor suggests that the influence of English teachers on future genera-
tions of educators is more than merely a matter of ‘luck’. Rather, it speaks to the
quality, agency and potency of the work of the English-teaching profession more
broadly. Importantly, it is also evidence of the extent to which the intrinsic and
altruistic motivations that provoked the decision to teach (e.g. inspiring a love of
literature and making a difference) are tangibly realised through teachers’ lasting
impact on the personal lives and professional life choices of their students.
Individuals may enter ITE programmes carrying an internalised set of ‘epis-
temic assumptions’ (Reid, 1996, p. 32) about the formative role of the subject
in shaping their own lives and its anticipated influence on the selfhood and life
chances of the students they will teach, based on their own experience of English
in schools. If, as Palmer maintains, we are drawn to teach a certain subject because
‘it shed light on our identity as well as on the world’ and it ‘evoked a sense of self
that was only dormant in us before we encountered the subject’s way of naming
and framing life’ (Palmer, 1998, p. 25), then the decision to teach English can be
understood as being inseparable from an individual’s subjectivities, biography and
envisioned future.

Extrinsic motivations to teach English

When it comes to extrinsic motivations, the findings of empirical studies with
aspiring and pre-service English teachers support those of international studies
of initial motivations more generally in which extrinsic factors are ranked as the
least important set of motivations to teach (cf. Heinz, 2015). Prospective teach-
ers of English (and other specialisations) may report extrinsic motivations as less
influential in their decision to teach for a number of reasons. Lortie proposed
that teachers may ‘underplay the role of material rewards as a result of normative
pressures, which require teachers to emphasise more their dedication and service
role’ (1975/2002, p. 30). These normative pressures have a deep historical and
culturally contingent source: teaching is typically constructed as a ‘knowing and
caring profession’ (Delors et al., 1996), attracting people who are assumed to be
driven by interpersonal, intrapersonal and elevated ideals that do not immediately
accord with or accommodate more material, commercial and pragmatic motiva-
tions. This constructed paradigm of teaching as a service-oriented profession can
militate against prospective teachers’ prioritising of extrinsic motivational factors: a
pattern repeatedly reflected in the research findings and one that bears out Lortie’s
argument.
Prospective teachers’ low ranking of extrinsic motivations, however, can also
operate as powerful political, ethical and moral levers utilised by employing author-
ities to regulate and constrain teachers’ salaries and working conditions. Further,
these extrinsic factors may account for why people do not choose to teach, or do
not teach once they are qualified, or resign from teaching after a period of time
(Manuel and Hughes, 2006, p. 11).
20 Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

Risks to the durability of initial motivations

One study with early-career secondary school English teachers in Australia (Manuel
and Carter, 2016) gathered data on the extent to which the initial motivations to
teach had retained their currency and cogency after one, two, three or four years of
teaching. Research in the field of teacher motivation indicates that ‘the factors that
attract individuals to teaching … may, in turn, influence how long they may remain
in their teaching role’ (Heinz, 2015 p. 2). Understanding the durability of initial
motivations is therefore critical to addressing issues of teacher retention, particularly
in the early-career stage.
In Manuel and Carter’s study, more than 90% of the 22 participants identified a
‘love of English as a subject’ and ‘making a difference in people’s lives’ as key moti-
vational factors in their decision to teach (p. 97). Three-quarters of the participants
stated that their initial motivations to teach have been generally affirmed in their
daily working lives. Interestingly, of the three-quarters who responded positively
to this question, a majority were teachers in their first one, two and three years
of teaching. Those who were more equivocal about the durability of their initial
motivations were in their third or fourth year of teaching. Of these, a majority
indicated that they were ‘unsure’ about or could not see themselves teaching in
five years into the future (p. 100). Significantly, the proportion of participants who
expressed doubt about their future career broadly aligns with the research figures on
early-career teacher attrition: that is, between 20% and 50% of teachers will leave
the profession within their first five years of teaching (Ingersoll, 2001; Lindqvist,
Nordanger and Carlsson, 2014; Skilbeck and Connell, 2003).
These conclusions suggest that a teacher’s initial motivations may be diluted
in proportion to the length of time teaching. Bullough and Hall-Kenyon’s (2011)
research, for example, found that ‘teachers who have 6–10 years of experience
reported having a lower sense of calling compared to any of the other groups’
(p. 134), supporting Yee’s (1990) conclusion that altruistic and intrinsic motivations
to teach may diminish over time.
When asked about the greatest risks to sustaining their initial motivations, the
most common responses in the Manuel and Carter study (2016) were:

• dealing with constraints on time due to syllabus content;

• reconciling the wonder and passion for exploring literature for pure
enjoyment whilst balancing the need for rigorous assessment in the
classroom;
• preparing students for high-stakes examinations’;
• classroom management;
• time management (professional and personal);
• wellbeing and workload;
• challenges around differentiation in teaching, student engagement,
motivation, and behaviour.
(p. 96)
 ‘I can’t imagine a better profession’ 21

Many responses alluded to the challenge of having to recalibrate the internalised

expectations and ideals of the self-as-teacher. The teachers’ initial altruistic goals
and intrinsic hopes, especially in relation to their ‘love of literature’, were disturbed
by the exigencies and utilitarian burdens of real classrooms and school systems.
More than 90% of participants named the prescriptive demands of syllabus content
and the omnipresence of external, high-stakes examinations and testing regimes as
having a limiting effect on their daily work as teachers, inhibiting their pursuit of
their more holistic goals of inspiring a love of literature and texts (p. 97).
Goodwyn’s (2012) research with English teachers in England reported compara-
ble major concerns about the distorting impact of instrumentalist testing and exam-
ination programmes on the teaching of literature, student engagement and students’
attitudes to literary study. Many teachers in Goodwyn’s study expressed ‘extreme
frustrations’ (p. 220) at the ever-widening gulf between their beliefs about the pur-
pose of teaching English and the ‘subject paradigm’ and ‘subject pedagogy (Ball
and Lacey, 1995) inscribed in official syllabus documents. These findings support
Liston and Garrison’s (2004) view that ‘teachers have loving, caring and connecting
reasons for doing things that mere instrumental rationality will never know’ (p. 10).

Concluding reflections
This brief exploration of the research on the factors influencing the decision to
teach English affirms the high degree of consistency in the ranking of intrinsic and
altruistic motivations. A passion for and love of English and literature; a desire to
work with young people; and the goal of ‘making a difference’ are the most com-
monly identified motivations for becoming an English teacher, repeated in research
findings over many decades. These findings tell us that a large part of ‘what makes
an English teacher’ continues to be the deeply felt intention to pursue a personally
meaningful, intellectually rewarding and socially oriented career that will ask much
of them in terms of the sustained physical, cognitive and emotional demands of
teaching. An English teacher is made and sustained by subjectivities, ‘passionate
striving’ (Halpin, 2006, p. 338), and a commitment to investing in the lives and
communities of those they teach. Despite the shifts in the status of the profession
and the intensified workloads that now characterise teachers’ work, individuals con-
tinue to choose to teach for these reasons.
The findings from research have a number of implications. Firstly, it is necessary
to conduct further and larger-scale inquiries not only into initial motivations but
also into the relationship between initial motivations and the levels of commitment
and satisfaction in the early and subsequent career stages. Understanding the role of
initial motivations in sustaining a teaching career is critical to addressing the chal-
lenges of teacher retention and attrition. Policies and systems that do not create the
conditions for teachers to maintain these altruistic and intrinsic motivations put at
risk their ‘long-term resilience and commitment’ (Manuel and Hughes, 2006, p. 21).
Secondly, there is the need for professional learning, standards frameworks
and accountability regimes to more fully recognise the foundational role of initial
22 Jacqueline Manuel and Janet Dutton

motivations in ongoing teacher development by incorporating a more visible and

systemic – and therefore legitimated – space for teachers to attend to their ‘teaching
self ’, both individually and collegially (see Chapter 13 in this volume) instead of
focusing exclusively on skills development, compliance requirements and policy
information dissemination.
Thirdly, it is incumbent upon those who work with new teachers – in teacher
education programmes, mentoring roles and as experienced colleagues in schools –
to acknowledge, advocate for and nurture the new teacher’s idealism and personally
significant reasons for choosing to teach and choosing to continue to teach. As
Garth Boomer so aptly expressed in ‘How to Make a Teacher’ (1993), support
them with ‘your teaching wisdom; a set of beacons for the dark-side of pedagogy;
anchors in the storm of post-modernity; infinite generators and liberators for hard
times’ (Boomer, 1993, p. 3).

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evening. He returned to the shrubs at the gap where they had
waited, but there he could find no trace of her at all. Then he walked
all round Earlswood, but it was shrouded in darkness. Finally, his
taximan having refused to wait for him and all traffic being over for
the day, he set out to walk to London, which he reached between
three and four o’clock.
He had some coffee at a stall and then returned to his hotel, but
by seven he was once more at Horne Terrace. Eagerly he raced up
the steps and knocked at No. 12. There was no answer.
Suddenly a white speck below the door caught his eye, and
stooping, he saw the note he had pushed in on the previous evening.
Joan evidently had not yet returned.
 Chapter XI.
Otto Schulz’s Secret
Cheyne, faced by the disquieting fact that Joan Merrill had failed
to reach home in spite of her expressed intention to return there
immediately, stood motionless outside her door, aghast and
irresolute. With a growing anxiety he asked himself what could have
occurred to delay her. He knew her well enough to be satisfied that
she would not change her mind through sudden caprice. Something
had happened to her, and as he considered the possibilities, he grew
more and more uneasy.
The contingency was one which neither of them had foreseen,
and for the moment he was at a loss as to how to cope with it. First,
in his hot-blooded way he thought of buying a real pistol, returning to
Earlswood, and shooting Blessington and Dangle unless they
revealed her whereabouts. Then reason told him that they really
might not know, that Joan might have met with an accident or for
some reason have gone to friends for the night, and he thought of
putting the matter in Speedwell’s hands. But he soon saw that
Speedwell had not the means or the organization to deal adequately
with the affair and his thoughts turned to Scotland Yard. He was
loath to confess his own essays in illegality in such an unsympathetic
milieu, but of course no hesitation was possible if Joan’s safety was
at stake.
Still pondering the problem, he turned and slowly descended the
stairs. He would wait, he thought, for an hour or perhaps two—say
until nine. If by nine o’clock she had neither turned up nor sent a
message he would go to Scotland Yard, no matter what the
consequences to himself might be.
Thinking that he should go back to his hotel in case she
telephoned, he strode off along the pavement. But he had scarcely
left the doorway when he heard his name called from behind, and
swinging round, he gazed in speechless amazement at the figure
confronting him. It was James Dangle!
For a moment they stared at one another, and then Cheyne saw
red.
“You infernal scoundrel!” he yelled, and sprang at the other’s
throat. Dangle, stepping back, threw up his hands to parry the
onslaught, while he cried earnestly:
“Steady, Mr. Cheyne; for heaven’s sake, steady! I have a
message for you from Miss Merrill.”
Cheyne glared wrathfully, but he pulled himself together and
released his hold.
“Don’t speak her name, you blackguard!” he said thickly. “What’s
your message?”
“She is all right,” Dangle answered quickly, “but the rest of it will
take time to tell. Let us get out of this.”
Some passers-by, hearing the raised voices, had stopped, and a
small crowd, eager for a row, had collected about the two men.
Dangle seized Cheyne’s wrist and hurried him down the street and
round the corner.
“Let’s go to your hotel, Mr. Cheyne, or anywhere else we can
talk,” he begged. “What I have to say will take a little time.”
Cheyne snatched his wrist away.
“Keep your filthy hands to yourself,” he snarled. “Where is Miss
Merrill?”
“I am sorry to say she has met with a slight accident,” Dangle
replied, speaking quickly and with placatory gestures; “not in any
way serious, only a twisted ankle. I found her on the road on my way
back from chasing you, leaning up against the stone wall which runs
along the lane at the back of Blessington’s house. She had hurt
herself in climbing down to get the tracing which you threw over. I
called my sister and we helped her into the house, and Susan
bathed and bound up her ankle and fixed her up comfortably on the
sofa. It is not really a sprain, but it will be painful for a day or two.”
Cheyne was taken aback not only by his enemy’s knowledge, but
also by being talked to in so friendly a fashion, and in his relief at the
news he felt his anger draining away.
 “You’ve got the tracing again, I suppose?” he said ruefully.
Dangle smiled.
“Well, yes, we have,” he agreed. “But I have to admit it was the
result of two lucky chances; first, my sister’s and my return just when
we did, and second, Miss Merrill’s unfortunate false step over the
wall. But your scheme was a good one, and with ordinary luck you
would have pulled it off.”
Cheyne grunted, and Dangle, turning towards him, went on
earnestly: “Look here, Mr. Cheyne, why should we be on opposite
sides in this affair? I have spoken to my partners, and we are all
agreed. You are the kind of man we want, and we believe we could
be of benefit to one another. In fact, to make a long story short, I am
authorized to lay before you a certain proposition. I believe it will
appeal to you. It is for that purpose I should like to go somewhere
where we could talk. If not to your hotel, I know a place a few
hundred yards down this street where we could get a private room.”
“I want to go out and see Miss Merrill.”
“Of course you do. But Miss Merrill was asleep when I left and
most probably will sleep for an hour or two yet, so there is time
enough. I beg that you will first hear what I have to say. Then we can
go out together.”
“Well, come to my hotel,” Cheyne said ungraciously, and the two
walked along, Dangle making tentative essays in conversation, all of
which were brought to nought by the uncompromising brevity of his
companion’s responses.
“You’d better come up to my bedroom,” Cheyne growled when at
last they reached their goal. “These dratted servants are cleaning the
public rooms.”
In silence they sought the lift and Cheyne led the way to his
apartment. Bolting the door, he pointed to a chair, stood himself with
his back to the empty fireplace and remarked impatiently: “Well?”
Dangle laughed lightly.
“I see you’re not going to help me out, Mr. Cheyne, and I suppose
I can scarcely wonder at it. Well, I’ll get ahead without further delay.
But, as I’ve a good deal to say, I should suggest you sit down, and if
you don’t mind, I’ll smoke. Try one of these Coronas; they were
given to me, so you needn’t mind taking one. No? I wonder would
you mind if I rang and ordered some coffee and rolls? I’ve not
breakfasted yet and I’m hungry.”
With a bad grace Cheyne rang the bell.
“Coffee and rolls for two,” Dangle ordered when an attendant
came to the door. “You will join me, won’t you? Even if my mission
comes to nothing and we remain enemies, there’s no reason why we
should make our interview more unpleasant than is necessary.”
Cheyne strode up and down the room.
“But I don’t want the confounded interview,” he exclaimed angrily.
“For goodness’ sake get along and say what you have to say and
clear out. I haven’t forgotten the Enid.”
“No, that was illegal, wasn’t it? Almost as bad as breaking and
entering, burglary and theft. But now, there’s no kind of sense in
squabbling. Sit down and listen and I’ll tell you a story that will
interest you in spite of yourself.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Cheyne said with sarcasm as he flung
himself into a chair, “but if it’s going to be more lies about St. John
Price and the Hull succession you may save your breath.”
Dangle smiled whimsically. “It was for your sake, Mr. Cheyne;
perhaps not quite legitimate, but still done with the best intention. I
told him that yarn—I admit, of course, it was a yarn—simply to make
it easy for you to give up the letter. I knew that nothing would induce
you to part with it if you thought it dishonorable; hence the story.”
Cheyne laughed harshly.
“And what will be the object of the new yarn?”
“This time it won’t be a yarn. I will tell you the truth.”
“And you expect me to believe it?”
Dangle leaned forward and spoke more earnestly.
“You will believe it, not, I’m afraid, because I tell it, but because it
is capable of being checked. A great portion of it can be
substantiated by inquiries at the Admiralty and elsewhere, and your
reason will satisfy you as to the remainder.”
“Well, go on and get it over anyway.”
Dangle once more smilingly shrugged his shoulders, lit his cigar
and began:
“My tale commences as before with our mutual friend, Arnold
Price, and once again it goes back to the year 1917. In February of
’17 Arnold Price was, as you know, third mate of the Maurania, and I
was on the same ship in command of her bow gun—she had guns
mounted fore and aft. I hadn’t known Price before, but we became
friends—not close friends, but as intimate as most men who are
cooped up together for months on the same ship.
“In February ’17, as we were coming into the Bay on our way
from South Africa, we sighted a submarine. I needn’t worry you with
the details of what followed. It’s enough to say that we tried to
escape, and failing, showed fight. As it chanced, by a stroke of the
devil’s own luck we pumped a shell into her just abaft the conning
tower after she rose and before she could get her gun trained on us.
She heeled over and began to sink by the stern. I confess that I’d
have watched those devils drown, as they had done many of our
poor fellows, but the old man wasn’t that way inclined and he called
for volunteers to get out one of the boats. Price was the first man to
offer, and they got a boat lowered away and pulled for the
submarine. She disappeared before they could get up to her, and we
could see her crew clinging to wreckage. The men in the boat pulled
all out to get there before they were washed away, for there was a bit
of a sea running, the end of a southwester that had just blown itself
out. Well, some of the crew held on and they got them into the boat;
others couldn’t stick it and were lost. The captain was there clinging
on to a lifebelt, but just as the boat came up he let go and was
sinking, when Arnold Price jumped overboard and caught him and
supported him until they got a rope round him and pulled him
aboard. I didn’t see that myself, but I heard about it afterwards. The
captain’s name was Otto Schulz, and when they got him aboard the
Maurania and fixed up in bed they found that he had had a knock on
the head that would probably do for him. But all the same Price had
saved his life, and what was more, had saved it at the risk of his
own. That is the first point in my story.”
Dangle paused and drew at his cigar. As he had foretold, Cheyne
was already interested. The story appealed to him, for he knew that
for once he was not being told a yarn. He had already heard of the
rescue; in fact he had himself congratulated Price on his brave deed.
He remembered a curious point about it. A day or two later Price had
been hit in an encounter with another U-boat, and he and Schulz had
been sent to the same hospital—somewhere on the French coast.
There Schulz had died, and from there Price had sent the mysterious
tracing which had been the cause of all these unwonted activities.
“We crossed the Bay without further adventures,” Dangle
resumed, “but as we approached the Channel we sighted another U-
boat. We exchanged a few shots without doing a great deal of harm
on either side, and when a destroyer came on the scene Brother
Fritz submerged and disappeared. But as luck would have it one of
his shells burst over our fo’c’sle. Both Price and I were there, I at my
gun and he on some job of his own, and both of us got knocked out.
Price had a scalp wound and I a bit of shell in my thigh; neither very
serious, but both stretcher cases.
“We called at Brest that night and next morning they sent us
ashore to hospital. Schulz was sent with us. By what seems now a
strange coincidence, but what was, I suppose, ordinary and natural
enough, we were put into adjoining beds in the same ward. That is
the second point of my story.”
Again Dangle paused and again Cheyne reflected that so far he
was being told the truth. He wondered with a growing thrill if he was
really going to learn the contents of Price’s letter to himself and the
meaning of the mysterious tracing, as well as the circumstances
under which it was sent. He nodded to show he had grasped the
point and Dangle went on:
“Price and I soon began to improve, but the blow on Schulz’s
head turned out pretty bad and he grew weaker and weaker. At last
he got to know he was going to peg out, as you will see from what I
overheard.
“I was lying that night in a sort of waking dream, half asleep and
half conscious of my surroundings. The ward was very still. There
were six of us there and I thought all the others were asleep. The
night nurse had just had a look round and had gone out again. She
had left the gas lit, but turned very low. Suddenly I heard Schulz,
who was in the next bed, calling Price. He called him two or three
times and then Price answered. ‘Look here, Price,’ Schulz said, ‘are
those other blighters asleep?’ He talked as good English as you or
me. Price said ‘Yes,’ and then Schulz went on to talk.
 “Now, I don’t know if you’ll believe me, Mr. Cheyne, but though as
a matter of fact, I overheard everything he said, I didn’t mean to
listen. I was so tired and dreamy that I just didn’t think of telling him I
was awake, and indeed if I had thought of it, I don’t believe I should
have had the energy to move. You know how it is when you’re not
well. Then when I did hear it was too late. I just couldn’t tell him that I
had learned his secret.”
As Dangle spoke there was a knock at the door and a waiter
arrived with coffee. Dangle paid him, and without further comment
poured some out for Cheyne and handed it across. Cheyne was by
this time so interested in the tale that his resentment was forgotten,
and he took the cup with a word of thanks.
“Go on,” he added. “I’m interested in your story, as you said I
should be.”
“I thought you would,” Dangle answered with his ready smile.
“Well, Schulz began by telling Price that he knew he wasn’t going to
live. Then he went on to say that he felt it cruelly hard luck, because
he had accidentally come on a secret which would have brought him
an immense fortune. Now he couldn’t use it. He had been going to
let it die with him, but he remembered what he owed to Price and
had decided to hand over the information to him. ‘But,’ he said, ‘there
is one condition. You must first swear to me on your sacred honor
that if you make anything out of it you will, after the war, try to find
my wife and hand her one-eighth of what you get. I say one-eighth,
because if you get any profits at all they will be so enormous that
one-eighth will be riches to Magda.’
“I could see that Price thought he was delirious, but to quiet him
he swore the oath and then Schulz told of his discovery. He said that
before he had been given charge of the U-boat he had served for
over six months in the Submarine Research Department, and that
there, while carrying out certain experiments, he had had a lucky
accident. Some substances which he had fused in an electric
furnace had suddenly partially vaporized and, as it were, boiled over.
The white-hot mass poured over the copper terminals of his furnace,
with the result that the extremely high voltage current short-circuited
with a corona of brilliant sparks. He described the affair in greater
detail than this, but I am not an electrician and I didn’t follow the
technicalities. But they don’t matter, it was the result that was
important. When the current was cut off and the mass cooled he
started in to clean up. He chipped the stuff off the terminals, and he
found that the copper had fused and run. And then he made his
great discovery: the copper had hardened. He tested it and found it
was, roughly speaking, as hard as high carbon steel and with an
even greater tensile strength! Unintentionally he had made a new
and unknown alloy. Schulz knew that the ancients were able to
harden copper and he supposed that he had found the lost art.
“At once he saw the extraordinary value of this discovery. If you
could use copper instead of steel you would revolutionize the
construction of electrical machinery; copper conduits could be lighter
and be self-supporting—in scores of ways the new metal would be
worth nearly its weight in gold. He could not work at the thing by
himself, so he told his immediate superior, who happened also to be
a close personal friend. The two tried some more experiments, and
to make a long story short, they discovered that if certain
percentages of certain minerals were added to the copper during
smelting, it became hard. The minerals were cheap and plentiful, so
that practically the new metal could be produced at the old price.
This meant, for example, that they could make parts of machines of
the new alloy, which would weigh—and therefore cost—only about
one-quarter of those of ordinary copper. If they sold these at half or
even three-quarters of the old price they would make an extremely
handsome profit. But their idea was not to do this, but to sell their
discovery to Krupps or some other great firm who, they believed,
would pay a million sterling or more for it.
“But they knew that they could not do anything with it until after
the war unless they were prepared to hand it over to the military
authorities for whatever these chose to pay, which would probably be
nothing. While they were still considering their course of action both
were ordered back to sea. Schulz’s friend was killed almost
immediately, Schulz being then the only living possessor of the
secret. Panic-stricken lest he too should be killed, he prepared a
cipher giving the whole process, and this he sealed in a watertight
cover and wore it continuously beneath his clothes. He now
proposed to give it to Price, partly in return for what Price had done,
and partly in the hope of his wife eventually benefiting. I saw him
hand over a small package, and then I got the disappointment of my
life, and so, I’m sure, did Price. Schulz was obviously growing
weaker and he now spoke with great difficulty. But he made a final
effort to go on; ‘The key to the cipher—’ he began and just then the
sister came back into the room. Schulz stopped, but before she left
he got a weak turn and fell back unconscious. He never spoke again
and next day he was dead.”
In his absorption Dangle had let his cigar go out, and now he
paused to relight it. Cheyne sat, devouring the story with eager
interest. He did not for a moment doubt it. It covered too accurately
the facts which he already knew. He was keenly curious to hear its
end: whether Dangle, having obtained the cipher, had read it, and
what was the nature of the proposal the man was about to make.
“Next day I approached Price on the matter. I said I had
involuntarily overheard what Schulz had told him, and as the affair
was so huge, asked him to take me into it with him. As a matter of
fact I thought then, and think now, that the job was too big for one
person to handle. However, Price cut up rough about it: wouldn’t
have me as a partner on any terms and accused me of
eavesdropping. I told him to go to hell and we parted on bad terms. I
found out—I may as well admit by looking through the letters in his
cabin while he was on duty—that he had sent the packet to you, and
when I had made inquiries about you I was able to guess his motive.
You, humanly speaking, were a safe life; you were invalided out of
the service. He would send the secret to you to keep for him till after
the war or to use as you thought best if he were knocked out.
“You will understand, Mr. Cheyne, that though keenly interested
in the whole affair, while I was in the service I couldn’t make any
move in it. But directly I was demobbed I began to make inquiries. I
found you were living at Dartmouth, and it was evident from your
way of life that you hadn’t exploited the secret. Then I found out
about Price, learned that he was on one of the Bombay-Basrah
troopships and that though he had applied to be demobbed there
were official delays. The next thing I heard about him was that he
had disappeared. You knew that?” Dangle seemed to have been
expecting the other to show surprise.
 “Yes, I knew it. I learned it at the same time that I learned St.
John Price was a myth.”
“Well, it’s quite true. He left his ship at Bombay on a few days’
leave to pay a visit up country and was never heard of again.
Presumably he is dead. And now, Mr. Cheyne,” Dangle shifted
uneasily in his seat and glanced deprecatingly at the other, “now I
come to a part of my story which I should be glad to omit. But I must
tell you everything so that you may be in a position to decide on the
proposal I’m going to make. At the time I was financially in very low
water. My job had not been kept for me and I couldn’t get another. I
was pretty badly hit, and worse still, I had taken to gambling in the
desperate hope of getting some ready money. One night I had been
treated on an empty stomach, and being upset from the drink, I
plunged more than all my remaining capital. I lost, and then I was
down and out, owing fairly large sums to two men—Blessington and
Sime. In despair I told them of Schulz’s discovery. They leaped at it
and said that if my sister Susan and myself would join in an attempt
to get hold of the secret they would not only cancel the debts, but
would offer us a square deal and share and share alike. Well, I
shouldn’t have agreed, of course, but—well, I did. It was naturally the
pressure they brought to bear that made me do it, but it was also
partly due to my resentment at the way Price had turned me down.
We thought that as far as you were concerned, you were probably
expecting nothing and would therefore suffer no disappointment, and
we agreed unanimously to send both Frau Schulz and Mrs. Price
equal shares with ourselves. I don’t pretend any of us were right, Mr.
Cheyne, but that’s what happened.”
“I can understand it very well,” said Cheyne. He was always
generous to a fault and this frank avowal had mollified his wrath. “But
you haven’t told me if you read the cipher.”
“I’m coming to that,” Dangle returned. “We laid our plans for
getting hold of the package and with some forged references Susan
got a job as servant in your house. She told us that so far as she
could see the package would either be about your person or in your
safe, and as she couldn’t ascertain the point we laid our plans to find
out. As you know, they drew blank, and then we devised the plant on
the Enid. That worked, but you nearly turned the tables on us in
Hopefield Avenue. How you traced us I can’t imagine, and I hope
later on you’ll tell me. That night we didn’t know whether we had
killed you or not. We didn’t want to and hadn’t meant to, but we
might easily have done so. When your body was not found in the
morning we became panicky and cleared out. Then there came your
attempt of last night. But for an accident it would have succeeded.
Now we have come to the conclusion that you are too clever and
determined to have you for an enemy. We are accordingly faced with
an alternative. Either we must murder you and Miss Merrill or we
must get you on to our side. The first we all shrink from, though”—
and here Dangle’s eye showed a nasty gleam—“if it was that or our
failure we shouldn’t hesitate, but the second is what we should all
prefer. In short, Mr. Cheyne, will you and Miss Merrill join us in
trading Schulz’s secret: all, including Frau Schulz and Mrs. Price, to
share equally? We think that’s a fair offer and we extremely hope
you won’t turn us down.”
“You haven’t told me if you’ve read the cipher.”
“I forgot that. I’m sorry to say that we have not, and that’s another
reason we want you and Miss Merrill. We want two fresh brains on it.
But the covering letter shows that the secret is in the cipher and it
must be possible to read it.”
Cheyne did not reply as he sat considering this unexpected
move. If he were satisfied as to Arnold Price’s death and if the
quartet had been trustworthy he would not have hesitated. Frau
Schulz would get her eighth and Mrs. Price would get a quite
unexpected windfall. Moreover, the people who worked the invention
were entitled to some return for their trouble. No, the proposal was
reasonable; in fact it was too reasonable. It was more reasonable
than he would have expected from people who had already acted as
these four had done. He found it impossible to trust in their bona
fides. He would like to have Joan Merrill’s views before replying. He
therefore temporized.
“Your proposal is certainly attractive,” he said, “but before coming
to a conclusion Miss Merrill must be consulted. She would be a party
to it, same as myself. Suppose we go out and see her now, and then
I will give you my answer.”
Dangle’s face took on a graver expression.
 “I’m afraid you can’t do that,” he answered slowly. “You see, there
is more in it than I have told you, though I hoped to avoid this side of
it. Please put yourself in our place. I come to you with this offer. I
don’t know whether you will accept it or turn it down. If you turn it
down there is nothing to prevent you, with the information I have just
given you, going to the police and claiming the whole secret and
prosecuting us. Whether you would be likely to win your case
wouldn’t matter. You might, and that would be too big a risk for us.
We have therefore in self-defense had to take precautions. And the
precautions we have taken are these. Earlswood has been
evacuated. Just as we left Hopefield Avenue so we have left Dalton
Road. Our party—and Miss Merrill”—he slightly stressed the “and”
and in his voice Cheyne sensed a veiled threat—“have taken up their
quarters at another house some distance from town. In self-defense
we must have your acceptance before further negotiations take
place. You must see this for yourself.”
“And if I refuse?”
Dangle lowered his voice and spoke very earnestly.
“Mr. Cheyne, if you refuse you will never see Miss Merrill alive!”
 Chapter XII.
In the Enemy’s Lair
With some difficulty Cheyne overcame a sudden urge to leap at
his companion’s throat.
“You infernal scoundrel!” he cried thickly. “Injure a hair of Miss
Merrill’s head and you and your confounded friends will hang! I’ll go
to Scotland Yard. Do you think I mind about myself?”
Dangle gave a cheery smile.
“Right, Mr. Cheyne,” he answered Lid “by all means. Just do go
to Scotland Yard and make your complaint. And what are you going
to tell them? That Miss Merrill is in the hands of a dangerous gang of
ruffians, and must be rescued immediately? And the present address
of this gang is—?” He looked quizzically at the other. “I don’t think
so. I’m afraid Scotland Yard would be too slow for you. You see, my
friends are waiting for a telephone message from me. If that is not
received or if it is unsatisfactory—well, don’t let us discuss
unpleasant topics, but Miss Merrill will be very, very sorry.”
Cheyne choked with rage, but for the moment he found himself
unable to reply. That he was being bluffed he had no doubt, and in
any other circumstances he would have taken a stronger line. But
where Joan Merrill was concerned he could run no risks. It was
evident that she really was in the power of the gang. Dangle could
not possibly have known about the throwing of the tracing over the
wall unless he really had found her as he had described.
A very short cogitation convinced Cheyne that these people had
him in their toils. Application to Scotland Yard would be useless. No
doubt the police could find the conspirators, but they could not find
them in time. So far as retaliation or a constructive policy was
concerned, he saw that he was down and out.
 His thoughts turned to the proposal Dangle had made him. It was
certainly fair—too fair, he still thought—but if it was a genuine offer,
he need have no qualms about accepting it. Frau Schulz, Mrs. Price,
Joan and himself were all promised shares of the profits. A clause
could be put in covering Price, if he afterwards turned out to be alive.
The gang might be a crowd of sharpers and thieves—so at least the
melancholy Speedwell had said—but, as Cheyne came to look at it,
they had not really broken the law to a much greater extent than he
had himself. His case to the authorities—suppose he were to lay it
before them—would not be so overwhelmingly clear. Something
could be said for—or rather against—both sides.
If he had to give way he might as well give way with a good
grace. He therefore choked down his rage, and turning to Dangle,
said quietly:
“I see you’ve won this trick. I’ll accept your offer and go with you.”
Dangle, evidently delighted, sprang to his feet.
“Splendid, Mr. Cheyne,” he cried warmly, holding out his hand.
“Shake hands, won’t you? You’ll not repent your action, I promise
you.”
But this was too much for Cheyne.
“No,” he declared. “Not yet. You haven’t satisfied me of your bona
fides. I’m sorry, but you have only yourselves to thank. When I find
Miss Merrill at liberty and see Schulz’s cipher, I’ll be satisfied, and
then I will join with you and give you all the help I can.”
Dangle seemed rather dashed, but he laughed shortly as he
answered: “I suppose we deserve that after all. But you will soon be
convinced. There is just a formality to be gone through before we
start. Though you may not believe my word, we believe yours, and
we have agreed that all that we want before taking you further into
our confidence, is that you swear an oath of loyalty to us. You won’t
object to that, I presume?”
Cheyne hesitated, then he said:
“I swear on my sacred honor that I will loyally abide by the spirit
of the agreement which you have outlined in so far as you and your
friends act loyally to me and to Miss Merrill, and to that extent only.”
“That’s reasonable, and good enough,” Dangle commented.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and phone to the others. You will
understand,” he explained on his return, “that my friends are some
distance away from Wembley, and it will therefore take them a little
time to get in. If they start now they will be there as soon as we are.”
It was getting towards ten o’clock when Cheyne and Dangle
turned into the gateway of Earlswood. A yellow car stood at the
footpath, at sight of which Dangle exclaimed: “See, they’ve arrived.”
His ring brought Blessington to the door, and the latter greeted
Cheyne apologetically, but with the same charm of manner that he
had displayed in the Edgecombe Hotel at Plymouth.
“I do hope, Mr. Cheyne,” he declared, “that even after all that has
passed, we may yet be friends. We admire the way you have fought
your corner, and we feel that what we both up to the present have
failed to do may well be accomplished if we unite our forces. Come
in and see if you can make friends with Sime.”
“I came to see Miss Merrill,” Cheyne answered shortly. “If Miss
Merrill is not produced and allowed to go without restraint our
agreement is non est.”
“Naturally,” Blessington returned smoothly. “We understand that
that is a sine qua non. And so Miss Merrill will be produced. She is
not here; she is at our house in the country in charge of Miss Dangle,
and that for two reasons. The first is this. She met with, as doubtless
you know, a trifling accident last night, and her ankle being a little
painful, she was kept awake for some time. This morning when we
left she was still asleep. We did not therefore disturb her. That you
will appreciate, Mr. Cheyne, and the other reason you will appreciate
equally. We had to satisfy ourselves by a personal interview that you
really meant to give us a square deal.” He raised his hand as
Cheyne would have spoken. “There’s nothing in that to which you
need take exception. It is an ordinary business precaution—nothing
more or less.”
“And when will Miss Merrill be set at liberty?”
“While I don’t admit the justice of the phrase, I may say that as
soon as we have all mutually pledged ourselves to play the game I
will take the car back to the other house, and when Miss Merrill has
taken the same oath will drive her to her studio. Perhaps you would
write her a note that you have sworn it, as she mightn’t believe me.
There are a few preliminaries to be arranged with Dangle and Sime
can fix up with you. If you are at the studio at midday you will be in
time to welcome Miss Merrill.”
This did not meet with Cheyne’s approval. He wished to go
himself to the mysterious house with Blessington, but the latter
politely but firmly conveyed to him that he had not yet irrevocably
committed himself on their side, and until he had done so they could
not give away their best chance of escape should the police become
interested in their movements. Cheyne argued with some bitterness,
but the other side held the trumps, and he was obliged to give way.
This point settled, nothing could have exceeded the easy
friendliness of the trio. If Arnold Price were alive he would share
equally with the rest. Would Mr. Cheyne come to the study while the
formalities were got through? Did he consider this oath—typewritten
—would meet the case? Well, they would take it first, binding
themselves individually to each other and to him. Each of the three
swore loyalty to the remaining quintet, the oaths of Joan Merrill and
Susan being assumed for the moment. Then Cheyne swore and they
all solemnly shook hands.
“Now that’s done, Mr. Cheyne, we’ll prove our confidence in you
by showing you the cipher. But first perhaps you would write to Miss
Merrill. Also if any point is not quite clear to you please do not
hesitate to question us.”
Cheyne was by no means enamored of the way things had
turned out. He had been forced into an association with men with
whom he had little in common and whom he did not trust. Had it not
been for the trump card they held in the person of Joan Merrill
nothing would have induced him to throw in his lot with them. But
now, contingent on their good faith to him, he had pledged his word,
and though he was not sure how far an enforced pledge was
binding, he felt that as long as they kept their part of the bargain, he
must keep his. He therefore wrote his letter, and then turning to
Blessington, answered him civilly:
“There is one thing I should like to know; I have thought about it
many times. How did you drug me in that hotel in Plymouth without
my knowledge and without leaving any traces in the food?”
Blessington smiled.
 “I’ll tell you that with pleasure, Mr. Cheyne,” he answered readily,
“but I confess I am surprised that a man of your acumen was
puzzled by it. It depended upon prearrangement, and given that, was
perfectly simple. I provided myself with the drug—if you don’t mind I
won’t say how, as I might get someone else into trouble—but I got a
small phial of it. I also took two other small bottles, one full of clean
water, the other empty, together with a small cloth. Also I took my
Extra Special Flask. Sime, like a good fellow, get my flask out of the
drawer of my wrecked escritoire.” He smiled ruefully at Cheyne.
“Then I prepared for our lunch: the private room, the menu and all
complete. I told them at the hotel we had some business to arrange,
and that we didn’t want to be disturbed after lunch. You know, of
course, that I got all details of your movements from Miss Dangle?”
“Yes, I understand that.”
As Cheyne spoke Sime re-entered the room, putting down on the
table the flask which had figured in the scene at the hotel.
Blessington handed it to Cheyne.
“Examine that flask, Mr. Cheyne,” he invited. “Do you see
anything remarkable about it?”
It seemed an ordinary silver pocket flask, square and flat, and
with a screw-down silver stopper. It was chased on both sides with a
plain but rather pleasing design, and the base was flat so that it
would stand securely. But Cheyne could see nothing about it in any
way unusual.
“Open it,” Blessington suggested.
Cheyne unscrewed the stopper and looked down the neck, but
except that there was a curious projection at one side, which
reduced the passage down to half the usual size, it seemed as other
flasks. Blessington laughed.
 “Look here,” he said, and seizing a scrap of paper, he drew the
two sketches which I reproduce. “The flask is divided down the
middle by a diaphragm C, so as to form two chambers, A and B. In
these chambers are put two liquids, of which one is drugged and the
other isn’t. E and F are two half diaphragms, and D is a very light
and delicately fitted flap valve which will close the passage to either
chamber. When you invert the flask, the liquid in the upper or B
chamber runs out along diaphragm C, and its weight turns over valve
D so that the passage to A chamber is closed. The liquid from B then
pours out in the ordinary way. The liquid in A, however, cannot
escape, because it is caught by the diaphragm F. If you want to pour
out the liquid from A you simply turn the flask upside down, when the
conditions as to the two liquids are reversed. You probably didn’t
notice that I used the flask in this way at our lunch. You may
remember that I poured out your liqueur first—it was drugged, of
course. Then I got a convenient fit of coughing. That gave me an
excuse to set down the flask and pick it up again, but when I picked
it up I was careful to do so by the other side, so that undrugged
liqueur poured into my own cup. I drank my coffee at once to
reassure you. Simple, wasn’t it?”
“More than simple,” Cheyne answered with unwilling admiration
in his tone. “A dangerous toy, but I admit, deuced ingenious. But I
don’t follow even yet. That would have left the drugged remains in
the cup.”
“Quite so, but you have forgotten my other two bottles and my
cloth. I poured the dregs from your cup into the empty bottle, washed
the cup with water from the other, wiped it with my cloth, poured out
another cup of coffee and drank it, leaving harmless grounds for any
inquisitive analyst to experiment with.”
“By Jove!” said Cheyne, then adding regretfully: “If we had only
tried the handle of the cup for fingerprints!”
“I put gloves on after you went over.”
Cheyne smiled.
“You deserved to succeed,” he admitted ruefully.
“I succeeded in drugging you,” Blessington answered, “but I did
not succeed in getting what I wanted. Now, Mr. Cheyne, you would
like to see the tracing. Show it to him, Dangle, while I go back to the
other house for Miss Merrill.”
Dangle left the room, returning presently with the blue-gray sheet
which had been the pivot upon which all the strange adventures of
the little company had turned. Cheyne saw at a glance it was the
tracing which he had secured in the upper room in the house in
Hopefield Avenue. There in the corners were the holes made by the
drawing-pins which had fixed it to the door while it was being
photographed. There were the irregularly spaced circles, with their
letters and numbers, and there, written clockwise in a large circle,
the words: “England expects every man to do his duty.” Cheyne
gazed at it with interest, while Dangle and Sime sat watching him.
What on earth could it mean? He pondered awhile, then turned to his
companions.
“Have you not been able to read any of it?” he queried.
Dangle shook his head.
“Not so much as a single word—not a letter even!” he declared. “I
tell you, Mr. Cheyne, it’s a regular sneezer! I wouldn’t like to say how
many hours we’ve spent—all of us—working at it. And I don’t think
there’s a book on ciphers in the whole of London that we haven’t
read. And not a glimmer of light from any of them! Blessington had a
theory that each of these circles was intended to represent one or
more atoms, according to the number it contained, and that certain
circles could be grouped to make molecules of the various
substances that were to be mixed with the copper. I never could
quite understand his idea, but in any case all our work hasn’t helped
us to find them. The truth is that we’re stale. We want a fresh brain