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The Production-Reception Continuum:Activating publishing practices duringliteracy eventsJENNIFER ROWSELLPublished online: 28 Jun 2010.

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Changing English, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2003

The Production–ReceptionContinuum: activating publishingpractices during literacy eventsJENNIFER ROWSELL

Text production has been considered to some degree in studies relating to literacyand children’s meaning-making; however very few studies actually trace a text’shistory from a publisher’s original idea for a reading scheme to its ultimateproduction. The reading texts children use in and out of school do not exist in avacuum, but are informed by a carousel of actors involved in their development,design, production, manufacturing and distribution. This paper focuses on thedialogic relationship between publishers and teachers who adopt their schemes orprogrammes. A publisher’s rendition of how and what to teach for literacyinstruction, in the form of reading schemes such as the Oxford Reading Tree,‘colonise’ the reading process by ‘situating students and teachers within signsystems’ (Street & Street, 1990, p. 156).

This paper deals with one aspect of an ethnographic study on the culture ofeducational publishing. I use ethnographic methods to develop a theory of multimo-dal texts as traces of social practice (see Rowsell, 2000). I foreground the classroomdimension of my study to explore how publishers craft their materials aroundperceived notions of literacy and how teachers take these up and incorporate theminto their literacy teaching. Teachers mediate the content and the design of texts tobefit their own model of literacy, their teaching experience and their overallpedagogic voice. Isolating and theorising the dialogue between teacher and textbrings forth important findings about literacy teaching and learning which broadenour notion of literacy and the interplay between local events and institutions’out-of-school contexts.

Criss-crossing domains of work and schooling

My classroom fieldwork shows that teachers mediate content in textbooks to fittheir own pedagogy, their teaching background and experience, their interpretationof the curriculum, their personal history, their gender, their teaching experience andeven their national heritage. The criss-crossing of the domains of workplace andschooling therefore emerges in my classroom data. Although texts produced byeducational publishers come, in Bakhtinian terms, ‘saturated with the meanings ofothers’, meaning-making by its very nature incites a dialogue between text user andtext producer.

Reading schemes and reading programmes are unique in that they are usuallyrestricted to classroom use. Rarely do you see scheme books on a shelf in someone’shome. As such, they are tied to and indeed constrained by schooling practices (e.g.

ISSN 1358–684X print; 1469–3585 online/03/010059-14 2003 The editors of Changing EnglishDOI: 10.1080/1358684032000055136

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paired reading, group reading, independent reading). Reading scheme texts rep-resent a genre of schooled literacy and carry their own rites and associations.

Publishers of textbooks such as reading schemes merge a patchwork of ideologiesfrom theory, practice, curriculum, business and marketing speak and even theirparticular philosophy of text production, and manifest all of these ideas and biasesin texts. In case studies to follow, I illustrate how choosing a specific readingscheme like Oxford Reading Tree (at a London site) or a language arts programmesuch as Pearson Education’s Collections (at a Toronto site) and using them duringclassroom practice is ‘a process of situating the individual within a sign system’(Street & Street, 1990, p. 156).

To conduct the research, I interviewed people—from editors to executives—working in publishing companies, observed teachers and students using readingtexts, analysed multimodality in texts and finally, built in my own reflexivity basedon three years of work experience. As a result, this paper is guided by my own storyworking in educational publishing and framed by my experience as a researchstudent observing teachers using publisher-produced programmes. I focus onteachers as mediators of texts (rather than on students as mediators of texts) toreveal their active engagement with a publisher’s rendition of literacy teaching andlearning.

The case studies presented later in the paper show how executing literacy lessonsand mediating texts expose underlying ideologies in classrooms which find theirway into organising classroom time, reading and writing practices and a teacher’spedagogic voice. As part of my inquiry, I look at such factors as: (1) how and whentexts are used, (2) practices around texts, (3) where reading scheme practices takeplace within the geography of a classroom, (4) traces of publisher-produced modelsin literacy events, and (5) how teachers mediate text content. Texts can and shouldbe regarded as traces of people, places and practices, as carriers of assumed modelsof literacy and their accompanying practices and as objects which are continuallymediated. These notions are intimately bound up with how texts are used byteachers.

Classroom sites revealed particular ways of being with and ways of speakingabout texts. Conditions affecting text use range from the scheme or programme inuse, philosophy or methodology of use, classroom space, time of day and interper-sonal relations (independent, paired, guided or group reading). Also, how arepublisher-produced models mediated by teacher and student models or perceptionsof literacy?

Using multimodal texts in classroom sites

A more nuanced reading of texts may emerge if viewers/meaning-makers considerwhat goes into text production: who wrote it? what company produced it? wheredoes that group sit amongst the competition? how does the company intend for thematerials to be used? We need to consider both social practices and the multimodaltexts that we use and produce. Social practices around literacy events account forsuch factors as settings, events, times, participants, activities, feelings, meaning-making and tools or resources. Tracing the history of texts shows us how they wereintended to be used (e.g. critically, objectively, interactively). Teachers should viewtexts in two ways: as ideological objects and as physical or material objects.

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Authors and publishing teams anticipate how texts will be interpreted as expres-sions of a particular view of literacy and how they will be used as physical artefacts.

Texts as material objects account for modes and the visual landscape of texts andanticipate physical processes around their use (e.g. levelled Oxford Reading Tree(ORT) readers for paired reading). Physical production ties in with texts as materialobjects in a publisher’s choice of text size, texture and bulk of paper, form ofbinding, matte or glossy finish, two or four colour, graphic or cartoony illustra-tions.

Observing classroom practices around the presentation and use of texts helps tounravel the interweaving of ideologies in text form and meaning. Just as texts carrymessages from actors and contexts involved in text production, so too do studentsand teachers take on these messages and incorporate them to suit the needs of theirown practices and contexts. In this way, we see evidence of a production–receptioncontinuum whereby workplace practices lead to schooling practices. That is,teacher and student interpretation of reading scheme material leads to a reconstitut-ing of their views of literacy teaching and learning.

‘Situating the individual within a sign system’

To understand the notion of literacy practices embedded in and shaped by readingscheme texts, we should understand assumptions underlying them. Text producersassume texts will be used in a certain way (lock-step or out-of-sequence), at certaintimes (e.g. every morning for an hour), by certain types of teachers (e.g. teacherswho need the structure of schemes/programmes or teachers who opt for languageskills and phonemic awareness over a whole language model), with different kindsof students (e.g. special needs students requiring the support of structured pro-grammes). As my case studies illustrate, in schemes such as Oxford Reading Treeor Collections, there is a pattern of inducting students into models of literacy andeven views of knowledge.

In case study schools, not only was there a space designated solely for group orpaired reading, but also rites and practices around reading based on local condi-tions and teacher preferences. Teachers, in their own right, have preconceivednotions of where, how and when reading takes place, and they mediate these viewswithin activities, modes of assessment and the theoretical underpinnings of teacherresources accompanying schemes or programmes. Notions that reading should takeplace in a comfortable environment are negotiated with publisher suggestions abouteffective ways of teaching language or what to focus on during the reading process.

Some teachers rigidly follow publisher suggestions in support materials, whileothers adapt them to suit student needs. To evaluate the level of teacher interven-tion, or alternatively, dependence on or allegiance to publisher-produced models ofliteracy, I conducted interviews with teachers and followed up each interview witha questionnaire. What became clear over the course of my observations were tracesof power, knowledge, social, economic and political assumptions in the grammar oftextbook designs (i.e. the form) and in the manner in which they were used (Kress& van Leeuwen, 1996). In both case studies, there is a dialogic process enactedwhereby text content is taught and used in specific ways to suit the socio-economicbackground of students, political agendas, cultural practices, concepts of literacydevelopment and language teaching and teacher–student relations.

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Given the heterogeneity of teachers and students, there can be as many interpre-tations of text content as there are teaching styles and pedagogic voices. In ‘TheSchooling of Literacy’, Street and Street (1990) interpret a process of pedagogisationin which students are initiated into ‘ways of being’ in spaces constrained by context:

The institutionalization of a particular model of literacy operates not onlythrough particular forms of speech and texts but in the physical andinstitutional space that is separated from ‘everyday’ space for purposes ofteaching and learning and that derives from wider social and ideologicalconstructions of the social and built world (p. 150).

Street and Street’s point is a crucial one in that Oxford Reading Tree andCollections not only legitimise a particular form of literacy teaching (latterly,phonic-based language skills with a whole language methodology of use andformerly, theme-based language development with a whole language methodologyof use), but equally, these same texts imply a way in which texts should be used inthe physical space of classrooms. With paired reading in mind, in all of my sites,I read with students at the back or side of the room in a private area with pillowsand soft-covered seats.

Another key feature in the physical space of sites is the rites and practices enactedwith texts in these spaces. For instance, every Tuesday at Falcondale PrimarySchool1 I did paired-reading with students and, as a weekly rite, completed readingrecords to chart their reading development. On their records, I charted their stagein the Oxford Reading Tree (Magpies, Owls, etc.) and noted any miscues andimprovements. This act became part of a routine, which I did not relate directly tomy own research. But, upon reflection, I appreciated that the act of reading OxfordReading Tree texts with students and charting their reading level connects directlywith how Rod Hunt and Oxford University Press intended the scheme to be used.Students are meant to climb the Reading Tree and should be diverted into branchesif they require extra help or review. In my interview with the senior author ofOxford Reading Tree (ORT), Rod Hunt attributed the idea of the tree metaphorto ‘a Jewish candle stick concept’. The concept rests on an idea that ‘children readat their own speed and kids can follow different stems or branches depending ontheir needs’. The tree metaphor is part of the institutionalisation of literacypractices. Student reading records represented a way of ensuring they were makingprogress with the Reading Tree model—the practice thereby harnesses itself to textform and content. By extension, Oxford Reading Tree literacy events are inextrica-bly tied to the publishing practices that went into their creation and continuedsuccess.

With every reading scheme, rituals are to be enacted (whose functions havelessened with the National Literacy Strategy). With Ginn 360 students memorisevocabulary words on cards. With Oxford Reading Tree students move their way upthrough branches in the Reading Tree. With Collections students develop languageskills by viewing the linguistic features of different genres written by a cross-sectionof authors from Canada, the United States and Britain. These practices are part andparcel of a reading experience. Text producers foreground practices (in studenttexts and teacher resources) to create a reading experience.

Set routines were in place at each site. Objects and classroom space functionedaround these routines and ranged from where reading took place within thegeography of a classroom to where students sat during independent, paired or

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group reading. Objects included scheme books, the chalk board, handouts orpictures of ORT or Collections characters. As cited earlier, Street and Street (1990)call this process of associating or negotiating with a scheme a ‘process of situatingthe individual within a sign system’ (p. 156). What I found particularly fascinatingin researching a production–reception continuum was the point of negotiationbetween publisher-produced models of a reading experience (e.g. ORT teachingchildren to read with levelled texts) and teacher models of the reading process (e.g.teaching language skills through repetition).

As noted earlier, reading scheme books are inextricably linked to schooling and,more specifically, to literacy events enacted during schooling. Admittedly, schemesor programmes which adopt a structured real book approach (e.g. CambridgeReading) may include trade books that students read at home (not necessarily usedin the same way), in the same type of space, with the same types of actors (i.e. childand adult) and the particular ideological constraints and power issues embedded inthese settings (parent or teacher controlling reading event). Yet logic follows thatdiscourse and patterned behaviour around this particular genre of text will bedifferent from discursive patterns and discourses at home (Heath, 1983). Texts canbecome instruments of power and authority whereby teachers decide how, when,where and by whom they will be used. Ultimately, it is publisher and teacher whodecide this. The ‘pedagogised literacy’ organises identities in classrooms (who readsindependently, who works on language strands and so on).

Implied practices in texts

Rites and practices around scheme books establish relationships based on the localconditions of a classroom. In my ORT setting, paired reading sessions with ReadingTree texts took place after language lessons near the end of the school day. Studentswere called to an area exuding ‘the possibilities of domestic leisure’ (Moss, 1999,p. 12) with their levelled ORT book in hand. We read together, discussed the story,related the story to other Reading Tree stories, and students returned to theiroriginal task. Correspondingly, in my Collections site, literacy lessons began witha newspaper article related to the story theme, followed by a group reading fromanthology books and a group discussion about the theme and how it related to theirown experience, and concluded with a writing assignment based on some aspect ofthe theme. After group readings, some students read novels at the back of the room,while others worked on their writing assignment or completed other unrelatedassignments. During independent, paired or small group readings, students an-swered questions on comprehension cards located in a box at the side of the room.In other words, there were not only practices and discourses around literacy events,but also particular narratives or ways of speaking (and being) around texts.

Language styles or narratives are not simply guided by words, but equally byspeech. In my case study schools, one of the only ways I could differentiate one sitefrom another was through speech or, more specifically, the particular manner inwhich language was used and taught (always in relation to text use). Central to myanalysis was the slipping and sliding of a teacher’s approach to language teachingand a scheme’s or programme’s approach to language teaching. With time, I notedhow teacher and student discussions about reading texts developed patterns andwere naturalised into their view of reading and writing instruction. With ORT,

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children are accustomed to an iterative narrative whereby they explain one story byreferring to the plot of another or by discussing character foibles displayed in otherORT stories. Students read ORT books in succession, and there is cohesion amongstories in that some rely on background information about characters, like Granand Kipper from earlier stories.

Classroom observations

Texts have an impact on both context and views of literacy and can be mediatedin a variety of ways depending on the actor and the context. Mediations range fromsupplementing activities in teachers’ resources to building lesson plans aroundthemes featured in students’ anthology books. That is, there are varying degrees ofdependence on or independence from reading schemes. Some teachers use schemesor programmes as their sole instrument for teaching literacy (although many fewernow with the Literacy Hour), while others dip in and out depending on their needs.Textual mediations took place, in some form, in every site. As I became moreattuned to the nuances of textual mediations, I became more adept at analysing andcategorising them. During my observations, I concentrated on when scheme workended and teacher work began.

Observation methods

I had certain key corollaries in mind as I observed classroom settings: (1) texts areactive, (2) they assume or predispose readers to an interpretation, (3) peoplemediate these assumptions and predispositions. In my London sites, I arranged withclassroom teachers to observe one literacy lesson per week over the course of sixto eight months. I observed four London sites: an Oxford Reading Tree site, aMuslim school using Ginn 360, Nelson English and Oxford Reading Tree, a schooladopting a core book approach (Centre for Learning in Primary Education, orCLEP) and a Ginn Comprehensive and Longman Pelican Big Books site. In myToronto (Collections) school, I observed teachers and students for concentratedamounts of time (e.g. a solid week) over a two-year period. Before observations, Ioutlined my research with teachers and evaluated findings with them upon com-pletion.

Ways of viewing literacy manifested themselves in practices and rites aroundtexts. For example, in my Collections site, the teacher and students referred to theglossary of vocabulary words and author blurb at the end before reading a story.Students were aware of the theme-based structure in Collections anthologies and,as a result, the teacher and student post-reading discussions dealt with moresweeping topics like feelings, friendships, family and cultural awareness. Studentshad antennae out for themes and read stories with this predisposed frame in mind.

Practices within classroom space

A discussion of where reading and language development took place within thegeography of the classrooms contextualises my sites. ‘Situating the individual withina sign system’ (Street & Street, 1990, p. 156) has as much to do with

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teacher–student interaction or student–teacher text interaction as it does with wherethese practices are enacted. In short, it is what separates the practices of one sitefrom another site. Situating texts within contexts also provides a greater glimpseinto the nature of Carol’s and Evelyn’s classrooms.

Carol Shields’ classroom at Falcondale Primary School is large and airy withvaulted ceilings. Carol held plenary sessions at the front of the room where studentsalso completed writing assignments at their seats. All paired reading sessions tookplace at the back of the room in a partitioned area. Students were called to the backof the room with one or two ORT texts in hand. Hence, students, generallyspeaking, met ORT texts within a more intimate, isolated area with soft-coveredseats (thereby associating ORT reading practices with such a space). Students werealso proficient in ORT rites and practices. My Oxford University Press intervieweehighlighted that familiar, but rather odd names like Kipper and Wilf helpedstudents decode sentences because ORT phrases usually begin with character names(e.g. ‘Kipper went into Chip’s room and …’). What I often noted in my fieldnoteswas a widespread reliance on illustrations to make meaning from texts.

In a fieldnote for 12 March 1998, I observed that, ‘Stephanie follows and analysesthe illustrations as she reads. She found The Kidnappers funny because of all of thedetail in Brychta’s pictures. Students frequently comment on pictures and use themas an instructional guide during literacy events. This falls in line with Carol’scommendation of the simple, realistic and humorous ORT illustrations’. CertainlyHunt and Brychta sought to foreground humour and quirkiness in pictures to speakto children’s appreciation of detail; Brychta imbues his illustrations with humour as‘a hook to get children excited about what they are reading’. Carol wanted to playon ORT practices within a space isolated from group work and assignments.

In contrast, the physical space of Evelyn Dalloway’s classroom (at the Torontosite) lent itself much more to co-operative group reading and writing activities.Although students read novels at their desks, group reading activities usually tookplace on a large mat at the front of the room. Evelyn’s classroom is significantlysmaller than Carol’s classroom.

Collections reading sessions took place at the front of the room where Evelyn saton a chair beside an easel. She generally introduced a piece of writing related to thestory and then we would sit in a circle and students took turns reading passagesfrom the story. My sense at the time was that it was a very inclusive environmentthat welcomed student feedback on themes. Once we read a story and discussedthemes, students returned to their desks to complete a variety of assignments. Attimes, Evelyn read novels (related to themes) with small groups at the back of theroom. Texts and practices in Evelyn’s room were often connected so that groupstory readings either led to a writing assignment or novel studies related to themesfeatured in Collections anthology texts. Students were aware of how they shouldspeak and act around Collections texts and associated reading and languagedevelopment with the Collections model.

Texts in contexts

Both case studies show how two teachers negotiate their own teaching models withscheme models. What is also central to the research is the gap between whatpublishers intend as a methodology or philosophy of use and what actually goes on.

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For example, why is it that Usha Goswami’s book Rhyme and Analogy (1996),which, in theory, stands as the teachers’ resource book for Oxford Reading Tree israrely used by teachers in day-to-day literacy events? Why is it, instead, thatteachers opt for a much more real book/whole language approach to ORT textswhereby they read and discuss stories in pairs or groups (rather than analyse onsetand rime in stories)? As we shall see, they adhere far more to Rod Hunt’s intendedor anticipated methodology and philosophy of use for the Reading Tree.

Case study: an Oxford Reading Tree model

Teacher profile: Carol Shields

As my first case study, I present a special needs teacher I observed for a year anda half in a west London school. During my first year of classroom observations, Iobserved Carol Shields’ Year 5 group on Thursday afternoons, and in my secondyear, I observed her Year 2 group on Tuesday afternoons. Like Walden PrimarySchool, Falcondale is situated in a lower income area of the city. Carol describesstudents at Falcondale as ‘inner city kids’. Carol’s teaching experience includesbeing a Senco (Special Education) teacher at Falcondale for the past seven years; shetaught previously for ten years.

Teacher model of literacy

For the most part, Carol adopts a phonic-based approach to literacy teaching. Shebelieves students need to be taken through language skills work slowly and steadily.She uses Oxford Reading Tree to support her own literacy teaching because ‘it iscreative and has an inherent structure built into each text’. She supplements literacylessons with schemes and real/core books. Carol likes the fact that children knowthe structure of reading schemes and that sort of predictability increases theircomfort level. To Carol, Oxford Reading Tree is an ideal literacy model because ithas a predictable structure with levelled texts and an imaginative storyline. InCarol’s words, ‘children keep going back to Oxford Reading Tree because theyenjoy the fanciful nature of the books’. Carol also commends the original nature ofBrychta’s illustrations.

Scheme model of literacy

The Oxford Reading Tree programme was published in 1986, and the NationalCurriculum was launched in 1993. However, updates and additional material wereadded in light of the National Curriculum requirements. There was a sudden needfor phonics, or as an interviewee put it, ‘everybody had to think about what is thebest way, in this day and age, to produce materials that covered phonics. Interest-ingly Reading Tree and Ginn did, in a way, a new way, present phonics throughonset and rime’. In an interview, Jane Ealing, an editor working on ORT at OxfordUniversity Press, stressed that every effort was made to ‘generate stories thatchildren actually wanted to pick up and read … to develop bite-size stories thatchildren could relate to … that was one of the underpinning ideas’.

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The ORT methodology embraces students by making them feel comfortableabout themselves and their world. Readers come to know the idiosyncrasies of Biffand Chip, who are a bit like characters in a television sitcom. In fact, Hunt admitsto having conceived of characters in this way: ‘we thought it would be easier forkids to relate to little Kipper and his family on the basis that it was like a soapopera’. The tree is an appropriate metaphor for the scheme (and also a part of itsschooling of literacy). Ealing even couched her description of language developmentas students growing into branches of the tree: ‘we structured the programme aroundhow much an average child might progress and then every bit, either through thecontinuity of the trunk or a root that child might need for a particular patternallows them to grow into the programme’.

Throughout the study, I have felt a greater affinity with Oxford Reading Treeover other UK reading schemes because of my classroom work in an OxfordReading Tree school and my interviews with an Oxford University Press represen-tative and the senior author and illustrator of Oxford Reading Tree. In the Rhymeand Analogy Teacher’s Guide which supports Oxford Reading Tree, UshaGoswami (1996) describes phonological awareness as ‘an awareness of rhyming andalliteration which is important for a child to become a good reader’ (p. 5).

Understanding rhyming patterns helps students ‘understand that any spokenword can be broken down into smaller units of sound’ (Goswami, 1996, p. 5).Goswami developed a theory of onset and rime in which onset refers to ‘the soundcorresponding to any initial consonants in the syllable’ and rime to ‘the soundcorresponding to the remaining letters of the syllable’. The entire book is devotedto harnessing Goswami’s theories of onset and rime to the Reading Tree model. Atsome point, Oxford University Press (OUP) decided that the Reading Tree neededa more theoretical base, so it adopted Goswami’s onset and rime to bolster ORT.In her interview with me, Jane Ealing reveals that OUP aligned itself to aneducationalist for theoretical weight, but mediated it to suit the ORT model:

If it is cutting edge and we are slightly ahead of the game as we were withRhyme and Analogy, which is the book we did with Usha Goswami, thatwas really at a time when people did not know very much about it. Wehad endless discussions in-house and it was really research that wascoming through and then what we had to do was to make sure that theresearch translated into classroom practice.

The question remains, why is it that many teachers (including Carol Shields) donot use Rhyme and Analogy opting instead for Hunt’s more ‘flexible approach toreading’? This stands as evidence of the fact that teachers mediate texts based onhow they believe they should function (for example, according to the originalphilosophy set out by Hunt, as opposed to a belated theoretical add-on).

Teacher mediation of text

Carol devotes the final 20 minutes of each two-hour literacy session to pairedreading in which she updates student reading records. Carol’s literacy programmegenerally follows this sequence: (1) read text aloud, (2) read in unison (choralreading), (3) teacher reads text aloud, (4) students read ORT texts themselves.

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Although she does not exclusively use Oxford Reading Tree, she uses it for mostindependent and paired reading sessions.

In terms of methodology, Carol uses ORT books for independent and pairedreading, because, in her experience, students enjoy the stories and are familiar withthe characters. As for Evelyn Dalloway with the Collections programme, Carol’sown model of teaching corresponds with the ORT model. She admits to being‘slightly old fashioned’ in her style, but her personalised form of teaching speaks notonly to children’s natural ability, but also to their cultural and socio-economicbackground. In my discussions with Carol (and indeed with Hunt), there werefrequent references to the socio-economic conditions of students.

Carol prefers using schemes like Oxford Reading Tree with low and averageability students because they find success more readily. When asked if texts affecther instructional method, she argues, ‘schemes make instruction easier as theyapproach skills work more logically (i.e. the professionals who wrote the schemeshave sorted this out)’. Her observations resonate with Ealing’s reflections ondeveloping ORT materials:

The shaping of material comes from teacher input, but the actual theorycomes from the educationalist. So that is the way you come back to it.That is really what you do, which is teachers for the practical feedbackand the educationalists for the theoretical underpinnings and you mediateto make sure they both work.

I have italicised mediate to highlight that publishing teams negotiate between policyand business practices to produce the kinds of texts teachers will buy.

Carol believes in choosing texts that befit a child. For her, trade or ‘real’ booksdepict a false reality to which the children she teaches have trouble relating.Although Oxford Reading Tree presents children being transported to fantasyworlds, stories always begin and end in reality and reality resembles the kind of lifean average child might experience. She feels that her students, unlike middle classchildren, are not likely to have a lot of books by authors like Lucy Cousins at homeand finds that they do not feel that such books relate to their own experiences.

According to Hunt, ‘I wanted the stories to be realistic and fairly gritty … Iwanted it to appeal to working class kids’. The modest homes, cars and characterscome from an ‘average’ socio-economic background which provides a hook forstudents to relate to Kipper’s experiences. As Jane Ealing of Oxford UniversityPress expresses it, ‘the structure in terms of the Reading Tree is based on researchthat shows that children want to read about what they know … that is, focusingvery much on their own world’. This credo is directly in line with Carol’s thinking.She wants children in her classroom to relate to and be entertained by texts.

Case study: a Collections model

Teacher profile: Evelyn Dalloway

As my second case study, I present a Year 4 teacher with whom I worked for shortbut intense periods of time during the first and second years of my research study.Evelyn Dalloway has been teaching at Walden Primary School in Toronto for thepast twelve years. Walden is situated in a lower income area of Toronto with an

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eclectic ethnic mix of students (including Bangladeshi, Serbo-Croatian, Indian,Tamil). Evelyn is particularly effective with English as an Additional Language(EAL) students, especially when she defines terms or concepts and adapts them tosuit a variety of student needs.

Evelyn encourages a metalinguistic awareness of language, that is, not only anunderstanding of the written text, but also of different genres, art forms, registersand even modalities in texts. In a discussion about her use of texts, she describedhow she negotiates a relationship between the child and the text. In other words,she does precisely what Carolyn Baker (1990) describes as ‘teacher and text togethersupply the cultural location of the child’ (p. 175). Because most of her students arenew Canadians (EAL students), she often relates their past experiences to texts. Inher words, ‘there has to be a collaborative interpretation for students’.

Teacher model of literacy

Several observations at various points in the school year show that Evelynconstructs a model of literacy that teaches language in context. Because she buildsthemes in her lessons, most of her classroom activities and written assignmentsplace language in a context. I remember a lesson in my first year of observationsin which Evelyn used an article from National Geographic to teach students howto interpret, digest and summarise material by charting information on a mind-map. Students thereby made information their own. Evelyn places a great stress onunderstanding. She often assigns suggested activities from the Collections teacher’sresource book to consolidate summarising skills and reformulate written materialinto a different kind of text. Evelyn focuses on different genres so that students havemore metalinguistic awareness of texts, more specifically, of how language is usedin a variety of circumstances (such as newspaper articles, poetry and so on).Interestingly, Collections has a similar philosophy of language teaching in whichlanguage varies based on the genre.

Programme model of literacy

Collections is a theme-based reading programme produced by Pearson Education.In the Collections class, Evelyn Dalloway read stories in student anthology booksand discussed themes in each story during reading activities. Hence, texts served adidactic function. According to the Collections philosophy, stories are repositoriesof ‘concepts pertaining to identity, family, relationships and interactions, andfriendships’ (Collections Teacher’s Resource Module). They act as a vehicle tosocialisation (thereby fulfilling a curricular objective).

In a 5 October 1998 fieldnote, I observed Evelyn working with a small group ofstudents on their novel studies. I noted how ‘Evelyn unpacks text content not onlythrough comprehension and inference questions, but also looks to text form. Shediscusses the size of the book, the author, the cover, and even the blurb on the backof Pelly [the novel studied at the time]’. Hence, Evelyn’s teacher narrative duringgroup discussions arguably centres on understanding textual layers and increasingmetalinguistic awareness (i.e. awareness of text meaning and form).

Evelyn uses Prentice-Hall Ginn’s Collections, a theme-based junior readingprogramme. Each skills area corresponds to criteria set out in the Ontario Language

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Curriculum 1997, the Western Language Curriculum and the Eastern CanadaLanguage Curriculum. The Collections model of literacy is grounded on anoutcome-based or curriculum approach to reading and language development withan emphasis on developing language skills within the context of literature fromdifferent genres. Collections carries an interactive model (Wray & Medwell, 1991)by combining a whole language methodology of use with phonics and ‘languageawareness’ activities in teacher’s guides and ancillary materials. Student anthologybooks are divided into themes, such as friendship, cultural diversity and sense ofbelonging.

The programme therefore mediates between what curriculum demands and whatauthors, editors, designers, marketing managers, publishing executives and salesrepresentatives foreground in text content. Evelyn’s philosophy of teaching worksin unison with Collections because she too focuses on different types of writing—non-fiction, fiction, poetry, art, journalism—to open-up students’ repertoires ofwriting styles. In particular, there is a strong connection between Evelyn’s gift fortransmitting meaning by explaining stories in terms of students’ own experiencesand the Collections philosophy to ‘make connections between the relationships andspecial activities presented in the literature … and those they [students] experiencein their own lives’ (Collections Teacher’s Resource Module for Tales—Heroes,Deeds, and Wonders, Year 6).

In an interview, a Prentice-Hall Ginn (now Pearson Education) representativeexplains Ginn’s original rationale: ‘what the publisher really heard from teachers isthat there is a return to a conservative approach to education. The primary goal forpeople is to be successful, success is the key word, and what teachers are driven bynow is success for all children in reading’. Student anthology books are used forwhole class or group reading and genre books and novels are used for small groupor independent reading. The theme-based texts facilitate development in reading,writing, listening/speaking and viewing/representing skills.

Teacher mediation of texts

After placing a reading or writing lesson within a frame (of her own making ordevised by Collections, or rather, the author and publishing team of Collections),Evelyn reads a story from one of the Collections anthology books. Typically, Evelynassigns activities suggested in the teacher’s resource module, but at times she createsher own assignment to suit story themes. Evelyn maintains that she uses teacher’sresource modules ‘about twice or three times a week’.

When asked how she uses teacher support materials, she claims to use them forfollow-up, extension activities, black-line masters, some lessons and introductoryideas and planning. Interestingly, Evelyn actually uses the word ‘model’ to describehow she uses Collections: ‘I use it to augment social studies and science themes orto use as examples, or models of things taught or covered in another lesson. Forexample, parts of speech, letter writing, note-taking, poetry forms’. By models inthis instance, she is speaking of examples from texts as indicative of language stylesand usage.

Evelyn approaches her use of the Collections model of literacy and languageteaching as a moveable feast. That is, she uses stories and appropriate activitieswhen they fit her own schedule. As far as methodology of use, she ‘usually picks

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from the resource book the activities and teaching ideas which suit my programmeand my philosophy’. What is of particular importance to Evelyn in her teaching isimbuing a sense of belonging, so that students feel a part of the group. In otherwords, Evelyn dips in and out of Collections when it suits her own ideas of modelsof language teaching and students needs.

Conclusion

When I reflect on both settings, I immediately think of the nexus between teacherand text. Admittedly, I wore specific lenses—that is, I was on the alert for evidenceof publisher presence in the classrooms—but on the whole, both teachers confessedto seeking out a scheme which befits their own philosophy of language teaching.Carol affirmed four of the salient—and saleable—properties of Oxford ReadingTree, according to her, an OUP representative and the senior author and illustrator:(1) universal appeal of familiar characters from a working class background, (2)mix of fantasy with reality in a predictable structure, (3) synergy of text with art,(4) simplicity and humour of ORT illustrations. For Evelyn, Collections and itstheme-based, genre approach correspond to her own programme because Collec-tions stories add an inclusive, human touch to her multicultural classroom. Textsare always mediated in some way, but what I found particularly interesting was themanner in which texts, as Carolyn Baker (1990) puts it, ‘colonised the readingprocess’ (p. 171).

When I set out to conduct my classroom fieldwork, I was concerned that I wouldnot find palpable evidence of a publisher’s mark on literacy events. Quite thecontrary appears to be true, at least based on my modest survey of publishedprogrammes. Teachers not only think about the scheme or programme they areusing, but also harness their teaching to a scheme’s model of literacy and mediateand negotiate it accordingly. These findings have important implications on how weview and use texts during classroom events and perhaps invite more work on thecontinuum between how we produce, receive and read the texts we use inclassrooms. On the whole, studies of this sort also reveal important findings aboutthe tie between schooling practices and workplace practices and help us renew ourthinking about teaching and learning literacy across a range of contexts.

NOTE

[1] With the exception of Rod Hunt and Alex Brychta who kindly gave me permission to use their names, I usepseudonyms to protect the identity of schools and participants involved in my study.

REFERENCES

BAKER, C. (1990) Literacy practices and social relations in classroom reading events, in: M.M. BAKHTIN (Ed.) TheDialogic Imagination (Austin, TX, University of Texas Press).

GOSWAMI, U. (1996) Rhyme and Analogy Teacher’s Guide (Oxford, Oxford University Press).HEATH, S.B. (1983) Ways with Words. Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms (Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press).KRESS, G. & VAN LEEUWEN, T. (1996) Reading Images. The grammar of visual design (London, Routledge).

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MOSS, G. (1999) Boys and literacy: gendering the reading curriculum, in: G. MOSS & D. ATTAR (Eds) School Culture(London, Paul Chapman).

ROWSELL, J. (2000) Publishing Practices in Printed Education. British and Canadian perspectives on educationalpublishing. Unpublished Ph.D. (London, Senate House).

STREET, J.C. & STREET, B.V. (1990) The schooling of literacy, in: D. BARTON & R. IVANIC (Eds) Writing in theCommunity (Newbury Park, CA, Sage).

WRAY, D. & MEDWELL, J. (1991) Literacy and Language in the Primary Years (London, Routledge).

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