Exploring Issues through English

What is an issues approach?

Although studying an issue in English lessons is not a new idea, recent planning frameworks have provided teachers with ways of structuring and focusing work sequences to present students with connected learning experiences that offer more coherence than previous thematic approaches.

The issues approach is very similar to an integrated approach to learning. The distinction has been made to demonstrate that this is very much an English approach - while it may use aspects of the curriculum from other learning areas - the intention is to explore issues through texts and language.

Issues might be explored

• through one text type such as contemporary novels, poems, short stories, newspaper articles or television dramas.
• through a variety of text types

A richer picture often develops from the use of a range of text types and views about the issue.

Students also think about how they might feel in situations presented in texts and how people of different ages, races, social groups and/or genders might respond if they find themselves in those situations. As they reflect, discuss and consider possible causes and solutions to issues in texts, students clarify and sometimes modify their own attitudes and values.

After they make connections with their own experience and investigate the issue from other points of view, students respond by creating a text of their own. This might be a discursive piece or a creative response. It might be a written, spoken or visual text. It should be shared with a specific audience - usually the whole class - so that the author might gain feed back about his/her representation of the issue under investigation.

What does an issues work sequence look like?

An issues approach using narrative texts might look something like this:

In a primary class, students explore aspects of isolation as they are shown in picture books. Sometimes in small groups and sometimes as a class, they read, view and discuss books such as

• This Is Our House by Michael Rosen and Bob Graham (1996) Walker Books
• The Race by Christobel Mattingley and Anne Spudvilas (1995) Scholastic
• The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (1992) North-South Books
• Felix and Alexander by Terry Denton (1985) Oxford University Press
• Way Home by Libby Hathorn and Greg Rogers (1994) Random House might be suitable for use with upper primary students.

As they engage with the texts students consider the feelings that they evoke. They discuss the linguistic structures and features that authors and illustrators have used to create these feelings. They notice, for instance, that the use of dark, gloomy colours and menacing shadows in Way Home reveals the boy’s sense of fear and alienation from his environment. They compare this with the ways in which illustrators use colour in the other texts they have selected.

After reading The Race students might

• reconsider their attitudes towards people who are deaf.
• consider the points of view of other people in the book using questions like:

Why do you think the first teacher didn’t notice that the boy was deaf?

Are there other groups or individuals who might feel isolated at school? Why? In what ways might we make them feel included?

After they have drawn some conclusions as a class about possible ways of depicting isolation through visual, written and spoken modes, students set about creating a text of their own. There are several choices at this stage; teachers might allow students to

• create picture books which explore similar feelings or even completely different feelings such as acceptance, inclusion…
• recreate the feelings of isolation from a particular text using role play, mime or movement.
• collect, compose, perform and/or record music which suggests isolation and complements one of the texts.

Which topics are suited to an issues approach in English?

The table below includes suggestions for issues that provide rich concepts for student study.

Adapted from Murdoch and Hornsby 1998.

Classroom practice suggests that it is best to reduce one of the very general concepts to a particular statement or question. This creates a more manageable focus for students to engage with. Jenni Connor talks about creating work sequences around tension points.

Thus relationships might be the stimulus for students investigating

• relationships between parents and their children
• or relationships between teenage boys and girls
• or relationships between young children and elderly people

In each case a particular focus or tension point is developed. Students might consider:

• Who has the power? In which circumstances?
• In what ways might communication be improved?
• In what ways might each group support the other?

Then a coherent work sequence is structured in which students develop, extend, and clarify their understandings about the issue.

Possible topics for students in Years 5-8 (Band B)

Here are some examples of some of the ways in which teachers might develop issues approaches in English for students in years 5 to 8:

A CRITICAL STUDY OF FAMILY LIFE

ISSUE:

• In what ways are families depicted in contemporary visual texts?
• Are these the ways in which our own families operate?

TEXTS:

• TV commercials showing family situations.
• The Simpsons.
• TV situation comedies — include examples of Australian, British and American if possible.
• Selected exerpts from Round the Twist showing family relationships.
• Selected exerpts from videos in The Winners series — especially ones such as The Paper Boy which are set in earlier times.

LEARNING INTENTIONS:

• To explore the ways in which family roles, especially in relation to gender, are depicted in the media.
• To provide a context to examine the structures and features of visual texts.
• To show students stereotypical and simplistic portrayals of people in the media.
• To allow students to create their own alternative constructions of families in a visual medium by creating role plays, advertisements, original scripts, videos, story boards etc.

Ideas about heroism form a very rich context for student exploration. There are many possibilities:

HEROES AND VILLAINS

ISSUE:

To investigate the ways in which heroes, heroines and villains are constructed in contemporary versions of traditional tales of good versus evil.

TEXTS:

Extracts from videos such as:

• The Princess Bride
• Beauty and the Beast - Disney version
• Star Wars
• Merlin — the version starring Sam Neill

LEARNING INTENTIONS:

• To reveal stereotypical and simplistic portrayals of people in contemporary visual texts.
• To consider ways in which people interpret concepts of heroism, especially in relation to female roles.
• To provide a context to examine some of the linguistic structures and features of visual texts.
• To allow students to create their own alternative constructions of heroes, heroines and villains in a visual medium by creating role plays, advertisements, original scripts, videos, story boards etc.

Notes:

• A comparison of the representations of heroes, heroines and villains in several Disney films might be interesting for younger students.
• This work sequence could be broadened to include poems, stories and non-fiction works.

HEROES, VILLAINS OR VICTIMS

ISSUE:

An examination of the different portrayals of famous people such as Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Pauline Hanson, John Howard and others.

TEXTS:

• Newspapers, magazines, news reports and current affairs shows if available.
• Biographies
• Videos

LEARNING INTENTIONS:

• To consider alternative portrayals of famous people and the reasons why they have been represented in particular ways by some groups of people.
• For students to clarify their own attitudes and values about issues presented in the popular press.
• To provide a context in which to study the linguistic structures and features of media and biographical texts.
• To allow students to reconstruct their own interpretation of a famous person as a hero, villain or even as a victim of the media.

A possible topic for students in Years 10 and 11 (Bands C/D)

This work sequence was planned for English students studying year 11B. It would also work in year 10. Teachers might need to make careful selections of novels for year 10 students — some of those listed contain adult themes and use of language.

MOVING OUT

ISSUE:

A study of contemporary novels in which teenagers leave their homes to seek new lives.

Issues include

• coping with alienation and isolation from family and friends
• forming and maintaining relationships
• gaining maturity and assuming responsibility for one’s own actions
• gaining independence and an understanding of the sense of self.

TEXTS:

(Listed in approximate order of difficulty.)

• Victor Kelleher Slow Burn (1997) Viking
• Maureen McCarthy Cross My Heart
• David Metzenthen Johnny Hart’s Heroes (1996) Puffin
• Margaret Clark Back on Track: Diary of a Street Kid
• Brigid Lowry Guitar Highway Rose (1997) Allen & Unwin
• Steve Tolbert Settling South

LEARNING INTENTIONS:

For students to

• engage with one of the texts in detail to explore themes, setting, characterisation, linguistic structures and features and contextual understanding in reflective journal writing.
• present their understandings about their chosen text to the rest of the class.
• consider the issues as they are portrayed in the range of texts.
• consider and clarify their own attitudes and values.
• write short stories called  Moving Out which present their views about teenagers leaving home.

How is an issues work sequence planned?

To explore an issue in a coherent way a sequential framework is required. Teachers choose according to the type of unit and the learning outcomes they intend students to reach. Detailed explanations of

• the essential elements
• planning frameworks
• how to plan a work sequence

are provided on this site:

Examples of work sequences

Work sequences which develop an issues approach to English and follow the frameworks listed above include:

• Whose News? - a study of television news designed with grade 7 students in mind

• Is it a Good News Week? - a study of news media designed with grade 8 students in mind

• Pictures of the Bush - a study of spoken, visual and written texts depicting the Australian bush and the myths that surround it designed with students in grade 7 and 8 in mind.