About English

Texts

What is a text?
What kinds of texts are in the English program?
Achieving balance
Summary
For more information

What is a text?

Texts can be spoken, written or visual. Although written text probably comes first to mind for most of us, a text is any communication, spoken, written or visual, involving language. When the word,' text', is encountered in the English statement or profile, it is this broad range of texts that is intended. Students work with texts such as conversations, speeches, letters, novels, plays, feature films and multi-media texts.

Some texts combine words and images or sound to make meaning. Ads, picture books, documentaries and world wide web pages are just a few examples. In an increasingly visual world, there are more and more texts like this. Teachers are learning how to help their students to interpret and create all the different aspects of these texts. They recognise that being able to this is an essential literacy skill: Literacy...involves the integration of speaking, listening, viewing and critical thinking with reading and writing (Literacy Policy, p. 2). Teachers have often found it useful to start with static texts such as picture books and print ads.

New types of texts make different demands on students. Hypertext documents and e-mail are good examples. These kinds of texts invite different ways of reading and writing. In e-mail, the language used is a kind of hybrid of speech and writing. The conventions used are different from either phone conversations or letters. Hypertext texts are different from most print texts because there isn't one clear linear direction. The skills required for students to make the most of these texts are different from the skills needed for other texts.

Which texts are used in the English program?

All learning areas use texts. What makes English a unique learning area is what students do with three particular kinds of texts - literature, mass media and everyday texts.

Literature

Literature involves the use of language and the imagination to represent, recreate, shape and explore human experience. It can be fiction or non-fiction and includes written, spoken or visual texts and the texts that students create themselves. The range includes myths, fairy tales, ballads, legends, expository texts, novels, picture books, short stories, poetry, autobiography, television documentary, cartoons, comics, video clips and song lyrics.

In K-12 classrooms, teachers set up wide reading programs, shared text programs and lots of opportunities for students to create their own texts. These are the three main ways that literature is explored.

At all levels, students encounter classic, contemporary and popular literature texts.

Classic literature texts are the ones that have been recognised over time as being excellent examples of their type. Even the youngest children have access to these texts when they hear or read traditional tales, fables and songs. These texts are used in classrooms as part of students' literary heritage but studying texts from a different time may also make it easier for students to see how a text reveals its creator's attitudes and values.

Contemporary literature texts are recent significant texts that explore complex ideas in complex ways. The Children's Book Council Award shortlisted books usually contain examples of these kinds of texts, as do the text lists for Literature C and English C in grade 12. Some of the shared texts teachers use in classrooms are contemporary texts such as picture books, novels and feature films, that may be too challenging for students to tackle independently.

Popular literature texts are those produced mainly for entertainment. The range includes series books, video clips, cartoons, comics, song lyrics, t.v. soaps and jokes. Students may work with these texts to gain a more critical understanding of them, but teachers are also careful not to lose sight of the pleasure they provide.

The three text categories are loose and overlapping. A contemporary text may or may not become a classic text in time. Today's popular text may one day be a classic text. After all, Shakespeare was regarded as a bit low-brow by some of his contemporaries. Feature film was initially viewed mainly as a form of popular entertainment. And it's a fairly safe bet that classic texts will emerge from one of the dominant popular text forms of the twentieth century, the song lyric.

Mass Media

Mass media texts are those that communicate with a mass audience, such as television and video, newspapers, magazines, cartoons and posters, film, computer software and radio. The range of media texts covered in the English statement includes:

news reports	newspapers radio television magazines
personal viewpoints	newspaper editorials letters to the editor talk-back radio television chat shows and current affairs programs and feature articles
advertising	in newspapers on radio on television in the cinema in various kinds of magazines
drama	in the cinema on television and video in particular films or serialisations of books students have read comparisons between tele-movies and cinema movies a study of television soap opera or serials
documentaries	radio film television and video
journalism	special features of different kinds of reporting such as crime sport social, in different media)
reviews	of art drama films concerts books in various media

Mass media texts are such a central part of our lives that developing students' understanding of how to use, interpret and analyse them is no longer seen as optional by teachers. Teachers of English whose access to televisions or videos is limited often start imaginatively with readily available texts such as magazines, newspapers and billboard ads to teach about purpose, text construction and audience, while they negotiate for essential resources.

Everyday texts

These are the texts, spoken, written, and visual that are part of people‘s daily lives. For the youngest students, the emphasis is on everyday texts used in the home. As students progress through the school, the emphasis shifts to texts used in the school. Students in senior grades focus on texts used in the wider community.

The range of everyday texts mentioned in the English Statement includes classified ads, recounts, observations, telephone conversations, questionnaires, speeches, debates, small group work, instructions, labels, captions, notices, diaries and journals.

Achieving balance

All English programs include literature, mass media and everyday texts - and spoken, written and visual texts. To help teachers make sure their programs are balanced, the English statement makes this recommendation for all general English courses K - 12 One of the first things teachers usually find they need to do when they start to use the English Statement is to check their programs to make sure they have included all three text categories. They also check the balance across the language modes. When teachers do this, they often say they want to include more mass media, spoken or visual texts. Many teachers have chosen to work with these texts in classrooms as a first step in using the statement and profile.

A representative range of texts is what teachers of English are aiming for. Each band statement suggests more text possibilities than teachers could hope to do justice to. The aim is to ensure that students create, interpret and analyse texts from across the range. Teachers are finding that they can use the English statement and profile to eliminate unnecessary repetition from grade to grade, by discussing the scope and sequence of their courses within bands. Within Band B, for example, mass media texts include magazines, daily newspapers, television quiz shows and television cartoons. A school might choose to work with magazines and television quiz shows in grade 5 and newspaper cartoons and television cartoons in grade 6. Another approach is to use the same text type for different purposes in different grades, building on understanding developed previously. Have a look at Scope and Sequence for proformas to use when auditing your English curriculum.

Summary

Texts can be written, visual or spoken.
To interpret some types of texts students need to integrate different language modes such as reading and viewing
New types of texts, such as hypertext and e-mail, are emerging that make different demands of students.
Three categories of texts are included in all general English programs - literature, mass media and everyday texts. In each of these categories, there are written, spoken and visual texts.
Teachers aim to use a representative range of texts with students in any one year and schools aim for a balanced range of texts across grades.
Often teachers find that spoken, visual and mass media texts are under-represented and choose to focus on using more of these kinds of texts.