Dartmouth: Literature, knowledge and experience (in Australia)
Submitted by:
Wayne Sawyer
Abstract:
Context: The presenter is currently part of a research team investigating the role of literary knowledge in the making of English (L1) teachers. The implementation of Australia’s first national curriculum is part of the context of this project. In 1966, one of the seminal moments of curriculum development in (L1) English occurred when British and American delegates met at Dartmouth College in the US to attempt to define the subject ‘English’. 2016 was the 50th anniversary of that conference which, for the UK and Australia, was so influential in defining and underpinning the so-called 'growth' model of English. The ARLE conference’s nearness to this anniversary and the contexts described above make a re-visiting of Dartmouth of interest.
Aims/Issues: The most famous books coming out of Dartmouth were Dixon’s Growth Through English (British) and Muller’s The Uses of English (American). The focus here will be on the place of literature in these texts – literature having been a particular focus for critique of the ‘growth model’, of Dixon and of Dartmouth. Literature is almost the defining element in what Muller sees as the differences between the then American and British views of English. This paper address these differences in terms of the role of knowledge in literature, the relationship of literature to ‘experience’ and ‘response’ in these contexts.
Method: A close analysis will be conducted of these books in terms of this positioning of literature through an examination of their discourse, in particular, ‘literature’, ‘experience’, ‘response’ and ‘knowledge’.