Dialogic pedagogy is well-established in English education research; however, it is typically enacted within highly regulated, assessment-driven classroom environments. This article offers a practice-led, autoethnographic account of teaching GCSE English Literature in a hyper-regulated secondary school context. It examines how institutional norms of surveillance and compliance shape students' willingness to interpret. Drawing on classroom episodes, including changes to seating arrangements and exploration of patriarchal power in Romeo and Juliet, this study reframes current dialogic teaching as a method enacted under conditions of constraint. It explores how classroom conditions mediate whether context functions as sanctioned knowledge within a regulated school system, or as an independent critical lens, freely explored by each student. While grounded in the terminology of GCSE assessment in the UK, the analysis contributes to international conversations about teaching literature dialogically within increasingly regulated school environments.
The last large-scale content analyses of U.S. college English classes were published in the early 1990s, when White male authors dominated college English curricula. In the early 2020s, following the slipstream of the Black Lives Matter movement and preceding a deluge of anti-DEI decrees, we wanted to know: What is the current terrain of U.S. college English? Specifically, which authors are named in college English reading lists in the early 2020s? What racial/ethnic and gender diversity is represented in those lists? And how have those lists changed over time? We analysed college English course descriptions from across the U.S. tallying races/ethnicities and genders of about 2000 authors named in those descriptions. Reading lists show more racial and gender diversity than ever before in the history of college English. However, this diversity is not equally distributed: Diversity is a function of college type (two-year or four-year), student body wealth and geography. We hope this analysis helps readers map both advancements and retreats in authorial diversity in college English.
In Singapore, where English literature enrolment is declining, accessible pedagogical approaches and relaxed entry requirements are helpful in encouraging interest in the subject from pre-tertiary level (or lower secondary) onwards. However, this means that some students who later choose to pursue undergraduate English literature may have in fact dropped off from the pre-tertiary pipeline much earlier, putting them at a disadvantage against peers who have completed their pre-tertiary education. Hence, this paper will review both the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) syllabi for English literature and specimen papers across three stages - lower secondary, upper secondary, and junior college - and assess how an incomplete throughline of pre-tertiary literary education is likely to impede a student's ability to perform literary skills expected at tertiary level.
