Table of Contents

Introduction: Rethinking and Reviving Subject English: The Murder and the Murmur. Part 1. The murder: Politics, policy and practice. 1. English is shit! A post-modern murder mystery. Kirstie Harrington. 2. Where has oracy gone? The curious case of the erosion of speaking and listening in GCSE English. Nic Worgan & Georgina Garbett. 3. Is the English curriculum really suitable for all? Salya Akhtar. 4. Rethinking, reimagining English in the post-16 sector: COVID-19 and the future of English. Joanne Bowser-Angermann & Elizabeth Draper. 5. Against the clock: ‘Time for Literacy Hour, children’ – A critique of English policy in primary schools. Louise Wheatcroft. 6. "A little bit of Jekyll, a little Mr. Hyde": Secondary English teachers speak of the tensions between their perception of English teaching and the systems they are required to serve. Debbie Haynes. Part 2. Notes from the struggle: Engagement and re-openings. 7. Zainab. Heather James. 8. ‘Smallness, narrowness and servility’: Resisting English at university over 30 years. Michael Jopling and Harvey Jopling. 9. Home education and English: The ticking time bomb of future need? Mel Carter. 10. Making creative spaces - constraints and aspirations: The English curriculum From Key Stage One to Key Stage Three. Steph Perks, Jennifer Wells and Victoria Wright. 11. Old books for hungry children: Negotiating definitions of cultural capital to support ‘disadvantaged’ children in primary school reading. Shaun Allen-Dooley. 12. In your own write; for English wherever I may find her: De-territorialising writing. Pete Bennett and Howard Scott. Part 3. The murmur: Optimism, re-imaginings and ways to rethink English. 13. The tentative: A modest proposal for a great leap forward. Shaun Passey . 14. Possibilities for teaching English literature in posthuman times. Louise Lambert. 15. Dissenting voices: Finding agency, authenticity and autonomy in the ‘luxuriant now’. Chris Waugh. 16. English and the Lefebvrian ‘moment’. Rob Smith. 17. Interrogating the listening practices of Mr Oxford Don: teacher education, culturally sustaining pedagogies and raciolinguistic ideologies. Ian Cushing. Afterword: Resources of Hope. Pete Bennett, Louise Lambert and Rob Smith

About the Author

Dr Pete Bennett is a Senior Lecturer in Post Compulsory Education at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.

Dr Louise Lambert is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Social work at Birmingham City University, UK.

Dr Rob Smith is a Professor of Education at Birmingham City University, UK.