Introduction
After being invited to write something for this 25th anniversary edition of this journal I decided I would write about how I believe the approach to teaching literacy across the curriculum has shifted over the last 25 years. In order to do this a brief review of my involvement in teacher professional development is included before I add my reflections. Twenty-five years ago In the 1993 issue of this journal, my colleague Julie Thompson and I announced the release of a professional development package on literacy in different Key Learning Areas (KLAs) for secondary teachers entitled Accessing learning: Language and literacy development in Key Learning Areas. This work drew on genre theory, initially developed by Jim Martin and Joan Rothery from the University of Sydney and based on extensive analysis of children’s texts taken from several schools. It was also informed by research into the literacy demands of various KLAs by Peter Wignell who was, at the time, at the same university. Our work in the early 1990s, funded as a non-government literacy project, was theoretically aligned with the Write it right project, which was sponsored by the New South Wales (NSW) Education Department. The Write it right team were researching relations between writing and knowledge in the secondary school context and this was the area informed by systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1975, 1994) and Bernstein’s (2000) theory of pedagogic discourse. Julie and I were also working in the same area and were generously given the opportunity to attend meetings with them as they developed their pedagogical approach to teaching literacy across the curriculum. Not long after the roll out of Accessing learning in the non-government sector in NSW schools (1994), the opportunity arose to work in a cross-sectoral team. This was funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Training through the National Professional Development Program. The aim was to develop a state-wide professional development package known as Literacy across the Key Learning Areas 7 & 8 (Training and Development Directorate, NSW Department of School Education, 1996). This project again drew on genre theory and the notion of a teaching/learning cycle in order to support middle years teachers to link with the literacy expectations developed through the NSW English K-6 syllabus, encourage a whole school approach to literacy and provide Years 7 and 8 teachers with KLA specific information and literacy strategies that could be applied in the classroom. The professional development package employed a train-the-trainer model, with initial training by the main writers of the package for key state personnel, from both government and non-government sectors, being held in Sydney in 1996. Trainers then returned to their schools and regions and worked through the training material. As in the case with many ‘top-down’ models of professional development, the success of the uptake was dependent upon the commitment of the school executive, combined with the expertise of key school personnel to support teachers in adopting this explicit and systematic approach to embedding literacy in specific subject disciplines. The professional development material gave examples of each text type from each subject area. It used materials for the literacy activities from different subjects, to try to ensure that teachers recognised that literacy was their responsibility and not the job of the English department. However, as I was working at the time as a literacy consultant and had the opportunity to visit many schools in both the government and non-government sectors, I could not say the hoped for change to a literacy-focused teaching practice had occurred. I observed very mixed results, that ranged from a whole school approach to literacy development, individual faculties adopting the approach or just individual teachers working in isolation.
