English

• Place and Contact
• Teaching and Learning
• Teaching Awards
• English/Faculty Prizes for Students

Place and Contact

The Discipline of English is located on Levels 5 and 6 of the Napier Building at the North Terrace campus of the University. Contact us at:

English DX 650 335 School of Humanities University of Adelaide South Australia 5005

voice: (+61 8) 8303 5627 / 8303 5130 fax: (+61 8) 8303 4341 email: simone.corponi@adelaide.edu.au

Teaching and Learning

English Studies

English Studies as a discipline assumes that cultural production both reflects and shapes social forms and identities, and that the analysis of cultural production is therefore a necessary component of any attempt to understand the world. It challenges the assumption that cultural production is a peripheral or decorative social form and analyses the ways in which cultural production shapes our understanding of ourselves and our social contexts and practices.

English Studies prioritises close reading of selected texts and other cultural forms, traditionally focussing on literary texts but also more recently on other kinds of cultural products, including cultural theory. It produces and analyses a range of knowledges about cultural forms and their capacity to document, comment on, and change society.

Teaching Philosophy

Learning and teaching are the central activities of The Discipline of English as a community encompassing staff and students at undergraduate, Honours and postgraduate levels.

The Discipline recognises the need for a shared involvement not only in the pursuit of knowledge and an understanding of its contexts, but also in the maintenance of excellence in learning and teaching. We recognise a shared commitment to monitoring the quality of our teaching and the learning experience of our students with regard for their diverse needs and aspirations and future destinations.

Effective learning and teaching is discursive, adaptive, interactive and reflective, and essentially a dialogue between teacher and student. Therefore the over-arching frame for learning and teaching in the English Department is a ‘conversational’ model in which a range of learning activities take place in different contexts, all of which contribute to this learning conversation.

Student evaluations allow crucial direct feedback to the teacher and department about how effective the conversation has been for the student’s learning, thereby allowing for modification of the teacher’s approaches.

The Discipline aims to provide a collegial and supportive structure for student learning committed to teaching excellence and enthusiastic participation in the diverse practices of our discipline. Research and teaching must remain closely connected in order to maintain the relevance and the disciplinary rigour of these practices.

We are similarly committed to consistency and clarity in our student-centred teaching practices, including:

• clear statements detailing how the curriculum relates to desired learning outcomes through its modes of teaching and assessment
• clearly explained and relevant assessment tasks and requirements
• provision of high-quality and up-to-date materials to support student learning
• effective and timely feedback on student progress and performance

The teaching modes adopted for any given subject, and thus the learning experience it provides, are shaped by both the content of the subject, including its principle methodologies, and by the expertise of its teachers — but always in response to the need for flexible student-centred learning.

The Discipline endeavours to make both a globally-contextualised education and life-long learning central to its range of subject offerings, forms of delivery, and assessment. With consideration for the diversity of skills and experiences which students bring to our subjects, we are committed to the skilled dissemination and utilisation of both established and new methodologies and technologies appropriate to our discipline.

The English Department has been recognised for excellence in learning and teaching, and is committed to ongoing structured review of its learning and teaching, and to encouraging and facilitating innovative teaching initiatives and research into teaching.

Forms of Assessment

Examinations

Exams encourage students to synthesise and contextualise material across the range of the subject, and in processes of revision they require students to produce an individual command of the subject and competence in the field.

Exams are also particularly appropriate to subjects, such as language-training subjects, where the recall of material is the central skill for competence in the field, or for subjects, such as writing courses, where competence in the field requires the ability to produce certain skills on demand.

Examinations are used to support a range of learning outcomes, including:

• individual capacity for comprehension of the crucial components of a question or task
• appropriate selection and clear execution of appropriate modes of critical analysis
• the precise definition and use of terms
• a capacity to write and argue precisely and in clear language

While they also substantially avoid the risk of plagiarism of various kinds, and thus make an important contribution to a pivotal subjects like English IA and English IB, sit-down examinations (where the paper is written under supervision) do not allow for the practice of some other disciplinary and generic skills, and are always employed in conjunction with other modes of assessment.

The Discipline also employs take-home examinations, a mode of assessment that allows the student a very short period of time, usually three or four days, to complete an examination paper. Take-home exams address most of the same learning outcomes as other exams, but also allow students to pay closer attention to many of the skills associated with essay-writing, including:

• awell-informed general argument
• close reference to relevant texts
• understanding of issues raised by the topic
• quality of written expression
• standards of academic presentation

Tutorial and Seminar Papers

In tutorials and seminars at level II and III, students’ oral presentations and written papers are often used to display students’ development of the discipline’s core skills. In these presentations, students learn to analyse themes, issues and debates from readings of set texts, and to read professional literature, identifying the author’s argument and the way concepts and supporting evidence are combined in constructing the argument. They also develop a substantive understanding of some of the emphases and methods of the discipline and develop and consolidate their skills in written and oral communication both specific to the discipline and generically available to their work in other disciplines or professional activities.

Seminar presentations ensure that students are not required to research the contexts, conventions and forms of all set texts and critical approaches covered by the subject in order to relate the subject materials in general to one another. As a complement to their own reading of set texts, the seminar group can benefit from the detailed research of individual students to introduce the subject’s range of key concepts.

Tutorial and seminar papers are assessed for their analytic contribution to the set topic, for their understanding and interrelation of set and recommended texts, for the coherence and persuasiveness of the argument conveyed in their presentation, and for their ability to stimulate discussion on the topic. Oral presentations are a particularly effective form of student-centred learning because students are encouraged to highlight particular aspects of the set texts and other readings that they believe are important. These presentations also encourage students to respond to one another’s work, to contribute to the learning of other students in the group, and to share experiences of the course and of the use of developing critical and research skills.

Tutorial and Seminar Exercises

Both tutorial and seminar contexts can include set or informal in-class exercises to practice specific disciplinary skills — such as the application of new terms or concepts — or assess particular skills — such as written expression or command of particular terms and concepts. Both tutorials and seminars may incorporate group student work along the same lines.

Tutorial exercises at Level I usually involve written response to a question designed to encourage practice of reading skills or response to specific critical statements, and these exercises are also assessed with regard to basic skills in written communication.

Because of the emphasis allocated to seminars, they tend to incorporate a wider range of in-class work, including exercises designed to develop and consolidate specific additional tools or skills or the use of concepts particularly important to a subject or perspective being demonstrated.

Where these exercises are assessed, they are assessed according to their understanding of terms or issues put forward in the exercise and, if appropriate, the clarity of their presentation of this understanding.

Participation Assessment

Each subject incorporates a least a 10% mark for participation. This may be a mark for attendance, which necessarily assists the acquisition of desirable skills or engagement with subject contents, or it may be a direct assessment of a student’s engagement with subject contents. These participation marks are determined either by the tutor’s assessment of an individual student’s general contribution to class discussions and engagement with the subject or, in whole or in part, by specific tutorial/seminar exercises designed to test familiarity with the core skills and concepts emphasised in the subject.

Essays

The essay requires students to identify the central issues raised by a question or problem and form a logical argument in response to those issues, supported by evidence from set texts and research sources and by selection of appropriate critical perspectives. Because it thus coalesces so many of the desired knowledges and skills of the discipline, the essay is the most utilised mode of assessment in English Studies. Several other assessment forms utilised in The Discipline are, moreover, designed to produce skills which will be useful in essay writing, which is also a key activity of professionals in the discipline and a skill germane to many other career paths followed by graduates with majors in English Studies.

Essays are an opportunity for students to produce knowledge of the discipline for themselves and with their own selected focuses, and to develop critical and analytic skills. Close analysis of set and selected materials, as well as an understanding of related issues raised by the materials and the problem at hand, are skills refined in essay writing. Essays also encourage students to select appropriate methods and concepts for a given task and to develop skills in the reading practices that they find most productive.

Essay questions require students to offer a detailed discussion of a particular topic, and in this context they learn to respond directly to an assigned problem within set parameters. Essays allow students to practice both synthesising and contextualising available materials, and to construct an informed critical argument by locating and contextualising new information. All students are trained to credit research sources and avoid plagiarism.

Grades

Essays are assessed according to the following criteria that reflect desired outcomes for student learning. he final mark for a student in any undergraduate subject (while itself mathematically calculated) should also suggest the student’s competence with or capacity for these skills at the appropriate level.

Pass should demonstrate an effective combination of the following:

• adequate adherence to scholarly conventions (eg. proper citation and bibliography
  using the MLA system)
• adequate reading underpinning assignments
• adequate skills of written expression
• clear reference to set texts
• adequate grasp of key analytic concepts

Credit should also demonstrate:

• the contextualisation of an argument in relation to other works, ideas, or frames of reference
• clear identification of central components of a question or problem
• identification of a central theme in the development of an argument
• appropriate substantiation of analysis by reference to set texts and research materials
• good skills of written expression

Distinction should also demonstrate:

• the development of critical skills by testing the basic assumptions and argumentative logic of
  critical and theoretical materials
• presentation of a clear and precise argument
• effective definitions of key terms
• precise and accurate documentation of research materials
• analysis of the historical and/or theoretical frame and broader significance of key sources
• superior skills of written expression

High Distinction should also demonstrate:

• high level conceptual and analytic skills
• independent insight
• outstanding skills of written expression and presentation  

Teaching Awards

Staff in the English Discipline have received a number of awards honouring its excellence in teaching.

The Stephen Cole the Elder Prizes for Excellence in Teaching

Winners of The Stephen Cole the Elder Prizes for Excellence in Teaching have included:

• Associate Professor Tom Burton (1993)
• Dr Susan Hosking (1994)
• Dr Heather Kerr (1994)
• Dr Dianne Schwerdt (1998)
• Dr Joy McEntee (2001; awarded for excellence in teaching in the first five years of teaching)
• Ms Lucy Potter (2006)

Executive Dean's Prizes and Vice-chancellor Awards

• Amanda Nettelbeck won the inaugural Executive Dean's Teaching Award (2005),
• Rowena Harper won the Executive Dean's Prize for Excellence in Teaching in the first 5 years (2006),
• Lucy Potter won the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2006).

Carrick Awards

Lucy Potter won a Carrick Citation for 'outstanding contributions to student learning' in 2007; Lucy's citation was specifically for 'outstanding modelling of both effective, student-centred teaching and dynamic leadership in the discipline of English, including ESL.

Joy McEntee received a Citation (2006) from the Carrick Institute for Leaning and Teaching in Higher Education for modelling an "infectious enthusiasm" for learning and teaching as stimulating and emotionally rewarding experiences, inspiring both learners and teachers over a 10-year period.

Australia Award for University Teaching

Two of our staff members have been nominated for the Australian Award for University Teaching (Humanities):

• Susan Hosking (nominee 1996, finalist 1998),
• Joy McEntee (2004)

Departmental Learning and Teaching Award

The Discipline received the University's Departmental Learning and Teaching Award in 1999.

English/Faculty Prizes for Students

Please see the Faculty website for English prizes and Faculty prizes you can apply or be nominated for.