1st Edition
James Britton on Education An Introductory Reader
James Britton’s work addresses central educational questions that are as relevant today as they were half a century ago. Britton was the architect of a theory of language and learning which has influenced the thinking and practice of generations of teachers across the anglophone world. This Reader helps teachers and students explore his theories of the relationships between language and thought, between thinking and feeling, the links between unconscious and conscious ways of knowing, and the symbolising nature of language.
This carefully curated collection of Britton’s key writings renders his work accessible to today’s students, educators and researchers. Fully annotated chapters explore how his work fuses observation and theory in a remarkable synthesis, and demonstrates the continuities between the early use of language and later more complex achievements in speaking, listening, reading and writing.
All those involved in teacher education and training, including researchers and scholars, will find this a rich and insightful text.
Introduction - James Britton’s life and work
Section 1 The language of young children
1.1 The development of language: ‘Learning to speak’
1.2 Early literacy: ‘Young fluent writers’
1.3 Meaning-making, interaction and play: ‘The anatomy of human experience – the role of inner speech’
Section 2 Language and learning at school
2.1 The value of talk: ‘Now that you go to school’
2.2 ‘Language and learning’
2.3 In defence of ‘progressive’ practice: ‘Language in the British primary school’
2.4 The disorderliness of learning: from ‘Talking to learn’
Section 3 Writing
3.1 Expressive writing: ‘Writing to learn and learning to write’
3.2 Functions and audiences in the development of writing: from The development of writing abilities (11-18)
3.3 What writers have in common: ‘Shaping at the point of utterance’
Section 4 Teachers and research
4.1 ‘A note on teaching, research and “development”’
4.2. ‘A quiet form of research’
4.3 The community of the classroom: ‘Vygotsky’s contribution to pedagogical theory’
Section 5 A certain idea of English
5.1 The scope of English: ‘What is English?’
5.2 ‘Literature in its place’
5.3 Autobiographical coda: ‘English teaching: retrospect and prospect’
5.4 Today’s student teachers reading and discussing Britton
Biography
Myra Barrs was Honorary Senior Research Associate at the UCL Institute of Education, UK, and former director of the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
Tony Burgess has been a secondary school teacher, before working in research and teacher education at the UCL Institute of Education, UK.
John Richmond has been an English teacher, an adviser of teachers and an educational broadcaster.
Jenifer Smith has been an English and drama teacher in both primary and secondary schools, before becoming a teacher educator at the University of East Anglia, UK.
John Yandell taught in secondary schools for twenty years before moving to the UCL Institute of Education, UK, where he is Professor of English in Education.
