Gender & Texts: A Professional Development Package for English Teachers [1 ed.] 1875659137, 9781875659135

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A Profession a

lopment Package for English Teachers

AUSTRALI AN A S S OC I AT I ON FOR THE T E A C H I N G OF E N G t I S H

G ender & T exts A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

Australian Association for the Teaching of English Inc. PO box 3203, Norwood SA 5067 © Australian Association for the Teaching of English Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from AATE Inc. apart from reasonable use for academic or educational purposes. First Published October 1998

Acknowledgement:

We are grateful to Allen & Unwin for permission to use David Bichbinder's chapter in this book. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data: Gender and text: a professional development package for English teachers. Bibliography. ISBN 1 875659 13 7. I. Gender identity in literature. 2. Femininity in literature. 3. Masculinity (Psychology) in literature. 4. Sex role in literature. I. Martino, Wayne John. II. Cook, Christine. III. Australian Association for the Teaching of English. IV. English Teachers Association of Western Australia. 820.928 AATE/Interface Series Commissioning Editor: Sieta vander Hoeven Cover, design and typesetting by Colorperception Pty Ltd Text set in 12/15 Wiess Printed in Australia by Hyde Park Press

G ender & T exts A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

WAYNE MARTINO & CHRIS COOK(EDS)

CONTRIBUTORS:

Brian Moon Wayne Martino Colin Kenworthy David Buchbinder

Published by AATE in conjuction with English Teachers’ Association of Western Australia 1998

The AATE/Inter lace Series comprises a range of books for teachers who are committed to researching their own teaching - teachers who work at the interface between theory and practice. Interface titles will all have a practical edge, in that they will include ideas developed in classrooms, for use in classrooms. Yet they are far more than a set of resources. Their primary purpose is to address significant issues in English curriculum and pedagogy, including the gendered nature of literacy practices, forms of responding to students' writing, and the value of narrative in classroom settings. The AATE/Interface series will represent a substantial contribution to our knowledge as English teachers and literacy educators.

TABLE OF C O N T E N T S

Fo rew o rd

v

C h apter O n e

i

R eading A n d G ender :

Brian Moon Introduction Reading The Eagle' Activity f Reading through Gender Reading 'Beached Yacht' Ac t i v i t y 2

Reading 'The Truck Driver' A c tiv i ty 3 References Texts used in the collection of student readings C h apter T w o

T argeting G ender

in th e

C ritical L iteracy C lassroom .-

Wayne Martino Introduction Literacy practices and the construction of masculinities Reading for gender Reading students' readings of 'Rhinoceros Beetle' 'Interweaving between the categories': Reading Insane With Desire' Reading students' readings of 'Insane With Desire' Conclusion References

3

6

6

9 13 13

8

1

19

30 33 35

37 39 41 45 53 56 65 66

G e n d e r & T exts

C h apter T h ree

G ender

and

L iteracy : T heory

and

P ractice

Colin Kenworthy Introduction Lesson One: 'Bob's Fish' Lesson Two: The Bad Deeds Gang' Application References

in the

David Buchbinder Introduction A model of masculinity

S t r ic t ly B a l l r o o m -.

Activity l

Queer theory

A c tiv i ty 2 A c ti v i ty 3

Patriarchal ideology

A c t i v i ty 4

The masculine as part of agender system Reading texts: Strictly Ballroom

A c t i v i ty 5

References and selected further readings

VI

75 80 99 116 120 125

C h apter Fo u r

R eading T he M asculine In

C lassroom :

73

127 129 1 30

132 j 34 137

138 14 o 142 146 150

51

1

FOREWORD

This collection of papers is based on a Professional Development Project funded by the Australian Association for the Teaching of English in 1997. It was conducted by the English Teachers' Association of Western Australia and draws together particular perspectives on using texts in the English classroom which address issues of gender and/or sexuality. One of the aims of this project was to provide an arena for English teachers to engage with translating current theoretical perspectives on reading and gender into classroom practice. In fact, the papers included as part of this package all make explicit the implications of particular social and cultural theories for developing specific kinds of pedagogical practices for encouraging students to read texts in quite specific ways. It is in this sense that they all address, in one way or another, how English teachers might work with particular texts, according to an explicit set of norms, to achieve certain objectives. The issues that are addressed by many of the authors range from a focus on gendered reading practices, as an effect of specific social trainings, to the role that sexuality plays or should play in discussions about the social construction of masculinities and their impact on the lives of both boys and girls. Such perspectives are in line with current research into both the politicised aspects of specific literacy practices1

Moon provides a useful framework for understanding the links between gender and reading texts. He argues that bow texts are read is an effect of practical routines and specific techniques. In this sense, reading is not presented as a cognitive-affective process or a mental activity which is formed in the realm 1 For references to the political aspects of literary practices, see Luke, Freebody & Muspratt forthcoming, Hunter, 1991, Mellor & Patterson, 1994, 1996,- Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1995,- Martino, 1995, Green, 1990) For references to the role that sexuality plays in the policing of gender for boys and girls in school see Laskey & Bcavis, 1996; Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Connell, 1994; Nayak & Kehily, 1996,- Epstein, 1997; Lees, 1993; Martino, 1997, Steinberg et al, 1997. vu

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of consciousness. However, he does argue that readers draw on available knowledges about gender when they read texts, but he emphasises that these knowledges are not somehow stored or represented in consciousness as a Vague set of ideas that predispose the reader to experience the [text] in a particular way'. Through analysing students' readings of texts, he demonstrates how students read through character to produce gendered readings of texts which are a result of culturally and historically specific practices. And he argues that this constitutes a particular way of reading or training in which a moral discourse of gender is implicated. Martino, in his paper also focuses on gendered readings of texts and examines the implications of his research in terms of devising specific kinds of literacy practices in the English classroom. He argues that certain texts may be strategically deployed in the literacy classroom to target the impact and effects of dominant models of masculinity on the lives of both boys and girls. By drawing attention to how students read two particular texts, he claims that on occasions it may be necessary to teach students to read explicitly for gender and, in this way, help them to build up a specific repertoire of knowledge about the social construction of masculinities. He also points out that the ways in which gender intersects with other social factors such as race, class, ethnicity and sexuality can also be targeted according to specific norms for reading texts in particular ways. However, he does indicate that the students' own readings of texts can provide a useful teaching resource and monitoring device for helping teachers to understand the gender knowledges that students are drawing on when they read particular texts. Kenworthy's paper is also useful in translating theory into practice for classroom teachers. He draws on discourse theory as a basis for devising a set of practical classroom activities which are built around quite specific norms for reading gender. His paper is useful because it provides specific and detailed guidelines for assisting teachers to work with particular texts in their classrooms. Moreover, he demonstrates how students can be assisted to produce resistant readings of texts within an ideological and politicised framework for deploying texts in the literacy classroom. He also provides some comment about the classroom discussions that resulted from his own use of these texts with students.

FOREWORD

Buchbinder addresses explicitly how Strictly Ballroom can be read within specific cultural frames for addressing issues of masculinity and sexuality. He elaborates a model of masculinity which is informed by feminist and gay political theories as a basis for advocating a literacy practice which allows for 'queer' readings. This approach, he argues would enable readers to occupy a gender or sexual position which s/he would not normally read from'. The benefits of such a practice, he claims, is that it allows the reader to attend to the gaps or slips in texts as a basis for producing alternative readings which foreground and challenge certain normalising heterosexist practices. In this way, a particular gender system in which heterosexual desire is privileged and policed through homophobic practices can be targeted for specific analysis in the literacy classroom. The activities that are provided are also useful in helping teachers to explore some of the theoretical concepts that are being dealt with in the paper and which relate to the application of queer theory to reading gender in texts. Overall, this publication provides both a useful theoretical framework and a practical orientation to dealing with gender and texts in the literacy classroom. This is its particular strength. It provides a theoretical basis for teachers, while at the same time making clear how particular theories inform the way teachers might use texts in the English classroom to help their students read gender. It is hoped that it will provide English teachers with some useful strategies and approaches to working with texts which pave the way for helping students to develop particular capacities for reading gender. We would like to thank Leona Lim, secretary for the Curriculum Section in the School of Education at Murdoch University, for help with typing and preparing the manuscript. Wayne Martino School O f Education M urdoch U niversity

Christine Cook E ducation D epartment O f W estern A ustralia

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R eferences

Connell, R. W. (1994). Knowing About Masculinity, Teaching Boys and Men . Paper presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Conference, San Diego, April. Epstein, I). (1997). Boyz' Own Stories: Masculinities and Sexualities in Schools. Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No. I, 105-1 15. Freebody, P., Luke, A. & Muspratt, S. (eds.) (Forthcoming) Constructing Critical Literacies. New York &Jersey: Hampton Press. Green, B. (1990). A Dividing Practice: Literaaire", English Teaching and Cultural Politics.' In Goodson, I. & Medway, P. (eds.), Bringing English to Order. London, New York & Philadelphia: The Falmer Press. Hunter, I. (1991). 'From Discourse to Dispositif: Foucault and the Study of Literature.' Meridian, 10: 36-53. Hunter, I. (1983). Reading Character.' Southern Review 16, July, 226-43. Laskey, L. & Beavis, C. (eds.) (1996). Schooling and Sexualities: Teaching fora Positive Sexuality. Geelong: Deakin University for Education and Change. Lees, S. (1993). Sugar and Spice. Sexuality and Adolescent Girls. London: Penguin. Mac an Chaill, M. (1994). The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling. Buckingham & Philadelphia: Open Liniversity Press. Martino, W. (1997a). "A Bunch ol Arseholes": Exploring the Politics of Masculinity for Adolescent Boys in Schools'. Social Alternatives, Vol 16, No. 3, 39-43. Martino, W. (1995). Boys and Literacy: Exploring the Construction of Hegemonic Masculinities and the Formation of Literate Capacities for Boys in the English Classroom.' English in Australia, 1 12, July, I 1-24.

x

FOREWORD

Nayak, A. & Kehily, M. (1996). Playing it Straight: Masculinities, Homophobias and Schooling.' Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 5. No. 2, 21 1-230. Mellor, B & Patterson, A. (1991). Reading Character: Reading Gender.' English in Australia, No. 95, 4-23. Mellor, B. & Patterson, A. (1994). The Reading Lesson .' Interpretations, Vol. 27, No. 3. Mellor, B. & Patterson, B. (1996). Reading Capacities: Foundations or Formulae.' Interpretations, Vol 29, No. 3, 46- 69. Pallotta-Chiarolli, M. (1995).' Only Your Labels Split Me' : Interweaving Ethnicity and Sexuality in English Studies'. English in Australia, Vol. 112, July, 33-44. Steinberg, D. L., Epstein, D. &Johnson, R. (1997). Border Patrols.- Policing the Boundaries of Heterosexuality. London: Cassell.

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READING AND GENDER

1

G e n d e r & T exts

2

C H A P T E R

1

BRIAN MOON*

READING AND GENDER

I n t r o d u c t io n

In recent decades there has been within English studies at all levels a growing acceptance of the argument that reading is never a neutral activity. Many researchers are now exploring the ways in which reading might be implicated in the reproduction of various social structures and relations, including the structure of gender relations. In this paper I propose to present some evidence, in the form of actual classroom readings, that gender is indeed caught up in practices of reading. But I also want to use this evidence to develop a further argument about how we should understand both reading itself and the relationship between reading and gender. Research into the relationship between reading and gender typically addresses the issue in terms of the reader's experience of the text. This approach to the problem assumes that we can think of reading in terms of an encounter between two separate entities: the text, understood as a structure of meaning’, and the reader, understood as a conscious subject. More sophisticated theories recognise that these entities are not self-sufficient but are to some extent constructed through socio-cultural and linguistic forces, such as discourses, Brian Moon lectures in the School ol Language Education at Edith Cowan University. 3

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ideologies and reading practices. But for the most part they continue to see these forces as 'framing' or 'mediating' an encounter between reader and text. At the core of such theories is an assumption that reading is fundamentally a mental, or cognitive-affective, process. In what follows I will argue that this may not be the best way of thinking about reading or about the relationship between reading and gender. A number of objections can be made to a model of (gendered) reading based on the idea of reading-as-cxpcrience. In this paper I will deal with two. The first objection is that the text as a 'structure of meaning' does not unproblematically pre-exist its reading. That is to say, the text's potential for meaning is only realised and fixed through the application of a specific practice. It 'takes shape' only at the point of being read, and it may take a different shape depending upon how it is read. A text is therefore not the kind of entity one can 'encounter,' since what we think of as 'the text' only comes into being through reading. The second objection is that the domain of consciousness does not define the boundaries of what we call reading. By this I mean that many of the things we do when reading (and perhaps they are the most important things) are not bound up with 'consciousness, but take the form of practical routines. These routines might include such things as: • focussing on some elements of a text and ignoring others,• treating the text as an example of a certain category or genre of writing,• applying particular rules of judgement to narrative events,• using a particular vocabulary,and so on. We might think of these techniques as habits of speech and action rather than motivations and responses played out in the realm of consciousness. This means that the idea of a coherent consciousness or subject to engage with the text is as shaky as the idea of a text that waits to be encountered. To develop and illustrate these arguments I will present a range of readings produced by high school students in Western Australian English classrooms. These readings were obtained in the course of a research project on reading and gender1. They show that gender is indeed implicated in classroom reading practices, but perhaps not in the way that is commonly understood.

CHAPTER

1

Studies of reading and gender have frequently focused on the supposedly different ways males and females read the same texts, or on the differential consequences that arise for men and women when they read texts in the same way. The aim of such studies has generally been to explore the reading experience' in terms of the relationship between the gender of the reader and the 'gender-orientation' either of the text (variously diagnosed on the basis of authorship, characterisation, narrative organisation, and so on) or of the discourses mobilised in the moment of reading through the interaction of text and reader. In a variation on the above approach, this study not only compared the readings produced by males and females for a given text, but compared these readings with those produced for an altered version of the same text, a version in which the text's gender markers (pronouns, character references and so on) had been swapped from feminine to masculine, or vice-versa. The purpose of this strategy was to shift the focus away from the text-reader binary and onto the practices by which readings are produced for a text. The technique of altering the text in this way not only permits a comparison of the readings produced by male and female subjects (providing an opportunity to observe whether the readings are inflected by the reader's gender), but also provides an indication of the ways in which, and the extent to which, reading practices 'produce' the text as 'gendered.'1

1 For a full presentation of the results, see B. Moon, Reading and Gender: From Discourse and Subject to Regimes of Practice,' in the list of works cited.

5

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Reading The Eagle' The first set of readings was produced in response to the well-known Tennyson poem, The Eagle'12. Activity 1 1.

Before going on, read Tennyson’s poem for yourself (p.33). Try to work out what the text means, and say how you arrived at this meaning. Share your reading with others in a small group discussion.

2. Discuss how your readings might change if the poem used the pronoun ‘she’ rather than ‘he’ throughout. W h y would you predict these changes?

Readings of the Tennyson poem demonstrate the extent to which a satisfactory model of 'gendered reading' depends on a re-thinking of reading’ itself. When invited to record their impressions of this poem, high school students produced a narrow range of readings in which the eagle, as subject of the poem, was constructed as a noble, authoritative, and commanding presence. Asked to explain how this impression was produced, most students employed a form of New Critical reading practice, explaining the poem's effect in terms the interplay of elements 'in' the poem. Words and phrases such as 'crag,' 'mountain walls' and 'wrinkled sea' were read as signifiers of a harsh environment, and the eagle's position on top of the mountain (not stated in the poem, but invariably produced as a reading) was construed as evidence of its dominance. Student readers were generally unable to go beyond this point in analysing the process by which they constructed their readings, asserting merely that from the information (Jivett b y the poem the validity of their reading was manifest. However, selective manipulation of the poem raises questions about these accounts of how the poem was read. 2 A set of classroom activities based on this work is presented in my textbook, Studying Literature. 6

CHAPTER

1

To begin with, it is interesting to note that the text of the poem contains no denotative' references to an eagle as a particular kind of animal. Student readers often (though not always) clarified their description of the eagle with reference to its physical features: 'sharp-eyed,' 'wings outstretched,' and 'hooked beak' were typical instances. None of these can be derived from the 'words on the page.' The sole (figurative) reference to the eagle's physical appearance is the phrase 'crooked hands' (1.1). The students' ability to justify readings of nobility and authority with reference to such physical features becomes even more interesting given that they can produce these readings on the basis of the title alone. When the eagle' was offered to other groups of students as a topic for a 'five-minute writing' exercise, the resulting texts contained ideas and vocabulary very similar to the descriptions produced in 'response' to Tennyson's poem3. This suggests that producing a reading for a text involves the activation and application of readings drawn from elsewhere: in this case, from an available stock of readings about eagles. In the words of theorist Roland Barthes, these other readings are cultural 'myths': conventionalised ways of thinking about or responding to some aspect of the world, provided by the culture prior to individual experience (rather than emerging out of experience). Such myths constitute a form of cultural 'knowledge'. The effect of myths, Barthes4 argues, is to turn social conventions that might be disputed into naturalised assumptions that require no explanation. In constructing their readings, the students used cultural myths as a kind of template that pre-defined the way certain aspects of the text would be construed. The ability to produce the 'dominant' reading of the eagle' (whether as natural object or as poem) thus depends upon certain cultural trainings that equip students with a set of 'appropriate' statements about (readings of) eagles. Of particular interest is the way 'gender knowledges' inflected readings of the poem. Readers generally glossed over the masculine pronoun that mediates between the eagle of the title and the descriptions of sky, earth 3 'Five-minute writing' is a common classroom activity in which students write non-stop on a given topic for five minutes. The technique is often used as a 'warm-up' activity at the beginning of English lessons, or as a prelude to discussion or more 'formal' writing tasks.

4 Barthes, 1957: 114

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G e n d e r & T e xt s

and water in the main body of the text. Yet their universalising of the eagle was profoundly gendered, as a change of pronouns showed. A different group of students, presented with an altered version of the text that read ‘She clasps the crag...' produced substantially different readings. Still proud, the eagle was now 'watching for her mate,' or 'swooping to catch fish for her chicks'; no longer surveying her territory from the lop of the mountain, she was frequently constructed as 'nesting/nestling' on a ledge. This shift in the readings further supports the view that readings of texts are fabricated in part from stock materials. Very few students constructed the eagle as feminine from the title alone (that is, in 'five-minute writing1activities), suggesting that whereas a reading of the eagle as masculine is already available,' a reading of it as feminine is less available, requires a specific stimulus (the feminine pronoun), and draws upon a different body of 'knowledge' (for example, about mothering). These 'responses' to the text thus provide three interesting insights into the production of readings. First, they demonstrate that readings are not simply derived from the text 'itself' but require for their fabrication a body of 'reader knowledge'. Second, they indicate that this reader knowledge is social rather than personal. Third, and most significantly, the consistency of the readings indicates that this knowledge is not stored in consciousness as a vague set of ideas that predisposes the reader to experience the poem in a particular way,rather, it takes the form of a set of routines assembling readings (for example, producing a set of statements drawn from a cultural mythology about animals). This suggests that reading is less an interpretive practice than an iterative one, in which the accepted terms for speaking about a particular object are 'duplicated' rather than extracted/derived5.

5 Foucault, 1989: 100-105 8

CHAPTER

1

Reading through gender The reading of 'eagles' in gendered terms is not necessarily a general character­ istic of western culture, or a function of some general, free-floating mythology. Rather, it seems that the construction of such gendered readings is related to a historically specific practice-, that of reading texts through constructions of character6. That students should apply this practice in their reading of an animal is not surprising,- their construction of male and female eagles as characters' merely signals a prior training in the production of anthropomorphic readings — a training associated with the nature stories in children's literature, with television documentaries, with Disney cartoons, and, significantly, with the empathic reading practices promoted in their English classrooms. Tennyson's poem provides an interesting point of departure for an analysis of the relation between gender and character, through readings that are produced when the poem is presented without its title - an idea suggested by the remark­ ably 'complete' readings students were able to produce on the basis of the title alone. In the first group of readings below, the body of the poem was presented to readers with an invitation that they guess what the poem was about. Without the benefit of the title, none of the students produced readings of an eagle. (This is, perhaps, unsurprising.) Overwhelmingly, however, readers constructed readings that featured a powerful male character engaged in some form of heroic physical activity, such as mountain climbing. The following are typical of the readings produced7: 1.1

1.1

The poem is about an elderly man climbing a mountain over a beach. He is alone and when he looks down he gets dizzy and falls. (Girl 14) This poem is about a rock climber who is abseiling, or even an old man fighting for a higher pension. He is quite frightened but he keeps struggling against the odds. (Boy 14)

Mellor and Patterson, 1991: 12-14 7 The sample readings have been numbered for ease of reference. Spelling and punctuation have been regularised, and the reader's sex and age are indicated in brackets. 6

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1.3

1.4

I think the poem is about an old man standing alone on the cliffs over the sea and he is watching the landscape. His life is at an end and he takes the plunge into the sea and ends it all. (Girl 15) I would say it is about a mountain man who lives alone with just the animals. He is climbing a rocky wall and dives into the sea from a long way up. (Boy 14)

Readings of this text constructed the male character as benign, independent, and in control of his environment - or struggling to control it. Some of the readings construed the final line as a reference to tragic death,- the others constructed this as a narrow escape, ritual or deliberate action (such as diving for fish). In the altered version of the text, presented to different students, she was substituted for 'he,' constructing the subject of the poem as female, thus: 'She clasped the crag with crooked hands...' This resulted in a significant shift in the readings produced. The female character was frequently produced as a witch or hag rather than, say, a woman mountaineer: 1.5

1.6 1.7

1.8 1.9

10

I think it is about an evil woman like a witch, climbing a mountain, perhaps to get to her cave or a castle, but then she falls or maybe swoops down using magical powers. (Girl 13) She is a sorceress who lives on a remote mountain, very old and dangerous, her look makes the sea crawl. I think she is struck down for her evil ways. (Boy 14) I think it is some strange being falling from a high place. The being is a female and very old. She is trying to get somewhere but she is too weak and so she commits suicide by falling onto the rocks and the sea. (Girl 14) It is an old crone who waits on a cliff for travellers and jumps them. She gives them a task before they can get past. (Boy 14) It is a sad old woman, I think she feels bad because her life has been wasted at something. She climbs up [the mountain] and jumps to kill herself because her life has been wasted. (Boy 14)

CHAPTER

1

In contrast to readings of the original text, these responses endowed the central character with a noticeable element of menace. From these examples it seems clear that readers accommodated elements of the text to a stock of readings about male and female characters. Of particular interest is the way the meaning of particular words and phrases was determined with reference to readings of the gendered character. 'Crooked hands,' for example, was read as indicating strength, and sometimes age, in the case of the male character, but signified a combination of age and malevolence in the case of the female. Constructions of the character's relation to the setting differed also. For example, readings of the male either positioned him on top of the mountain or foregrounded his struggle to reach the top,- readings of the female positioned her on the side of the mountain and foregrounded her 'fall.' This accords with the results of the study by Mellor and Patterson, which suggested that the way student readers manipulated specific textual details 'was determined in the main by the type of character reading they were attempting to construct'.8 With specific regard to character, there was a tendency for students to read the female character's situation as expressive of a personal failing or character flaw: she was evil, or old (which carried an implication of blame in some readings), or had 'failed at something' (1.9 above). This tendency was matched by the suggestion that the 'fall' was a form of punishment (stated in 1.6, and common in many of the readings). In contrast to this, readings of the male invoked character' as the basis of mastery (implied in 1.2 and 1.4): males were constructed as being in control of, or struggling heroically to regain control of, their circumstances. In readings of the male, tragic deaths invariably took the form of accidents or noble sacrifices, rarely the form of punishment or failure. There would seem to be a particular concept of power at work in these readings that is both gender-inflected and somewhat circular. Male characters were read as powerful and autonomous, and once constructed in this way were then approved as normal; female characters were read either as being at the mercy of their environment and/or natures, in which case they became 8 Mellor and Patterson, 199112 II

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blameworthy, or as struggling 'unnaturally' to control the world, in which case they were constructed as dangerous, or at least unpleasant. A particular logic of gender thus shaped the reading and was then endorsed by it. The fact that a change in the pronoun led readers to construct quite distinct character types and narrative lines for the text indicates the extent to which character and gender jointly 'frame' the production of readings. It has been proposed elsewhere that the construction of readings through character represents a specific reading practice. Ian Hunter has argued that this practice involves constructing the character as a Veal personality' with inner motivations, and supplementing the text with a moral discourse on character type' 9. What Hunter does not emphasise, but what feminist critiques of moral psychology have always recognised, is that the moral discourse of 'character' is profoundly gendered. This suggests that the constitution of characters as moral entities is (at this moment) inseparable from their constitution as gendered entities.

9 Hunter, 1983: 230. (2

CHAPTER

1

Reading Beached Yacht' The link between character and gender can be read even more strongly in the following readings. In this activity readers were presented with a newspaper article about a lone sailor whose $120,000 yacht ran aground in the southwest town of Denmark after he lost his glasses overboard and could not read his navigational charts. The article describes the efforts of local townspeople to free the yacht, and concludes with a brief mention of the town's women, who 'helped out by providing hot drinks and food to the salvage team'10. The text was accompanied by questions about the substance of the article and the reader's 'response' to it. Ac t i v i t y 1 In the light of the arguments and examples presented above, what readings do you expect high school students would make of the sailor whose boat ran aground? Working in small groups, make predictions about the following: •

how readers would react when the sailor is a man

•

how readers would react when the sailor is a woman

•

whether readings by males and females will differ in either case, and if so how.

Make an effort to theorise your predictions by explaining w hy you think these outcomes are likely.

This text is interesting because it can be read as exhibiting the sexism' that text-oriented models of reading sometimes focus on. The role of women in the 'story,' it might be argued, is marginalised by the closing reference to those women who 'helped out by providing hot drinks... It could be said that, no less than a 'fictional' narrative, this 'factual' report distributes its signs so as to offer the reader a version of reality that reproduces a gendered social order. (Salom, 1990: 4) I have used a pseudonym for the lone sailor featured in the news report. The full text of the article is on p.34 13

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Examining the way in which readers perform' the text, however, makes it clear that the phenomenon of gendered reading is not tied to representational and structural features of 'the text/ but is a function of the reading practice itself, whereby elements of the text are accommodated to the engendering' reading practices that are part of the reader's stock of competencies. This is demonstrated once again by the technique of changing the sign of gender in the text, which results in a dramatic alteration in the readings produced. This first group of readings is representative of those produced by students working with the original text: 2.1

I think Mr Potters actions were very stupid. He shouldn’t have tried to sail his yacht single-handed because he cannot see properly and so he cannot control his ketch. (Boy 15)

2.2

Mr Potter I think was irresponsible to sail in rough conditions by himself. Knowing his handicap Mr Potter should not have even considered sailing his yacht alone. He seems to have extremely bad eyesight and no sense of direction therefore it is all his own fault. (Girl 15) I think Mr Potter's actions were unwise... but it was a fluke that his glasses fell off. This goes to show that he was quite stupid in not securing his glasses to his face, and not thinking ahead to take another pair of glasses.

2.3

He was very short-sighted.

2.4

(Girl 15) This man was thick. He did not consider all the possible problems that could have occurred (e g., losing his glasses or his map). If he was incapable of sailing a yacht solo under some conditions he should not have [sailed it] at all. (Boy 15)

Repeated themes in the readings were the man's failure to anticipate problems, and his 'handicap,' which led to a loss of 'control.' There was an implication in some readings that weak eyesight is blameworthy,- failing to compensate for it, or being caught out because of it, was taken to indicate the man's unsuitability to the 'challenge' of sailing alone. n

CHAPTER

1

Some readings constructed the man as brave' or courageous/ but these were in the minority and often exhibited contradictory lines of thought, as in the following: 2.5

I think Mr Potters actions in trying to sail his boat single-handed were obviously quite pathetic and inane, as the waters in the distance he was travelling were very rough and dangerous to tackle alone. He was a very brave man. (Girl 15)

In responses of this type, the reference to bravery seems to have been deployed in the form of a generic comment that one is supposed to apply to any instance of male adventure. Yet it is juxtaposed incongruously with criticism of the man's behaviour, as though stock readings from two related but contradictory paradigms ('masculine adventure' and masculine failure') have been reproduced. In the altered version of the text, 'Valerie Potter' was substituted for Vincent Potter,' and pronouns adjusted accordingly. No other details were changed, yet readers who worked with this text produced markedly different meanings for the 'same' reported events: 2.6

2.7

2.8

I think that Mrs Potter111 was brave and would have successfully sailed the boat without having an accident except for the fact that her glasses fell overboard. (Girl 15) I think she is brave doing such a risky thing. She must be a very confident sailor with a lot of experience. Although if she was unable to read the navigational charts without her glasses she should have taken more than one pair. I admire her for taking on such a challenge to try and achieve something for herself. (Girl 15) I don't think because she lost her glasses it means she shouldn't have been sailing because you can’t tell everything that is going to happen. I think she was brave and should get right back in the boat and continue her journey. (Boy 15)

1 1 Use of the titles Mr, Mrs, Miss and Ms followed no clear pattern: most students used no title at all when referring to the characters. 15

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Readings of the altered text were much more sympathetic to the character's predicament. Constructions of a 'brave' and 'independent' woman were common, and there was a noticeable preparedness to acknowledge that the woman could not have been expected to foresee every contingency. While the mere fact of this difference in the readings is significant, it is also interesting to speculate on the regime of rationality that governs it. Readers seemed to be deploying a body of knowledge which holds that men, rather than women, are supposed to be both adventurous and competent. Within the logic of this knowledge, men who fail at a task challenge the dominant construction of masculinity, and so are condemned. In contrast,women who fail at an adventurous task confirm the dominant construction of femininity and so receive more favourable assessments. Implicated in this pattern of thinking are mythologies of vision, which equate clarity of vision (and knowledge/foreknowledge) with masculinity: there was a much greater tendency to regard poor eyesight as a 'handicap' in the case of the man. Again, these readings seem to indicate a practice of activating the text through readings of gender and character. In part, this practice involves the iteration of statements drawn from a discourse' that maps the limits of what can be said about a particular character. The homogeneity of the responses would seem to suggest that students could not relocate themselves 'outside' of this training in order to produce individual responses'; rather, the very possibility of reading lay within the available practices. Further, these practices - which would seem to consist of ways of speaking, in gender-related terms, about adventure, physicality, success, and failure - apparently played a role in constituting the text as an object ‘appropriate’ to a particular set of statements. That is to say, readers do not first interpret a text and then decide, on the basis of its representational content, which discourses are appropriate to its description or interpretation. Rather, their training in a particular practice, and their practical familiarity with specific discourses, determines the meanings that will be found 'in' a text, and so determines the set of possible/valid readings of a text.

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This hypothesis is supported by the absence of genuinely alternative readings in the survey, which might have constaicted the 'Beached Yacht' text in very different ways than through discourses of character and gender. One could, for example, read the text in terms of class, but none of the readings drew connections between the availability of leisure time, the ownership of a yacht, the possible financial situation of the owner, and the likely expense of the rescue attempt (to conclude, perhaps, that the owner was privileged, spoiled or arrogant). This indicates that the techniques available to young Western Australians for producing’ stories about lone sailors constitute the activity in terms of individualistic (male) adventure rather than, for example, wealthy indulgence. Indeed, one could dispense entirely with character as an organising framework, reading the text in terms of the economic and social costs of salvage operations. Yet no student employed such a 'non-personalist' reading practice. A significant feature of these readings is the way that changes of 'interpretation' that are triggered by alterations to the text are evident across the entire readership, rather than being 'expressed' as differences between readings produced by males and females. This lends support to the argument that readings are constructed through a kind of practical routine (reading through character, for example) rather than through the personal 'experiencing' of the text by the reader. This is not to say, however, that there are no differences between the readings of girls and boys. Such differences did emerge, but at another level, within the general homogeneity of 'gendered' readings.

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Reading The Truck Driver' The Eagle' and 'Beached Yacht' provide examples of the way readings produced by both male and female students shift uniformly in reaction to alterations in the gender-coding of the text. This indicates that gender, activated in readings of character, is an important feature of the practices through which students produce their readings. The pervasiveness of 'character' discourses, it seems, not only makes character crucial in shaping readings but also makes gender a powerful marker, such that reading characters and events in terms of gender becomes a naturalised rule. It is the operation of this rule that is revealed through the strategy of altering the text,- for the shift in the readings actually demonstrates the consistency of a practice. It is because the text is consistently read through character and gender that a change is observable in the specific statements that constitute the readings. Within the homogeneity of these 'gendered readings', however, differences did emerge in the 'responses' of males and females who took part in the study. But these differences were less striking than might be expected, and they add further weight to the argument that gendered reading is a function of institutionalised practices rather than individual 'experiences.' This additional dimension comes into focus most clearly in the case of narratives. (Although both The Eagle' and 'Beached Yacht’ can be read as narratives, most readers seemed to produce them instead as descriptive and informative texts respectively.) That narrative readings result in a greater differentiation between the 'responses' of males and females is an observation that has been made in other studies. David Bleich has argued, for instance, that male and female readers differ more markedly in their readings of narrative fiction than in their readings of lyric poetry12. Bleich's explanation of the difference is highly questionable because it appeals to essentialist notions of gender, but the fact of his observation remains significant. In the following examples narrative has been introduced to the reading activity by inviting students to produce their reading in the form of a written extension 12 Bleich, 1986: 239 18

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to a narrative fragment. In the activity, students were instructed to read a brief paragraph and to use this as the starting point for a narrative, extending the story in whatever form and direction they wished. This technique produces a reading that is literally a writing of the text. In this case there is no pretence of looking 'into' the text or constructing its anterior reality, but rather a process of constructing a second text which takes specific signs from the first and plays on/with them, according to the dictates of particular reading/writing practices. This is the brief fragment of text students were offered13. In its original form, the text specifies a male 'character.' The old truck, engine revving and rusty panels shaking, rattled noisily over the potholed track. Under a washed-out sky, the spinning wheels stirred red dust into dry clouds that completely engulfed the vehicle and the man sitting in the driver's seat.

Ac t iv i t y 3 In the light of the arguments and examples presented above, how would you expect high school students to continue the “ truck driver” story? W orking in small groups, make predictions about the following: •

storylines based on a male truck driver

•

storylines based on a female truck driver

•

differences, if any, in stories produced by male and female students

Make an effort to theorise your predictions by listing the

influences that might shape these stories.

Once again, the most striking feature of the readings is their large-scale homogeneity. Reading through character, males and females produced story extensions that suggest the deployment of a common stock of readings of1 13 The idea for the 'truck driver activity stems from an observation by Stephen Nichols, who teaches at Canning College. I thank him for sharing it with me. 19

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gender. Stories constructed around a male driver were noticeable for the ordinariness of their storylines. For most readers, the concept lone male driver triggered only readings of everyday life. Thus, many of the stories involved men going out to buy hamburgers, make routine deliveries, and the like: 3.1

The rusted truck was ten minutes out of Toodyay and heading towards Fremantle where it had to deliver its cargo. It was morning and the driver was behind schedule. (Boy 14)

Males were constructed as being connected with the truck through ownership or by trade, and were invariably in control of it, to the extent of being able to repair mechanical faults: 3.2

3.3

Suddenly the truck hit a really big pot hole and the engine cut out completely. John swore and thumped the steering wheel and got out. It was the engine again. He needed a new one but where would the money come from. For the time being he would have to keep making running repairs. Luckily he knew about truck engines, having been a mechanic's assistant. (Girl 14) He looked at the back of his truck to see if the equipment, including spades, gloves, tools and magnifying glass were still there, all ready for the search to find gold when he reached Kalgoorlie. (Girl 14)

These features are in sharp contrast to readings of the altered text, which substituted woman' for 'man' in the original paragraph. The scenario of a woman alone and in charge of a truck implied to most readers some form of scandal, and the resultant readings feature a variety of 'scandalous' female figures. The duplicitous woman: 3.4

20

Running away always seemed the quickest and easiest route to escape her emotions, and lately it [was] all she seemed to do. In three years she had moved to six towns. Six different identities she had created. Each was loved helplessly by an innocent man that knew nothing of the real her. (Girl 15)

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The monster: 3.5

She pulled up outside a bar and went in. She was a grimacing fsic] sight,

her hair was spiked like needles and she had facial growth on her face like a beard. Her teeth were chipped and green and her eyes were cold and grey. She glared at the bartender, I wanna beer.' The woman finished her beer... but as she got to the door she pulled a gun from her jacket and fired it in the air and cried, No-one gets out alive.'

The wronged woman: 3.6

(Boy 15)

As Lara drove along, she replayed the scenes which had occurred only a few hours ago. She had been planning to kill him for months. She just had to wait until the time was right ... Now that he was dead she didn't know what to do. No-one on the nearby farms knew what had gone on. She had no friends to go to. (Girl 15)

The feminist: 3.7

She seemed out of place. This was the typical setting for a man's world... Out of nowhere, suddenly appeared a gang of men on horses. Their revolvers glistened in the sun. 'Howdee, said the leader with a jeer. 'Got a problem have we now?' Her rebellious nature against sexism had got her this far, but she was faced with impossible odds. With yells and yeehas the cowboys advanced. (Boy 15)

In terms of the scenarios constructed, then, the readings were uniform in agreeing that man in truck' was part of everyday life, whereas woman in truck' was unusual and signalled some kind of crisis (sometimes as cause, sometimes consequence, of the projected narrative). Where male and female readers differed, however, was in their handling of characterisation in the story extensions. Female readers of the altered text, for example, overwhelmingly constructed a narrative in which the focus remained on the female character, as in 3.4 and 3.6 above. Notably, some readers adopted a first-person point of view in the course of their writing: 3.8

(The vehicle is bogged and has to be winched free.] I struggled to keep my footing, all the time pulling on the rope and hoping the tree would hold up

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to the strain. The car rocked forward but then slipped back as the rope tore into my hands, but then finally with a last surge of strength I managed to get it free. I jumped in and started the engine and soon I was heading once again down the dusty, bumpy track. (Girl 15)

Male readers, in contrast, generally redirected the focus of the womans narrative' by introducing male characters,- where this was not done, the woman was often presented in what could he described as an unsympathetic light (see 3.5)! The male characters introduced into the story tended to be hostile figures who constituted some kind of danger. These characters can be seen as engaging in a form of gender-policing that reimposes the 'normal social order in which women are seen as powerless. This is apparent in 3.7 above and in the following, where once again the woman's truck has broken down: 3.9

She heard a twig break behind her and spun around. She was confronted by a man with a gun pointed straight at her. It was one of the men who wanted her property. Hello Miss Powell. I see you're having a bit of trouble with your car.' He gri nned a sickly sweet grin and then fired the [gun]. Miss Barlow [sic] was never seen again, presumed dead from dehydration as she left her truck. (Boy 15)

It is interesting to note that trucks driven by women seemed to break down much more often than those driven by men. In readings by male students, the scenario of a woman alone in a truck was frequently shaped around the failure and punishment of the female character,but in the readings of female students the text was sometimes shaped toward critique, even if the woman in the story ultimately returned (or was returned) to a culturally prescribed role: 3.10

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How many times had she thought about leaving? But now she had done it. Why should she have to stay put while he went off for days at a time without explaining. He'd promise that he loved her and her only and then go off into town to visit the brothels. Oh, she knew about those nights...

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But as she stared into emptiness of the land she knew there was nowhere for her to go In the town there were only other men... she turned the truck around and headed slowly back home. (Girl 15)

Thus, although male and female readers both constructed their readings through character and gender, differences emerged in the detail and 'function' of their respective characterisations. Models of reading that address gender in terms of the representational features of a text, or in terms of sex differences among readers, are ill-equipped to explain these differences. Some feminist criticism suggests that the phenomenon might be related to processes of identification'4. This approach has the attraction of apparently accounting in a consistent way for the different 'responses' of male and female readers and for the fact that such differences emerge most noticeably in the reading of narratives. It might also seem to account for the use of first-person point of view in the extensions written by some female students. But this does not mean that the readings arise from an 'inner' experience of the text. It can be argued that identification is a technical skill, a component of a specific literacy1415. In this view, what counts as 'identification' (engagement) is the ability to produce a reading 'through character' in a way that foregrounds correlations between the constructed text and the constructed reader. Thus, differences that emerge between the readings of narrative texts produced by males and females could be argued to result not from different identificatory experiences in the moment of reading but from a common practice that requires readers to produce the text in relation to their socially-differentiated readings of 'self.' It can be argued that the differences that emerge between readings produced by males and females, and the fact that these differences emerge in readings of narrative texts, have quite mundane origins: for example, in the polarised genres of adolescent fiction, film and television from which many students receive their 'training'. In constructing their readings of 14 see, for example, works by Bogdan, 1990,- Fetterley, 1978, Flynn &Schweickart, 1986. 15 see Hunterl985: 23 23

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narrative texts, the students in this survey seemed to rely upon competencies developed in their reading and viewing of narrative fictions - competencies whose emergence in the classroom is structured by a reading practice that encourages students to construct their readings in the light of 'personal' knowledge. Sex differences in the readings, it can be argued, are thus an effect of the students' familiarity with genres such as, for example, the teen romance and the adventure, the soap opera and the action movie, which are targeted at sex-specific audiences. The highly derivative character of the story extensions would seem to confirm this: female readers appear to produce readings through the rules of romance/soap-opera genres (see, for example, 3.4 and 3.10), whereas males draw upon action/advcnture genres (3.5 and 3.7). Through their familiarity with such genres, students acquire a knowledge of (practical facility with) differentially inflected versions of the same basic readings of gender. Thus, the tendency for some female readers to generate readings that apparently critique gender relations would seem to indicate the training of those readers in forms of reading and writing that mobilise the 'feminist' (often pseudo-feminist) discourses of adolescent 'romance' fictions. The important link between genre and gender has been noted by many writers16. However, much of the work done on links between the two has relied upon 'general' theorisations of reading in the form of reader-response, structuralist and post-structuralist/discursive analyses. Such work frequently assumes that there is a general relation between generic structure and social organisation, explicable in terms of the mediating role of ideology/discourse. The readings presented here support the argument that such relations are secured, but suggest that the relation is grounded not in general discursive process but in specific social practices. On this basis, differences in the above readings can be seen neither as evidence of intersubjective identifications formed in the reading experience, nor as the effect of 'discursive positioning' (where this implies the shaping of consciousness by language') but as an effect of social trainings that equip male and female readers with the ability to manipulate certain generic conventions. 16 see, for example, the works by Gilbert 1988,1989,1991, and Hogan 1994 2-1

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There is a sense in which this discussion of reading revisits a problem tackled by I. A. Richards in the 1920s. That problem, in Richards' words, is 'the important, neglected and curious topic of Stock Responses'17. In his study of readings produced by students at Cambridge, Richards sought to account for the prevalence of 'ready-made' perceptions and associations in the responses he collected. The readings collected and analysed here pose the question of stock responses once again, but within a different critical framework. Richards asserted that an extensive repertory of stock responses is a necessity', but he saw these responses as an impediment to a genuine engagement with 'the text itself.’ While agreeing that stock responses are necessary, the disciplinary model of reading advanced here contests the possibility of precisely the type of encounter between reader and text that Richards valorised, and which has subsequently been embodied in the assumptions and methods of English courses that owe a great deal to Practical Criticism. In reply to Richards, this chapter proposes that all readings are to some extent 'stock readings,' and that concepts of 'genuine response' might best be seen as convenient fictions. These readings, then, illustrate a number of propositions about reading and the relationship between reading and gender. First, they support the argument that readings are determined not by a text whose characteristics shape the reader's 'experience' but by an assemblage of knowledges/ practices characteristic of a particular 'regime' of reading. Second, they suggest that the readings generated in some institutional contexts, such as secondary school English, are strongly inflected by gender. Third, they support the claim that this gender-inflection is an effect not of textual 'representations,' nor of general factors such as ideological interpellation or reader identification, but of quite specific practices that readers have been trained to employ: in this case, the practice of constructing character as a moral (and, hence, gendered) object. Put simply: readers in English classrooms seem to produce 'gendered' constructions of texts because that is how the tools of English work, not because they are gendered subjects'. We might think of gendered readings as the products of a kind of institutional machinery, then, rather than an effect of the 'positioning' of conscious subjects. 17 Richards, 1929/1978:240-241 25

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That the readings produced in at least some (perhaps many) classrooms are gendered is a matter which gives rise to two further questions. First: what effects might these readings have on our students? And second: what can we do about it? With regard to the question of effects, prevailing theories suggest there is a continuity between textual practice and the reader's construction as a social subject/ a continuity based on the ideological distortion or discursive shaping of the reader's perception of his or her real' material conditions of life. In contrast, the model of reading outlined here suggests that readings acquire a (limited) effectivity through their links to certain techniques for shaping conduct. In the case of English, such techniques take the form of pedagogical practices that deploy 'readings' as the instruments of a training apparatus. This proposition is supported by Diana Kelly-Byrne's detailed ethnographic study, The Gendered Framing of English Teaching. Kelly-Byrne's analysis of English lessons conducted at a Melbourne secondary school suggests that ‘readings' are not the end-products of classroom activity but are active ingredients in a regime of gender training. Her example of a literature lesson conducted by a young male teacher shows how readings of a text become linked to the practical organisation of classroom behaviour through such techniques as the teacher's assigning of readers to take on roles in a play, and his active construction of a definite relation between textual knowledges and classroom interactions (50-4). Kelly-Byrne's case studies show how (gendered) readings of characters and events in the play Breaker Morant, and in the novel The Getting of Wisdom, are deployed as instruments to establish a relation between the teacher and the male students that validates patterns of classroom talk and behaviour which are exclusory and normalising. This 'disciplinary' deployment of gendered readings has implications that extend beyond textual competency. The requirements imposed upon these students to speak or to be silent, to endorse and put into practice the norms associated with their reading of a particular text or genre can, in the long term, lead to a differential skilling of male and female classroom members that has quite significant consequences in other areas of practice, such as the workplace, for example. This does not mean that the readings have a 'general' effectivity, however. In this case, the broader implications of practices associated with 26

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1

English are governed not by the construction of a subjectivity that defines, constructs or expresses itself through its competencies, but by the practical relation of one social department to another. (Mike Curtis, in his study of English education in Western Australia, touches upon the relationship between the vocational significance of English studies and typical differences in the performance of male and female students in English.18) In addition to the 'disciplinary' protocols by which readings shape conduct within the classroom, English makes use of 'ethical' techniques of management explicitly designed to monitor and adjust the extra-mural competencies of students. It has been suggested that personalist reading practices (those which construct reading in terms of 'personal experience') serve to import into the classroom knowledges and practices associated with the student's outside life, and to make these available for correction through techniques of ethical selfadjustment19. The goal of such 'ethical' techniques is to produce a self­ monitoring 'subject' who actively applies the norms and rules of 'English' practices as guides for conduct. Given that the norms of English are articulated, in part, through readings produced lor texts, ethical techniques play a key role in the realisation of English's governmental objectives by establishing a practical link between readings and 'personal' conduct. By way of illustration, Michael Hurley takes up this point in his analysis of the way readings of homosexuality are produced and take effect within English. Hurley argues that the range of texts selected for study in English, and the reading practices through which they are produced - practices including not only the moral reading of character but the production of forms of 'seriousness' that neutralise generic techniques such as camp20 - results in the production of readings that mobilise conservative gender knowledges. Consequently, the effect of linking textual knowledge (in the form of staged 'readings') to conduct, he argues, is to construct 'moral subjects whose gender and desires remain rhetorically and morally male and heterosexual'. The implication is that gender is constructed not through the reader's experience of 18 Curtis, 1992 19 Hunter, 1991 20 Hurley, 1990: 166 27

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the text (however mediated that may be) but through the practical use of reading within specific institutional contexts such as the English lesson. Thus English can bee seen to construct gender in a two stage process: by matching specific texts to particular reading practices in the interest of producing readings that articulate particular norms (such as heterosexuality),- and by employing techniques of moral-ethical training that shape students' thoughts and conduct with reference to these norms. This means we cannot look at readings alone to account for the production of gender differences in English. The effectivity of readings must be considered in the larger context of English's broader social and institutional location Numerous studies have argued that the practices of English are inflected by gender at many levels: in the texts/genres selected for classroom study,- in the reading practices deployed, in the patterns of interaction established in classrooms,- and in the function and value assigned to English competencies both within the school and in other social departments21. The role of reading in the production of gender differences must therefore be seen as one (perhaps minor) element in a much larger picture, fragments of which have been identified in works by Gilbert and Rowe, Kenway and Willis, and Walkerdine. This does not mean, of course, that the production of gendered readings is trivial or irrelevant, which raises the question of what we are to do about them. Many educators emphasise the need to embrace critical' literacies in the classroom as an antidote to the damaging influence of gender ideologies. In the light of arguments about reading developed above, however, the concept of critical literacy begins to look somewhat problematic. This is because most notions of critical literacy are based on the idea of reading-as-experience. They argue that textual ideologies, if left unchallenged, reinforce the reader's cultural positioning by meshing seamlessly with the mental schema embodied in the reader's consciousness - a schema that provides him/her with a particular model of reality that serves as a basis for thought and action. In this view, the solution is to equip the reader with strategies that somehow inoculate against the text's influence by expanding or raising the reader's consciousness, making him/her aware’ of ideologies and their effects. The image is that of a battleground 21 see, for example, Kelly-Byrne 1991: 5-6; Gilbert and Taylor, 1991: 26-43 28

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where reader and text meet and grapple with one another, but as we have seen, this notion of an encounter between text-as-meaning and reader-as-conscious subject may be misleading. In contrast to the prevailing notions of critical literacy, the arguments developed in this discussion suggest that critical interventions need to be formulated on the basis of 'changing practices' rather than 'raising consciousness’. If gendered readings are produced in the classroom by the tools of English, then the solution, it seems, is to change the tools rather than the users. As I have suggested elsewhere22, it may be that English teachers need to explicitly teach reading practices that avoid producing gender difference, rather than teaching students to challenge’ pre-existing' gender ideologies. Many of us routinely teach non-sexist writing strategies by formulating rules (eg, don't use 'he' as a generic pronoun) without trying to reshape the consciousness of students. Perhaps the same approach should be taken to the formulation of reading practices. Of course, this might entail a rethinking of the goals and functions that aesthetic and other reading practices play in our classrooms. Many English teachers are loathe to interrogate processes that the history of our subject has constructed as highly personal and precious. But if reading is in fact a more mundane and practical activity than the mythology suggests, perhaps it is time to ask some of those discomforting questions.

22

see Moon, 1994 29

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Referen ces

Barthes, Roland (1957) 'Myth Today . In Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. St Albans: Paladin. (1973) 109-59. Bleich, David. (1986) Gender Interests in Reading and Language.' In Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts and Contexts. Ed. Elizabeth A. Plynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins LJP, 234-66. Bogdan, Deanne. (1990) In and Out of Love With Literature: Response and the Aesthetics of Total Form.' In Beyond Communication: Reading Comprehension and Criticism. Ed. Deanne Bogdan and Stanley B. Straw. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook-Heineman, 109-37. Curtis, Mike. (1992) The Performance of Girls and Boys in Subject English.' Interpretations 25.1: 43-60. Fetterley, Judith. (1978) The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana LIP Flynn, Elizabeth A., and Patrocinio P. Schweickart, eds. (1986) Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts and ( ontexts. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. Foucault, Michel. (1969) The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. A. M. Sheridan-Smith. 1989 London: Routledge. Gilbert, Pam. (1991) 'Reading the Story: Gender, Genre and Social Regulation.' English in Australia. 95: 37-49. Gilbert, Pam. (1988) 'Stoning the Romance: Girls as Resistant Readers and Writers.' Curriculum Perspectives. 8.2: 13-19. Gilbert, Pam, with Kate Rowe. (1989) Gender, Literacy and the Classroom. Carlton, VIC: Australian Reading Assn. Gilbert, Pam, and Sandra Taylor. (1991) Fashioning the Feminine: Girls, Popular Culture and Schooling. Sydney: Allen. 30

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Hogan, C arol. (1994) 'Gender Differences and Resistance in the Narrative Writing of Lower Secondary English Students.' English in Australia 107. Hunter, Ian. (1991) 'Learning the Literature Lesson: The Limits of Aesthetic Personality.' Toward a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy. Ed. Carolyn Baker and Allan Luke. Amsterdam: John Benjamin. 49-82. Hunter, Ian. (1983) Reading Character.' Southern Review 16: 226-43. Hunter, Ian. (1985) 'On Reflection Theory ' Australian Journal oj ('ultural Studies 3.1: 3-28. Hurley, Michael. (1990) 'Homosexualities: Fiction, Reading and Moral Training.' Femmine/Masculine and Representation. Ed. Terry Threadgold and Anne Cranny-Francis. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. 154-70. Kelly-Byrne, Diana. (1991) The Gendered Framing of English Teaching. A Selective Case Study. Deakin: CSLE. Kenway, Jane, and Sue Willis, eds. (1988) Flearts and Minds: Self Esteem in the Schooling of Girls. Canberra: DEET. Mellor, Bronwyn, and Annette Patterson. (1991) 'Reading Character: Reading Gender. English in Australia 95. 4-23. Moon, Brian. (1990) Studying Literature: Theory and Practice for Senior Students. Scarborough, WA: Chalkface Press. Moon, Brian. (1993) 'Reading and Gender: From Discourse and Subject to Regimes of Practice.' PhD diss. Curtin University. Moon, Brian. (1994): Rethinking Resistance: English and Critical Consciousness.' Interpretations 27.3 48-69. Richards, I. A. (1929) Practical Criticism. A Study of Literary Judgement. London: Routledge, 1978. Salom, Tom. (1990) 'Beached Yacht Won't B u d g e . West Australian. April 7, 1990:4. 31

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Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. (1851) The Eagle'. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Alexander W. Allison et al. Rev. shorter ed New York: Norton, 1970. 349. Walkerdine, Valerie. (1986) Post-structuralist Theory and Everyday Social Practices: The Family and the School.' Feminist Social Psychology: Developing Theory and Practice. Ed. Sue Wilkinson. London: Open UP 57-76.

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TEXTS USED IN THE COLLECTION OF STUDENT READINGS

THE EAGLE He clasps the crag with crooked hands,Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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BEACHED YACHT W ONT BUDGE By Tom Salom

VOLUNTEERS in the south coast town of Denmark las night failed in their bid to free a $120,000 ketch stuck in the sand just off the town's main beach. Fishermen, farmers, policemen and people from all walks of life gathered at Ocean Beach to help Adelaide man Vincent Potter with the salvage effort. But just before 6am rescuers gave up hope of either towing the yacht into deeper water or hauling it ashore with the help of a bulldozer that night. They will try again today. The 12.6m 'Joanna' ran aground near the town on Wednesday night after its

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owner lost his way sailing from Fremantle to Adelaide. While singlehandedly battling rough conditions along the south coast the owner lost his glasses overboard, which meant he could not read his navigational charts. Local contractors have donated the use of their heavy duty machinery and the entire membership of the Denmark Sea Rescue Service have given up their time to assist the owner. Several of the town's women also helped out by providing hot drinks and food to the salvage team, some of whom began work at first light yesterday. From The West Australian.

April 7,

1990 /).

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TARGETING GENDER IN THE CRITICAL LITERACY CLASSROOM

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CHAPTER

2

WAYNE MARTINO*

TARGETING GENDER IN THE CRITICAL LITERACY CLASSROOM In t r o d u c t io n

Current research into the impact of schooling on the lives of both boys and girls continues to highlight how the social construction of gender impacts on the expectations, interests and behaviours of both sexes1. Attention has also been drawn to how dominant models of masculinity influence boys' involvement in literacy practices within subject English*2. In this paper it is argued that such sociological and political knowledge about the social construction of gender and its impact can be made available to students through the development of specific reading practices and pedagogies3. In other words, by making the social construction of gender a target or object of reading texts in the literacy classroom, teachers may assist students to * Wayne Martino lectures in the School of Education at Murdoch university. This paper is based on a seminar conducted in Adelaide in 1996 for the Poverty & Isolation Team, South Australian Department for Education & Childrens Services * see Gender Equity Taskforce, 1996, Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Martino, I997a; 1997b; 1996, Kehily & Nayak, 1997, Epstein, 1997, Dixon, 1997, Millard, 1997,- Alloway & Gilbert, 1997, Kenway & Willis, I997; Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997, Kamler et al, 1994; Davies, 1997. 2 see Martino, 1994a, 1994b, 1995b,- 1995c,• Alloway et al, 1996. * see Martino & Mcllor, 1995; Alloway et al, 1996. 37

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develop specific capacities for reading gender and to consider the processes and practices by which they are constituted as gendered subjects4. The need for students to develop literate capacities for thinking about the social construction of gender and its impact on their lives has been outlined recently in the Gender Equity Framework policy document prepared by the Gender Equity Taskforce for the Ministerial Council for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs: Gender Equity in schooling is based on understanding that explanations for the differences in experience and outcomes in education for girls and boys arise from the ways in which the social construction of gender impacts on the expectations, interests and behaviours of both sexes. It acknowledges that the impact is often one which constrains and limits, rather than expands, options and possibilities for girls and women, and boys and men. It also acknowledges that, as with other areas of human experience, the construction of gender is able to be understood, and is capable of change. (1996: 3)

It is within such a framework that specific literate capacities for reading gender and evaluating its impact can be developed. Furthermore, as Pallotta-Chiarolli (1994,- 1995) and Gilbert (1995) argue, it is possible to use texts in the literacy classroom to explore the ways in which gender intersects and interweaves with other categories such as race, class, ethnicity, poverty, geographical isolation, sexuality and disability. In this paper the potentialities for developing such a literacy practice are explored by drawing on curriculum materials designed to assist students to develop such capacities for reading and understanding the processes of gender construction.

4 see Martino, 1996,- 1995a, Martino & Mellor, 1995, Mellor & Patterson, 1996; Mellor, Patterson & O'Neill, 1991, Mellor, O'Neill & Patterson, 1987, Moon, 1991, Davies, I995; Alloway et al, 1996 38

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Literacy practices and the construction of masculinities The literacy classroom may be conceptualised as an ideal site for assisting students to develop a better understanding of the various ways in which models of masculinity are in their daily lives5. It is in this way, as Connell argues, that attention can be drawn to a 'gender system' which regulates and structures masculinity and femininity in relational and binary oppositional terms: Acknowledging that gender is not categorical and not unitary, educators can use this differential social world as the basis for a wide range of enquiries... This seems to me one of a number of reasons not to rely on the concept of 'mens studies' as the bases for educational work with men and boys. The object of knowledge is not men but the gender system in which they are constituted as men,- and the interests that can be mobilised in support of educational work are those that relate men to women, not those that distinguish men from women. (Connell, 1994:12,- my emphasis)

Thus it would seem equally important to find ways of working with boys which enable them to tap into their own lived experiences of masculinity and the effects of masculine power. In light of the research into the construction of masculinities6 it would seem that devising such strategies for encouraging boys to consider the effects of the social construction of masculinities is necessary if students are to develop capacities for reading gender in terms other than those which define masculinity in opposition to femininity7. An exploration of how the social construction of gender impacts on the lives of both boys and girls, it is argued here, can be used to inform the development of a literacy practice designed to target the workings of dominant models of masculinity. For instance, texts may be deployed to help students to develop a better understanding of : • the role of dominant masculinities in shaping the abusive practices of boys in the way that they relate to both girls and other boys,5 see Martino, 1996, Martino, 1997a ^ see Martino, 1997b; Mac an Ghaill, 1994, Walker, 1988, Connell, 1995 7 see Clark, 1995; Askew & Ross, 1988; Martino, 1995b, Cender Equity Taskforce, 1996. 39

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• some of the effects of masculine power on the lives of both girls and boys,• the links between the social construction of gender and sex based harassment, • some of the links between masculinity and learning, • the denigration and inferiorisation of the other as playing a pivotal role in the establishment of dominant models of masculinity. • the limiting and damaging effects of defining masculinity and femininity in relational terms as oppositional categories. These are some of the issues that can be taken up within a critical literacy framework in which texts are used to help students to understand the social construction of gender. In the following section, an examination of certain classroom based activities is presented to illustrate how a space may be created in the literacy classroom for helping students to develop capacities for reading gender in the terms that have been outlined above.

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Reading for gender In Martino and Mellor's Gendered Fictions8 a range of fiction and non-fiction texts, as well as devised sets of activities, have been used to help students to develop capacities for reading and reflecting on gender. In chapter one students are provided with several passages and asked to consider the differing assumptions that they draw upon in assigning gender to a speaker or a first person narrator. In assigning a particular gender in each case, they are encouraged to reflect upon their own gender expectations and the role that these play in influencing their reading of the text. Through such a reading practice, students are inevitably led to consider the role of gender in the way that they read and how it can function in a regime of cultural and social practices for making meaning which constrains and limits rather than expands the possibilities for thinking beyond masculinity and femininity as oppositional and relational categories. This strategy may also be applied to visual texts. For instance, students may also be asked to assign gender to the figures in the Gertler painting which appears on the cover of Gendered Fictions and to consider on what bases they do so. These techniques or rules for reading gender can also be applied to the study of picture story books in primary classrooms9. For instance, with those texts that use animals as characters, teachers could ask students to assign gender to the animals before reading the text. In this way, students are placed in a position of considering their assumptions about gender prior to reading the actual text. Thus it is imptortant to draw attention to a set of rules or ways of reading for gender which can be applied across a range of texts for encouraging students to develop an understanding of how their expectations and assumptions about gender influence how they read character10. For example, the nursery rhyme, 'What are Little Boys Made Of?' may be 8 Martino &Mellor, 1995 9 see Smith, 1995, Mellor, 1992,- Patterson, forthcoming, Mellor &Patterson, 1994, Moon, 1993, Hunter, 1982,- 1983 for a more detailed theoretical discussion of reading practices and regimes 10 see Mellor, 1992, Patterson, 1993 41

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deployed to draw attention to how the text appears to construct gender in terms of oppositions: What are little boys made of? What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails And puppy-dogs' tails, That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of? What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice And all that's nice, That's what little girls are made of.

What are young men made of? What are young men made of? Sighs and leers And crocodile tears, That’s what young men are made of.

What are young women made of? What are young women made of? Ribbons and laces And pretty sweet faces, That's what young women are made of.

• In your group, apply the oppositions below to the characters of the rhyme by asking who is associated with each half of the opposition. OPPOSITIONS Outside vs Inside Strong vs Weak Rough vs Gentle F4ard vs Soft Insensitive vs Sensitive Rational vs Emotional Active vs Passive 42

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• Consider the possible effects of constructing gender like this. For example, what readings are available of a male character constructed as weak, soft and gentle? Or, of a female character constructed as strong, hard and active?1'. Through such activities students are encouraged to consider the effects of constructing gender in terms of oppositions and the limits such a gender system imposes on the possibility of elaborating alternative versions of masculinity and femininity. The story ‘Rhinoceros Beetle' by Susan Hawthorne is used in chapter two in conjunction with another text to challenge the ways of thinking about gender that, it is argued, are promoted by the nursery rhyme. It is about a boy living in an isolated, rural community. He is fascinated by insects, brings them to school and drops them down the backs of the girls' dresses. The girls are terrified and other male characters in the story attempt to laugh the girls out of their fears. This information is given to the students prior to reading the story. The following commentary is also provided at the beginning of the chapter to encourage students to read explicitly for gender:

Boys will be Boys? Certain behaviour often is presented as natural to boys,- as in, for example the nursery rhyme, 'What are Little Boys Made Of?' (p42). The two stories in this chapter, however, can be read as challenging particular understandings about boys and how they are expected to behave1112. Through this commentary an intertextual reading practice is encouraged in which readers are asked to draw on their knowledge of the prior nursery rhyme in their reading of 'Rhinoceros Beetle'. In this way, the interweaving of discourses of gender, which are bound together by the broader reading and writing practices in a culture, are brought into dialectical play13. In other 11 see Martino & Mellor, 1995: 11 12 see Martino & Mellor, 1995: 23 13 see Moon, 1992, Martino & Hulton, 1996, McGuire, 1996 43

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words, students are immediately positioned within a regime of reading which requires them to link the ways in which gender is constructed across these two texts in terms of how they work with discourses of gender. This is emphasised further in the following activities which are also included as pre-reading exercises: • Before you read 'Rhinoceros Beetle', discuss briefly as a class what you understand by the expression, 'boys will be boys'. It is a statement that is often used to explain or excuse certain kinds of behaviour by males. Can you think of situations in which it might be used? • Here are a few details about the activities of the protagonist of Rhinoceros Beetle’. From these details and the plot synopsis provided above, what kind of character and story might you expect? Suggest more than one scenario if you wish. The boy

.. has a pet beetle which he keeps in a little wooden box,.. .proves his garden is big enough to swing a cat in, .. .raids nests for eggs,.. pulls legs off grasshoppers,...drops insects down girls' dresses,...ambushes frogs and dissects them14.

Thus these preliminary exercises involve prompting students in the literacy classroom to read for gender. Through such a reading practice students are encouraged to read the text within the frame of challenging the 'boys will boys' discourse on masculinity. In other words, a reading practice or regime in which the imperative to read the text in terms of this discourse on masculinity is explicitly articulated. What is interesting about developing such a reading frame is that it is organised around explicit norms for reading masculinity. And it is by providing such rules or protocols for reading gender that students are taught to read the text in a particular way. Interestingly, when the students were given the story to read, without the provision of such imperatives for targeting masculinity, they tended not to read the text in this way. see Martino & Mellor, 1995: 23 44

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Reading students' readings of Rhinoceros Beetle' The story ‘Rhinoceros Beetle' which is included in Gendered Fictions was distributed to three English classes at a co-educational fee-paying school which draws on a predominantly white, middle-class population. Equal numbers of boys and girls (n =86 Year 10 and Year 11 students aged 15-16 years) responded to this story and there appeared to be little variation in the patterns of responses between the girls and the boys. The following questions were used to elicit a written response from these students:

Extended Response I am interested to learn about what you think of the story ‘Rhinoceros Beetle' by Susan Hawthorne. Could you please read it and then write a response to the story? You might like to use the following questions as a guide: What do you think about the boy and the situation presented in this story? Why do you think he behaves in the way that he does? What do you think about the other characters in the story? Please include any other comments to explain what you think and feel about what happens in this text. These questions are located in a empathic reading practice which encourages readers to identify with the characters in the story, rather than focusing on narrative structure or textual detail15. Such an approach to the text is framed through eliciting a moral reading of character. However, this does not preclude students from reading for gender because most of them had already been taught to target gender in their reading of a range of texts. The fact that most of the students did not read for gender was interesting in light of this. see Hunter, 1983, Mellor & Patterson, 1991 45

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However, if they had been directed to do so they could have been given the opportunity to reflect explicitly on a reading of 'Rhinoceros Beetle' which focused on the ways in which the 'boys will boys discourse' is targeted and challenged by this text. For instance, generally, the students tended to read the boy and his behaviour in pathological terms constructing him as a psycho killer with deviant tendencies. It was on this basis that they rejected him outright. This signalled that their responses were firmly located in a moral discourse from which gender appeared to be absent as a category for explaining the boy's behaviour: I think the boy in this story is mentally disturbed... He isolates himself and he's in a world of his own where he enjoys inflicting pain on other living things. At first it's animals but then it becomes sick and evil. He's really disturbed and psycho. He's weird because he's obsessed with pain and killing (Casey) (my emphasis) I think the boy is a total psycho. He carries around bugs in a box, he disects insects on a regular basis and gets his jollies out of them. When he was older he didn't use bugs he used women. He was an inhuman person the way he hurt, killed and disected defenceless animals (and later women) to satisfy himself in his perverted pleasures. (Paul) (my emphasis) I think the boy is crazy. He bears relation to some perverted, psychotic serial killer. The way he treated the animals and insects when he was young was only a premeditation or practice for what was yet to come. (Jon) (my emphasis)

What is interesting about these responses, which were representative of how a group of students responded to the character of the hoy, is that they all attempt to account for the behaviour of the boy in psychological terms as deviant. He is constructed as disturbed and as having a psychological problem. Hence, his behaviour is read as pathological and, therefore, in individual rather than gendered terms. One student even produces a reading of the protagonist as evil and Satanic: I think the boy is pretty cruel he is used to having no friends so he just

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takes them when he wants them he likes making people scared of him and tries to make them fear him maybe he is satan's child, I don't know. (Damian)

However, many students, while still tending to explain the boy's motivations and actions in apparently ungendered terms, produced empathic readings of the boy's character. In other words, they tended to construct the boy as a victim of his upbringing/circumstance and sympathised with him: The story is an example of how environment and upbringing shapes character. What he does to animals and women is considered normal in his mind, his world. It is obvious no values have been instilled in him in his lifetime. He has been left to his own device for all his childhood, and this has moulded him into the person he is today. What our society, a society which has been programmed to behave in accordance to a non-written law, would label as an obscene psychopathic killer, is in actual fact a victim of abuse. His early childhood seems to be empty, in the sense that he was deprived of friends, family and love. His ability to love is demonstrated when the detail is given of a cat that refused to be held in his arms.' He tried to love but his attempts were rejected, so he resorted to satisfying his curiosities of insects and the opposite sex. After all, this is understandable as the female species and insects are comparible, brainless objects meant for the satisfaction of man. But let's not get on that subject, boy is an innocent victim who was deprived of love, and his actions are the result. (Mark) (my emphasis)

What is particularly interesting about this boy's response is that his sympathetic response to the boy, whom he constructs as a victim, is aligned with his sexist response to women. Consider the following sympathetic readings of the character which were produced by many students: I think that the boy is really sick, I mean he was so interested in violence from such a young age. I know he doesn't know any better, it's like he had no friends ever. In a way, ! guess I feel sorry for the boy. The boy either behaved in that way to get attention from everyone or he was just interested in different things. It seems that the boy has like two different sides to him, like different personalities. (Lisa) (my emphasis)

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The boy in the story seems to be different from everyone else, and excluded in society. I think he behaves the way he docs because of something that may have happened in his childhood. He might have been neglected or unloved and so maybe he took an interest in bugs, insects and nature. (Tiffany) (my emphasis) The boy is very strange. He was brought up without any friends so he had to find entertainment somehow. He grew up killing frogs, insects and other creatures in horrible ways. He may have believed it is alright to do that to humans seeing that he did it to other animals at a young age. Obviously no one told him it was wrong when he was young, so he thought it was ok when he got older. He is a very sick person but I believe that it isn't his fault. If he was taught when he was younger that it was wrong then maybe he wouldn’t have done this obscene act. (Colin) (my emphasis)

One student even goes as far to indicate that Rhinoceros Beetle' is a story which deals with the issue of loneliness: I think that the boy presented in the story is a very lonely person. Even though his behaviour is inhumane, I feel sympathetic towards him. I feel as if it is not his fault that he turned out the way he did. I think that the short story successfully points out to the reader that you're a no-body' in life, unless you are known for something. From the time when he was only young - the little girls thought that he was annoying, and a pain. The things he'd do, the girls would not appreciate. It shows that these are the extremes which people will go to, to get attention. This 'habit' which he had when he was young, did not change as he grew older. Loneliness and need for attention to me, are the main issues in the short story. It also shows the type of society we live in - and the difficulty of being different and fitting into the group. (Kylie)I I he boy in this story is very strange indeed. He is different and individual. It is because of this individuality he is withdrawn from society. He is almost a loner and it is because of this that he turns to his rinoceros beetles. The 48

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other characters in the story treat him unfairly but it is only natural to respond in this way to someone who is different and individual. His only friends were his insects and his thirst for learning. His rejection from society caused him to act violently and pervertedly. In some ways I think it was the townspeople's fault for what happened. They should have respected him and not snigger and talk behind his back. (Andrea)

Both of these students' responses may be termed liberal humanist readings of the text. That is, they work with a category of the person whose rights have been thwarted by a society which fails to understand him or acknowledge his individuality. Such readings, in which this notion of 'ungendered' individuality emerges, are grounded in an empathic reading practice that does not have explicit rules for reading for gender built into it. These responses would indicate, it appears, that students may need to be strategically directed to read for gender on certain occasions. In this way, the social construction of gender can be built into a reading practice as an object of analysis. In this way, a space can be created in the literacy classroom for students to reflect on the gendered discourses that are mobilised in being encouraged to read the text in a certain way. The need to read for gender is also indicated by the following responses. Like Andrea, who blames the townspeople for the boy's problem, the following students also lay the blame elsewhere: The boy seemed like quite a normal child or little boy naughty and annoying to girls. Maybe he was a lonely child...he played with animals and bugs because he could not relate to people. (Who knows why these people turn out the way they do they're all sick - maybe his mum took

drugs, or drank while she was pregnant.

(Michelle) (my emphasis)

The young boy was obviously a terribly confused young man. This probably stems from the fact that he was an only child on a remote property and he must have had ignorant parents to have allowed him to

behave like he did.

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I think the situation is typical of a young boy growing up that lacked a father lashing out at the world to vent his pain. The situation is also

typical of the situation where the person who usually keeps to himself turns out to have some problem. I think he behaves like that because his parents didn't look after him that well. (Nigel) (my emphasis) The boy was unable to relate with other people. He found pleasure in obscene acts of violence against living creatures. He presumably had no

parents and no positive role models, except for the teachers who encouraged him to learn more about the strange insects.

(Robert) (my emphasis)

I think the boy behaves this way, because he's got a dysfuntional family.

(Natalie) (my emphasis)

The boy was a shy person who liked to keep things to himself so no-one knew what he was like. So he probably treated women like the animals he experimented on. The other characters could have at least talked to him

and got him involved in groups of friends then find out what he was like.

Because they did not this he ended up a quiet person who no-one knew about and so, could be a threat to society. The reason why he was like this was because he did not get to socialise with other people and so he was not able to have a stable relationship and be a person who could be changed (Chris) (my emphasis)

So these students tend to construct a reading of the protagonist as a victim, laying the blame for his behaviour either with his mother (Michelle), his family situation (Nigel, Robert, Natalie) or with the townspeople who treated him as some kind of outcast (Chris). Nigel even goes as far to attribute the boy's behaviour to the absent father syndrome! Both Michelle and Nigel produce readings which are gendered in highly problematic and unreflective ways in that they tap into limited, simplistic and damaging gender stereotypes. However, what is interesting about all of these responses, in their attempts to account for the boy's behaviour, is that they ignore the textual detail which links the latter's sex-based harassment to the actions of husbands and brothers 50

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in the town who dismissed the women's/girls' fears. In fact, it is implied that the men started to taunt the women in very much the same way that the protagonist did: The women held their secrets because when they mentioned it to their husbands or brothers they were laughed at. The husbands and brothers told them it was mere bluff. Instead of sympathy, the husbands and brothers now had a secret weapon. Some of the women found the tails of mice or lizards between their sheets,- others found grasshopper legs in their drawers or underwear. (25)

Once such textual detail is foregrounded and the links established between the behaviour of the boy and that of the men in the town, alternative readings become possible which acknowledge the gendered dimension of the sex based harassment which appears to be very much a part of the female characters' experience. Only the two following girls, however, signal the production of such a feminist reading of the text in their responses. Alicia, for example, makes explicit reference to the other male characters and signals her disapproval of them in her reference to a male-dominated world in which women are treated as objects and not understood: I thought the story, 'Rhinoceros Beetle' was really disturbing. It reminded me of the story The Collector'. Both of the males in this the story feel they could treat girls any way they liked. That they are objects, not human beings with feelings and emotions.. .The text constructed a world where males dominate. This is shown through the main character's actions and the other males who did not feel sympathy for the little girls. (Alicia) (my emphasis)

Rochelle also constructs a reading which targets the other male characters in a critical way. Even though this student initially constructs the protagonist as evil and attributes his morbid fascination to his seclusion from society', she proceeds, in the later part of her reading, to focus on the girls and women as victims of the boy and as struggling to wield power in a man's world: The boy is a very disturbed individual. He is evil. He seems to have a morbid fascination with death. At the start of the story he deals with insects and gradually moves on to larger things to satisfy his curiosity. Maybe his seclusion from society attributed to his strange fascination. His sole

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ambition in life seemed to be trying to scare the girls. It can be assumed that his threats against these girls involved what he did to bugs. These girls were obviously left disturbed by his threats and actions and this was used by the males to exploit their weaknesses. It was just treated as a womans fear of insects... His acts of violence seem to come as a surprise to the men and are almost expected by the women Does this suggest that in a small town the men's word is final and a woman's view is to be kept quiet or dismissed? (Rochelle) (my emphasis)

This student highlights the role of the female characters in the story and in so doing produces a reading which foregrounds issues related to sexual politics. Overall, the students' responses to 'Rhinoceros Beetle' do tend support the argument about developing a reading practice designed to explicitly teach students to read for gender. Since many of the students chose to account for the protagonist's behaviour without resorting to gender as an explanatory category in the readings that they produced of the text, this would seem to indicate the need for such a reading practice. On the other hand, some students do read for gender in an apparently unreflective way. The activities which accompany this story on pages 26-27 of Gendered Fictions encourage a reading practice in which gender is targeted as an object of analysis. In this way, students can be encouraged to consider their readings of the text in terms which attempt to account for the protagonist's behaviour and that of the other men as related to questions of gender and sexual politics. This is not to say that all students will willingly engage in such a reading practice, as some boys' responses would seem to indicate. However, at least in this way, a repertoire of capacities for reading for gender can be built up in the literacy classroom and opportunities for reading the text in terms other than those which link the protagonist's behaviour to a pathological or psychological condition can be provided.

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Interweaving between the categories': Reading Insane With Desire' In the second part of this paper attention is drawn to how a particular story, written by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli (which is included in a textbook published by Fremantle Arts Press) can be used to draw attention to the interactive effects of gender with other categories such as ethnicity, sexuality and socio-economic status16. In fact, this story can be used to establish a framework for examining the various ways in which categories such as gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, poverty, isolation and disability interweave and overlap when attempting to understand the lived experiences of gender and educational disadvantage. For instance, Gilbert and Gilbert (1995) have explored extensively how the social construction of femininities intersect with and impact on adolescent girls' experiences of poverty, isolation, racism and ethnic difference. By listening to girls tell of their experiences of a being a female in Australian schools, they were able to document the various gender dimensions of educational disadvantage' in these girls' lives. And, as a consequence of their findings, Gilbert and Gilbert caution against defining a designated group such as girls, or boys for that matter, according to a single criterion or category. The effect of such a group indicator approach, they argue, is to block out the very significant ways in which other variables or factors might intersect with gender, such as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, poverty, isolation17: In the current political climate, where girls are often treated as a single group and credited with literacy skills and school achievement that are supposedly superior to that acquired by boys it is only too easy to miss the girls at the back'. It is too easy to slide over differences within groups of girls in an observation of, say, sex differences in literacy competence. It is easy to miss the important ways in which class and ethnicity, for instance, provide subtle and often complex shifts to the ways in which young women construct and position themselves as female subjects and are in turn constructed and positioned by their readers/'listeners (sec, for example, Pettman, 1992, Tsolidis, 1987). It is easy to lose track of the girls who leave because they

16 see Martino, 1997c 17 see also Pallotta-Chiarolli 1995; 1996,-Gilbert, 1995; Thompson, 1995 53

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need to care for children, or because they are pregnant, or because their boyfriend has moved out, or because they have had to run out on a family abuse scene (Carrington, 1993; Lees, 1993) (Gilbert, 1995: 76-77)

This approach to exploring the differences within a particular social group or category is also advocated by Pallotta-Chiarolli (1996). She warns of the dangers of homogenising a wide diversity of cultural backgrounds and influences' by failing to address and consider the interactive effects of gender with other factors and variables when categorising students from non-English speaking backgrounds. The complexity of a non-English speaking student's experiences needs to be acknowledged in terms of the interweaving of the categories mentioned above. And it is in this sense that Pallotta-Chiarolli advocates the need to move beyond simplistic attempts at labelling which are grounded in binary modes of thinking. In short, she points to the interweaving of ethnicity, sexuality and a range of other variables in the construction of the gendered self across multiple and constantly shifting sites of interaction and social practices (Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1995). In fact, she also the need to address the intersection of ethnicity and the constructions of masculinity. This, she claims, will benefit work being undertaken with girls of non-English speaking background: ...the life experiences of the girls within and outside school often contradict or hinder the progress of educational initiatives. In addressing the issues of boys from NESB, educators will be rendering more effective their work with girls. Also, stereotyping and speculation applied to boys of NESB is extremely problematic... Hence 11 would like to call] for the urgent attention to the needs and issues of boys from non-English speaking backgrounds, not only because of the need for these boys to have access to materials and ideas that are culturally relevant, culturally positive, and challenge debilitating constructions of masculinity. It we do not address these issues, our work with girls of NESB will not be able to achieve optimum success as we are ignoring a substantial reality of girls' lived experiences that prevent their agency in making their own choices. (Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1996: 111)

Using the short story Insane With Desire' is one way of trying to address some of these issues in the literacy classroom. The story may be read within a regime of reading which targets this concept of 'interweaving between the categories'. 54

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Within such a reading frame, it is possible to treat the text as challenging the debilitating effects of categorising or the complexity of the interweaving of power relations across a range of social sites in which gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality and social class intersect. The story is narrated in first person by a woman who talks about her experiences of being out late at night. The story begins with the narrator walking to Wynyard Station in Sydney with her Polish friend whom she has not seen for a long time. As they part at the station and the narrator finds herself alone on the platform, a series of her encounters with men are documented which drive her insane with a desire to kill the men who are continually claiming her body. What is interesting about the story is the interweaving of experiences of abuse and power which intersect in the lives of the various characters mentioned. This concept is targeted in the activities which accompany the short story: The positions or experiences of many of the characters are similar and yet different. It is this interweaving or merging of such positions which is important to consider. In pairs, answer the following questions by referring to specific characters in the story: Who is afraid? Who is violent? Who is aggressive? Who feels threatened? Who feels ashamed? Who feels helpless? Who feels vulnerable? Who can be classified as a victim? Who can be classified as powerful? Who has power? Who is trapped? (Martino, 1997)

The above serves as a preliminary activity for encouraging students to produce readings of characters which target the intersection of gender with other factors. As well as drawing students' attention to reading character in this way, later they are also invited to analyse a range of readings which have been produced of the short story and to consider the basis of their construction. 55

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Reading students' readings of Insane With Desire' The various ways in which a group of Year 10 and Year 11 students responded to 'Insane With Desire', without any explicit prompting by the teacher to read the text in a designated way, are explored in this section. A range of students were asked to write a response to the text and classes were selected subject to availability and negotiation with the teachers concerned. The students were drawn from a similar cohort as those used in the previous section. Students studying Year 11 English (12 girls/12 boys aged 15-16 years ), Year I 1 English Literature (12 girls/7 boys aged 15-16 years) and those in an extended Year 10 English class (6 girls/4 boys aged 15 years) were asked to respond to the following questions: I am interested to learn about what you think of the story 'Insane with Desire' by Maria Palotta-Chiarolli. Could you please read it and then write a response to the story? You might like to use the following questions as a guide: What do you think about the narrator and the situations presented in this story? What do you think about the other characters in the story? Please include any other comments to explain what you think and feel about the characters and what happens in this text. Do you think that this text relates to the way some women are treated in 'real life' situations? Explain In this way, it is possible to develop a better understanding of how students positioned themselves in response to this narrative. Moreover, such a strategy of inciting students to produce a written response to the text creates a space for examining more closely various ways reading. Overall, there was more of a tendency for the girls to take up what may be termed an empathic reading position in their response to the short 56

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story. Many of the girls were able to identify with the narrator and her experiences:

In the story Insane With Desire' by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli the situations presented are quite scary. The woman in the story is treated with disrespect and is forced to face the ugly stares and thoughts of the men. I think this is horrible. It would have to be one of the scariest situations that a woman could go through and I feel same anger and despair that she feels. It would be so easy for her to hurt the people that anger her but it wouldn't make it go away. Tomorrow the same thing would happen, she can't run, she can't hide, she can only face the situation or ignore it. No-one is willing to speak out and take a stand against these sexist disgusting ways... No woman in the world has never not been affected in some way, small or big by the shallow words of some people in our society. When a man bashes his wife or a woman is attacked walking home an anger builds up inside that it's hard to control especially if it happens to someone close. (Tamra) (my emphasis) I think this story is an excellent way of presenting the reader with how women are treated on the streets. This story reminds me of when I went to Sydney and caught the train at 2am. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli takes the situation and makes it very real. Her accounts of her fear, outlined exactly how I felt on the Sydney train This story says that Maria is insane with desire, but it critically constructs the men and we see the male society as insane with desire. Maria blames herself for society's brutality and heartlessncss. But it is not her fault that the men are sex-crazed animals outlined by the phrase 'a hyena waiting for the prey to die'. I think that she is talking to a psychiatrist, which is unfair, because she is suffering due to the men's actions. (Natasha) (my emphasis)

The narrator seems like a trapped person, forced into degrading situations and not being able to do anything about it. The situations seem grossly one-sided, with power being clearly given to the males. The story seems to represent how women are often treated as objects, 57

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belonging to a male, to be used by him, and having no rights to act like a decent human' lor fear of provoking the male. (Helen) (my emphasis) The narrator is portrayed as being a defenceless, innocent young woman out late at night, in the presence of all this uncertainty, not knowing much about the empty streets at night. The situations she tells of all portray men as being the hunters. This meaning that they are out to get poor, innocent, defenceless women like herself. Even though the girl doesn't know these men she already sees them as the predator. The only nice man she mentions is the one in the ticket box. He tries to protect her of all these uncertainties and even then she sees him as a man who had haunted her as a child... Even in the safety of her own bed, she can't get away from the predators of the night. (Diane) I think the narrator is very insecure and very afraid of everyone around her... She keeps a lot of her thoughts and feelings to herself... the other characters in the story are sleazy... as all the men seem to drool and stare at women. This intimidates the women such as the narrator and makes them scared... It's really scary I think for women as situations like this do happen in real life. I know from experience that there are guys out in society that scare me. Maybe they don't mean to, or maybe they do. They can be quite creepy and scary if they just stare at you. It makes me feel insecure if someone just stares at me or follows me. It can be a real frightening situation and makes people scared to go back out on the streets alone. You feel unsafe. (Jane) (my emphasis) The story Insane With Desire is obviously written by a female. Even though I know this, a man couldn't have written about an experience at night for a female in the detail that Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli did This story was written in first person narration and this story is presented really well, with issues of rape, lust and dignity of women. Women in society are treated like this, most women are terrified to go out in a street at night. Men have become sex-crazed' as she describes. Although this may be very 58

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stereotyped, they say one bad apple can spoil the lot...This situation does relate to life, but it is a little more dramatised... A female would understand this story more than a man would, as we are presented with this society everyday, whilst the men are the people who do it, so they obviously wouldn't understand (Annette) (my emphasis)

What is significant about these responses is the extent to which the girls identify with the narrator's position. Such identification appears to be based on the girls' understanding and experiences of such forms of sexual harassment and objectification in their own lives (see Jane & Natasha). It appeared that the girls had an emotional investment in the text which related to their own experiences of sexist practices and behaviours. In fact, the following student's comment about how real she found the situations appears to account for her level of engagement and involvement in reading this text: I think that the narrator is telling the reader how she feels about men and the way they treat her. She is portrayed as an innocent and vulnerable girl in a mans society. The situations that she goes through are real and not figments of her imagination. (Monique) (my emphasis)

While many of the girls tended to produce what may be termed empathic readings, there was a definite tendency for some of the boys to construct the narrator as paranoid and as losing touch with reality. These boys do not reject the narrator outright, but they question the validity of her perceptions: The author in this short story is trying to get the point across to us about how some women may feel late at night in various places and in this place Sydney. I don't know if she is imagining these men looking and drooling at her or if it is actually happening. If it's not happening perhaps past incidents have made her paranoid about going out and everyone she sees, she feels wants to rape her or bash her etc... I think that this text does relate to real life situations for many women arc treated like this and don't feel secure about going out at night on their own. Many are treated like this by husbands and fathers then when they go out they are paranoid about this and are scared about every man. (Bret)

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Thus, while Monique reiterates that the situations experienced by the narrator are not mere figments of her imagination, Bret calls into question whether the latter is actually in touch with reality. However, this does not prevent him from acknowledging that such situations do relate to the way women may be treated in 'real life'. This is also the case with the following boy's response: The short story Insane With Desire', written by Maria Pallotta-ChiaroIIi presents a very powerful image on what's going on in the characters head. This is done through the author using very detailed language to help the readers understand how she is feeling and thinking. The girl in the story seems very insecure about everybody that surrounds her. When she feels threatened by somebody, the author tends to go into detail through using selection of detail. An example of this would be, I imagine his eyeballs melting, his cheeks sizzling from the hot liquid dribbling over them.' This forms the idea that the girl might even be insane through her horrible explicit thoughts. Again this shows that the girl is very insecure and when she feels threatened she dreams on how a person can die, agonisingly. I think that this type of insecurity in the character is shown in real life. This is because there are many women over the world who have doubts about the people in today's society. For example, in the story the woman seems very insecure about actually being mixed in with other people because she might have fears about people, everybody being perverts and wanting to rape her. This is what happens in reality because the women in today's society actually can feel very threatened through the fear of being raped. (Stephen)

However, some boys do have a tendency to reject the story and/or the narrator:

She is a very paranoid person who doesn't like men looking at her. This fear, though, is too strong. Every person (of male gender) seems to be against her. She thinks that because someone has sexual desires they are insane. She is making too much out of a situation because she is not in control of her life or her emotions. Games) [my emphasis)I

I he story is just a pile of feelings that are put together. There is no real difference between when she's in reality and dreaming... I think the 60

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situation in the story is extremely exaggerated and overdone. The story to me is hard to believe and there is no way on earth the situation in the story could actually happen EVERY DAY!! I think the characters in the story are overdone and fake to make women - this one in particular to be more of a victim. I don't think this relates to real life, maybe women do get treated that way, but, the situation is so far fetched that it's impossible to believe. (Rory)

While James constructs the narrator as unbalanced, Rory rejects the story as overdone' and so far fetched'. Other boys either imply or state outright that the story is sexist in its portrayal of men: The story is very boring. I think the writer is a feminist and only says one side ol the story. Things like that don't only happen to women, they happen to men as well. The woman must be pretty petty if she goes insane from that. I don't think it relates to real life that much. It may happen but not just to women. (Tim) I think this story is relevant to life in the way that women are shown as being in an unsafe environment at night, however, I think the author has taken it a bit too far and created an almost sexist story. (Adrian) (my emphasis) I think this story is extreme and slightly sexist. I realise this stuff does occur and she has a right to feel like how she does, but I think she is once again paranoid and unfair to the rest of male society (Shaun) (my emphasis) 'Insane With Desire is about what one woman thinks of men and how they are 'sex-crazed'. This shows that all men are like this in real life but most are not. This story degrades the male gender and makes women to be the best. All through the story, the girl is bringing all the negative factors about men out and saying to the reader that all men are interested in is sex but in real life this is not true... Therefore I think this story is sexist and symbolises one woman's opinion about the opposite sex. It is not fair how men are treated when comparing the men in the story and men in real life. (Aaron) (my emphasis) 61

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However, such resistant readings were not only confined to the boys. Some girls also rejected the story on the basis that it reinforced readings of women as powerless victims of male power: I think the narrator sees men very negatively. She concentrates only on the had aspects of men, yet she is frustrating to the reader because she doesn’t do anything about it. She gets angry at other people for not taking action when she herself takes none. The way men are portrayed is understandably in a negative light. This is only understandable because many women have had bad experiences with males (by muggings, attackings, etc.) Yet this is too generalised to be meaningful. The text docs not include the nice man. This is possibly to reinforce the construction of men as monsters', but it is unrealistic and makes the story less believable. The way women are constructed is pretty offensive. They keep reverting back to weak children at the slightest sign of trouble. Why don’t they leave their husbands? Why don't they say how they feel, learn self-defence? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. In a way, the situations and events are true-to-life because there is alot of violence and sexism in the world. Yet this story relies too heavily on gender stereotypes which can be insulting to the reader and misleading to the real issues. (Emma) (my emphasis)I I think the narrator is very paranoid and is reading meanings into every situation. It seems a bit unrealistic that every man she should meet would be rude, chauvinistic and waiting to hit on her. What an overwhelming generalisation of men! Prowlers waiting in the night.' -> like all men are sexual beasts who seek to dominate and control women. The narrator makes an ending comment like And women learn to see the snow. Although sometimes they see with splattered with blood.' That women learn to cope with these situations by picturing violent, messy deaths for her tormenters. Hasn't this woman ever heard of self defence! Karate, Judo, anything! You are a victim, only when you allow yourself to be victimised. Okay, so some of the men in the story don't seem to be highly desirable. But how unrealistic for this woman to believe that they are aJJ waiting in 62

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the shadows lor her to walk past so that they can jump on her and have their wicked ways with her. Maybe in the type of society this woman comes from, the males are so firmly in control that she feels powerless and threatened in their domain. Quite personally I don't really see much of this in Australia. I guess that if I panicked every time a guy so much as smiled at me and took his greeting to be a sexual come on, I d be insane too! 'I can't escape. I am hunted' -> hah! Maybe she's getting off on this feeling, because she doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. The narrator spends most of her time criticising men, saying that it is their objective to reclaim their territory by driving women insane with desire. Hard as it may be to believe, I don't think that there are that many men who are out to control and bully everyone else into helpless submission. A little too much Bold and Beautiful' on the woman's part has got her fantasising situations that don't exist. I am annoyed with this woman because in presenting men as strong, dominating creatures she implies that all women are helpless and weak. And we're not! We can think. And as long as you have mental power, you can see the sex-starved beasts for what they are. I am sick of women as being portrayed as stupid and hunted'. You only feel this way if you let yourself be hunted. Insane With Desire? The narrator is more like insane with paranoia! Get a grip! Learn self-defence, be more assertive. Stop categorising men into pigeon-holes just because they are men. Stop being a victim! (Lynn) (my emphasis)

These girls read the text as reinforcing certain debilitating stereotypes of women and reject it on this basis. They are quite irritated by the ways in which women appear to be presented as weak and vulnerable. For Lynn, born in Malaysia and Indian by origin, the way that the men treat women in this story is reduced to a product of the narrator's imagination. Fdowever, these girls are members of a privileged social class and intersecting factors such as age and geographical location may have influenced their readings of the text. Lack of knowledge and experience of inner city Sydney life may have contributed to the readings that these students produced. For instance, would students who are more familiar with inner city life in Sydney produce readings which are more aligned with Natasha's response quoted earlier who has visited this part of 63

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Sydney? The following responses construct the world of the text as a place which is literally foreign to them and/or is removed, in the historical sense, from their experiences of contemporary social life: I think the text is set in the past Soviet Union as it portrays and describes the story of a woman who is made to feel powerless in a male dominated society. (Steve)

The other characters in the story arc males who are only out for one thing. This story seems to be set a while ago, possibly in the 1940's or 50s when men were of higher class than women and that whatever males did was acceptable. (Tracey)

And one final comment by a girl is included because it reinforces, as PallottaChiarolli (1995) emphasises, the need to address simplistic attempts to categorise individuals on the basis of a single criterion: I think the way the girl is portrayed in the story has been blown out of proportion. The way she thinks and acts is like a typical Italian girl, Italians are very protective overall specially the girls. The way the girl in the story has been constaicted has a lot to do with her background and the way she has been brought up... (Angela)

This response was written by a South American girl of middle class socio­ economic status who has been living in Australia for eight years. It is clear that the class positions of many of these students did have a part to play in the readings that they produced of gender. This is not to say that sexist practices are somehow class linked or related, only that the privileged backgrounds of many of these students who responded to the short story, in combination with other factors such as gender, perhaps warrant further investigation in their capacity to influence the way these students read the text.

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Conclusion Overall, in this paper attempts have been made to draw attention to the various ways in which texts can be used in the literacy classroom to address issues around the social construction of gender and how it impacts upon the lives of both girls and boys. By analysing ways of reading - in the case of Rhinoceros Beetle' by Susan Hawthorne and Insane With Desire' by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli - it is possible to develop a better understanding of how gender and other factors influence the production of meaning for adolescent boys and girls reading texts in the literacy classroom. In this way, a space can be created for examining the cultural and social practices in which students are enmeshed and which influence their capacities for reading in particular kinds of ways. Moreover, it is argued that it is productive to provide rules for reading texts in particular ways. By targeting certain objects of analysis such as gender, constructions of masculinity and the interweaving of gender with other categories such as class, race, ethnicity, disability, poverty, isolation etc. in the literacy classroom, particular norms for reading are made explicit. This is not to say that students are merely passive recipients of a politicised reading pedagogy. Rather the focus is on teaching them particular skills which enable them to read texts according to the assemblage of quite specific norms. This is based on the assumption that a non-normative framework for reading does not exist and that any reading practice deployed by students has already been learnt. Moreover, it would appear that inciting students to produce a range of written responses to a text might be a useful strategy for assisting teachers to understand how their students are making meaning. Both these observations about reading and literacy practices have been illustrated in this paper through undertaking an analysis of how groups of adolescent boys and girls in one particular school responded to two short stories. It is hoped that their readings of these texts might provide some food for thought with regards to devising particular literacy practices which are designed to place masculinities under a particular kind of investigation.

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N otes

1. I would like to thank Bronwyn Mellor for her useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and the students who so willingly responded to my questions. 2. Interweaving Between the Categories' is a term used by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli (1995) in a paper published in Interpretations (Journal of the English Teachers' Association of Western Australia). I would also like to thank her for her comments on this paper.

R eferences

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Arnot, M. ( 1984). 'How Shall We Educate Our Sons?' In R Deem (ed.) Co-Education Reconsidered. Milton Keynes & Philadelphia: Open Llniversity Press. Clark, M. ( 1995). Gender Equity: Reworking the Discourse'. South Australian Education of Girls and Female Students' Association Inc. Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3, 4-14. Connell, B. (1994). Knowing About Masculinity, Teaching Boys and Men.' Paper presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Conference, San Diego, April. Connell, R. ( 1989). 'Cool Guys, Swots and Wimps: The Interplay of Masculinity and Education. Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 15, No. 3, 291-303. Davies, B. (1997). 'Constructing and Deconstructing Masculinities Through Critical Literacy. Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No.l, 9-30. 66

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Davies, B. (1995). 'What About the Boys? The Parable of the Bear and the Rabbit.' Interpretations, Special Edition: Gender and Literacy, Vol. 28, No. 2, 1-17. Dixon, C. (1997). Pete's Tool: Identity and Sex-Play in the Design and Technology Classroom.' Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No. 1. 89-104. Epstein, D. (1997). 'Boyz' Own Stories: Masculinities and Sexualities in Schools.' Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No.l, 105-1 15. Gender Equity Taskforce (1996). Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools. Ministerial Council for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, ACT, May. Gilbert, P. (1995). The Girls at the Back: Critical Literacy, Gender and Educational Disadvantage.' Interpretations, Special Edition: Gender and Literacy, Vol. 2., No. 2, 56-73. Gilbert, R. (1995). Improving the Outcomes of Girls Who Benefit Least From Schooling: A Special Focus on Rural and Isolated Girls.' In Proceedings oj the Promoting Gender Equity Conference, February 22-24, Canberra, Gender Equity Taskforce of the Ministerial Council For Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCLETYA). Gilbert, P. & Gilbert, R. (1995). What's Going On?: Girls' Experiences of Educational Disadvantage. DEET Canberra. Hunter, I. (1982). The Concept of Context and the Problem of Reading.' Southern Review, 15.1, 80-91. Hunter, I. (1983). 'Reading Character.' Southern Review, 16, July, 226-43. Jordan, E. (1995a). 'Fighting Boys and Fantasy Play: The Construction of Masculinity in the Early Years of School.' Gender and Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, 69-86. Jordan, E. (1995b). 'Warrior Narratives in the Kindergarten Classroom: Renegotiating the Social Contract.' Gender and Society, Vol. 9, No. 6, December, 727-743. Kamler, B., Maclean, R., Reid, J. & Simpson, A. (1994). Shaping Up Nicely: The Formation of Schoolgirls and Schoolboys in the First Month of School. ACT: Department of Education, Employment and Training. 67

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Kehily, M. & Nayak, A. (1997). ' "Lads and Laughter": Humour and the Production of Heterosexual Hierarchies. Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No. 1, 69-87. Kenway, J. & Fitzclarence, L. (1997). Masculinity, Violence and Schooling: Challenging Poisonous Pedagogiesm.Ge«Jer and Education, Vol. 9, No. 1, 117-133. Kenway, J. & Willis, S. (1997). Answering Back: Girls, Boys and Teachers. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Kessler, S., Ashenden, D.J., Connell, R.W., & Dowsett, G.W. (1985). Gender Relations in Secondary Schooling Sociology oj Education, Vol. 58, 34-48. Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994). The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling. Buckinham & Philadelphia: Open University Press. Martino, W. (1997a). A Bunch of Arsholes": Exploring the Politics of Masculinity for Adolescent Boys in Schools'. Social Alternatives. Martino, W. (1997b). " It's All a Bit of a Mess Really": Addressing the Politics of Masculinity for Boys in Schools.' Keynote Address presented at the Gender Equity Conference, Future Directions', Education Department of Western Australia, 12 April. Martino, W. ( 1997c}. First Australians/New Australians-. Exploring Ethnicity Gender &Aboriginality. Fremantle WA: Fremantle Arts Press. Martino, W. (1996). Boys and Literacy. Addressing the Links Between Masculinity and Learning.' Paper presented at the NSW Department of School Education Gender Equity Networking Conference, Hyde Park Plaza Hotel, Sydney, 28-29 May. Forthcoming in Comber, B. & Simpson, A., Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms, Falmcr Press. Martino, W. (1995a). 'Critical Literacy For Boys.' Interpretations, Special Edition: Gender and Literacy, Vol. 28, No 2, 18-32. Martino, W. (1995b). Deconstructing Masculinity in the English Classroom: A Site For Reconstituting Gendered Subjectivity'. Gender and Education, Vol. 7, No. 2, 205-220.

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Martino, W. (1995c). Boys and Literacy: Exploring the Construction of Hegemonic Masculinities and the Formation of Literate Capacities for Boys in the English C lassroom English in Australia, 1 12, July, I 1-24. Martino, W. (1994a). 'Masculinity and Learning: Exploring Boys Llnderachievement and Under-Representation in Subject English.' Interpretations, Vol. 27, No. 2, 22-57. Martino, W. (1994b). The Gender Bind and Subject English: Exploring Questions of Masculinity in Developing Interventionist Strategies in the English Classroom'. English in Australia, No. 107, March. Martino, W. & Hulton, L. (1996). Editorial, Interpretations, Special Edition: Intertextuality, Vol. 29, No. 1, i-v. Martino, W & Mellor, B. (1995). Gendered Fictions. Cottesloe WA: Chalkface Press. McGuire, A. (1996). Domesticating Intertextuality: Theory from Syllabus to Students.' Interpretations, Special Edition: Intertextuality, Vol. 29, No. 1, 44-55. Mellor, B. (1992). 'English and Reading Practices.' Unpublished Thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Western Australia, Department of Education and Department of English. Mellor, B. & Patterson, A (1991). Reading Character: Reading Gender. 95, March, 4-23.

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Millard, E. (1997). 'Differently Literate: Gender Identity and the Construction of the Developing Reader.' Gender and Education, Vol. 9, No.l, 31-48. Moon, B. (1991). Studying Literature. Cottesloe: Chalkface Press. Moon, B. (1992). Literary Terms: A Practical Glossary. Cottesloe: Chalkface Press. Moon, B. (1993). 'Reading and Gender: From Discourse and Subject to Regimes of Practice. Unpublished Thesis submitted as part of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Curtin University of Technology. NSW Department of School Education (1996). Girls and Boys at School: Gender Equity Strategy 1996. Sydney: Specific Programs Directorate. 2001

Office For Standards In Education (1993). Boys and English: A Report from the Office of Her Majesty 's Chief Inspector of Schools. London: Department for Education. Pallotta-Chiarolli, M. (1996). 'Cultural Bridges or Walkovers? Improving the Outcomes For Girls Who Benefit Least: A Special Focus on Girls Experiencing Cultural Conflict.' In Gender Equity: A Framework for Australian Schools, Prepared by Gender Equity Taskforce for the Ministerial Council for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Canberra, ACT Pallotta-Chiarolli, M.(1995). 'Mestizaje: Interweaving Cultural Multiplicity and Gender Codes in English Studies'. Interpretations, Special Edition.- Gender and Literacy, Vol. 2., No. 2, 56-73. Pallotta-Chiarolli, M. (1994). Butch Minds the Baby: Boys Minding Masculinity in the English Classroom.' Interpretations, Vol 27, No. 2, 96-1 11. Patterson, A. (1997). Setting Some Limits to English.' In P. Freebody, A. Luke and S. Muspratt (eds.), Constructing ('ritical Literacies. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Patterson, A. (1993). Some Preliminary Comments About Gender and Reading. Paper presented at Foucault: The Legacy Conference, Surfers Paradise, Qld, July. Smith, R (1995). Gender in Picture Story Books: Readings by Girls.' Interpretations, Vol. 28, No. 3, 112-128. 70

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Thompson, P. (1995). Notes for a Workshop on Poverty and Gender.' In Proceedings of the Promoting Gender Equity Gonference, February 22-24, Canberra, Gender Equity Taskforce of the Ministerial Council For Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA).

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GENDERAND LITERACY: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE CLASSROOM

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COLIN KENWORTHY

GENDER AND LITERACY: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE CLASSROOM In t r o d u c t io n

Critical approaches to gender can only be taught if students, at whatever level, are given an understanding of postmodern reading theory. Readers need to conceptualise reading as a task which pays attention not only to texts but to the discourses on which they draw. Discourse theory has been used by a number of theorists1 to explain how texts are produced by writers and understood by readers. Kress defines discourses as: systematically organised sets of statements which give expression to the meanings and values of an institution. Beyond that, (he claims) they define, describe, and delimit what it is possible to say and not to say (and by extension - what it is possible to do or not to do) with respect to the area of concern of that institution. A discourse provides a set of possible statements about a given area and organises and gives substance to the manner in which a particular topic, object, process is to be talked about, in that it provides descriptions, rules, permissions and prohibitions of social and individual actions (1987, p.7).*

* Colin Kenworthy lectures in the School of Language Education at Edith Cowan University 1 see Kress (1985), Fairclough (1989), Gee (1990, 1992), Luke (1988, 1989), Freehody (1992), Gilbert (1989, 1991, 1993,1995), Comber (1993), Lemke(l985, 1995) 75

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Dominant discourses arc those which tend to legitimate, support, maintain and reproduce the status quo. They operate most successfully when they are seen by those who speak, write, read and listen to them as common sense. Foucault maintains that: Discourses are not about objects, [that] they do not identify objects, they constitute them and in the process of doing so conceal their own invention (Foucault, 1972, p.49).

In the area of gender, discourses don't just set up images of masculinity and femininity that impair the social and personal fulfilment of males and females whose lives are circumscribed by stereotypes. In Western society, they set up a system that is based on a binary divide in which men are constructed as rational, hard, strong, powerful, ordered, controlled, scientific and women as emotional, soft, weak, chaotic, artistic2. These all argue that: Gender is a social (and discursive) construct, not something natural' or God-given, but constructed, patterned, by every society for its own purposes and according to its own ideology (Flemming, 1988).

Dominant Western discourses set up and regulate a system in which men as a category are superior to women as a category. They also set up expectations about appropriate masculine and feminine behaviour, which make life difficult especially for boys and men who do not fit the dominant model of masculinity3. Texts that draw on these discourses, if not read critically, are regarded as unproblematic because they are seen to represent reality, rather than to construct a version of reality that favours the dominant members of the dominant gender. As Kress and Foucault point out, texts which encode the dominant discourse mask the ideology they espouse. This is certainly true in the area of gender. A number of strategies4 can be used for helping students to deconstruct texts in order to read the gendered structure of the world they live in.5 2 see Baker, 1989, 1992, Connell, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1995,• Fairclough, 1989, Easthope 1992 3 see Connell, 1995, Buchbinder, 1994 4 sec especially Janks 1993, 1993, Mcllor 1984, 1984, 1987, 1991, Morgan 1994, 1996, Martino &Mellor, 1995 5 Freire, 1987 76

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These include: • choosing texts which because they are distant in time or place are more obviously constructing a social system based on gender • framing texts in contexts which draw attention to their construction of gender • pairing texts in order to rub together different constructions of gender • looking for gaps and silences in the text to consider how leaving certain things unsaid supports a particular version of gender67 • developing a chart of masculine and feminine qualities in order to see if gender binarism is operating in the text • noting who speaks and who listens,- who acts and who suffers,who observes and who is observed, who owns and who doesn't • checking verbs that apply to different characters • reconstructing texts by changing words. (Pronouns of one gender can be replaced with pronouns of the opposite gender. The connotational factor of nouns can be raised or lowered.) • rewriting the text from another point of view The rest of this paper outlines how some of these approaches have worked in a number of schools with classes of students from year seven to year twelve. It describes and reflects on work with two texts, 'Bob's Fish’ and The Bad Deeds Gang', which formed the basis of two longish lessons. In the first lesson, 'Bob's Fish' was used to teach: • the construction of gender ideology by texts • reader positioning or the constaiction of an implied reader by texts' • use of cultural knowledge of gender in society to produce meaning from texts • multiple readings based on acceptance or rejection of the reader positioning encouraged by texts • the concepts of dominant reading, alternative reading and resistant reading • models of the reading process which students could understand and use 6 Iser, 1978 7 Tabbert, 1979 77

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'Bob's Fish' was a good text to start with because it was written in 1945 and its binary construction of gender seems obvious to readers who are separated by fifty years of paradigmatic change to the structure of the gender system and to relationships within and between genders. 'Bob's Fish' seems strange because it was part of a whole wave of texts which operated right across Western society to get women out of the land armies and back into Kirke, Kuchen and Kinder, so that the men coming home from the War could have jobs. The second lesson was built around 'The Bad Deeds Gang', a popular short story that is set in the late forties, but written by Barry Breen in 1961 with a touch of nostalgia for the past, for the Australian country town and for the 'harmless' larrikinism of young teenage boys. The Bad Deeds Gang' was ideal for the second lesson because: • the antisocial behaviour of the boys is constructed as 'natural', as part of the masculine essence'8,• The Bad Deeds Gang' is typical of most pieces selected for school anthologies in that it represents stereotypically masculine experience9,• the text thereby masks the ideology of youthful masculine supremacism10,• it offers an opportunity to focus on gender issues and relations which Barker (1989) sees as fundamental to gender equity. 'The Bad Deeds Gang' seems unproblematic to readers who have learned to read by aligning themselves with character and becoming involved in the plot. Wayne Martino suggested to me that, because The Bad Deeds Gang’ assumes boyish larrikinism is a natural part of growing up, it would be an ideal text for teaching students to understand how dominant reading practices are used to construct an ideal masculinity, and to teach them how the ideological effect of these reading practices remain invisible to the reader. In this second lesson students extended their understanding of • the construction of gender by texts • the way in which discourses render ideology invisible • the connections between race, ethnicity and gender 8 Davies, 1995 9 McCracken &Appleby, 1994 10 Fairclough, 1989, Easthope 1992 78

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• the discursive construction of Australian national identity as Anglo and male • the power of discourses in shaping texts and reading practices • the possibility of challenging the authority of texts • techniques for problematising texts. The lessons on 'Bob's Fish' and The Bad Deeds Gang' worked well with classes of upper primary and secondary students at all levels. The focus of my work with all of the classes was to teach what Freebody (1992) has described as the role of reader analyst so that students could understand the connections between literacy and gender. In becoming a reader analyst, the reader learns not just to comprehend texts, but to consider the socio-cultural factors that underlie the production and interpretation of texts,- to consider what social groups and political positions are privileged by texts,- to consider what ideas, attitudes and events appear to be natural' within texts,- to consider not only what is stated and implied in any text but what is left out,- and to consider how texts encourage readers to accept a particular notion of their position in society.

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Lesson one: Bob's Fish' Because the students' capacity to analyse texts and the complex relationship of texts to social and political structures is fundamental to the development of critical language awareness, I opened the class by saying I was interested in how people read and I asked the students if they could explain what they do when they read. Answers that a group of year eight students in an average suburban secondary school gave included: • you look at the words and see what they say,• reading is looking and understanding all forms of written text; • looking at the words and understanding what they mean,• reading is understanding written symbols including numbers,• I like thinking I am one of the people in the book; • you can imagine the place which is described, • you take it all in with your mind and put it together,• h a v in g y o u r o w n o p in io n .

The responses made by these students showed that they understood all of the reader roles outlined by Freebody - code-breaker, text-participant, text-user, and text-analyst (1992). They saw code breaking as basic. The idea of 'getting meaning from print' was their most common understanding of reading. There were some students in all of the classes I worked with who discussed literal', 'inferential', 'evaluative' levels of comprehension. One remarkable feature of their responses (and of the responses of most students) was that they defined reading as an activity involving themselves and the text. This is perhaps a result of the extent to which New Critical approaches to reading11 have permeated our culture. In l o w e r s c h o o l c l a s s e s , t h e r e w a s r a r e l y a m e n t i o n o f t h e a u t h o r . O n l y in s e n io r classes w a s th e r e a n y m e n tio n o f th e c u ltu ra l c o n te x t a ffe c tin g w h a t th e a u th o r w ro te o r o f so c io c u ltu ral fa c to rs a ffe c tin g th e p ro d u c tio n o f m e a n in g fro m tex ts. T h e e x is te n c e o f th e te x t itself w a s g e n e ra lly r e g a r d e d a s u n p r o b l e m a t i c . T h e a u t h o r i t y o f t h e t e x t qua t e x t r e m a i n e d u n c h a l l e n g e d . S tu d e n ts c la im e d th a t tex ts p ro v id e n a rra tiv e s, in fo rm a tio n , e n te rta in m e n t,

see Brooks, 1949, Leavis, 1952,- Wtmsatt, 1954 80

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in s tru c tio n s . R e a d in g w a s g e n e ra lly c o n c e p tu a lis e d as an in d iv id u al use o f a tex t.

With all classes, I used the overhead projector to show students a copy of 'Bob's Fish' and they were told that it was a text from a New South Wales Reading Primer published in 1945.

Bob's Fish

I e x p la in e d o r th e y g u e s s e d th a t th is te x t w as w ritte n to te a c h b e g in n in g r e a d e r s t h a t 'o o ' m a k e s t h e s o u n d lo o / a s in 'n o o k '. W h e n a s k e d if t h e t e x t w a s d o i n g s o m e t h i n g e l s e a s w e l l , t h e y w e r e a b l e t o e x p l a i n i n v a r i o u s w a y s t h a t it w a s p r o v i d i n g a n i m a g e o f a w o r l d in w h i c h t h e s o c i a l r o l e s a n d b e h a v i o u r s o f m a le s a n d fe m a le s w e re d iffe re n t a n d th a t th e s e ro les w e re b a se d o n th e a s s u m p t i o n t h a t m e n a n d w o m e n w e r e e s s e n t i a l l y d i f f e r e n t . In m o s t c a s e s , t h e y c l a i m e d t h a t t h e w o r l d is n o t l i k e t h i s n o w . W e brainstormed s t e r e o t y p e s o f m e n a n d w o m e n a n d e n d e d u p w i t h a b l a c k o r w h ite b o a rd c h a rt s h o w in g a b in a ry c o n s tru c tio n o f m a sc u lin ity a n d fe m in in ity lik e t h e o n e o n t h e fo llo w in g p a g e .I I p u t b o x e s a r o u n d t h e c h a r t s a n d a s k e d if t h e y p r o v i d e d a t r u e d e s c r i p t i o n o f w h a t m e n a n d w o m e n o r g i r l s a n d b o y s w e r e r e a l l y l i k e . A ll c l a s s e s a g r e e d t h a t t h e y d id n 't. T h e y g e n e r a l l y s p lit in to t w o g r o u p s t h a t a r g u e d t h a t t h e c h a r t 81

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showed what it should be like or that the chart was an attempt to place males and females into boxes that they did not and should not be forced into. There was a general allowance that girls could take on masculine qualities and still be O K . But there was less acceptance of boys taking on feminine qualities. In several senior classes, girls argued that boys had to be tough or they would be seen as 'wimps' or 'poofs'. This response supports the findings of Martino (1995) and Misson (1995) MASCULINE

FEMININE

R atio n al O u tsid e (en g in eer, g a rd e n e r) R eserved A g g ressiv e P ractical (b re a d w in n e r) S tro n g P ro te c tiv e (w arrio r) H ard S c ie n tific /te c h n o lo g ic a l

E m o tio n al In sid e (nurse, c o o k ) C o m p a ssio n a te S u b m issiv e A rtistic (h o m e-m ak er) W eak N u rtu rin g (m o th er) S oft A rtistic /ro m a n tic

C h a l l e n g e d t o c h a n g e t h e c h a r t t o m a k e it l o o k m o r e l i k e a p i c t u r e o f t h e r e a l w o r l d , all c l a s s e s a g r e e d t o a b l a c k / w h i t e b o a r d c h a r t w h i c h p l a c e d o v o i d l i n e s a r o u n d t h e t w o lis ts o f c a t e g o r i e s i n o r d e r t o s h o w t h a t s o m e g i r l s h a v e s o m e 'm a s c u l i n e ' q u a l i t i e s a n d s o m e b o y s h a v e s o m e 'f e m i n i n e ' q u a l i t i e s . ( S e e b e l o w . ) T h e r e w a s g e n e r a l a g r e e m e n t i n all c l a s s e s t h a t g i r l s g a i n e d s o c i a l a n d p s y c h o l o g i c a l a d v a n t a g e s b y b e i n g a l l o w e d t o d e v e l o p s o m e 'm a s c u l i n e ' q u a l i t i e s . T h e r e w a s l e s s a g r e e m e n t a b o u t t h e b e n e f i t s f o r b o y s in d e v e l o p i n g q u a litie s o f t h e 'f e m in in e ' s te r e o ty p e .

Male population Female population Masculine attributes Feminine attributes 82

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We re-read 'Bobs Fish'. I then asked the students whether reading hundreds, perhaps thousands, of texts like 'Bobs Fish' might affect them as individuals or society as a whole. I introduced the concept of discourse as a way of talking and writing used by a group of people that constructs a version of reality which confirms their views about the way things should be and the way people should act and feel.

In the discussions about gender and discourse which ensued, they were exposed to the idea that texts grow out of and contribute to discourses, and that discourses function to assign dominant or subordinate subject positions in society, which in turn establish patterns of relationship which fit the gender system. Using contrary discourses, students argued, on the one hand, that texts like these did not affect people's beliefs and behaviours,- and on the other, that such texts can actually contribute to people believing in a version of reality in which knowledge, power and resources are or should be differentially distributed according to gender. They agreed that people who were happy with the dominant discourse about gender which constructs men and women as essentially different would easily take up the reading position encouraged by the text. Those who were not happy with the dominant discourse would resist the reader positioning of the text or 'read against the grain'. A year ten class in a private co-educational school discussed the issue like this: TEACHER: MALE STUDENT 1: STUDENTS: T: M S 2: T: FEMALE STUDENT M S 3: M S 4: F S 2: FS 3: T:

So the same text can be read in different ways? Different people can make different readings of a text? Yes. Where do these different meanings come from? How are they produced? From the ideas in people's heads. How do the ideas get into peoples heads? From other books they have read From talking to other people. A girl might think that 'Bob's Fish' is not a good story, because the girl has no fun. And a boy would think it was OK. Some girls might get angry about this story. But some wouldn't mind. They would think it was OK. Yes,- so the ideas people have in their heads, the discourses they 83

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participate in or the ways they talk about things cause them to produce different meanings for the same text? Yes. Discourse is an idea that really helps to explain how people produce different readings of the same text isn't it? Yes.

When discussion like this occurred, there was obviously a readiness to take on board concepts like discourse, intertextuality, reading communities, dominant readings alternative readings, resistant readings, all of which I wanted to develop later on. 1explained that a dominant reading is made when there is a match between the values and assumptions foregrounded by the text and those held by the reader. 1asked them what sorts of questions a teacher might ask if he or she wanted students to just get the information out’ of the 'Bob’s Fish text without encouraging them to question it. They suggested literal, inferential and evaluative questions. I did not want, at this stage, to raise the issue of readings being a result of information being put in' to the text. I showed them Overhead 2. OH 2

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After discussion of the way in which these questions might affect students' reading, they claimed that teachers' questions often: • directed them to produce certain meanings from texts • encouraged students to accept the views in texts without question • limited the meanings they could produce from texts Through this discussion, students at all levels began to understand the ways in which reading practices alter the meanings that can be produced for texts and they clarified their understanding of concepts like (fender stereotypes, dominant ideology, reading frame, reader positioning, dominant reading and resistant reading and, in some cases, became familiar with some of this terminology. They then worked in pairs for a few minutes to develop readings of ‘Bob's Fish' that disrupted its binary construction of gender. With older students, I crystallised their understanding of gender binarism by showing them a quote from Rousseau (Overhead 3). OH 3 Men and women are essentially different in character and temperament... What would be defects in men arc good qualities in women, which is necessary to make things go on well... It is the part of the one to he active and strong, and of the other to be passive and weak... [W]oman is made to please and to be dominated, she ought to make herself agreeable to man and avoid provocation (Rousseau, 1762).*•

With younger students, we went back and discussed the stereotype chart. Then students c a l l e d o u t their suggestions for subverting the gender ideology of the text. These suggestions creatively and humorously disrupted the text. They included: • Rose was an older sister who was looking after a four-year-old Bob who was playing with a piece of string on the end of a bamboo • Rose was reading a very difficult physics book • Rose was teaching Bob how to fish 85

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• Rose said, 'Catch it with your hook' disdainfully, because Boh was not very good at fishing • Rose was cleverer than Bob, because they could not eat the fish unless she cooked it • Bob was a pain in the neck because he wanted to be admired for his skill • Bob had a masculine obsession with bigness They enjoyed d i s r u p t i n g t h e t e x t . I asked if they thought younger children would have the capacity to develop resistant readings like theirs. They thought they could if they were given some techniques like: • changing the names (hence the gender) of the participants • leaving the names out and guessing gender • changing the purpose of reading • framing the text with different questions In reflecting on this activity within a Professional Development framework, a teacher suggested that the deconstruction of the text, particularly if the teacher were a woman, may be experienced by boys as an erosion of their power or even as a form of castration. This problem can, I think, be overcome by getting the class to consider the readings that are produced within the class as a game which redistributes power within a virtual world and by sensitively focusing on the possibility of building a more equitable relationship between genders.I I divided the class into groups to develop literal, inferential and evaluative questions to disrupt the text. Alter a c a ll o u t ol their suggestions, we discussed Overhead 4.

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OH 4 RESISTANT READING IS ENCOURAGED BY THESE QUESTIONS L IT E R A L Q U E S T IO N

List the things Bob does. List the things Rose does. List the things Bob owns. List the things Rose owns. What does Bob say? What does Rose say?

IN F E R E N T IA L Q U E S T IO N

Bob is interested in and gets excited by his fishing. What is Rose interested in and what does she get excited by? Who makes more use of the outdoors, Rose or Bob?

E V A L U A T IV E Q U E S T IO N

Do you think this story gives a true picture of what girls and boys really like to do? List the ways in which the story signals that Bob is more important than Rose. How could you change the story so that Rose is not so much a servant and admirer of Bob? Supposing that you rewrite the story to let both children catch some fish, how could you change the ending of the story so that Bob would feel comfortable about cooking?

W e p a u s e d to re f le c t o n th e d iffe re n t m o d e ls o f re a d in g th a t w e h a d u s e d w ith 'B o b 's F is h '.

Asked what idea of reading the person who wrote the text had in mind, students at different levels said things like: 'sounding out', 'learning to say the words', 'reading aloud' or 'learning to read'. We looked at and talked through Overhead 5.

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OH 5 O U T S I D E -> IN M O D E L O F R E A D IN G

This explanation constructs reading as a process of decoding letters into sounds

Letters > Sounds > Words > Sentences > Meaning

—

[flaps over quotes below] At the time we were sirening off to the rozz-shop, me being wedged between two millicents and being given the odd thump and the malenky tolchock by these smecking bullies Then I found I could open my glazlids a malenky bit and viddy like through all tears a kind of steamy city going by. (Burgess 1962) Psychologically the senex is at the core of any complex or governs any attitude when these psychological processes pass to the endphase. There is an expectation that it will correspond to biological senescence... but in actuality, the senex archetype transcends mere biological senescence and is given from the outset as a potential of epistemological order and teleological fulfilment. Domine non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum die verbo, et sanabitur anima mea. Colin Kenworthy 1996 88

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I lifted the flaps and got them to read one or more of the short texts with me and asked if they had got the meaning'. They agreed that the 'Outside -> In' model did not explain everything that happens when people read. They were readily able to see that the translation from letters to sound did not lead to meaning and they declared that this was not real reading. I asked them if they thought the psycholinguistic model of reading12 in Overhead 6 explained better what was involved when people read: OH6 IN S ID E -> O U T ' M O D E L O F R E A D IN G

Experience of life & knowledge of > Print > Meaning > language

Sometimes sound

[flap over definition below] Sec Latham and Sloan, 1979,- Goodman, 1965, 1976, Parker, 1985 89

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Reading is a thinking process in which the reader uses non-visual information (in his or her head) and visual information (on the page) in order to make meaning from a text. Colin Kenworthy 1996

I lifted the flap, read the definition and asked if this definition was capable of explaining why people get different meanings from the same text. They generally agreed that it didn't. I then guided classes towards a more complex understanding of reading that is illustrated in Overhead 7, which follows the discussion below. The classroom dialogue outlined below was developed with a group of highly motivated year 12 students who attended a weekend English conference in a private girls' secondary school. The group included both boys and girls. Some students were already familiar with discourse theory and they tended to lead the discussion. T: MALE STUDENT 1: T: M S 2 1: M S 3: FS 1:

MS 1: T: F S 2: T:

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So, does this diagram showing the inside out model of reading in Overhead 6 explain how different people get different meanings from the same text? Because they've got different ideas in their heads. Where do the ideas come from? From other people. From what they talk about. From what they have read in other hooks or seen on films. Or TV Are these things that lots of people are talking about? Yeah,- it's the way everybody thinks. Why does everybody, or nearly everybody think the same way about certain things like masculinity and femininity? Because that's the way everybody talks. So this way of talking or writing about gender persuades people that that is the way things really are. Yes. Sort of. I his way of talking actually constructs a version oj reality that everybody comes to accept?

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Yes. You reckon. Sort of. OK. We call these ways ol talking or thinking about things that become accepted by groups of people - discourses. Because groups of people tend to talk about things in the same way they confirm lor each other that their way of talking describes the world as it really is. Like greenies and loggers would talk about trees differently. Yes. We could describe their ways of talking as environmentalist discourse and development discourse. Another interesting feature of discourses is that they also give groups of people a position from which to describe the activities and language of other groups of people. Like greenies and loggers would talk about each other differently. Exactly. Can any of you think of other discourses that compete with each other and constaict negative images of opponents? Labor and Liberal? Yes. That's a good example. Though, we could say that both Labor and Liberal voters speak the same sort of discourse. 1 hey both use political discourse. They see the country's problems and solutions in political terms. They use the language ol politics to explain causes and effects and to describe comparisons and contrasts. T heir discourse is more like each other's than either is like medical or astrological discourse. Can you think of any other groups that construct the world differently? Religious types and scientists. Bosses and workers. Boys and girls look at things in different ways. Yes, you're getting back to the ideas about masculinity and femininity which we were talking about earlier. Can anyone expand on that a bit more. Isn't it just peer pressure? Yes,- but when we talk about discourses, we are talking about the how the peer pressure is actually applied. It can be applied in other ways,- like twisting people's arms... Do boys and girls use different discourses? Cos they talk about things differently. 91

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How is their talk different? What makes boys' talk different from girls'? Boys are equipped differently. Women are smarter. OK. OK. Could we be a bit more serious. Boys will talk more about cars and booze and things. And girls will talk more about dresses and hair and make up... Guys wouldn't talk about make-up. Unless they were gay. So, are you saying that boys and girls form, to some extent, separate communities? That they might think differently about a number of issues? And that these communities based on gender are used to establish what is appropriate masculine and feminine behaviour? Yes,- okay. And that these boy discourses and girl discourses might be used by boys and girls to control the behaviour of other boys and girls,- might be used to make them conform to stereotypes... Isn't that just peer pressure? So that a boy who does talk about make-up, for example, knows that he risks being talked about as gay and thereby categorised as not really male by the dominant boys in his group? Though, in King ( harles II's time, all men wore make-up at court, and these were the most powerful men in the country. And even today, warriors in Amazonian jungles use make up, and Maoris show their masculine status by the moko that is tattooed on their faces. So, what defines being a real man can be different in different times and places. Yeah, so? So what people say and do,- the way they dress and move can be controlled by the way groups of people use discourses? OK. 1 see. And it is easier for the popular kids to control the unpopular because the popular ones talk like... 1 don't know... 1hey talk with more confidence.

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They talk with more confidence because they feel comfortable with dominant discourses. The way they talk gives sonic kids' ideas more... acceptance than others. We could say that the kids who know how to use the dominant discourse have access to more power. In the whole society, the dominant discourses are the ones that arc used by people who have most power: professional people, business people, educated people, people who control the newspapers and the media. In the area of gender, the dominant discourse assumes that men are superior to women in the ways we looked at on the board earlier. Dominant discourse can persuade people that the gender dilferences between men and women are biological rather than cultural, natural rather than learned. Do you think that is so? Yeah. OK. Maybe. So, let's look at how this might affect people's reading and writing. Do you think that when girls and boys come to read, they might be likely to have different ideas in their heads and that that might make them produce different meanings from the same text? Yeah. I guess so. Because their experiences are different. And they are likely to have read different things before. So, we could say that boys and girls, or men and women for that matter, belong to different reading communities because the way they think and talk about things gives them different views of how things should be. And this might make them likely to read in different ways? Yes. With some sorts of books, girls might get very different meanings from boys. Girls might think Mills and Boon books are really louche and guys would just think they are mush. But not all boys would think that. No,- just like not all of them would talk about cars and booze. Some boys would talk about science. Or [rock] groups. So being biologically male doesn't mean that all boys will talk or think the same. Do you think boys and girls are likely to write differently? 93

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Will they write about different topics, prefer different genres and have different feelings about writing? Yes; girls write about the same soppy stuff as they talk and read about. Boring eh? Then why did a girl in our class win the science writing prize? Well... So what happens to our idea of communities of people based on gender, who because they use different discourses, are likely to read and write differently? You agreed earlier that boys and girls tend to make different readings of the same texts? Do we throw that idea out the window? No; because one guy could belong to more than one... what did you call it? Reading community? Yes. So, if a guy was in a football club and in the school orchestra, he wouldn't talk the same way to different groups. Wow! I really like what you’ve come up with there. So, the same person who belongs to different groups is likely, in order to fit in, to use the appropriate discourses for each community? Like a schizo? Fie means 'split personality'. Well... Perhaps not so much a split personality, because the person has some control over what he or she says. People choose to use the discourse that is appropriate for each group and in that way they construct an identity that suits them and the group they want to belong to. Yeah. I do that. I can be a muso or a surfie. I do that too. I change the way I talk when I'm with my mates. F S 3 : Well, we wouldn't talk like this outside of here. Would we? [laughter] Pretty handy isn't it? How flexible we can be? Do the ideas of discourse and reading communities help to explain how individuals fit into and function in society? Yes, and how people accept popular opinions so easily. And also how they come to read different things into the same text.

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Well; I think you've done really well today. Do you think you could construct a diagram to explain the effect of discourse and of reading communities on the way people read? Because the diagrams we've got to explain reading don't show us anything about what you've been talking about. Take a break and see what you can come up with. Play around with the same images we have used in the other overheads a book and some heads. Your task is to show how reading communities affect the way different individuals read.

In all classes, the general direction of the classroom dialogue was similar to that recorded above. After some time talking and drawing, students called out their suggestions and Overhead 7 was discussed. When the discussion was well advanced with senior students, they were invited to consider the ideas under the flap. OH7 S O C IO C U L T U R A L M O D E L O F R E A D IN G

This model attempts to account for reading by looking at the social and cultural conditions that surround the reader and cause him or her to read in a particular way.

Colin Kenworthy 1996

[flap over definition below] 95

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In each class, I worked through Overhead 7 with students to explore with them how it represents the socio-cultural and political factors affecting reading. I said something like: The Reader X (reader on the left) belongs to a reading community which is different from Reader Y (the reader on the right). He is unfamiliar with the genre of Text A (the text being read) indicated by the fact that he has not read the texts (P) which are in the same genre. He is unfamiliar with the content of Text A indicated by the tact that he has not read other texts (Q) which deal with similar content. He has not discussed this kind of text or this subject matter with his peers. For all of these reasons, he will read Text A differently from the way in which reader Y will read it; perhaps with less interest and less comprehension. Reader Y belongs to a community of readers who support her reading of the text through being familiar with the content (Q), purpose and genre (P) of Text A.

When asked to explore the potential of the diagram to explain the differential reading behaviours of individuals, students said things like: Boys who are interested in cars would read car manuals easily. Girls who like romance fiction would read Mills and Boon.' Others were quick to point out that this was an oversimplification,- that not all boys or girls read according to the expected stereotype. They also claimed that the diagram would help to explain why readers of broadsheet newspapers may not read popular music news sheets,- why doctors would not be likely to read 96

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astrology magazines,- why old ladies would prefer the 'Women's Weekly’ to 'Cosmopolitan' or fanzines. The use of a made-up text like the one that follows was used to show how differently constructed groups might respond to dominant texts. The northern part of the state was of little value until recently because the soil is poor and rainfall uncertain. It had little use and remained almost unsettled until the discovery and development of iron ore in the 1960s. Now that its tourist potential is being realised, it will have a great future.

In each class, from year 7 through to year 12, there were some individuals who could explain to their peers that each individual's literacy capacities are formed by membership of different groups and by other contextual influences. We usually agreed that the diagram points to, rather than adequately describes, the comp­ lexity of reading practices which a socio-cultural view of reading seeks to explain. As part of their understanding of the nexus between literacy and gender, students need to understand how texts and reading practices work to construct a society in which members of different groups (which can be based on gender, class, age, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, educational background) are more or less familiar with different discourses and thereby have unequal access to literacy. They also need to understand that their own reading can be limited by their subject position in society and that they can benefit by being shown how to take up reading positions which are easy for members of other groups so that they can thereby comprehend the versions of the world that others construct when they read The use of such a simple text as 'Bob's Fish' proved itself invaluable with students at all levels in secondary school, because the concept load in the text was not difficult and because the reader positioning was so easy to deconstruct. Using such a simple text as a base for learning, most students were able to: • understand how different conceptualisations of reading emphasise different aspects of the reader's interaction with text13 13 Freebody, 1992 97

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• see that changing the questions which frame a text changes the meanings that can be produced for it14 • see that the meanings produced for a text are, to some extent, dependent on the reader's location in a reading community15 • see that the reader's gender is a factor in the kind of discourses that he or she will take up both by speaking and writing. Many students were able to: • explain how the psycholinguistic model of reading failed to problematise the issue of gender in 'Bob's Fish', and by implication in other texts • articulate the idea that texts and discourses naturalise, legitimate and maintain a system of gendered roles and relationships for men and women • explain that the reading positions offered by texts can be challenged because of the way in which they construct ideas about gender • argue that readers can take up reading and writing positions which challenge the expected positions for their gender Some students were able to: • understand that each individual’s assumptions about gender are affected by the operation of discourses in spoken and written texts • understand that gendered identity is constructed, in part, through social practices and reading practices

' 4 McLachlan and Reid, 1992 15 Fish, 1980 98

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Lesson Two: The Bad Deeds Gang' In the second lesson, we worked with a story that was more difficult to deconstruct, because it was closer to the students in a number of ways: it was published in 1961, not 1945,- it was at their level of reading; and it inscribed attitudes and values that were closer to their own. Because The Bad Deeds Gang' deals only with boys and men, it did not seem at first to raise the gender issues that are raised by texts that distribute attributes and capacities differentially to males and females. Barry Breen in The Bad Deeds Gang’ draws on a number of discourses that construct the Australian male as a resourceful, happy-go-lucky larrikin who has a healthy contempt for authority and who sticks by his mates through thick and thin. It is a humorous story that constructs what might almost be read as an ideal version of the young teenage male. The romantic ideal is reinforced by the story's being set in a small country town in the forties or fifties. The young boys in The Bad Deeds Gang' win a 'victory' over their antagonist, Old Grumpy, which is similar to that which Antique youthful heroes like Theseus, Perseus or Jason (and the Argonauts) won over the Minotaur or the Medusa. Similar too, the victory of Robin Hood's or Peter Pan's fraternal bands over the evil Sheriff of Nottingham or Captain Hook. In fact, many readers who know these heroic stories make intertextual links with a whole corpus of stories which set up a warrior ideal of masculinity, an ideal marked by courage, cunning, boldness, strength and fraternal bonding,- and also by xenophobia, misogyny and glorification of violence. It is easy for teachers using the dominant reading strategies outlined in Overhead 2 to encourage a dominant reading of The Bad Deeds Gang' because it inscribes the patriarchal (or perhaps fratriarchal) ideal of masculinity which texts and reading practices have naturalised for thousands of years and which still operates through films like Peter Pan, Kevin Costner's Robin Hood and Boyz ‘N the Hood to marginalise women and males who are not part of the fraternal band16. B u t, it c a n b e a r g u e d , it is t h e u n q u e s t i o n i n g a c c e p t a n c e o f t h i s d o m i n a n t v e r s i o n o f m a s c u l i n i t y , s o d e l i g h t f u l l y i n s c r i b e d in T h e B a d D e e d s G a n g ', w h ic h

16 see Ross, 1994 99

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is responsible for many of the injustices and inequities in contemporary society. A variation of the 'Before During and After approach worked well to draw students' attention to the role that this text and others like it play in permitting, approving and applauding antisocial behaviour by young men. Once a text is published, it may be read in ways that its author did not consciously intend it to be read. And it is almost certain that the writer of The Bad Deeds Gang’ did not write the story to encourage antisocial behaviour among males. The following description of the lesson which stretched over several periods shows how, in shifting students from their learned practice of reading for character to a practice of reading for social and ethical values, they were encouraged to question the unreservedly positive representation of conventional masculinity as a good thing. Problematising The Bad Deeds Gang' showed readers from year 7 to year 12 how gender ideology is embedded in the texts that surround them and how texts can persuade them into roles which limit their own and others' self expression and social relationships. With classes at all levels, I started with a simple Before exercise to contextualise the reading of the story within a frame that encouraged reading for gender. 1 showed them the top half of Overhead 8 below, and asked them to discuss the questions in small groups and then to discuss their ideas with the whole class. An interesting feature of this discussion in several classes, particularly among older students, was the disapproval of the boy who refused to play cricket. The pressure for hyper-masculinity was more often expressed by girls than by boys. When asked to discuss the second half of the chart, many students opined that it made no difference to them if girls or boys did the bad deeds. In order to get students to talk about differential expectations for boys and girls, 1 found it necessary to ask question 2, because students often think of their parents or the media as being more sexist than they,- especially if the parents come from migrant groups where patriarchal structures and relationships are more strongly entrenched. Gender expectations among students and the reported expectations of their parents varied in different school populations because of gender, class, geographical location, ethnicity, etc. Questions 3 and 4 picked up the concepts of discourse and reading community which had been so happily accepted in the earlier lesson.