Investigating the Philosophical Potentialities in the New South Wales Higher School Certificate English (Advanced) Course

Abstract

The teaching of literature in the English classroom can facilitate an exploration of thefundamental questions of human existence whilst developing critical interpretative skills inyoung people. However, just as literature is subject to the cultural, political, and socialforces that shape its production and reception, so too is subject English. This can provechallenging for English teachers, especially when faced with the demands of high-stakesexaminations. In New South Wales, the Higher School Certificate English Advancedcourse requires students to demonstrate sophisticated critical interpretive skills. However,the teaching of literature has become increasingly orthodox, shaped by examinationpressures. This hermeneutic case study explores the potential for integrating skills and knowledgedrawn from philosophy to support teachers to deepen and expand students’ textualinterpretation. It focuses on Module B because of its sustained focus on criticalengagement with a single literary text. Through a reflexive thematic analysis of the Module B syllabus and support documents,key philosophical affordances were identified. These include the confluence of literary andphilosophical skills and knowledges. A philosophy-informed framework that distils theseaffordances into an accessible planning tool for teachers was developed. The applicationof this framework to an evergreen literary text - the poetry of W.B. Yeats - demonstrateshow philosophical and literary confluences can be meaningfully enacted in classroompractice. This study shows that whilst subject English may be a mercurial discipline, philosophy canserve as a productive lens for teaching literary textual analysis. The philosophy-informedframework enables the foregrounding of teacher agency and reflexivity and has thepotential to reinvigorate the teaching of Module B, despite the HSC functioning as atechnology of power.