New literacies, alternative texts: Teachers’ conceptualisations of composition and literacy

There is a conceptual world surrounding writing in schools, and we are conditioned to a particular language about composition and literacy. This study seeks to interrogate the terms composition and literacy at the level of the classroom: to ask what is meant when it is invoked and what it means to the teachers who teach it. The central question of this inquiry is: How do teachers conceptualise composition and literacy, and how are those conceptualisations socially and historically situated? I worked with one staff of teachers to explore their articulations of composition, through a lunch-hour discussion group and one-on-one interviews. Methodologically I looked to Caputo’s (1987) radical hermeneutics as a way to understand the interpretations teachers were making of composition and literacy, both in the context of their lives and within a broader socio-historical context. Caputo’s radicalisation of hermeneutics allows the introduction of post-modern flux into the interpretive process. Most teachers considered literacy to be mainly about reading, and thought of composition in traditional text-forms. With a few exceptions, there was little interest or awareness in what might be termed “new literacies”, or a commitment or even interest in alternative texts or digital media.