ABSTRACT
The centrality of literature has always been a powerful rallying cry in education to which many have responded. There can be no guarantee that the centrality of literature will be a self-evident truth to the students who will press for answers that are persuasive at the time and who deserve ones that are durable enough to carry conviction when they later reflect upon their own, or perhaps their children’s, education. What counts as literature, remains a highly contentious matter in the politics of education. It remains an even more important pedagogic problem. English takes a more investigative and analytical approach to the whole question of literature. The educational benefits claimed for literature in the personal growth version of English are very different. If literature is to be central in an English teaching that is appropriate for a multilingual and multiethnic society, then one has to start with the processes of language and with all aspects of the making of meaning.
