ABSTRACT
In this book I have tried to represent a range of models of, approaches to and views on the subject English stretching back over the best part of a century. If one looks at the development historically, it is possible to interpret the subject as unfolding in a certain direction – although what precisely this direction is will inevitably depend on vantage point. Looking towards the future of the subject is even more problematic: do we take particular practices and trends currently discernible and extrapolate from them what the future may hold? If so, the pitfalls are many, not least in that these practices and trends are by no means universally discerned in the first place – this indeed is part of the message I am trying to convey in this book. And even if there is some shared understanding, it’s not necessarily the case that the future will endorse what is currently thought or practised (a good example of this is the language across the curriculum model, which after Bullock was once widely thought to be the key to the future of English). It’s also something of a truism, but perhaps containing a kernel of good sense, that there is a pendulum motion discernible in the development of educational practice and policy – but by the same token, it can be tricky to perceive exactly when the pendulum has swung to its fullest extent and what form its return over previous areas will take.
