ABSTRACT
The common pedagogies engendered approaches to literacy that were both limited and limiting, what Comber has previously termed ‘fickle literacies’. While writing may be included in teachers’ weekly programmes, as required by the school’s literacy agreements, its enactment does not look the same in every classroom. Further, teachers mean different things when they talk about children and writing. The ‘literacisation’ of pedagogy results in an overemphasis on the linguistic aspects of tasks, to the detriment of wider learning goals. Many teachers will not recognise the limitations of their customary practices, attributing low achievement or engagement instead to the problems of students. Teachers are invoking the rhetoric of theoretically and ideologically underpinned contemporary literacy approaches in the service of fickle literacies. A common effect of the practices is that teachers attempt less and students are framed as less able. Teachers, for their part, become frustrated when students begin to perform in accordance with low expectations.
