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‘New’ Literacies for ‘New’ Times? Shaping Literacy Curricula for the Post-Compulsory Years

This paper considers tensions associated with constructing literacy curricula for students in the post-compulsory years of schooling, where discourses of work, higher education and school accreditation jostle for prominence. Using an Australian state as example, the paper demonstrates how students are channelled towards different versions of English literacy in the senior secondary school, and how literacy curricula become complicit in the hierarchical sorting and streaming of young adult learners. Students seeking immediate post-school employment are offered a literacy program which emphasises practical, routine literacy skills and procedures, whereas students preparing for higher education entry are offered a curriculum which emphasises public, formal, theoretical analysis and imaginative and creative language play. The paper argues that post-compulsory students need access to a literacy repertoire that extends beyond such simple differentiation: a flexible and intelligent repertoire of literacy practices that prepares students for the changing and dynamic face of contemporary literate practice.