Andrew Miller | Flinders University of South Australia (original) (raw)

Papers by Andrew Miller

Academic freedom is the cornerstone of a robust and healthy university system. Only fully democra... more Academic freedom is the cornerstone of a robust and healthy university system. Only fully democratic universities can pursue their missions of free and open enquiry and passionate social debate. Negate academic freedom and you effectively kill the university; and this, in turn, collapses one of the central pillars of a robust democratic society. (Advocate 2018, 25[1])

Students in Western university contexts require multiple literacies, nume-racies, and critical ca... more Students in Western university contexts require multiple literacies, nume-racies, and critical capacities to succeed. Participation requires a blend of English language capacity, cultural knowhow, and cognisance of the often-hidden racialized assumptions and dispositions underpinning literate performance. Students from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds transitioning to Western university settings from local and international contexts often find themselves floundering in this complex sociocultural web. Many students struggle with the English language preferences of their institutions despite meeting International English Language Testing System (IELTS) requirements. Once enrolled, students from CALD backgrounds need to navigate the linguistic, semiotic, and cultural landscape of the university, both physically and virtually, to enter the discourses and practices of their chosen disciplines. Universities cannot afford to allow students to 'sink or swim' or struggle through with non-specialist or ad-hoc support. In response to a clear need for explicit and ongoing English language support for students from CALD backgrounds, the Student Learning Centre (SLC) at Flinders University in South Australia created the En-glish Language Support Program (ELSP). The ELSP sets out to overcome prescriptive and assimilationist approaches to language support by adopting an eclectic blend of learner-centred, critical-creative, and multi-literacies approaches to learning and teaching. Rather than concentrate on skills and/or language appropriateness, the ELSP broadens its reach by unpacking the mechanics and machinations of university study through an intensive—and transgressive—multi-module program. This paper outlines the theoretical and pedagogical challenges of implementing the ELSP.

The Flinders University Branch of the NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union) has entered a disp... more The Flinders University Branch of the NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union) has entered a dispute with the University over the introduction of 'Teaching Specialist' roles. The Union sees the University's initiative is a Trojan Horse, ushering in a swag of nasty surprises.

By extending the notion of ‘academic’ writing to include heuristic, figurative, reflexive, and ‘m... more By extending the notion of ‘academic’ writing to include heuristic, figurative, reflexive, and ‘messy’ textualities, I hope to escape the restrictions associated with essay, article, and thesis writing. Few students, it seems, ever attempt to make their ‘academic’ pieces creative or evocative in the same way they do their poems or stories; in fact, they usually ‘play dead’ when it comes to formal writing. Such is the tyranny of the conventional essay on artistic thinking and creative practice. Creative writers, too, seldom venture beyond the formal elements of genre or genre itself. By extending the notion of ‘writing’ to include oxymoronic genres and pictorial, stylistic, and hypertextual elements, I hope to extend the possibilities of text production beyond those usually afforded to students; that is, beyond essays and prose on the one hand, and poems and stories on the other. Various textual theories and practices have helped me in this process: picto-ideo-phonographic writing, autoethnography, messy texts, narrative inquiry, and poststructuralism. Such practices disrupt the ‘formalities’ of the essay and the ‘orthodoxies’ of the book. As Derrida (1976: 87) suggests, ‘What is thought today cannot be written according to the line and the book. . .’ No, but it can inspire us to think differently about how we construct texts
and how we write prose (including how we arrange texts on the page).

Traditionally, memoir writers use ‘prose’ to build narratives. Sometimes they use images, but oft... more Traditionally, memoir writers use ‘prose’ to build narratives. Sometimes they use images, but often not. In the multimedia age some memoirists are turning to art, photography, design, typography, and technology to increase the range and scope of their research and ‘writing’. Writing, in this sense, takes on a more Derridean flavour, and comes to incorporate all manner of inscriptions. Readers consequently become viewers, and texts shift from ‘readerly’ to ‘writerly’ in the Barthesian sense. Design software like Adobe InDesign helps make such bricolages possible, and helps overcome some of the design limitations of mainstream word processors.

By combining elements of a/r/tography, applied grammatology, autoethnography, and creative non-fiction, I have created a graphic memoir bricolage to explore the death of my mother and the difficulties of narrating it. By combining words and images—design and content—I have come some way to articulating the challenges of this process.

Many 'life writers' in the twenty-first century are turning to digital platforms to tell their st... more Many 'life writers' in the twenty-first century are turning to digital platforms to tell their stories. Some life writers are combining 'prose' and 'visual elements' to expand their meaning-making capabilities beyond traditional narrative.

In Moonscapes and Mallee Scrub I have turned to the visual to tell the story of my mother's mysterious death in 1974. This text draws upon multimodal elements and a range of different texts to form a 'graphic-memoir-bricolage' designed for online viewing. The resulting 'visual-verbal' text explores both the events that took place and the difficulties of depicting reflections on earlier reflections in the telling of that story. What results is a complex multimodal text that raises as many questions as it offers answers. But this, in the end, is the nature of memory and memoir - at least for this author!

How might a tertiary English teacher use Garth Boomer’s ideas on ‘teaching against the grain’ to ... more How might a tertiary English teacher use Garth Boomer’s ideas on ‘teaching against the grain’ to challenge the rules and assumptions that dominate the Academic Language and Learning (ALL) industry in the university sector today? How might such a teacher use Boomer’s ideas to enact ‘emancipatory pedagogies’ (or something like them) in an otherwise conservative landscape? In this paper I endeavour to imagine an alternative teaching identity and an alternative pedagogy by re-reading and re-appropriating some of Boomer’s ideas of the late 1980s and applying them, selectively, to a twenty-first century context. To challenge the status quo, Boomer advocates a revolution in
‘explicitness’ and ‘honesty’ – even ‘perversity’ and ‘courage’ – to call education at all levels as it is. This paper responds to Boomer’s call to critical arms and critical perversity by imagining as a means to
enacting. After all, as Boomer (1988) suggests, ‘Making out is a forerunner to making changes’ (p. 69). And who better to start this habit-shattering praxis than Boomer himself.

What are you doing now? I watch him. He has a mischievous grin on his face. He means to do someth... more What are you doing now? I watch him. He has a mischievous grin on his face. He means to do something, something not all together right.' He is in the lihrary. He is supposed to be working on a project. He doesn't want to be at a tahle, or at a cubicle, or in a chair. He needs a book. Yes, that's it. A book. Getting a book will give him licence to escape his chair, to meander, swan about, and kill time until lunch. He gets up and heads off in search of a book. He makes the right noises to his teacher about his scholarly needs. 3 Permission is granted and he slips away, vanishing into the tall corridors of books. He only likes art books, and books on footy. He steals them. He has several art books at home. He smuggles them out in his jumper. 4 He likes to draw. He draws far away places -away from people, in the forgotten hours -when all is still. I haven't forgotten. 'No-me-mean-to-do-that,' you would say when you were young. During his walk, he picks up a book to keep up appearances. He doesn't read it -he doesn't even open it -he simply shoves it away in a different spot. He does this repeatedly. He cannot stop. Rearranging books seems defiant and subversive. He becomes excited by the gesture. Pragmatic: 'advocating hehaviour that is dictated more by practical consequences than by theory or dogma' (Collins English Dictionary). Does moving books kill time? Yes. Does moving books provide an alibi for loitering? Yes. Does moving books epitomise frustration and contempt? Yes. Will it disrupt and inconvenience others? Yes. Are you likely to get caught? No. Do the practical consequences outweigh the potential for punishment or inner turmoil, such as guilt or shame? Yes. Then keep doing it. . Gather, relocate, place. Inhale. Gather, relocate, place. Exhale.

How MIGHT A PRE-SERVICE TEACHER BEGIN TO 'TEACH AGAINST THE GRAIN'? By DECONSTRUCTING (AND RECONS... more How MIGHT A PRE-SERVICE TEACHER BEGIN TO 'TEACH AGAINST THE GRAIN'? By DECONSTRUCTING (AND RECONSTRUCTING) MY SCHOOLING YEARS AND THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DISCOURSES
AND PRACTICES THAT SHAPED AND DEFINED ME, J HOPE TO INTERRUPT MY CONDITIONING IN ORDER TO AVOID REVISITING MY UNHAPPY SCHOOL EXPERIENCES UPON FUTURE STUDENTS, I AM
TRYING TO INFORM MY FUTURE TEACHING THEORIES AND PRACTICES THROUGH THE STORIES AND VOICES OF YESTERYEAR, AND TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF SOCIAL REPRODUCTION AND DOMINATION. I VIEW EDUCATION AS THE PRACTICE OF FREEDOM AND TRANSFORMATION-NOT OBEDIENCE AND DOMESTICATION. THIS ARTICLE USES
AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AS A BEGINNING POINT IN THE DECONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION OF MY DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY.

The biggest danger for beginning teachers is to teach as they were taught. In order to create tea... more The biggest danger for beginning teachers is to teach as they were taught. In order to create teaching identities capable of resisting the mind-numbing orthodoxies of the mass-schooling machine, beginning teachers need to interrogate the theories and practices that have shaped them as teachers.

Raging against the Mass Schooling Machine is a compelling autoethnographic account of one beginning teacher’s struggle to transform his future teaching identity by unpacking the bruising encounters that shaped him as a student. This is a must-read book for all teachers wishing to ‘teach against the grain.’

The journey from student to teacher involves almost two decades of junior, primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Few of us critique this journey to see what emotional legacies and taken-for-granted assumptions we carry from one identity to the other. If we remain unconscious of the social and cultural discourses and practices that have shaped and defined us as students and teachers, we may unwittingly reproduce the inequalities, prejudices, and traumas we experienced or observed while growing up, or resort to transmission teaching and authoritarian control because this is the formula of schooling most of us know.

Empowering education relies on teachers resisting these toxic scripts and becoming agents of change.

Visit Sense Publishers at:
http://tinyurl.com/zr6dtge

Given the complexities and multimodalities of contemporary universities, students need access to ... more Given the complexities and multimodalities of contemporary universities, students need access to an ever-increasing range of literacies to succeed and flourish. They need the academic acumen to read, view, compose, and perform a range of literacies in a range of contexts for a range of audiences and purposes (e.g. on paper, in person, and online). To do this students need to be conversant and confident in a range of literacies applicable to universities and applicable to broader social, cultural, and vocational contexts outside university. Our ‘multi-literacies’ framework identifies six literacy domains necessary for successful transition and success in the university context. These include: (1) institutional literacies; (2) digital literacies; (3) social and cultural literacies; (4) critical literacies; (5) language literacies; and (6) academic literacies. In our experience, students new to university are often ill-equipped to fully engage with the university system. In response, the framework endeavours to make explicit many of the literacy requirements that have been assumed, implied, or invisible altogether. Ultimately, this is about giving students access to the cultural capital and practical knowhow needed to succeed in a ‘widening-participation’ era. Such an approach should increase retention and completion rates and give ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ student cohorts a more empowering education experience. So far, despite widespread support for our framework, implementation has proved difficult. Moving beyond a skills-and-drills model of literacy to a critically engaged multi-literacies approach will require all stakeholders to genuinely reform teaching theories and practices for meaningful change to occur.

Literacy teachers in schools and universities share a common goal: to prepare students with the '... more Literacy teachers in schools and universities share a common goal: to prepare students with the 'literacies' they need to succeed in and beyond educational settings. In a widening participation era universities must increase and expand their literacy offerings to help students make the most of their university experience. At Flinders University in South Australia we have set out to design a first-year literacy framework to equip students with the foundational literacies they need to succeed. Once implemented, the framework should help to increase retention and completion rates and give 'traditional' and 'non-traditional' student cohorts a more empowering education experience. It will also help students from diverse backgrounds make the transition to tertiary study. Our 'multi-literacies' framework explicitly addresses four key tertiary literacies: (1) institutional literacies, (2) critical literacies, (3) traditional literacies, and (4) academic literacies. The framework endeavours to make explicit many of the literacy requirements that were previously assumed, and should help equalise differences in 'cultural capital' and literacy levels of students arriving at university. This paper will unpack the multi-literacies framework and explore the nexus between cultural capital and literacy practice.

Talks by Andrew Miller

Academic Freedom is the cornerstone of a robust and healthy university culture. Only a fully demo... more Academic Freedom is the cornerstone of a robust and healthy university culture. Only a fully democratic and open university can pursue its mission of free and open enquiry and passionate social debate. Negate academic freedom and you effectively kill the university. And this, in turn, collapses one of the central pillars of a robust democratic society.
The incessant attacks on academic freedom by corporate and neoliberal forces must be resisted. NTEU Flinders Branch President, Dr Andrew Miller, outlines what's at stake and what staff can do to protect their rights. What's happening at Flinders University is also happening at universities across the globe. Staff and students must defend the democratic principles of the university before it's too late. Please share this video and help save our universities.

Empowering education relies on teachers resisting these toxic scripts and becoming agents of change.

Visit Sense Publishers at:
http://tinyurl.com/zr6dtge