This paper responds to Michael Rosen's blog entries, "How Genre Theory Saved the World", arguing that genre theory in the tradition of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) has made an important contribution to language and literacy pedagogy. It emerged in the Australian context in about 1980 and was initially developed in response to…

The study of systemic functional linguistics has been particularly relevant to the development of an educational linguistics. Recent theory has viewed language as a tool for mapping experience, with semantics and grammar treated as interrelated, not distinct. To the systemicist, one of the greatest theoretical challenges has been how to account…

The research orientations and perspectives of people participating in the international dialogue about the redefinition of English language studies have been varied. Two broad and overlapping areas are distinctive to English studies: the exploration of human values and experience through the study of literature and the media, and the development…

Challenges the view that children should learn to write narratives first and shows how teachers can exploit everyday classroom topics to help children develop control of the kinds of factual writing normally used by adults. (MM)