Purpose: Poetic inquiry is an approach that promotes alternate perspectives about what research means and speaks to more diverse audiences than traditional forms of research. Across academia, there is increasing attention to decolonising research. This reflects a shift towards research methods that recognise, acknowledge and appreciate diverse…

This paper reports on a collaboration between advocacy organisation, "Sweltering Cities," artists and researchers who developed a multi-site research project that provided South West Sydney residents an opportunity to engage in drama and poetry workshops that gave voice to their lived experience of rising surface temperatures, as well as…

This article highlights how mentors in spoken word poetry workshops drew on culturally sustaining pedagogy, modeled their own creativity and vulnerability through their poetry, and amplified the voices of youth poets by encouraging them to explore their identities and grapple with inequities in their own lives. Situated in western Sydney, one of…

This article considers how new materialist, Indigenous and posthuman feminist theories might be applied to drama pedagogy and research to empower young people to play "within" the trouble of colonial legacies and heightened climate crises. It references an Australian school project that used Heathcote's Rolling Role system of teaching…

Purpose: School climate strikes are opening spaces of appearance, becoming differently active forms of public pedagogy where new and previously unthought collective climate action is possible. This inquiry contributes to understanding school climate strikes as important forms of climate justice activism by exploring how they work as public…

My thoughts on the question of 'Textuality as the Centre of English' were presented at a Roundtable session at the 2020 International Federation for the Teaching of English (IFTE) Conference. Through critical discourse analysis of media and curriculum texts, I highlight how the 'being' of the English subjects is always and already textual in…

Current social and political arrangements of higher education are inequitable for students from asylum-seeking backgrounds. In many countries, their access to university is limited and if they are accepted, their status as forced migrants puts them at multiple disadvantages. This inequity is in contrast with the universal aim of higher education…

The "Wandiny" creative gathering of Indigenous and non-Indigenous poets, artists, Elders, and participants across Australia actively sought to foreground First Nations voices, stories, poetry, art, and ontology. This paper presents the auto-ethnographic reflections from the event organisers, demonstrating that participation in a…

The COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, and political and social movements have required each of us to pause. Collectively they signal a unique moment in our history, and we argue that they provide us with an opportunity to consider what matters most as we move forward. Using poetic representation and Brené Brown's guideposts for wholehearted…

Spoken word poetry encourages youth to engage in identity construction, resist oppression and construct counternarratives. Through participating in community-based slams, school workshops and online events, young people can take part in visible activism through exploring their own identity, power and agency and seeing themselves as change agents.…

This paper uses a Gwen Harwood poem to open up questions of "knowing" around the teaching of Literature. Following our own brief reading of the poem, we particularly discuss ways in which questions of knowing/knowledge have been considered in Literature teaching historically, such as: - the binary of "knowledge" and…

Creativity has been identified as an increasingly important graduate attribute for employment in the 21st century. As sites of significant development of disciplinary specialization, universities seem to be the natural place for creativity to be fostered. However, there remain contestations and ambiguities in the ways creativity is theorized, and…

A significant body of research highlights the rich linguistic and cultural experiences offered by spoken word poetry when integrated into English pedagogy, particularly through its fusion of written and performative modes and its opportunities for cultivating empathy and creativity. However, few studies have examined secondary English teachers'…

This article simultaneously explores the dynamic nature of teacher educator identity and highlights the methodological potential of poetic inquiry in self-study. Using tensions as a conceptual framework to explore identity as a process of becoming, I draw from a series of found poems to examine my identity as a mid-career teacher educator working…

Young people around the world are engaging in innovative literacy practices through their creation of, and engagement with, spoken word poetry. From community-based slams to school-based workshops to online videos, this genre has become increasingly popular with marginalized youth who have an opportunity to have their often-silenced voices heard…