A place for the personal voice? Gunther Kress and the English curriculum

For more than 20 years, Gunther Kress has made a powerful contribution to the debate about the English curriculum. The National Literacy Strategy represents an official endorsement of his ideas, particularly concerning the explicit teaching of 'non-fictional' genres. In this sense, Kress's work exerts a significant influence upon the pedagogy and practice of the contemporary English classroom. Interestingly, however, research suggests that many practitioners still feel committed to earlier, deep-rooted traditions which place personal engagement with literature at the heart of the English curriculum—a theoretical position which Kress has done much to critique.