Languages of Schooling: embedding literacy learning with genre-based pedagogy

Abstract For three decades, genre based literacy pedagogy has been describing the written genres that students are expected to read and write in school, and designing teaching/learning activities through which students can be guided to read and write these genres successfully. This paper positions this research within the model of language and pedagogy that informs it, and then describes a system of literacy teaching activities that have been designed in the genre based methodology Reading to Learn. The function of these designed activities is to provide access to the genres in which knowledge is written and read in schools and academia. Both written genres and teaching/learning activities are described in terms of their social functions and structuring. In addition, teaching/learning activities are described in more detail, at the level of classroom discourse, as careful design of teacher/learner interaction is a critical component of the Reading to Learn methodology.