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.