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National award for 'outstanding contribution' to children's literacy

August 29, 2006

Unsworth.thumb.jpgLen Unsworth, Professor of English and Multiliteracies Education at The University of New England, has received a national award for his work with teachers and teacher educators on enhancing the literacy skills of Australian schoolchildren.

The Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, during a ceremony at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney on Friday [25 August], presented Professor Unsworth and five others from around the nation with individual awards for their “outstanding contribution to improving literacy and/or numeracy”. The event served as a prelude to National Literacy and Numeracy Week (28 August to 3 September). Minister Bishop said the work of the award-winners had provided “a bridge to hope and a pathway to progress for countless Australians in an ever-changing world”.

Guests at Friday’s ceremony were told that Professor Unsworth (pictured here with his award certificate) had made “an enormous contribution” to literacy education “both within Australia and internationally over an extended period of time”. “His work has included the use of digital literacy and learning to support both teachers and students,” the citation continued. “A key focus of his work in all areas is on educationally disadvantaged students and those who find difficulty with literacy and learning. Through his invaluable contribution to teachers’ professional development, he has been a catalyst for change in teaching practice.”

The Minister’s Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Improving Literacy and/or Numeracy are worth $10,000 each. Professor Unsworth said the award ceremony – and National Literacy and Numeracy Week as a whole – was “an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of literacy education in this country”. “The awards recognise the combined work of teacher educators, teachers and students,” Professor Unsworth said “– people working together at all levels of the education system. On international measures, Australia is one of the world’s highest-performing nations in terms of the literacy of its young people.”

He said one of the guiding principles of his own work had been “the integration of well-established and innovative teaching strategies” – for example, the integration of the traditional focus on printed books and the contemporary fascination with computer-based material. His recent book E-literature for Children: Enhancing digital literacy learning (published by Routledge in London and New York) emphasises what he calls “the continuum of traditional and multimedia narratives that now make up the story worlds of our children”.

His earlier book Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Curriculum (Open University Press, UK, 2001) is a pioneering work on teaching school students to appreciate the subtleties of the verbal/visual texts that are now such an important part of electronic communication. In 2004 he won a Citation of Merit award from the Australian Literacy Educators' Association for his research in literacy education.

Professor Unsworth is the Principal Investigator in two large research projects funded by the Australian Government on the subject of “multimodal reading”. He said the support of his UNE colleagues – and of the University itself – had been a vital factor in the success of his “multiliteracy” research.

That research has led to new understandings about the effectiveness of grammar as a resource for improving literacy and learning. Professor Unsworth will give a talk at UNE this Friday [September 1] titled "Systemic Functional Grammar as a resource in developing children's understanding of the linguistic 'constructedness' and verbal art of literary narrative". The talk - one of a series organised by UNE's School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics - will be in Seminar Room 2, Psychology Building S_06_31, from 2 to 3 pm.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at August 29, 2006 03:33 PM