Abstract

In this paper I intend to critically examine the discursive accounts of literacy, and of the successful literate student, within the Australian Federal language and literacy policy documents of the last three decades. The purpose of the critical examination is to clarify the policy outcome intentions in terms of how literacy and the successful literate student were conceptualised, and the shifts within and between the policy documents. A critical discourse analysis lens is used in order to discover how the constructions of literacy and the successful literate student within the policy had potential for rich inclusive literacy pedagogy or for a narrow pedagogy that advantaged certain forms of literacy as successful and valued.