Rurality, writing and English: Spatial justice for rural students through English teaching and writing pedagogy

This chapter considers how a metronormative neoliberal education agenda in Australia contributes to deficit discourses about young people in rural communities and denies the value of writing experiences in English, arguing that the impact of neoliberalism on rural students and on the teaching of English and writing is visible in a culture of standardisation that ignores the particularities and complexities of both place and writing. It considers that the particularities of place can be understood through theoretical frameworks of space and place, which contribute to an understanding of the spatial inequalities of rural places and spaces – and the students that occupy them – and the current context and creation of categories of disadvantage. The literature related to context, English teaching and writing pedagogy, leads to a consideration of the spatial nature of creative forms of writing in the development of voice, affectual composition and writerly identity in student writers. The possibility of conceptualising writing as place arises from the intersection of place and the qualities and characteristics of creative forms of writing.