Kids! I’m talking to YOU!

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Should we teach writing well or badly?

© Mem Fox The Donald Graves Memorial Speech Australian Literacy Educators convention, July 2012 Once upon a time—in 1992—I found myself in Donald Graves’ house […]

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If Wishes were Horses by Mem Fox

Keynote for Geelong 2015 Abstract: We cannot expect the children in our classes to write anything half-decent unless they have something half-decent in heads to […]

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The Folly of Jolly Old Phonics

A phonics tale of three children (with morals for teachers of reading) © Mem Fox 2008 This piece was presented at a conference of Auckland principals in […]

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A read-aloud lesson

Section 1 (Click the “play” buttons to hear the text read aloud.) An American father once said to me: “So how do you do this […]

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Learning from learning

Try as we might, none of us will ever be perfect teachers. The most we can hope for, in our quest to be God, is […]

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In the teaching olympics, who wins gold?

Fox and Wilkinson ‘94 Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when it was announced that Sydney would host the year […]

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Notes from the battlefield

Towards A Theory Of Why People Write (This article was first published in ‘Language Arts’, Vol. 65 No. 2 Feb. 1988) I’m a writer. As […]

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Politics, literature and green shoes

Current Realities In Whole Language This article was first presented as a keynote speech at the August, 1992 Whole Language Umbrella Conference. Because of the […]

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Like mud, not fireworks

The Place Of Passion In The Development Of Literacy What has passion to do with literacy? What has hairdressing to do with literacy? What has […]

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The Donald Graves Memorial speech for ALEA 2012

A recent speech (2012) appears below, by request. It’s the speech for the first Donald Graves Memorial Lecture at the national Australia Literacy Educators Association […]

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Opinions

I take my hat off to teachers. You (we) are not appreciated enough, thanked enough, supported enough or championed enough. I myself come from a […]

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