1 Introduction

In a recent edition of the Australian Journal of Language and Literacy (AJLL), Kindenberg and Peter (2021) revisit and reframe dichotomies that are inherent in developmental trajectories of literacy and curriculum-mandated pathways. These scholars stress the productive interplay of personal experience, glossed as ‘the narrative’ with the more distanced ‘analytical’ discourse patterns that generalise and abstract experience. In relation to critical literacy practice, they argue that identifying with the experiences of the narrative’s characters allows ‘for more partial, but nonetheless more immediate, actionable responses’ to evolving challenges (Kindenberg & Freebody, 2021. p. 96).

Arguments for a broadened perspective on critical literacy and its enabling discourse reflect research concerns to balance retrospective deconstruction of texts composed by others, which we refer to as ‘critique’ with ‘agent-oriented’ practices, including purposeful creation or (re)design of texts for social benefit, which can be aligned with ‘actionable response’. Like Kindenberg and Freebody, Kress argues that practices of critique may be negative and limiting without such productive and transformative practices, which rest on deep consideration of the ‘potentials of the resources for communication which you are about to use’ (Kress, 2005, p. 100). In explicating the influential Four Resources model, Luke and Freebody (1999) argue for a social semiotic metalanguage for ‘knowing about and acting on the different cultural and social functions that various texts perform inside and outside school’ (Luke & Freebody, 1999, p. 5). In this model, ‘text analyst’ resources, supported by attention to how texts are shaped by their functions, i.e. ‘text user’, open space to critique hegemonic discourses as well as to examine and create texts that promote agency of individuals, social groups and organisations in attaining and advocating for social action. Metalanguage to explain how analytical and narrative discourse patterns may be marshalled for these purposes is provided in the Australian English Curriculum (ACARA, n.d.-a) and in the extensive social semiotic research that informs it (Crane & Van Leeuwen, 2019; Humphrey et al., 2021; Martin, 1985; Martin & Rose, 2008).

This paper focusses on investigating resources for enacting critical literacy in two curriculum areas: Health and Physical Education (HPE) and English. This focus is motivated by mutual concerns of subject area teacher educators at a major Australian university to integrate complementary disciplinary literacy practices to best develop students’ capacities and confidence to meet curriculum goals. Productive collaboration across these subject areas is promoted by significant synergies in how critical literacy is conceptualised in the English and HPE curricula. In fact, the health literacy model that underpins the Australian HPE curriculum is explicitly influenced by Freebody and Luke’s (1990) modelling of ‘what it is that literacy enables us to do?’ (Nutbeam, 2000, p. 263), and recontextualised to guide the implementation of content (ACARA, n.d.-b). Of particular interest to this paper, the critical dimension of this model explicitly includes complementary orientations of the critical discussed above.

Attention to analytical and narrative discourse patterns in this paper responds also to increasing concern to build on the functional and to mix repertoires in broader education and contemporary public health policy. For example, alongside texts that provide health information and enable individual and community action, the World Health Organisation called for extended use of storytelling in response to the COVID ‘infodemic’ (WHO EPI-WIN, 2021), with a view to demystifying the science behind the pandemic and ‘translating science into action’. Despite these synergies however, HPE and English have been positioned very differently in terms of how literacy is conceptualised and practiced and have not always shared a visible and accessible metalanguage. To support productive collaboration and practice, therefore, our study is guided by the following research questions:

  • How is critical literacy conceptualised in informing literacy models and descriptions of the English and HPE curricula?

  • How can the social semiotic metalanguage that informs the Australian English Curriculum support HPE and English teachers to share understandings of analytical and narrative discourse for critique and actionable response?

In the following sections of the paper, we address these questions by reporting on analysis of relevant data from both subject areas to inform mutually informing conceptual and pedagogic frameworks for critical literacy. We illustrate the application of accessible and visible metalanguage with analysis of multimodal texts relevant to learning across both subject areas and propose principles for supporting further research and practice.

2 Methodology

The study informing this paper is one aspect of a larger study, Multiliteracies Across Teaching Areas (MATA), conducted by five English and Health and Physical Education educator researchers within an initial teacher education (ITE) programme at a major Australian university. The study is transdisciplinary in its focus as each disciplinary expert provides ‘a contribution but not the contribution’ (Parrott & Kreuter, 2014, p. 9). Shared understandings in the English and health education curricula to critical literacy as both critique and discursive action allow for productive transdisciplinary research to build mutually informing conceptual and pedagogic frameworks.

Research activity conducted to address the questions included a review of relevant models of critical literacy that inform HPE and English curricula and a predominantly qualitative analysis of relevant content strands of curricula, combining content analysis with descriptive statistics. To reveal these discourses as ‘visible textual patterns’, we further examined English curriculum language and literacy content, revealing metalinguistic resources for critiquing texts as well as for modelling those that may be used by students in creation of texts for actionable response.

Drawing on analysis of curriculum documents, we conducted further discourse analysis of texts that were selected collaboratively by participant teacher educators for use in primary and secondary health and English ITE units of the university. These texts were selected for their value in addressing core critical literacy and learning goals identified in analysis of curricula and included examples of diverse modes and genres across what Kindenberg and Freebody (2021) gloss as ‘the narrative’ and ‘the analytical’. Four texts that are representative of those selected are provided and examined in Sect. 6 to illustrate this range. The use of such texts as data allowed us to demonstrate the use of English curriculum metalanguage across the curriculum as well as to reveal gaps or limitations of the curriculum descriptions for enacting both dimensions of critical literacy. To address these limitations and build a transdisciplinary metalanguage framework, we drew on relevant social semiotic descriptions that both inform and augment the curriculum and are widely used in ITE English and literacy units of the university (e.g. Derewianka & Jones, 2022; Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021). Specific steps in the analysis of curriculum documents and selected texts are described as relevant throughout the “Findings” section.

3 Theoretical framework

Initial research conversations amongst MATA investigators revealed synergies and challenges in understanding critical literacy in the two subject areas. In this section, we therefore provide an overview of key informing theories and models that were drawn on to guide our investigation.

3.1 Modelling critical literacy in HPE and English

Models of the critical that inform both the HPE curriculum and the ‘general’ Four Resources model draw on extensive and evolving theories within Literacy and Health Education. The health literacy model that constitutes one of five propositions in the Australian HPE curriculum was originally developed by Nutbeam (2000, 2008), who explicitly attributes Freebody and Luke’s theoretical contribution to the development of the model. Table 1 shows how the dimension of critical health literacy aligns significantly with text analyst or ‘critic’ practice, in a version of the Four Resources model that is widely used in English and whole school ‘general’ literacy programmes (Luke & Freebody, 1999).

Table 1 Aligning ‘the critical’ in health literacy and Four Resources model
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Clear synergies across the two models can be seen in the attention to both critical analysis and creation or redesign of texts. Critical health literacy, however, stresses the use of literacy for community action, which may include ‘technical advice’ or ‘advocacy communication’ (Nutbeam, 2000 p. 266). While analysis is the foregrounded activity in Four Resources model, the redesign of others’ texts is also promoted. In elaborating such practice, Luke and Freebody (1999) include ‘exploration of a new set of active, agent-oriented, denaturalizing, and counter-ideological textual practices’ (p.3) and maintain that full participation in a literate society requires mixing and orchestrating repertoires to comprehend and use texts for purposeful action. Such practice depends on a range of competences, including pragmatic understandings of how texts are structured and used in different contexts.

3.2 Analytical and narrative discourse

While descriptions of ‘the critical’ in health literacy and Four Resources models provide a frame to map curriculum, Kindenberg and Freebody’s (2021) ‘shorthand’ characterisations of the analytical and the narrative frame investigation of discourse patterns. These scholars draw on social semiotic research by Christie and Derewianka (2008) in the areas of English, Science and History to gloss analytical discourse as increasingly concerned with knowledge that is ‘uncommonsense’ in that meanings become more ‘specialised’ and further away from the immediately observable, or commonsense knowledge used in the ‘everyday’. This can be observed in language through ‘abstraction, generalisation and judgement’, particularly in persuasive genres such as ‘expositions and discussions of world views and beliefs’ (Kindenberg & Freebody, 2021, p. 90). In contrast, ‘narrative’ discourse is characterised as concerned with ‘commonsense’ knowledge built through observable experience and expressed in spoken congruent language of ‘story’ and recounts of personal experience (p. 90). In recent years there has been growing awareness of the use of such genres within and beyond schooling, including their use by adult and adolescent activists to contribute to activist discourse and indirectly mobilise action from others (Humphrey, 2017). Framing of both the diverse uses and characteristics of narrative and analytical discourse guided analysis of content descriptions and elaborations in HPE and English curriculum strands that reflected distinctive disciplinary content.

4 Findings

4.1 Health and Physical Education

Data for analysis of the HPE F-10 curriculum focused on the strand of ‘Personal, Social and Community Health’, including all content descriptions and elaborations within sub-strands ‘Interacting for health and wellbeing’ and ‘Making Healthy and Safe Choices’ at three levels (Years 1–2, 5–6 and 9–10). These levels provide a snapshot of development relevant to the scope of the study and enable illustration of how literacy builds towards the critical. Appendix 1 provides examples of descriptions and their dimensions.

A first step in analysing critical orientations is to examine the processes, expressed as the initial verb, that explicitly identify what students are expected to do in relation to health messages and action, e.g. ‘investigate’ and ‘discuss’. Processes such as ‘evaluate’, ‘assess’ and ‘critique’ can be seen as explicit predictors of deconstruction and those such as ‘create’, ‘propose’ and ‘plan’ as predicting actionable response. As can be seen in Fig. 1, significant development was revealed of an increasing expectation to both critique messages of others and create texts for health action at all levels. Processes that predict critique, such as ‘evaluating’ and ‘critique’, are frequent at the Years 9–10, constituting 20% of all processes in HPE descriptions. Less explicit processes such as ‘analyse’ and ‘discuss’, which align with the gloss of the analytical, were found at lower levels. More frequent use of the process ‘propose’ also indicate increasing expectations to take action at Years 9–10, with the processes related to health action as frequent as those related to health decisions and behaviours.

Fig. 1
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Percentage of processes predicting critique and creation of texts out of all processes in literature descriptions (descriptors + elaboration)

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Looking further into the wordings of descriptions and the elaborations that support teaching practice, broad characterisations of semiotic targets, such as ‘health information’ and ‘media messaging’, with abstract criteria such as ‘influences’, ‘choices’ and ‘purposes’ allow us to predict that analytical discourse is required to engage in activities. Elaborations do however draw explicit attention to the narrative in the early years. For example,

identifying characters in texts who demonstrate respect for different types of families and carers, including those of different cultures, abilities or compositions (AC9HP2P02).

While not explicit in secondary descriptions, stories involving individual actors in temporally unfolding events remain relevant to both critiquing and designing ‘health information, services and media messaging’ (AC9HP10P09). HPE teachers frequently draw on community resources that feature testimonials of people from diverse sociocultural groups to inspire and promote health. Samples of such resources are discussed in later sections of the paper.

While the examination of HPE descriptions offers a good start for revealing critical literacy expectations, frequently used but vague processes such as ‘discuss’ and ‘analyse’ and broad characterisations of semiotic targets do not offer teachers and students sufficient explicitness to fully reveal expected discourse patterns. In the next section, we turn our attention to the English curriculum, firstly to analyse descriptions for potential synergies with HPE in critical literacy expectations and then to explore how the metalanguage of this curriculum can be used for transdisciplinary research and practice.

4.2 English

As with HPE, the English curriculum (ACARA, n.d.-a) provides explicit direction for critical orientations. Using the same analytical process as described in the previous section, the requirements to critically analyse the texts of others and to create texts for actionable response were mapped across three levels of all Literature sub-strands, as synthesised in Fig. 2. Content in all three strands has equal emphasis in the English curriculum; however, the Literature strand is considered most representative of the discipline (Dixon, 2012). Close analysis focused on the sub-strands of ‘Engaging with and Responding to Literature’ and ‘Creating Literature’ (see representative descriptions in Appendix 2).

Fig. 2
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Percentage of processes predicting critique and creation of texts out of all processes in literature descriptions (descriptors + elaboration)

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Synergies in relation to critical orientations and discursive expectations were immediately evident to all researchers, as were some differences. Analysis of processes across the three stages of learning, Fig. 2, shows a balance similar to HPE in terms of critique and actionable response.

However, a wider range of less explicit directions to engage in deconstruction activity is increasingly evident from the middle years of English. In terms of critique, the process ‘discuss’, which is arguably the least explicit when it comes to critical text analysis, accounts for all instances at Years 1–2. At Years 5–6, processes such as ‘compare’, ‘determine’ and ‘explore’ are introduced, which entail using a set of predetermined criteria or theory to investigate a text. It is only at Years 9–10 that processes such as ‘examine’ and ‘interrogate’ are encountered, implying a closer and more detailed textual analysis.

In terms of text creation, the processes indicate an increasing expectation of innovation, with students at Years 1–2 only expected to ‘adapt’ or ‘imitate’ texts they have analysed. At both Years 5–6 and 9–10, ‘experimenting’ and ‘creating’ are expected, but only at Years 9–10 is there ‘manipulation’ of textual features, which aligns with the Four Resources emphasis on redesign. Topics and criteria for evaluation and response are also identified in more abstract terms and classified in broad categories, such as ‘social, moral or ethical positions’ (AC9E10LE04). Likewise, semiotic targets of evaluation expand to include a range of print and digital texts and modes. Even though early years students are not explicitly expected to engage in critique, elaborations open space for comparison of such aspects of audience in texts such as advertisements and texts written by First Nations authors (AC9E2LY03).

While shared expectations in disciplinary content provide a sufficient rationale for transdisciplinary work, it is in the ‘Literacy’ strand that more explicit connections are made between the two subject areas. Elaborations include ‘related content’ of other learning areas, including HPE content descriptions with critical literacy implications that we have analysed above and advice to be used to teach English content. By relating content such as ‘critique health information, services and media messaging…’ (AC9HP10P09), teachers are guided to select texts to address shared content in relation to critique and/or actionable response. However, as yet, no content from HPE is linked to sub-strand of ‘Creating texts’ at any year level of this sub-strand, thus limiting the options for related activities for actionable response.

4.3 Summary

The analysis of core disciplinary strands of the HPE and English curricula revealed shared expectations for both critique and actionable response orientations of critical literacy to inform transdisciplinary practice. However, the analysis did not fully reveal expectations in terms of the resources that could be drawn on to productively engage with texts. To guide further collaborative practice, participating teacher educators identified the need for further clarification of what narrative and analytical discourse looks like in texts as well as how these discourses interact for different purposes. To pursue productive collaboration, MATA researchers sought consistent, visible and accessible ways of talking about the multimodal resources for critique and actionable response. To this end, we now report on the metalanguage framework, which is informed by both the analysis of English Literacy and Language strands and broader social semiotic descriptions.

5 Towards a transdisciplinary metalanguage

While metalanguage is typically identified by terminology that names language features, its use for critical literacy comes from its explanatory power (Schleppegrell, 2013). In the Australian English Curriculum, metalanguage is provided in the ‘Language’ strand, which is largely organised according to social semiotic categories called metafunctions (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014). The Literacy strand also provides metalanguage, particularly in relation to discourse patterns of genres. Table 2 provides a preliminary mapping of the metalinguistic resources identified from analysis of these strands. Column 3 provides additional social semiotic descriptions from reference books widely used in ITE English units (Derewianka & Jones, 2022).

Table 2 Metalanguage for critique and actionable response informed by English Curriculum and social semiotic descriptions
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While the terminology and organisation of the curriculum is foregrounded in the framework (i.e. ‘Text structure and organisation’, ‘Language for expressing and developing ideas’, and’ Language for interacting with others’), as will be discussed, additional social semiotic descriptions provide additional explanatory power to the curriculum metalanguage, particularly in relation to verbal representations and provide a bridge to more expansive social semiotic systems.

5.1 Text structure and organisation

The ‘Language’ sub-strand ‘Text structure and organisation’ provides a useful way-in for building a metalanguage about how ‘whole texts’ work; however, critical literacy scholars argue that referring to texts only in terms of their structure risks ‘desocializing literacy learning’ (Luke & Freebody, 1999 p. 4). Recognition of social purpose is evident across both ‘Language’ and ‘Literacy’ strands. Until Year 6, the purposes of creating texts are typically specified as imaginative, informative and persuasive (e.g. AC9E5LY03) but, by Years 9 and 10, these expand to include ‘reflective’, ‘analytical’ and/or ‘critical’ (e.g. AC9E9LY06). Here, students are expected to consider how purposes are achieved through features such as text structures, language, visual and multimodal features (e.g. AC9E9LY07, AC9E7L03, AC9E6LA03).

In terms of visibility, classifications of purposes such as persuasive, analytical and/or critical make it difficult to differentiate specific features of texts or to explicate their specific role in critical literacy development. Fortunately, the more specific classifications of ‘whole texts’ in the optional elaborations provide bridging for teachers to social semiotic descriptions and ‘socialised’ orientation of texts as genres promoted by Luke and Freebody (1999). The term genre is rarely used to categorise texts in English content descriptions; however, in ‘Language’ elaborations, names of texts, e.g. ‘exposition’, ‘text interpretation’ and ‘discussion’ (e.g. AC9E8LA03), follow genre categorisations, and clear directions are given to link purpose and language throughout.

In terms of structure, these elaborations draw directly on social semiotic descriptions (e.g. Derewianka & Jones, 2022; Humphrey, 2017) to identify ways in which persuasive texts unfold at multiple levels—through ‘stages’ such as Issue, Arguments and Recommendations and through more delicate ‘phases’ (AC9E6LA03), such as ‘previewing’ and ‘elaboration’. These multilayered structures can be seen as ingredients that can be combined in different ways to achieve more distinct persuasive purposes that are further delineated in social semiotic classifications and descriptions (Derewianka & Jones, 2022; Humphrey, 2017). In academic writing contexts, persuasive genres that demonstrate curriculum knowledge are referred to as ‘analytical’, with features that are similar to those identified by Kindenberg and Freebody (2021). For example, the resource of nominalisation is used to create technicality and to condense arguments in ways that make them unarguable. Because nominalisation typically hides agency (e.g. ‘Health is an individual responsibility’), Martin (1985) argues that analytical exposition function to maintain the status quo, persuading the audience that a position is valid. This purpose is contrasted with that of ‘hortatory’ exposition, which functions to persuade the audience to do something (Derewianka & Jones, 2022). The distinction of hortatory exposition, with its more personal and congruent language patterns, provides a resource for supporting the Year 5 activity of explaining features of a text ‘advocating community action’ (AC9E5LY03), and in so doing, supporting actionable response in critical health literacy. From the perspective of structure, such a distinction allows specific functions of elements to be revealed in texts broadly categorised as ‘structured argument’ in the Literacy strand (AC9E10LY06).

Metalanguage to reveal features of ‘the narrative’ in relation to actionable response is also challenging, partly due to inconsistent terminology. In English, narrative is related explicitly to distinctive structures (e.g. AC9E4LA03) as well as to literary elements such as characters, settings and events (e.g. AC9E7LE05) and to devices that evoke emotion from the audience (AC9E7LE03). However, in subjects beyond English, narrative frequently refers to all temporally unfolding texts, which is similar to its use in visual grammar descriptions (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021). For the transdisciplinary metalanguage proposed in this paper, the term narrative refers only to the specific genre, and the term ‘story’ identifies the broad family of genres that unfold temporally or dynamically, including narrative, recount (e.g. autobiography, testimony, biography) and other ‘event-focused’ genres (see Table 2 in Sect. 5). The bridging term ‘dynamic’, as we will discuss further, is used to refer to visual processes of action, complementing those that are conceptual or ‘static’.

The blurring of boundaries between narrative and persuasive genres is also evident in Literacy content descriptions. Elaborations include specifying the role of ‘characters’ in presenting ‘persuasive messages’ (AC9E5LY03) and creating ‘written and multimodal texts that compel readers to empathise with the ideas and emotions expressed or implied’ (AC9E10LY06). In addition to action-oriented recommendation stages, hortatory expositions frequently integrate phases that retell personal experience to build rapport and motivate actionable response (Humphrey, 2010, 2017; Martin & Rose, 2008). Likewise, in a PDA study of moving images in activist documentaries, Wang (2020) demonstrates how temporally unfolding ‘factual’ recounts and procedures are recontextualised as steps to guide and build confidence for audiences to take environmental action. These findings further support Kindenberg and Freebody’s (2021) contention that analytical and narrative discourse need not be seen as dichotomous in critical literacy practice.

5.2 Semiotic resources for Expressing and Developing Ideas

While the metalanguage we have suggested for talking about whole text level meanings offers a valuable start for revealing discourse patterns, genres need to be unpacked as choices of language and/or image. The sub-strand ‘Expressing and Developing Ideas’, which is informed by SFL’s ‘ideational’ metafunction, is concerned with the nature of activities and those involved in them as well as their circumstances and relationships. Critical literacy scholars have long used probe questions such as ‘who is doing what to whom?’ to identify, for example, the role of the participants as Actor/Agent of actions, in stories as well as persuasive genres we have discussed. Similarly, identifying verbal and visual attributes of participants has enabled critique of how people, services or products may be stereotyped by physical or cultural attributes (Crane & Van Leeuwen, 2019). The curriculum includes useful grammatical and discourse features to identify and explain ideational meanings; however, here again, further metalanguage is needed to relate these features to ‘the analytical’ and ‘the narrative’.

5.2.1 The ‘Narrative’ as dynamic patterns in images and verbal discourse

As briefly discussed above, our framework uses the term ‘dynamic’ rather than Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2021) term narrative to refer to the representation of happenings in images, achieved through vectors or eyelines. Not only does the term dynamic allow us to talk about visual processes identified as ‘actions, reactions, speech and thought processes’ (AC9E2LA08) but also verbal processes of ‘doing, feeling, thinking and saying’, represented by verbs (AC9E3LA07). To talk about relationships across stretches of text, representations of discourse patterns as ‘dynamic’ also provide a consistent way of talking about relationships identified in the curriculum as ‘sequential events’ (AC9E6LA07), and as ‘chronological’ (AC9E7LY03).

5.2.2 The ‘Analytical’ as static patterns in images and verbal discourse

Complementing the processes and relationships we have referred to as dynamic, the curriculum includes those which can be associated with analytical discourse. Though not named, elaborations of visual resources in the ‘Language’ strand refer to processes identified by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2021) as ‘conceptual’. For example,

observing how concepts, information and relationships can be represented visually through tables, maps, graphs and diagrams (AC9E6LA07).

Conceptual relationships are further distinguished by Kress and Van Leeuwen as ‘analytical’ (amongst parts of a whole) and ‘classifying’ (amongst members of a class). However, as images frequently include both relationships, the framework glosses both relationships as ‘static’—which enables mapping with verbal processes represented by grammatically by ‘relating’ verbs (AC9E3LA07). At discourse level, the term ‘static’ also allows talk about ways of structuring ideas for curriculum learning, referred to in the curriculum as ‘taxonomies’ (AC9E7LY03).

Recognition of static and dynamic discourse patterns can also support teachers and students to identify and explain higher level structures identified as ‘phases’ in curriculum elaborations (AC9E6LA03). Following social semiotic descriptions (e.g. Derewianka & Jones, 2022; Martin & Rose, 2008), the curriculum identifies phases in terms of the prominence of meanings that are textual (e.g. previewing), interpersonal (e.g. creating ‘a hook’) or ideational meanings (e.g. elaboration). From an ideational perspective, phases can be seen as ‘bundles’ of activities, properties and entities into ‘static’ concepts or topics or into ‘chunks’ of time, e.g. eras, periods, rather than unfolding sequential events. Once bundled, phases are typically named in written discourse through abstractions, including abstract nouns that name the dimension of the topic (e.g. feature, aspect, perspective, benefit). These abstract nouns, which are often formed through the grammatical process of nominalisation, are included as resources across secondary levels of the curriculum language strand (e.g. AC9E8LA06), providing a word level resource for explaining how abstraction is realised in analytical discourse identified by Kindenberg and Freebody (2021).

In sum, analysis of metalanguage in the curriculum illustrates increasing concern for creating static relations and abstraction associated with the analytical in middle and secondary years. Nevertheless, even highly condensed academic arguments tend to include more concrete elaboration, involving dynamically unfolding events or implication sequences. Similarly, dynamic relations may be used to depict movement within more abstract drawings depicting static relations. Recognition of these patterns across texts further challenge descriptions of dichotomies in relation to the nature and role of ‘the narrative’ and ‘the analytical’.

A further area of language that needs to be considered in a metalanguage for critical literacy practice is referred to in the curriculum and visual grammar resources in terms of Interaction which is related to SFL’s Interpersonal metafunction.

5.3 Language for interacting

Curriculum resources in this strand, which are often referred to as ‘evaluative language’ (Martin & White, 2005), are informed by a further rich set of semiotic resources to explore how audiences are persuaded ‘to take a position or action’ (AC9E6LA02 Elaboration). Glossed in the primary years as the ‘subjective language of opinion and feeling’ and ‘the objective language of factual reporting’ (AC9E4LA02) and in the secondary years elaborated in terms of implicit and explicit realisations (AC9E10LA02), curriculum descriptions draw from social semiotic systems known as Appraisal (Martin & White, 2005). In these systems, resources that are typically aligned with subjective evaluation are presented as choices of Affect, which reveal ways in which emotions of individuals are represented verbally and visually, including for purposes of persuading audiences to take political and social action (Martin & White, 2005; Wang, 2020). While subjective evaluations are not limited to Affect choices, resources that create an ‘objective’ stance (Coffin, 2009; Martin, 1985) are organised as systems of Judgment, which is concerned with the behaviour of people, as well as Appreciation, which is concerned with assessments of things, including cultural artefacts and values.

Similarly, identifying meanings of verbal modality in terms of probability and obligation (e.g. AC9E3LA02) allows talk about how recommendations may be tempered to persuade the audience to take action and how opinions may be tempered to persuade the reader that a position is valid (Martin, 1985; Humphrey, 2017). While less explicit as to the semiotic resources at stake, descriptions of ways that ‘sources and quotations are used in a text’ (AC9E8LY03) also open space for talking about, for example, how opinions may be presented in ways ‘beyond making bare assertions’ (AC9E5LA02). In the Appraisal framework, all of these resources are included in a system known as Attribution, which offers teachers and students with valuable metalanguage for identifying ways in which verbal text position audiences in more or less direct ways. Naming interpersonal resources of Appraisal such as those identified above reveals significant challenges for a critical literacy metalanguage. To inform school assessment marking criteria, they are typically referred to in general terms as ‘rhetorical devices’ and elaborated in lists based on classical rhetorical descriptions. However, a social semiotic perspective is needed to categorise and explain these resources in ways that enable the particular audience effect to be made visible. As shown in Table 2, social semiotic descriptions provide specification as to their role in either expanding or contracting space for alternative voices and opinions.

In terms of image analysis, a number of resources are provided in the curriculum to identify and explain ways in which visual representations position audiences. These include features informed directly by Kress and Van Leeuwen’s systems, such as gaze (AC9E3LA09), angle and social distance (AC9E7LA07). Not included in curriculum descriptions however are important distinctions of representations in terms of ‘reality’, which impact on their credibility. More naturalistic images in Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2021) visual grammar of modality have a greater degree of correspondence to the image seen with the naked eye; non-naturalistic images such as cartoons or graphs are seen as more abstract because they go beyond surface level features. Markers of naturalism include colour saturation and differentiation and pictorial detail, including background detail.

5.4 Summary

Our analysis of the ‘Language’ and ‘Literacy’ strands and the social semiotic descriptions that inform it provide significant metalanguage for teachers across HPE and English to address critical outcomes of their curricula at primary and secondary level. In the next section, we demonstrate the application of the metalanguage to analysis of representative texts selected by teacher educators to address core learning and critical literacy goals across these subject areas.

6 Applying metalanguage for integrating the critical in English and HPE

To share understandings of the explanatory power of metalanguage, English and HPE researchers collaborated to select authentic print and digital multimodal materials to fully address critical literacy curriculum expectations in both subject areas. In selecting texts, we sought to provide opportunities for students to engage with critique of hegemonic discourse as well as to model and promote actionable response by examining texts that advocate for social action. Exemplar texts included in this paper comprise excerpts from four representative texts in middle and secondary contexts, with the ‘health’ content providing an authentic context for examination and creation of texts for English. As will be shown in Sects. 4.1 and 4.2, the selected texts include those created by students within and beyond school as well as those composed by community groups for health promotion.

6.1 Patterns of ‘the analytical’ in verbal and multimodal texts

Drawing on the metalanguage of ‘static relationships’ in the four texts allows us to make a ‘first cut’ in revealing analytical patterns. Figure 3 presents a ‘topic’ of a website, which is broken into its multiple parts for closer examination.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Student response to health promotional materials. Yr 10 HPE assessment task (excerpt)

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These parts are named via abstract and/or technical terms (e.g. ‘information’, ‘search bar’) and coupled with values that are measurable (e.g. ‘accuracy’, ‘accessibility’). The ‘coupling’ of evaluation with topic-related ideas distances the reader to achieve objective, analytical persuasion (Derewianka & Jones, 2022).

Similarly, each of the two lower text boxes of Fig. 4 identifies and assigns ‘parts’ or features to a contraceptive device via relating processes (e.g. ‘is’, ‘has’) and static non-naturalistic representations of the devices’ shapes.

Fig. 4
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Family Planning NSW contraception factsheet for ATSI audience (excerpt) (Family Planning NSW, n.d.)

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While the absence of evaluative vocabulary and use of contracting ‘bare assertion’ indicates an ‘objective’ stance, ways of classifying information in such resources have been found to vary according to target audiences (Crane & Van Leeuwen, 2019). The full report created for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) communities, for example, uses gender as a ‘first cut’ for classifying the devices, which is flagged in the verbal language of the elder’s dialogue box in the upper section of the text ‘Contraception is the responsibility of both boys and girls’.

Further analysis of attribution in Figs. 3 and 4 reveals important aspects of ‘the analytical’ in these texts. For example, in Fig. 3, evaluations, including opinions and recommendations, are attributed to unidentified external sources rather than as opinions of the speaker (e.g. ‘it is evident that…’). In Fig. 4, attribution to an ATSI Elder is represented visually through a speech bubble. While the effect is to expand space for alternative views, these choices also create a less arguable objective or an authoritative evaluative stance.

6.2 Patterns of ‘the Narrative’ in story genres

Patterns we have glossed as ‘the narrative’ can also be revealed as verbal and visual resources in these texts. Figure 5, a digital poster produced by an Australian health organisation to promote vaccination, unfolds as a story genre called exemplum, which is frequently recontextualised for persuasion in the community (Martin & Rose, 2008).

Fig. 5
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Victorian Department of Health’s Tweet on COVID-19 vaccination of children (Victorian Department of Health, 2022)

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The text begins by orienting the reader with a compressed personal story. Agency in the verbal text is attributed to individuals—‘5-year-old Evelyn and her mum’, in the doings of ‘getting her jab’. Features of the image also foreground the individual, with positive Affect made salient through the smiling child and the colourful font of the verbal message, establishing rapport with the viewer as well as instilling confidence to take action.

As an exemplum, a generalised Interpretation stage in Fig. 5 shifts the focus from the individual to the collective agency of ‘more than 300,000 young children’ and the impact of personal decisions and actions on personal and community health. Although realised as a ‘bare assertion’, the Interpretation also indirectly creates a Recommendation, positioning the audience to identify with the ‘exemplar’ children and take action themselves. The direct gaze of the child demands attention—and action—from the audience (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021) and indirectly functions to persuade the audience to do something (Humphrey, 2017).

Figure 6 is a web-based story from the ‘About Us’ page of a health data website called CovidBaseAU.

Fig. 6
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CovidBaseAU ‘About Us’ page (excerpt) (CovidBaseAU, 2021)

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This story, which appears to be a personal recount genre, accompanies numerous analytically organised charts and verbal ‘breakdowns’ on the website. While agency is shared amongst the three founders, the particular unfolding of Jack’s story reconstructs the activity of creating CovidBaseAU by moving from the static process of ‘being’ to more dynamic ‘sensing’ and ‘actions’ that have an effect on personal and communal health, thus modelling a young person’s journey towards social action. The stepping out of actions taken by the boys in addressing the COVID infodemic in the recount can also provide guidance in how to achieve activist goals.

Patterns associated with ‘the narrative’ are also found in the images of people and their dialogue in Fig. 4 (discussed in Sect. 4.1). The first bubble text begins with a distilled story of personal experience, recounted by the young speaker, Janayah:

One of my friends was saying she’s been having the contraceptive injection but I’m not sure…

In this text, the young people are presented as Agents, taking responsibility for the ‘doings’ of using contraception reproductive health. Janayah and all young people are also assigned agency indirectly, through an action oriented ‘advice’ phase in the response of the elder in the second speech bubble,

It’s important for both guys and girls to have access to condoms. Contraception and safe sex is the responsibility of both guys and girls

This agency is then reinforced in the reports describing features of contraception types by representing Janayah as the one who uses contraception.

In terms of evaluation, relating processes are initially used to express negative feelings of the young people (e.g. ‘being unsure’), which are contrasted with positive evaluations expressed by the elder, realised through an adjective ‘important’ and a noun ‘responsibility’. These choices can be seen as ‘objective’ in that they assess actions and behaviours rather than feelings and are less personal in targeting generalised groups beyond the individual. This use of contrasting Attitude values reveals a common use of stories in mapping a journey of knowledge building and confidence for the target audience to motivate the reader’s engagement with the information that follows. Choices such as ‘it is the responsibility’ also indirectly express modality of obligation, which is typically expressed through modal verbs such as ‘you should’ or ‘you must’. Like other hortatory texts, such choices can be seen as a demand for action, which is tempered to provide space for Janayah and her friend and all boys and girls to make their own decisions. This use of modality contrasts to the modality of probability in the descriptive report genres, e.g. The shot can be good for…’. In terms of visual grammar, semi-realistic images rather than photographs were selected in this text after extensive consultation with representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities to present a public face for target audience (Crane & Van Leeuwen, 2019). However, depth and colour allow for individual traits of models to be shown as well as inclusive cultural and relatable attributes. The older woman is categorised respectfully through the term ‘aunty’, and by the grey hair and bun.

6.3 Summary

The analysis of exemplar multimodal texts shown in Figs. 4, 5 and 6 demonstrates how ‘the narrative’ and ‘the analytical’ may be balanced in achieving curriculum goals of both HPE and English. The metalanguage provided by the English curriculum, informed by social semiotic descriptions, allows teachers to make these connections visible to students. However, findings of the wide range of semiotic resources needed to interweave narrative and analytical discourse styles also reveals significant challenges for ITE educators in these curriculum areas. Engaging critically and creatively in health promotion discourse requires students to unpack and repack abstractions, to shift between more or less familiar and expert roles and to weave their own everyday experience with communal activity. In the following section of this paper, we report briefly on the principles developed for transdisciplinary critical literacy practice.

7 Conclusion

The analysis of foundational research, curriculum documents and representative texts that are reported in this paper provides valuable guidance for developing a shared metalanguage for critical literacy orientations in English and HPE. The verbal and visual features of this metalanguage framework have been applied to the analysis of exemplar texts, selected to for their relevance to critical literacy and broader learning goals in these areas. Through this application, we have identified discourse patterns to usefully distinguish the narrative and the analytical and ways in which they need to be balanced in critical literacy practice.

To make meanings visible as discourse patterns, a metalanguage needs to provide teachers across curriculum areas with terminology that is consistent and able to be connected to established ways of talking about literacy in both curriculum areas. Discourses glossed by Kindenberg and Freebody (2021) as ‘the narrative’ and ‘the analytical’ can usefully be revealed to students as families of genres, as well as patterns of grammar and discourse. As we have argued, the broad characterisation of ‘story’ provides bridging metalanguage to connect imaginative and literary texts privileged in English and the dynamically unfolding recounts and exemplums of ‘real-life’ experiences of individual and community health activists. The term ‘analytical’ continues to provide a useful and consistent characterisation of families of texts with ‘static’ visual and verbal relationships. Texts organised analytically may be deployed to persuade the audiences that a particular position or perspective is valid and may be combined with dynamically unfolding story and other hortatory genres that indirectly persuade the audience to do something. Grammatical resources used to achieve aspects such as agency are crucial in a metalanguage toolkit for critique and actionable response.

From the perspective of context, curriculum imperatives of both English and HPE provide an impetus for deploying metalanguage for both critique and actionable response. Multimodal media and community health promotion can provide teachers in both subject areas with a balance of texts for critical scrutiny and models for re/design. However, it is also important to include texts composed by individual young activists and student analysts as these may provide authentic models for more immediate actionable response. Critically, such practice needs to be integrated with other dimensions of literacy articulated in the Four Resources and health literacy models, building on the resources developed through functional comprehension and use of texts in a range of learning contexts.