Outback

Creative arts practice, as a research and teaching strength of my professional profile, is important to the teaching of literacy and literature subjects within the School of Education. Professional supervision of pre-service teachers requires excursions to marginalised communities as we encourage our graduates to examine their attitudes and values. As part of the Charles Sturt University Course Plan, staff is encouraged to 'consolidate the profile of disciplines and fields of study in order to improve the depth of staffing and resources.' It is important to teach writing skills from the perspective of a practitioner.// The articulation of voice from marginalised rural communities is a primary research interest of Jen Thompson in her works of prose and poetry. The published history of her hometown (Kennedy, 1978), and literary treatments of the mining community in novels and films (Cook, 1961) have focused upon male narratives. Thompson subverts this reading by including female life experiences to ask, 'What forces form attachment to tough and barren environments?'The affirmative female rural voice is seldom heard in contemporary Australian literature.