Dr Viv Ellis is Lecturer in Educational Studies at Oxford University and a Fellow of St Cross College. Carol Fox is Reader in English Education at the University of Brighton. Brian Street is Professor of Language in Education at King's College, London.

A timely book about English and English teaching by writers whose professional interests keep them in touch with the English children learn to speak and the school English that comes to them as an educational package. Their central argument is that ‘English in school - as an intellectual project - needs to be rethought and renewed in a ‘constructive age of development' in the field of English studies, which includes contemporary awareness of the multimodality of language in the lives of children. The relevance of the matters discussed here extends to all who have comunication responsbilities with the young. ‘Rethinking' will keep this book well to the fore.

• Introduction: Rethinking English (Viv Ellis, Carol Fox and Brian Street); Section 1: How history and politics have shaped English teaching; Section 2: Culture as a verb: teaching literatures; Section 3: Language(s), multiliteracies and the question of English; Afterword: Renewing English in schools (Brian Street, Carol Fox and Viv Ellis).

Dr Viv Ellis is Lecturer in Educational Studies at Oxford University and a Fellow of St Cross College. Carol Fox is Reader in English Education at the University of Brighton. Brian Street is Professor of Language in Education at King's College, London.

A timely book about English and English teaching by writers whose professional interests keep them in touch with the English children learn to speak and the school English that comes to them as an educational package. Their central argument is that ‘English in school - as an intellectual project - needs to be rethought and renewed in a ‘constructive age of development' in the field of English studies, which includes contemporary awareness of the multimodality of language in the lives of children. The relevance of the matters discussed here extends to all who have comunication responsbilities with the young. ‘Rethinking' will keep this book well to the fore.

• Introduction: Rethinking English (Viv Ellis, Carol Fox and Brian Street); Section 1: How history and politics have shaped English teaching; Section 2: Culture as a verb: teaching literatures; Section 3: Language(s), multiliteracies and the question of English; Afterword: Renewing English in schools (Brian Street, Carol Fox and Viv Ellis).