Case Study – Engagement Parties: Staff-Student Partnerships in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading

Abstract

This Case Study outlines a series of student engagement activities in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading between 2016-2018. The discussion connects with consistent strands within pedagogic literature that position ‘student engagement’ within institutional discourses and that connect it with student attainment, and suggests that the term becomes more meaningful when it extends beyond these boundaries to reach ‘hearts and minds’. The Case Study departs from much published material in this area in that it incorporates the views of the students who were involved in the activities discussed: in analyses of ‘student engagement’, students are surely the experts, yet they tend to be silenced within them. The discussion also connects with the contemporary HEI fee-paying landscape where fundamental re-evaluations of pedagogic principle, institutional policy, and staff-student relationships are urgently required as we move forward into an uncertain future.