Using Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors to Improve English in Multiethnic Australian Classrooms

Mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors, are long established literary devices that welcome experience and accordingly, enhance enjoyment, agency, and learning. Mirrors are stories that validate the experiences of new entrants to unfamiliar cultures, windows grant a view into the other cultures and sliding glass doors extend windows to provide deeper reflection. This article shows how these devices can be used in multi-ethnic classrooms and those with (EAL/D) students in Australia, in line with reader response theory, to engender engagement and therefore scaffold progress, in English mastery. Six effective texts are outlined, including The Arrival by Shaun Tan, Family, by Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson, and Out, by Angela May George and finally, a user-friendly checklist is provided to help teachers establish their own libraries, in addition to the ways such texts can help develop students’ reading and writing skills.