The Jasper Jones Case Study

February 11, 2025 Michael Jolly

During 2022, Davis Centre staff embarked upon a research project with the English faculty in relation to Kate Mulvany’s stage play Jasper Jones, a seminal Australian text which is taught across the English Studies units at GYC.

The project began by initiating a dialogue with Mulvany after she agreed to answer a series of questions about the play to enhance students’ engagement. The finished interview is a rich document that inspires both students and teachers alike to take a “reader response” approach to the text by connecting their subjective experiences and thoughts to the narrative. Mulvany, by offering her own personal insights and commentary about key symbols and metaphors in the play, exploring themes relating to race relations and feminism in Australia, and unpacking the elements of memoir that she draws upon in her adaptation, encourages a more nuanced and informed mode of audience/reader reception. The interview has been published in The Australian Journal of English Education (58.1).

The second stage of this project has tracked the early impact Mulvany’s exclusive interview has had upon teaching and learning in two English 3 classes, particularly how it has assisted with the development of students' personal responses to the play. Outcomes of this part of the project have been developed into a journal article, co-written by Davis Centre staff and members of the English faculty, which has been published in the Journal of Language, Literature and Culture's forthcoming special issue, “The Work of Literature Literary Studies in the Classroom.”

As the early stages of this project come to a close, we have been heartened to receive this encouragement from from Mulvany herself:

Thank you for this wonderful document, and for your time and patience putting it together. It’s an honour to be involved. I’m so glad that the students of Tasmania are finding the breadcrumbs scattered throughout Jasper Jones, and seeing themselves in the characters and narrative. I hope we get to see their stories very soon on the stages of Australia. Sending all my gratitude and best wishes to you and your team.