RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Christie, Frances H. YR 1987 T1 The morning news genre: Using a functional grammar to illuminate educational issues JF Australian Review of Applied Linguistics VO 10 IS 2 SP 182 OP 198 DO https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.10.2.11chr PB John Benjamins SN 0155-0640, AB This paper aims to demonstrate how Halliday’s Functional Grammar (1985) may be used to illuminate educational questions, more specifically to illuminate the study of classroom discourse. Portion of a text from the lower primary school is examined. It is in fact drawn from a Morning News learning activity. It is argued that we can identify a “curriculum genre” in such a text, and that this has certain characteristic elements, giving it a particular schematic structure. These elements are identified, and two aspects of the functional grammar – namely, Theme and transitivity – are used with a view to proving the presence of the schematic structure. Through the examination, it is argued that the meanings children are constrained to make in the Morning News situation are of a limited kind, revealing a great deal about the limitations of much early childhood education., UL https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/aral.10.2.11chr