A friend and former teaching colleague told me the other day that he thought that we were living in a post-literature age. This was in response to my remarks about how little my son Tom read (as in book reading). I had also mentioned my disappointment at how few novels were being read in his Year 7 English class, namely one to date. This seems to be a trend nowadays and one that I think might be regretted in years to come.

Novels are usually written by people with a decent grasp of how to write. Even potboilers have structure - a certain complexity of vocabulary and sentence variability. There is an unfolding plotline. When we read novels (or any text for that matter), we learn something about language. We learn initially to imitate through immersion in the reading process and later we develop our own style, often a composite of many others. I find my own writing style takes on something of the last substantial thing that I read, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. Following the completion of Dickens A Tale of Two Cities I found myself writing in a more ornate, wordy manner. I recognised that fact and made the adjustment, but something in my writing was changed by the experience. And this is a positive thing.

You can examine as many fragments of text types that you like and become passably good at understanding or interpreting them. You might become an effective communicator in these modes. But immersion in story-telling is fundamental if we want students to be competent writers of their native language; also if we want them to understand their own culture and (dare I say it), the human condition.

I think the notion of a post-literature age is overblown. Perhaps more realistically, we are seeing the last outworking of post-modernity as an abiding influence, together with the necessary accommodation that the technological revolution has forced upon educational systems. Like many things that are in fashion, the things that are important will re-emerge, minus the frippery.