The Australian term "fair dinkum" (meaning genuine, true, or real) in the title emphasizes the book's intention of providing thoughts and reflections on how to enhance the art and science of English teaching. Focusing on literacy, the book deals with action research or teaching theories that may suggest other strategies and further field work in teaching English. As part of a collection of the author's articles and papers, each of the 14 chapters concludes with an invited teacher's description of a practice relating to what has been discussed. Among the topics covered in the chapters are language development, characteristics of good readers, writing processes, the connection between reading and writing, principles for producing effective writing programs, a parent's guide to literacy, strategies for producing literate graduates of the schools, research in the schools, a model of the composing process in writing, a universal program for literacy, the use of computers, the Language and Learning Project, and the National Language Development Project. (EL)