Interested in contributing?
We invite NAWE members to write on the subject of creative writing in education - in schools, adult education and community settings. We encourage you to think broadly on this topic and address any issue relating to the development of a space for creative writing in the education system. Please note, it is developmental work that we wish to highlight, not self-promotion. It may be useful to think about the kinds of articles most useful to your teaching and practice. Submission deadlines: Summer Issue: 1 July 2021 (published end August) Winter Issue: 1 November 2021 (published mid December) Spring Issue: 1 February 2022 (published March) For submission guidelines please refer to: www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/nawe-magazine/submissions.html Writing in Education Team: Editor: Lisa Koning, publications@nawe.co.uk Reviews: Matthew Tett, reviews@nawe.co.uk Advertisement Enquiries: publications@nawe.co.uk
Image by Philippa Johnston (produced during the Stitches and Stories session at the NAWE Conference 2021)
In loving memory of Chester
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Writing in Education is the members magazine for the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) All work is copyrighted to the author or artist. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without permission from the publisher. 2 Writing in Education
A word from the Editor
Welcome
It’s Writing in Education edition 83 and we are heading into spring - though oddly after sunshine and warm days, I’ve just looked out my window and it’s snowing heavily. These are such strange and unsettling times, in so many ways. Perhaps, like many of us, the weather is just confused as to what day and month it is! In the UK, we are slowly emerging from lockdown. During the Easter break, it was lovely to hear the sounds of small family gatherings around my village, and to be able to have a cup of tea from a flask with a friend in a park. Reflecting back to early March, we approached the upcoming online conference with some trepidation. With so many events going virtual, and with online meetings becoming an (often exhausting) part of daily life, we weren’t too sure how the first NAWE online conference would fair. But what soon became apparent was the enthusiasm from the NAWE community, and your willingness to participate. There’s no denying it’s not the same as meeting up in person, but there are also many benefits that shouldn’t be ignored, especially as we look forward to future events. Not least is the ability for people to attend who wouldn’t have been able to previously (for many and varied reasons such as distance, commitments, mobility, cost etc.). I attended many of the sessions over the two days and what stood out for me, was the variety of topics as well as the professionalism of the presenters. As with our publications, we do very much appreciate the effort that our contributors make to ensure their sessions not only ran smoothly, but were interesting and informative. We have a strong collection of articles for this edition. We open, rather appropriately given our conference theme of considering the future, with Francis Gilbert’s piece on What’s Next, and Fiona Mason’s report on NAWE’s Open Space event. Contributions also include an article by Trevor Day and Ursula Canton, discussing the space between being a teacher and a writer. Belona Greenwood explores how to help the reluctant writer, while Matthew Tett shares his experiences of taking an event virtual. We also have creative contributions from Suzanne Iuppa, Gabrielle Mullarkey and Julian Stannard. We usually time an edition of Writing in Education to come out with the conference, however, as we were virtual this year, it seemed an excellent opportunity to have it come out afterwards - allowing us to include a section dedicated to pieces that supported the various sessions from the conference. With such a full programme, it’s often a case that there is so much to hear and take in - and to this end, having the recordings of the events available via the NAWE website has been invaluable! I have very much enjoyed reading and reflecting on such thought provoking topics, and I hope you will as well. In the meantime, we look forward to your continued engagement and to taking NAWE forward as we begin to get back to some kind of normality.
, Lisa
Best wishes
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Contents Editorial A word from the Editor
page 3
NAWE News Chair’s Report Director’s Report HE Committee Chair’s Column AAWP (Australasia) EACWP Update Lapidus International Members News
page 5 page 5 page 7 page 8 page 10 page 11 page 12
Articles & Contributions What’s Next? Francis Gilbert explores Ecoliteracies and Creative Writing page 12 Reflections on NAWE’s Virtual Open Space: Fiona Mason explores what is the state of play and where next for writing in education and communities page 20 Helping the Reluctant Writer: Belona Greenwood considers writing for a reason page 24 From the Physical to the Virtual: Matthew Tett reflections on moving an arts festival online and the impact on mental health and wellbeing page 28 I’m a writer and ... Trevor Day and Ursula Canton consider reconciling identities: working in the space between writing and teaching page 31 Creative Contributions from Suzzanne Iuppa, Gabrielle Mullarkey, and Julian Stannard page 39
Conference Reflections
The Potentials of Creative Writing in Healthcare Education by Roshni Beharry page 53 Writing Inside and Outside the Boxes by Amina Alyal and Oz Hardwick
page 56
Action Learning Panel Discussion by Fiona Linday
page 59
1-2-1 Sessions Upclose Editing by Shelagh Weeks
page 60
Writing Historical Fiction by Claire Gradidge, Lisa Koning and Andrew Melrose
page 61
Post Covid-19, can community writing have its cake and eat it? by Jane Moss page 66 Mindfulness Mediation for Writers by Kylie Holmes
Embracing Found Strategies in Ecopoetry by Carrie Etter
page 48
page 68
Ethics and Life Writing - Other Mothers by Shanta Everington page 70 The Ethics of Life Writing: In Full Sight of Her by Patrick Wright page 73 The Liminal Zone by Mandy Haggith
page 75
Making a Literary Podcast by Sherezade Garcia Rangal and Amy Lilwall
page 78
Read On: New ways to engage young people with reading and writing by Helen Preston page 81 Embrace the Machines! by David Moody and Bern Mulvey
page 82
The Value of Writing Constraints in the Generative Workshop by John Vigna page 86 Research-informed approaches to Teaching Online by Francis Gilbert page 89
A selection of book reviews page 44
page 50
Understanding Character Complexity Through Personality Psychology by Kira-Anne Pelican page 51
Reviews
Reflecting on NAWE’s first Virtual Conference by Fiona Mason
4 Writing in Education
Engaging Students in (distance) Learning by Gaja Kotodziej
page 92
Chair’s Report
NAWE NEWS
Despite the tedium of enforced lockdown (in the UK), time seems to be moving ever quickly and now our wonderful NAWE Conference has been and gone. I was involved on a small scale – introducing a few events and running my oddly popular workshop and one-to-one sessions on funding for writers. It was certainly good to meet so many writers and to hear about their projects, which should all be funded… We know funds are difficult to come by, but at least as writers we can communicate well our disparate causes. Amongst many others sessions I enjoyed at the Conference was a rare opportunity to see the arts council literature directors (or equivalent titles) from all the home nations in a single Zoom room. NAWE is one of the few literature organisations I’m involved in that genuinely unites across even those internal borders, and certainly external borders. My thanks to everyone who helped make the Conference so useful and fun (especially the crazy mad disco session last thing on Saturday night). But back to the funding, which I mention particularly because during the lockdown I have observed that NAWE members have been rather good at finding online means of doing good work while turning an honest coin. It has been said before, that writing is the great survivalist art-form, requiring very modest outlay to be created, and lockdown has proved this to be the case. Although we don’t think ourselves as entrepreneurial it turns out we are, and very much so. More importantly, the digital world is in many ways purpose made for writers and writing. Most writers were early adopters of digital technology simply to store and edit work, and now that we are being offered a multiplicity of low cost ‘digital rooms’ of various sizes there is no stopping us. I regularly attend several events a week and am happy to pay the modest charges to do so. Once we bolt some payment functions to our Zoom-based workshops, we are suddenly in business. And while business should – I hope – never be the only consideration, many NAWE members need to fund their creativity in this way. Which brings me back again to funding for writers, and allows me to finish by saying that although writers often assume they aren’t eligible for funding from our home nations’ various arts councils that is not the case. There is funding. Apply for it. And let us know what you do with it. Best wishes for a good Spring and Summer. Jonathan Davidson, Chair, NAWE
Director’s Report I’m delighted to be properly back at NAWE after maternity leave, during which the wonderful Fiona Mason continued as NAWE’s Acting Director. Huge thanks to Fi for steadying the ship during such a dramatic and uncertain year. It was very strange to watch the world changing so significantly while I was at home with a small baby. I thought frequently of all of NAWE’s members having to adapt to the world of online teaching, trying to work during lockdown with children in the house, shielding or putting contingency plans in place to help shielding relatives, battling online delivery systems, trying to write, teach and find new ways of living during the pandemic. Now that the future (or at least some part of it) has arrived, I hope you and your families have been able to find ways of living and thriving in these uncertain times.
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NAWE NEWS NAWE weathered the storm, and through the hard work and determination of Fi, the board and staff team, we are now in a strong position to emerge from the pandemic and to be able to think creatively about how we can offer direct support to our members over the coming months. I am thrilled to be able to report that NAWE has been awarded £42k from Arts Council England’s Cultural Recovery Fund. This is all thanks to the hard work of the NAWE core team, under the fantastic stewardship of Fiona Mason and the NAWE board. The grant will contribute £32k to core and project costs and £10k to reflating NAWE’s reserves. The core and project funding will mean that NAWE can undertake some specific new pieces of work, bringing in freelance specialists to devise and establish some new programmes of work to support writers in education and play a stronger leadership role in the sector. It’s a really exciting moment for NAWE, especially on the back of such a wellreceived conference. Our thanks to Arts Council England and to the government’s DCMS fund. It was wonderful to meet so many members at the conference, and to hear so many stories of resilience and hope for the future. The conference managed to feel like a joyous event, with 180 delegates joining us from across the UK and the world – from Spain, the US, Australia, the UAE, Uzbekistan, and more. This was our first virtual conference, though the team had some practice at running virtual events after our successful Open Space and online Regional Networking meet ups last year. Highlights included a special creative welcome from Daljit Nagra, newly installed as chair of the Royal Society of Literature. Daljit took the opportunity to discuss race in relation to building a career as a writer, and this was followed by a panel discussion with Richard Russell from Arts Council England, Mairi Kidd at Seven Stories, and
6 Writing in Education
our own Jonathan Davidson. The open sessions filled with members’ contributions were of an incredibly high standard. Our evening events were rich in insight into teaching and writing from Kate Clanchy and Kit de Waal, and the conversation between poet Romalyn Ante and Bobbie Farsides on creative writing and healthcare was cited by several delegates as a real highlight. A huge thank you to all our speakers, contributors, presenters, delegates, members, staff, events team, and our sponsor - York St John University, for all of the hard work that made it such a success. We now turn our thoughts to the coming year, and to putting in place our plans for more support for members and the wider writing community. We are asking ourselves what we can do to remove barriers to participation, and commit to ensuring that any future conference has a significant online component so it can remain accessible. There is an urgent need for the sector to respond to wider inequalities that have been thrown into sharp relief by the pandemic. Mental health and wellbeing are also at the forefront of our minds, and we will be developing a Mental Health Toolkit that can be used by creative writing teachers in the coming months. There is much, much more to come – thank you for staying with us as we make our way back into the world, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any suggestions, queries or concerns as we reopen. Seraphima Kennedy Director NAWE
NAWE NEWS HE Committee Chair’s Column Springtime... In my last three columns I wrote, “I hardly expected my inaugural column to be written under such conditions but with the Covid – 19, coronavirus upon us, the world is a different place for now. Please take care everyone. Stay safe, stay well and keep writing, the world needs you more than ever – as will education when this is all over.” Well we are still here, of a fashion, but hopefully spring is upon us and we are slowly climbing out of the year long winter. Schools are back, Colleges are back and Universities are back (albeit in reduced form). Now I know this is early stages and we are walking with some trepidation, but with the vaccinations there is at least hope that the corner has been turned. I am not going to rehearse the pro and anti-vaccine arguments here, except to say I’ve had mine and it has given me a feeling of security that was hitherto missing. This morning I walked down to the market, bought fruit and bread and said hi to an old friend I hadn’t seen for months. The good news is we chatted as though those months hadn’t happened. We talked about writing too, which was nice. I told him I had written and published a chapbook and music record called Fisherrow. It was nice to chat about it, and also the potential launch gig coming up, as well as other gigs which were presenting themselves. It means life as it once was is beginning to push to surface alongside the tulips and daffodils. Let’s hope this walk back to a sense of normality brings the same secure feeling that we are indeed getting back to living. One of the great successes of the lockdown has to be the WHAT NEXT? Writing in Education and Communities in 2021 and Beyond - NAWE Virtual Conference. What a great programme of 50+ workshops, panels, talks, and readings across the themes of teaching creative writing, wellbeing and practice research including some very exciting special events and guest speakers. The team are to be seriously congratulated for bringing this together. I could see the herculean effort just by doing a wee bit of chairing, presenting and generally flitting round the edges, and I applaud the determination to make it the best possible conference it can be. But it was more than that, in my opinion it was a huge success. Well done everyone, what a fantastic effort. I would be interested in hearing about any HE spin off ideas this conference might produce – including the online presence of NAWE and how we might develop it through the University sector. After all we see how it works. We may not enjoy the constant, online engagement but perhaps we can organise some tandem events, readings, book launches and other occasions to keep the community engaged. Let me know of initiatives through publications@nawe. co.uk especially if you have or have seen some really good ideas. Personally I have attended a couple of really good lectures – and I know Lisa Koning and some others actually attended the AAWP conference in Australia. This is something I think we should be keen to add to our armoury. Also, I have already received offers to join the HE Committee from new ‘student representatives’ and I am happy to welcome aboard Rachel Carney (CarneyR2@cardiff.ac.uk) and Sophie Parkes-Nield (Sophie.E.Parkes-Nield@students.NSU.ac.uk). In the meantime we had Easter, the buns were hot and cross, the chocolate bubbling on the stove was popped into egg moulds, and now we are coming out of a long darkness into the spring (some of us with bigger chocolate and hot cross bun filled bellies than when we went into it). It feels like a new start, I’ll be getting my bike out, something to be celebrated, I think. Andrew Melrose HE Committee Chair, NAWE
Writing in Education 7
NAWE NEWS HE Committee: References and Links
Advice on lodging doctorates and embargos https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/writing-at-university/research/lodging-theses.html Directory of Creative Writing External Examiners (requiring your NAWE membership password) https://www.nawe.co.uk/membership/members-area/external-examiners.html NAWE Creative Writing Research Benchmark 2018 https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/writing-at-university/research.html NAWE incoming HE Committee members list https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/writing-at-university/he-network/he-committee.html NAWE guidance on short-term academic contracts https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/writing-at-university/contracts.html OU/NAWE events (audio recorded) on Creative Writing and the REF and Creative Writing PhDs http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/contemporary-cultures-of-writing/events/contemporary-cultures-writingseminars-spring-2018 QAA Creative Writing Benchmark (teaching) 2016 https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/subject-benchmark-statements/sbs-creative-writing-16.pdf?sfvrsnd4e2f781_10 Writing in Practice - submission to Vol 7 https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/writing-at-university/writing-in-practice/submissions.html
Community Writers Group The Community Writers Sub-Committee met in the now-normal Zoom manner in November, to share news and updates, best practice about online sessions, news from the field, and continue discussion of the Mission Statement, which is under development. I hope to have signed off at the next Committee meeting in spring (date TBC). Caleb Parkin, acting Chair of the Community Writers Group
AAWP Report (Australasia) Dear NAWE readers. My name is Julia Prendergast. I am the current Chair of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP). Since I last had the pleasure of providing a report from AAWP, we celebrated our annual conference: Rising Tides. This encouraged me to reflect upon AAWP initiatives that bring us together as writer-researchers, through collaborative and communityminded initiatives. We were delighted to partner with NAWE in 2020, welcoming a number of NAWE members as guests to the AAWP conference. A number of AAWP members will attend the NAWE conference, soon, and we hope to continue this gesture of reciprocity for future conferences. During the conference we launched The Incompleteness Book (Recent Work Press: 2020). The book is the result of a call for contributions to the theme: The incompleteness of human experience. The call was distributed in April 2020, amidst the global pandemic of COVID-19. The collection takes an interest in the relationship between the haunting incompleteness of human experience and short form writing. This, together with the unforeseen challenges of COVID-19, as well as the lure of coming together as writer-researchers, was the impetus for 8 Writing in Education
NAWE NEWS the book, which is aimed at capturing our individual and collective experience as a composite picture. The contributions were collected in just nine-days and were first published as a Special Issue of TEXT Journal: http:// www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/Issue58.pdf In a keynote address at the AAWP conference, Associate Professor Julienne van Loon cited extracts from the collection. The excerpts were referenced within the broader context of philosopher Corine Pelluchon’s (2019) approach to the concepts of radical sensing, nourishment and an ethics of practice. This leads me to think about the conference contributions that reached me in the form of what Gordon Weaver calls felt presences. Weaver asks: ‘in how small a space can [we] create the felt presences that animate successful stories [or poems]?’ (1983: 228, my emphasis). To my mind this is one of the most precious things about gathering and sharing the way we weave connections between others’ ideas, as we’re prompted to think about how ways-of-saying and ways-of-seeing rub up against each other. I wonder about the initiative of The Incompleteness Book, as well as our exchange across the days of the conference, as a collaborative ethics of creative writing practice. Taking up the prompt of thinking about what nourishes us puts me in mind of various conference sessions. I reflect upon the pure joy of hearing a wide variety of creative work, read by the makers in their own voices. I was moved by those who laid bare their thinking positions in bold acts of sharing, both creative and critical work. As we approach the first anniversary of our call for contributions to The Incompleteness Book, we have decided on another issue: The Incompleteness Book II: Writing Back and Thinking Forward. We welcome contributions to that theme, broadly interpreted, from the NAWE community. We are deeply interested in capturing a composite “picture” of what people make of the prompt: the in/ completeness of human experience, one year on. What have we discarded? What do we covet more closely than ever? Have we learned something, about ourselves or more broadly? Where to, from here? The aim is to capture the immediacy of people’s “thinking positions” in the form of “sudden” writing. The call closes on Tuesday 4 May 2021, 11.59pm (EST). Please send creative work—short-short fiction, “sudden” fiction, “sketchy” stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, short pithy scripts, as well as hybrid forms: https://meniscusliteraryjournal.submittable.com/ submit/164256/the-in-completeness-book-v2-0 Contributors must be AAWP members. In 2020 we established a new membership fee with our international colleagues in mind: a heavily reduced fee for those who may be less likely to regularly attend our annual conference but would be keen to keep a close connection
with the AAWP community, a fee that is compatible with the fee paid by students and others in precarious employment. Having said that, if you would like to submit work for consideration for the book, and the membership fee presents an impediment, please contact me directly: jprendergast@swin.edu.au Let us come together again, as writer-researchers, responding to the theme of incompleteness, writing back and looking forward, showcasing our capacity for radical sensing through a collective gesture, a shared ethics of practice. Perhaps we all need to be reminded of what it is to be broken and how, as the ground shifts at every turn, we might sustain ourselves. Go boldly. Go gently. In solidarity. Julia Prendergast. Bio Julia’s novel, The Earth Does Not Get Fat was published in 2018 (UWA Publishing: Australia); her short stories feature in the current edition of Australian Short Stories. Other stories have been recognised and published: Lightship Anthology 2 (UK), Glimmer Train (US), TEXT (AU) Séan Ó Faoláin Competition (IE), Review of Australian Fiction, Australian Book Review Elizabeth Jolley Prize, Josephine Ulrick Prize (AU). Julia’s research has appeared in various publications including: New Writing (UK), TEXT (AU), Testimony Witness Authority: The Politics and Poetics of Experience (UK). Julia is a Senior Lecturer in Writing and Literature at Swinburne University, Melbourne. She is Chair of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP), the peak academic body representing the discipline of Creative Writing in Australasia. Julia’s research is practice-led analysis, focusing meta-level processes in creative writing, including neuroscientific and psychoanalytic approaches. She is an enthusiastic supporter of interdisciplinary, open and collaborative research practices. Works cited Modjeska, D 2002 ‘Writing Poppy’ in Timepieces, Picador, Sydney: 67-94 Weaver G 1983, Sudden Fiction. American Short-Short Stories, in R Shapard and J Thomas (eds), Sudden Fiction. American ShortShort Stories, Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. Pelluchon, Corine 2019, Nourishment: A Philosophy of the Political Body. Translated by Justin E.H. Smith. London: Bloomsbury. Prendergast J, Strange S, Webb J (eds) 2020, The Incompleteness Book, Canberra: Recent Work Press.
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NAWE NEWS
European Association of Creative Writing Programmes (EACWP) International Training & Pedagogical Exchanges in pandemic times As Europe is still enduring the corona pandemic, the EACWP has been searching for alternative ways to (re-)connect its members and carry on with its annual activities. Since July (2020), the EACWP is offering different Premium Virtual Editions of its Teachers Training Course, involving a sample of its most expert European teachers. As in the regular format of its Teachers Training Course celebrated on spot (Normandy, 2017-218 / Alden Biesen castle, 2019), over the three sessions imparted during the course, the EACWP teachers share their different methodologies, approaches and experiences in the teaching of creative writing by offering a so called “auteur workshop” by performing and explaining their own ars pedagogica and didactics from both a theoretical and practical approach. All the working sessions are focused on pedagogical training and guidelines to empower the participants to develop their own teaching interests and new possibilities. On the I Premium Virtual Edition, Frank Tazelaar (The Netherlands), Daniel Soukup (Czech Republic) and Risto Ahti (Finland) were the official EACWP teachers invited. Furthermore, on the II Premium Virtual Edition celebrated in January (2021), the EACWP offered a fully female panel represented by Mariana Docampo (Argentina), Renée Combal-Weiss (France) and Jenifer Smith (UK). Both editions counted on the participation of more than 25 participants from more than 15 worldwide countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico, amongst a wide variety of European countries. The III Virtual Edition will take place on July, 6-8 (2021). Further details regarding the teaching panel and the program will be provided in the EACWP website. Aside from the Teachers Training Course initiative, the EACWP will celebrate this year its V International Pedagogical Conference (its first virtual conference ever) on May 21-23 in association with University of East Anglia (UK): Futures for Creative Writing. The academic year 2020-21 marking the half-centenary of Creative Writing innovation at UEA presents an opportunity both to reflect on the development of the discipline of Creative Writing nationally and internationally and to consider how the discipline may develop over the next fifty years. 10 Writing in Education
This online conference seeks to bring together PhD research students, Creative Writing tutors and graduates, writers and scholars to explore the varieties of practice in our discipline now, the points of convergence and contention, and, crucially, the opportunities for future development and the forces that may shape the nature of writing in the academy over the next several years. Central to the conference will be an acknowledgement of the importance of literature and drama in helping us navigate challenging moments in history. Sessions will be organised into virtual panels dealing with topics connected to recent global crises, which will include some of the following themes: • • • • •
Innovations in Creative Writing pedagogy Decolonising the curriculum Digital Technology and Creative Writing Writing and the environment Employability and the Creative Industries
Additionally, the EACWP will, simultaneously, offer a variety of one-hour Multilingual Workshops to be imparted in some of the European languages represented within the association: Czech, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian and Spanish. The conference program is already available and registration is also open for worldwide participants willing to participate at www. uea.ac.uk/about/futuresforcreativewriting.com / Conference enquires: CW50.Conference@uea.ac.uk For more information, you may also contact us at info@ eacwp.org or visit our website www.eacwp.org Ultimately, the EACWP makes thoroughly extensive the invitation to its NAWE worldwide colleagues to join its different on-line initiatives in order to continue strengthening the pedagogical dialogue and, hence, in order to continue dreaming & writing Europe.
NAWE NEWS Lapidus International
Barbara Bloomfield, outgoing Chair of Lapidus International, the therapeutic writing organisation, considers the changing landscape of creative practices. The musician and artist, Laurie Anderson, suggests that all creatives should describe themselves as ‘multimedia artists’ because no-one knows what the hell it means: “It’s so vague. No one can say, ‘Hey, how come you’re a jazz person, and you’re making a pop opera?’ Genres are for bins. ‘What bin should we put you in, so we that we can sell what you do?’ Ignore the bins.” In Lapidus, we enjoy ignoring the bins, particularly the bins marked ‘publication’ and ‘success.’ I’ve always thought it was a strength of our organisation that we detach ‘writing’ from ‘writing well.’ This is not to say that we don’t enjoy skilled and excellent writing, but neither do we fetishise it. Writers for wellbeing write from the heart and guts and when they read aloud and share their work, it is often very powerful and moving. What I’m noticing in writing for wellbeing, and I’m sure it’s the same where you work, is the experimentation with art forms and the glorious sound of art forms crashing together. Because we aren’t overly worried about ‘quality’ a lot of our writing for wellbeing facilitators aren’t afraid to bring in drawing, painting, using play, roleplay, music, yoga and tai chi to use in conjunction with writing and poetry. This eclectic spirit reminds me of Laurie Anderson. “Be as playful as possible,” she says.”It’s the thing that is the easiest to forget when you start doing things that have ‘big themes’ and you have to work in certain ways. Most of the things that I’ve made, I’ve made in the spirit of goofing around with stuff. Goofing around. Be playful. Have a really good time and you’ll find some interesting things.” While we are in experimental mode, we are more likely to fool our frontal lobes into relaxing their ‘shoulds and oughts’ and we might just end up writing more freely, spontaneously and be prouder of what we produce! Aim high, I say, but don’t fetishise publication and writing ‘success.’ ————————— We are excited to reveal our keynote speakers for our Creative Bridges ‘21 Conference on therapeutic writing: comedian-poet Kate Fox and entrepreneur Sveto Muhammad Ishoq.
Sveto promotes women’s rights through the Afghan Women’s Writing Project and is a Kabul-based entrepreneur working with Ayat Modest Clothes as well as the Chadari Project, a storytelling platform with stories of Afghan women across the globe. Kate Fox is a North Yorkshire-based poet, author and comedian. Her lively literature and comedy shows include Where There’s Muck There’s Bras, and two series of The Price of Happiness for BBC Radio 4. Her work focuses on “Northernness,” gender, class, place and neurodiversity. Lapidus is especially proud of Creative Bridges ‘21 - slated for 18/19th September - as this is our 25th successful year as an organisation supporting therapeutic writers internationally. We welcome everyone with an interest in writing and using words to promote wellbeing, whether for personal development and healing, or working with others, individuals, families or communities. We welcome creative practitioners and expressive artists from a range of different fields writers, health workers, singers and rappers, counsellors, academics, students, teachers and more. Besides our keynote speakers, we are looking for proposals for workshops, talks, research papers and panels on aspects of therapeutic writing. If you would like to submit a proposal, click here: https://lapidus.org. uk/creative-bridges-international-2021 Our early bird tickets are going fast so get your ticket here asap for as little as £45 for both conference days of top speakers. https://lapidus.org.uk/creative-bridgesinternational-2021 Would you like to sponsor the conference, have your logo in the brochure and be able to advertise your groups, services or institution? Or perhaps you could offer to become a volunteer to make this conference a success? Please contact kim@etherington.com to discuss. We would love to hear from you! Website: www.lapidus.org.uk Twitter: @CBWellbeing Facebook: Lapidus International, Lapidus Member and Lapidus Living Research Community Email: inekeduit@gmail.com Writing in Education 11
What’s Next? Francis Gilbert ECOLITERACIES AND CREATIVE WRITING tsunami of political, economic, social, environmental and educational calamities. Like a complex weather system, these disasters interlinked in both obvious and subtle ways. Yet, there are glimmers of hope. There is a renewed awareness of the importance of education. Recently, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCOa 2021) launched a Futures of Education: Learning to Become Initiative (UNESCOb 2021) which invites us to consider what the priorities of education should be (UNESCOc 2021). At Goldsmiths, staff in the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning met to consider the ‘Futures of Education’ key questions, which are: Topic 1: Our changing world: How do you view the future? • Please imagine the future in broad terms. When you think about 2050 … • What are you most hopeful about? • What are you most concerned about? Topic 2: Broad Purposes of Education • Considering the visions of 2050 that you just described … • What should be the collective purposes of education in 2050? It was difficult to imagine what the world might be like in 2050, but we did our best. One idea that emerged was that what are termed ‘ecoliteracies’ will be important to nurture in all educational settings.
Introduction Covid has changed everything. Since its spread in early 2020, we have experienced paradigm shifts in the way we live, learn and work together. Precipitated by a terrible virus, multiple crises are happening at once: a
12 Writing in Education
This article will explore what ecoliteracies involve, and argue passionately for its core concepts, suggesting that creative writing can play a central role in supporting them.
What are ecoliteracies and why nurture them?
There are a few components to ‘ecoliteracy’ which include: 1. Ecological awareness 2. Thinking about language, learning and culture an ecological fashion, by viewing society as an ecosystem (Barton 2007: Creese & Martin 2003: Hornberger 2003; Mühlhäusler 2020) Let’s explain both concepts in more depth. First, being ecoliterate is about developing an awareness of the ways in which the environment shapes human culture and how it moulds the environment. Becoming ecoliterate is about developing an ‘ecology of mind’ (Bateson 1972) which involves thinking beyond our own immediate selfish interests – how will this benefit me? – to looking at fostering sustainable ecological environments – how will this benefit all of us and our world? Second, ecoliteracy is a specialist linguistic term which the literacy expert David Barton suggested can ‘provide a framework for discussions of literacy’ (Barton 2007: 32). Barton’s prescient study Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language (2007) details in some depth how an ‘ecology of written language’ might help us better understand how literacy works. He writes: Originating in biology, ecology is the study of the interrelationship of an organism and its environment. When applied to humans, it is the interrelationship of an area of human activity and its environment. It is concerned with how the activity – literacy in this case – is part of the environment and at the same time influences and is influenced by the environment. An ecological approach takes as its starting point this interaction between individuals and their environments. (Barton 2007: 31) Rather than isolating literacy activities from everything else in order to understand them, an ecological approach aims to understand how literacy is embedded in other human activity, its embeddedness in social life and in thought, and its position in history, in language and in learning. Ecological will be used in these several senses. (Barton 2007: 34) Barton and like-minded researchers such as Mühlhäusler (2020), Creese & Martin (2003) and Hornberger (2003),
take an ecological view of language, learning and human culture. For them, language is always emerging and interconnected, constantly forming ecological linguistic and cultural ‘niches’, which must be studied in an ecological fashion. So ecoliteracies are not only a ‘prescription’ – an injunction to consider how all our actions are impacting the environment – but also provide us with useful ‘descriptions’. Barton writes: The ecological metaphor actually produces a whole set of terms which can provide a framework for discussions of literacy. Terms like ecological niches , ecosystem , ecological balance , diversity and sustainability can all be applied to the human activity of using reading and writing. Some of the ideas in books on biological ecology are worth exploring to see how far the metaphor can be taken: for example, that communities themselves are not self perpetuating or reproductive, individuals are; that the structure and patterns in a community are the product of processes at the level of the individual. (Barton 2007: 32) At this time of crisis, encouraging ecoliteracies is useful. Ecoliteracies can help us better consider creative solutions to the climate crisis and many other problems. Teaching people ecoliteracies should involve doing much more than making them aware of the biological facts about ecology, it should help them respond resourcefully to their lived experiences of being in the world. Ecoliterate pedagogies teach people to flourish in sustainable ways. Creative writing can help in this regard; it can forge new modes of thinking about the environment and gives us the space ‘to grow’ creative solutions in ways in which possibly other forms of writing do not. How do you nurture ecoliteracies using creative writing and how might they help people?
Figure 1 The River Derwent in Cockermouth, where Wordsworth grew up Creative writing is uniquely placed to nurture ecoliteracies for a few reasons. First, there is a wealth of ‘ecoliterate’ literature to draw upon as sources of inspiration. Most nature poetry from different eras and countries promotes ecoliteracies. For example, Wordsworth’s poetry stresses the interconnectedness of nature and children. He writes in Writing in Education 13
‘The Prelude’ (1799): —Was it for this That one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov’d To blend his murmurs with my Nurse’s song, And from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flow’d along my dreams? For this, didst Thou, O Derwent! travelling over the green Plains Near my ‘sweet Birthplace’, didst thou, beauteous Stream Make ceaseless music through the night and day Which with its steady cadence, tempering Our human waywardness, compos’d my thoughts To more than infant softness, giving me, Among the fretful dwellings of mankind, A knowledge, a dim earnest, of the calm That Nature breathes among the hills and groves. (Wordsworth 1799) Notice here how the ecology of the river Derwent – ‘his alder shades and rocky falls’, ‘fords’, ‘shallows’ – blends together to create a ‘voice’ which gives the young poet ‘a knowledge, a dim earnest, of the calm/That Nature breathes’. Read today, the poem challenges the reader to see nature differently from the Darwinian vision of it being ‘red in tooth and claw’ (Tennyson 1850: Canto 56). Wordsworth’s Romantic sensibility is possibly more in tune with modern biological thinking, which perceives the earth as a co-operative ecological system (Zelenski et al. 2015) and that ‘exposure to nature may increase cooperation’ and help us deal with ‘social dilemmas, sustainable intentions and behavior’ (Zelenski et al. 2015: 24). This is how the two understandings of ‘ecoliteracies’ come together – one more descriptive – the other more creative and inspirational. At Goldsmiths, where I lecture, Professor Jonathan Freeman has worked with a video maker Anna Stewart (2020) to produce 3 Dimensional videos on YouTube which attempt to replicate the soothing effects of nature. Does watching such videos make us care more about the environment and ourselves? Exciting early results show that possibly even exposure to a video like the one below can have beneficial effects upon your mood. The video is interactive in that you can click on it and move around in the space, simulating to a certain extent, the feeling of being in nature: https://youtu.be/uc8_GQwIlJg The creative writing teacher has a place to play here in taking forward some of these new research findings. It may well be worth seeing how watching videos can be dovetailed with creative writing exercises. Using the video as a stimulus for freewriting could result in some surprising outcomes. Peter Elbow, the guru in of ‘freewriting’, observes: THE most effective way I know to improve your writing is to do freewriting exercises regularly. At least three times a week. They are sometimes called “automatic writing,” “babbling,” or “jabbering” exercises. The idea is simply to write for ten 14 Writing in Education
minutes (later on, perhaps fifteen or twenty). Don’t stop for anything. Go quickly without rushing. Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing. (Elbow 1998: 3) Freewriting is a form of ecoliteracy because it enables the writer to start building an ecological picture of their mind and world. It embraces potentially everything you can verbalize. Elbow argues that using freewriting as a foundation to practice, you can both ‘grow’ (Chapter 2) and ‘cook’ (Chapter 3) as a writer. He contends that many pedagogical models for teaching writing are wrong because they presume that we have thoughts that we then put down on paper. This is incorrect in his view. He writes: This idea of writing is backwards. That’s why it causes so much trouble. Instead of a two-step transaction of meaning into-language, think of writing as an organic, developmental process in which you start writing at the very beginning— before you know your meaning at all— and encourage your words gradually to change and evolve. (15) The model here then is an ‘ecoliterate’ one in that it perceives writing as part of ecological process; it is ‘organic’, and freewriting should be utilized so that the writer encourages ‘words to gradually change and evolve’ (15). Elbow illustrates that writing involves the writer realizing that they have changed because of writing. In writing about a subject, the writer frequently perceives something that they had not seen before: Strictly speaking, only you have grown, your words have not. You are a living organism. Your words are just dead marks on a piece of paper. No word has moved or changed, they all just lie there where you set them. But there’s a sense in which they have changed. A sense in which they are not one long string of words but rather three shorter strings of words which are three “versions” of something: versions of an organism-like thing— something that has gone through three stages and ended up in a way that seems completed. “It no longer believes X, it believes Y; it’s very different, yet it’s still the same piece of writing. I never would have expected it to end up this way.” (23) Elbow’s advice is simple but very powerful and underpinned by a growing body of evidence that freewriting can uniquely aid thinking, reflecting and learning (Bolton 2014). For Elbow, ‘Cooking is the smaller process: bubbling, percolating, fermenting, chemical interaction, atomic fission’ (48). The metaphors he uses here are not ones drawn from ‘nature’ in the way his growing metaphors are, but are still ecoliterate in that Elbow argues for sustainable ways of intermingling. ‘Cooking to write’ involves bringing people, ideas, words, metaphors, genres together and watching them interact. For example, a teacher could nurture ecoliteracies by using ‘cooking to write’ strategies. This could involve two people
discussing their thoughts about ecoliteracies which leads them to form a plan to write in an ecoliterate fashion: they might decide to freewrite after or during a visit to a natural setting; they might agree to write list poems of what their senses feel in certain situations. To sum up here, there are two major points. First, freewriting is an ecoliteracy. It gives the writer a chance to form an ecology of mind because they can write anything. Second, ecoliterate metaphors can clarify writing processes and help shape ecoliterate activities. Seeing writing as a form of growth and cooking can aid writers’ perceptions on how and why they might do certain writing activities.
Creative writing activities that nurture ecological understanding
Creative writing has been used to explore many aspects of the climate emergency. The Poetry Society has listed several fascinating and sobering projects on their Poetry & Climate Change webpage (The Poetry Society 2021). One of the most striking of these projects was ‘I am the Universe: Writing environmental catastrophe’ (The Poetry Society: 2017). Here, the poet and adventurer Helen Mort judged the entries written by people under 25 about human beings’ interconnectedness with nature and wrote her own commissioned piece about the changing face our planet ‘The Library of Ice’. The poems are ecoliterate in that they perceive the multiple ironies, sadnesses, joys, and epiphanies which writing about nature now involves. I was struck by the poem by James Tierney in this regard, ‘They Came for the Shale’ (2017: 11). The first verse reads: The sparrow your dad loves to watch pick seeds from the bottom of the garden is getting too hot to fly. It’s pecking at its own feathers in some attempt at relief. The images here open up the possibility for better understanding of the small joyful and melancholic moments that the climate emergency generates; the sparrow can’t fly anymore because of the heat, and is ‘pecking at its own feathers’. The image illustrates poignantly how global warming destroys ecologies in an attempt ‘at relief’.
Climate Museum UK is a ‘is a mobile and digital museum stirring and collecting responses to the climate and ecological emergency’ (Climate Museum UK 2021). They provide a number of different workshops which help people respond creatively to the climate emergency and include creative writing in many of them. We hosted one of these workshops ‘virtually’ at Goldsmiths in November 2020. The workshop leaders, two of the museum’s founders, led a series of guided meditations to help us visualize and feel our connection with the earth, and set a series of creative writing exercises. Importantly, threaded through the workshop was the question ‘where do we go from here?’, which speaks to a ‘forwardlooking’ as opposed to a pessimistic perspective. The approach was research-informed and creative. At appropriate moments, the science revealing the depths of our ‘earth crisis’ was mentioned, but at others, we were asked to use the tools of creative writing – freewriting, poetry, writing in role etc – to reimagine our ecological relationships. This is an important aspect of developing ecoliteracies; the ability to draw upon the discourses of diverse disciplines to understand our ourselves and our relationship to the world. Creative writing develops ecoliteracies because it embraces so many different discourses and standpoints. For example, in the Climate Museum UK workshop, we were asked to write from a different perspective about the earth. I wrote a short piece personifying the sun: Every day, every second, I visit a strange planet, dominated by fleshly beings, riding in metal boxes and locking themselves in big brick caves. I brought them to life, but they don’t really appreciate me. Instead they dig obsessively into the earth that depends upon them. I stroke them, I burn them, I hide from them. Eventually, I will obliterate them. Writing this piece gave me a sense of the immensity of the sun and time, and I found it curiously therapeutic writing it. I wanted to acknowledge the violence and destruction involved in natural processes and not shy away from this. For another exercise, we were asked to write a poem about our connection with the environment, focusing upon a place special to us. I wrote this poem:
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Two huge trees stand on the horizon The crows flap their wings into its branches A grave lurks underneath the trees My grandparents are dead but are not buried there They are part of the wind But the trees stand there as testament to them Granny and Grandpa, are you there? Writing such verse supported me to become more ecoliterate because it helped me link the natural environment and the death of my grandparents. It gave me the room to see how the tree-topped hill near where they used to live contained their spirit. I highlight this because it shows how creative writing can provide a psychic space for people to find the interconnection between things, a key component of being ecoliterate.
Next steps: Ecoliteracies and lines of flight The Covid pandemic has reminded us how the earth’s struggling ecosystem, weakened by industrialization, mechanized travel, pollution and rapid climate change, has responded with the emergence of new deadly viruses. Covid-19 has sent human beings scurrying indoors and avoiding in-person contact as much as possible. This has brought a renewed interest in how online platforms might generate well-being and caring for the environment more generally. It was fascinating to note at the NAWE online conference this March just how many talks and workshops focused upon the environment and well-being. There’s a considerable body of evidence that being in natural surroundings can help people feel better. Richardson et al. (2016) showed that people who spent 30 days in nature: were found to have sustained increases in happiness, health, connection to nature and pronature behaviours. With the improvement in health being predicted by the improvement in happiness, this relationship was mediated by the change in connection to nature (1) Another intriguing piece of research showed that students who practised mindfulness (breathing meditations, mindful movement etc) in nature also reported improvements in their well-being (Howell et al. 2011). More recently, the University of Exeter and the BBC have launched some innovative research into ‘Soundscapes for Wellbeing’, ‘aiming to connect audiences with the nature through creative TV, radio, and online programming’ (University of Exeter 2021). Anyone over 18 can take part, it only takes a few moments. I enjoyed watching the nature video (BBC 2021) but found the music a bit ‘ersatz’ and the pictures a little too Disney for my tastes but nevertheless I certainly felt better after watching it for a short period of time. I also noticed how it helped me write more fluently immediately after watching it.
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Interacting with representations of nature online is a complex process. Professor Gabi Budach of the University of Luxembourg, who specializes in multisensory learning and linguistics, shows in her research with stop-motion artist Gohar Sharoyan (co-author of the research and artist), how natural objects like carrots can be used to create stop-motion animations which facilitate learning and meaning-making. While considerations of well-being are important in this research, the emphasis is slightly different; it seeks to explore the ways in which animating objects using digital tools, such as stop-motion software, can nurture powerful insights into ourselves and develop feelings of empathy and connection. However, it is clear that using digital tools in this way certainly seems to improve well-being. Budach & Sharoyan write: We want to understand how engagement with objects in animation making creates connection and how this connection is entangled with identity (Jenkins, 2014) transforming perspectives of the self and others. We posit that such insights, gained from experimentation with materials, have the potential to transcend into relationships with humans too. Ultimately, we seek to understand whether and how ‘animating objects’ has the power to teach us empathy and a more caring, respectful approach towards perspectives other (471) Gohar Sharoyan makes vegetables become ‘actors’ and ‘dancers’. A new relationship with nature is established through the use of digital tools and creative narrativising. Using the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) to understand what was happening when animating carrots, Budach and Sharoyan show how using hands, objects, cameras, software and screens come together to create an ‘unconscious knowing from personal embodied experience, rather than conscious planning’ (474). This is a fascinating finding because common sense would suggest that digital technologies separate us off from our bodies, attach us to a disembodied ‘screen life’ and lead to ‘conscious planning’ in that they appear so schematic and robotic. But Budach and Sharoyan illustrate how bringing together an ‘assemblage’ – to use a term from Deleuze and Guattari (1987) – of the human, objects, software and screen can lead to intuitive understanding and release us from our conscious modes of thinking. Ecoliteracy is developed through this assemblage because these things work together to create a new thing. Budach and Sharoyan demonstrate that this sort of playing with objects breaks down traditional artistic, natural and scientific hierarchies. The carrot animation is a ‘line of flight’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987) away from normalized modes of thinking and creating. The phrase ‘line of flight’ comes from the French. It’s important to bear in mind Deleuze and Guattari’s translator’s note: Both words translate fuite, which has a different range of meanings than either of the English terms. Fuite covers not only the act of fleeing or eluding but also flowing, leaking, and disappearing into the distance (the vanishing point in a painting is a point de fuite). It has no relation to flying. (Deleuze & Guattari 2004: xvi)
These are important points for creative writers to consider because like Sharoyan and Budach they could create ‘lines of flight’ in similar ways. Creative writers could see whether playing with objects and photography/video in this way inspires them to think and write differently; their writing could be included in these animations as captions possibly, and a new creative writing assemblage could be created, assemblages like stop-motion poems and vegetable stories. Bridget McKenzie of the Climate Museum UK believes that we should think beyond the term ecoliteracies and consider the concept of ecocapacities. She writes: Figure 2 Lines of flight: the French word ‘Fuite’ (flight) covers not only the act of fleeing or eluding but also flowing, leaking, and disappearing into the distance. It has no relation to flying. Here we see a path taking a line of flight through a wood into a vanishing point. Creating art in the way Budach and Sharoyan suggest is democratic because with a little guidance and the right equipment most people can do it within a few minutes, and it helps the participants and viewers make surprising connections. Budach and Sharoyan conclude by saying: We believe that ‘animating objects’ as explained in the text and as a hierarchy flat exploration of difference can be usefully transferred into other domains of intercultural communication, education and beyond. We judge that such moves are beneficial and strongly needed to contribute towards fairer, more inclusive and socially just practices in education and intercultural communication. There is a need to approach and explore ‘difference’ in new ways, and ‘animating objects’ seems to offer one such way (479)
I prefer to use the term ‘capacities’ rather than ‘literacy’ to describe skills and knowledge (e.g. in any domain or across a curriculum) because it’s…more capacious. The movement for ecological literacy (or ecoliteracy) has been hugely valuable and influential, but I think that the term ‘literacy’ is potentially limiting to cognitive and, more specifically, verbal forms of learning. (McKenzie 2021) Figure 3 below is her diagram for ecocapacities is illuminating (and fully explained in her article cited above). McKenzie’s vision of ecocapacities is a diagrammatic shape poem and invites creative writers to develop their own ecocapacity diagrammatic shape poems as well: poems about connection, reciprocity, common ownership, weather, care and so on. Being a locked-down Londoner as I write this article, I have taken to writing by hand in parks when I can. Parks develop our ecocapacities and ecoliteracies: they are modern ‘breathing spaces’. For me, not enough research has focused upon people’s lived experiences of parks; their daily interactions with them, the epiphanies people have drinking coffee by the local pond, taking their children to the playground and so on. Even less research
Figure 3 A diagram of what ecocapacities involve Writing in Education 17
has looked at online representations of parks and the benefits to people in interacting virtually with their local parks. Creative writers have an important role to play in writing about ecocapacities: we need more stories, poems and reflections about the pandemic and our relationship to the world to help us better understand its mystery and terror. Social justice can be forgotten when discussing wellbeing and ecologies, but it is a profoundly important factor to consider. In the introduction to The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic Interventions (2018), Dr Ros Gray and Shela Sheikh write: Landscapes and vegetation are not simply the backdrop against which violence and dispossession unfold, but are mobilised as the very medium of violence, whether this be through the above-mentioned scorched earth tactics, or through the role of planting and environmental remodelling – including the enclosure of territory in the name of environmental conservation – in land grabbing and dispossession (164) This perception is very relevant when thinking about the earth and our parks specifically. The environmental ‘remodelling’ that was involved in creating them and maintaining them is important to ‘unearth’, as it were. Furthermore, Gray and Sheikh note (2018) the ownership and utilization of so-called ‘public’ land like parks is often contentious. Why, for example, are so many parks used to host private, money-paying events such as fairs, concerts etc. when enshrined in many of their founding principles was the notion that they were ‘free’? The creative writer is in a unique position to show in an emotional and aesthetic way the impact that these iniquities have upon people by shaping narratives which illustrate the ways in which violence and dispossession have stripped people of their natural rights. To a certain extent science fiction has always done this – witness the blasted futuristic landscapes in so many sci-fi films. Recently though, some of our most powerful novels like Richard Powers’ The Overstory (2019), Kiran Millwood Hargave’s The Girl of Ink and Stars (2016), and Wu MingYi’s The Man with the Compound Eyes (2018) have focused specifically on environmental justice in very powerful ways.
Conclusion So, what is next for creative writers and creative writing educators in terms of their relationship with environmental matters? This article argues that a focus upon ecoliteracies will grow, and that creative writing has an inimitable part to play in making everyone more ecoliterate. Creative writing can be used to foster people’s ecoliteracies in many ways. The process of researching and writing creatively about the environment can help people better understand the facts and be used to explore serious ecological research. We saw this happening with the ‘I am the Universe’ Poetry Society project. It can also help people try to answer the question ‘where do we go from here?’ in imaginative ways as we saw with the 18 Writing in Education
Climate Museum UK’s creative writing workshop. Earlier this year in January 2021, Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States; his administration aims to tackle the climate crisis much more stridently than previous ones. His wife, Jill Biden, the First Lady, continues to teach writing at the university where she works. From NAWE’s perspective, this is welcome news. Maybe she will assist her husband by nurturing ecoliteracies in her students? References Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books.
Barton, D. (2007). Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. London: John Wiley & Sons. BBC (2021) Soundscapes for Wellbeing, URL accessed 28th January 2021: https://canvas-story.bbcrewind.co.uk/ soundscapesforwellbeing/
Bolton, G. (2014). Reflective practice: Writing and professional development (4th ed.). London: Routledge.
Budach, G., & Sharoyan, G. (2020). Exploring ‘vibrant matter’ in animation making. Language and Intercultural Communication, 20(5), 464-481.
Climate Museum UK (2021) Climate Museum UK, URL accessed 19th January 2021: https://climatemuseumuk.org/ Creese, A., & Martin, P. (2003) Multilingual Classroom Ecologies: Inter-relationships, Interactions and Ideologies, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6:3-4, 161-167, DOI: 10.1080/13670050308667778 Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. ([1987]2019). A Thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). London: Bloomsbury. Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers, Oxford, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1998.
Gray R. & Sheikh, S. (2018) The Wretched Earth, Third Text, 32:23, 163-175, DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2018.1483881 Hornberger, N. H. (2003). Afterword: Ecology and Ideology in Multilingual Classrooms. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6 (3&4), 296-302. http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/13670050308667787
Howell A.J., Dopko R.L., Passmore H-A., Buro K., (2011) Nature connectedness: Associations with well-being and mindfulness, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 51, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 166-171, ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. paid.2011.03.037. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ article/pii/S0191886911001711) McKenzie, B. (2021) Ecocapacities for reconnection, URL accessed 28th January 2021: https://bridgetmck.medium.com/ecocapacities-for-reconnection-db708555afb5 Mühlhäusler, T.(2020) Ecolinguistics. Ecolinguística: Revista Brasileira de Ecologia e Linguagem, v. 06, n. 01, p. 05-23, 2020 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/328030962.pdf
The Poetry Society (2021) Poetry & Climate Change, London: The Poetry Society, URL accessed on 19th January 2021: https:// poetrysociety.org.uk/education/cape-farewell/
The Poetry Society (2017) ‘I am the Universe: Writing environmental catastrophe’ London: The Poetry Society URL accessed 19th January 2021: https://issuu.com/poetrysociety/ docs/17_universe_anthology_issuu Richardson M, Cormack A, McRobert L, Underhill R (2016) 30 Days Wild: Development and Evaluation of a Large-Scale Nature Engagement Campaign to Improve Well-Being. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0149777. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149777
Stewart, A. (2020 November) GreenVideoExperiment2020, URL accessed 22nd January 2021: https://youtu.be/uc8_GQwIlJg
Tennyson, A. (1850) ‘In Memoriam’. The Literature Network. URL accessed 19th January 2021: http://www.online-literature. com/tennyson/718/ UNESCO (2021a) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO in brief - Mission and Mandate, URL accessed 18th January 2021: https://en.unesco. org/about-us/introducing-unesco
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2021: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_835236_ en.html Wilkinson, Hannah R and Jones Bartoli, Alice. 2020. Antisocial Behaviour and Teacher-Student Relationship Quality: The Role of Emotion-Related Abilities and Callous-Unemotional Traits. British Journal of Educational Psychology, ISSN 00070998 [Article] (In Press)
Wordsworth, W. (1799) The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind; An Autobiographical Poem, URL accessed 19th January 2021, The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ poems/45542/the-prelude-book-1-childhood-and-school-time Zelenski J., Dopko R.L., Capaldi C. Cooperation is in our nature: Nature exposure may promote cooperative and environmentally sustainable behavior, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 42, 2015, Pages 24-31, ISSN 0272-4944, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.01.005. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S0272494415000195)
Francis Gilbert was a teacher for twenty-five years in various UK state schools. He is the author of many books, including I’m A Teacher, Get Me Out Of Here (2004), Analysis and Study Guide: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2015), The Mindful English Teacher (2018) and Snow on the Danube (2019). He is now a senior lecturer in education at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is the course leader for PGCE English and the head of the MA in Creative Writing and Education. He is a member of the Higher Education Committee of the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. http://www.francisgilbert.co.uk/ https://www.gold.ac.uk/educational-studies/staff/gilbert/ Twitter: @wonderfrancis
Writing in Practice The journal publishes scholarly articles about practice and process that contextualize, reflect on and respond to existing knowledge and understanding. Volume 6 was in published May 2020 with Principal Editor: Derek Neale, and Volume Editors: Celia Brayfield, Francis Gilbert and Andrew Melrose. ISSN 2058-5535. It contained contributions from: Amina Alyal and Oz Hardwick; Leanne Bibby; Sean Fitzgerald; Michael Fox; Megan Hayes and Sophie Nicholls; Edward Hogan; Kevan Manwaring; Rose Michael, Michelle Aung Thin and Ronnie Scott; Liz Mistry; Graham Mort; Joanne Reardon. The issue’s guest article was by Jen Webb. Volume 7 will be published in May 2021. It is a Special Issue on Multimodal Writing with guest co-editor Josie Barnard. It is open access and available here https://www.nawe.co.uk/ writing-in-education/writing-at-university/writing-in-practice/current-issue.html
Volume 8 – submissions now open This volume to be published in May 2022. We are looking for articles about the art of imaginative writing from an authorial perspective. Articles should highlight evolving and current academic thinking and practice. Creative Writing itself is welcomed when integral to an article. Submissions should be 4-10,000 words long and include an abstract of up to 200 words. All submissions will be anonymously peer reviewed. See the contributor guidelines to submit your work via the submissions link: www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/writing-at-university/writing-in-practice.html The deadline for submissions is Midnight (GMT) on 27 June 2021 If you are interested in acting as peer reviewer for the journal, please send details of your expertise to the editorial board, c/o: admin@nawe.co.uk Writing in Practice is an open access, online journal that complements Writing in Education, the NAWE magazine distributed to its members. As the UK Subject Association for Creative Writing, NAWE aims to further knowledge, understanding and support research, teaching and learning in the subject at all levels. Writing in Education 19
Reflections on NAWE’s Virtual Open Space Fiona Mason WHAT IS THE STATE OF PLAY AND WHERE NEXT FOR WRITING IN EDUCATION AND COMMUNITIES? On Tuesday 17th November 2021, NAWE hosted an Open Space event on Zoom. Facilitated by Julia Payne from the hub, and Fiona Mason of NAWE. The event was motivated by a desire to provide writers working in education and community settings, both NAWE members and non-members, with an opportunity to gather, support one another and share ideas and challenges arising from the global crisis. With NAWE’s traditional November conference postponed to March 2021 due to the pandemic, it felt vitally important to provide some isolation busting activity, a place to talk about the challenges but also offer and share solutions. As Phelim from Devoted & Disgruntled says – Open Space is a way to “engage with the stuff… I only knew how to complain about before”. As it was, around 91 writers from around the UK and overseas attended across the event. Sessions were scribed by NAWE staff and management committee. Open Space was made possible thanks to a grant from Arts Council England’s Covid Emergency Response fund. So What is an Open Space Event? Open Space is a way running small to large scale participant driven events, where the participants create and manage the agenda themselves. It’s unique in that it allows participants to take ownership of ideas and the solutions they generate. Open Space convenes around a central question or provocation that’s relevant to the attendees. After hearing the provocation, participants enter a ‘market place’ where they trade ideas and build an agenda based on what feel like the most urgent questions. Every participant is free to propose a question or conversation in response to the provocation. Gradually, 20 Writing in Education
the agenda is created. Each conversation is led by the person who proposed it and they joined in a breakout room by anyone who is interested in contributing to it or learning from it. Open Space rests on four principles: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Whoever comes are the right people. Whenever it starts is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. When it’s over, it’s over.
These principles mean that Open Space is democratic and freeform. It can sometimes feel a little chaotic, but out of that churn, great ideas are formed. Open Space in Virtual Space Although we missed the familiar sense of community that usually defines an Open Space event, the pandemic has been all about finding ways to adapt to the new normal and finding those moments of opportunity that the online format presents. Being online meant lessening some of the usual barriers to attending an in person event, so it was a great opportunity for NAWE to bring together writers, writing organisations and others who make up our ever-evolving sector, from across the UK, to explore the future. We were also delighted that colleagues from overseas, including Ireland, Finland and Germany, were able to join us. Getting inside the challenges and opportunities we face as the world continues to wrestle with the uncertainty the pandemic brings, and in a post-Covid world, our hope was that the event would help foster the sharing of ideas, start to identify new solutions and bring us renewed hope. Themes that emerged from this Open Space helped to shape NAWE’s first Virtual Conference, which took place on 12-13 March 2021.
Collaboration = Innovation2 What has emerged as a strong theme throughout the pandemic, is the power of collaboration. We’ve all been forced to innovate as individual practitioners and as organisations, to find new ways to live and work to build a new normal. But that innovation is turbo-charged through collaboration. We were delighted to collaborate on Open Space with our project partner the hub www.thehubuk.com who we also worked with on NAWE’s pilot Action Learning programme. Open Space and Action Learning are both great examples of how much more can be achieved when we work together. It can feel hard when confronted with the isolation of successive lockdowns, which is why we felt it was so important to create moments of collaboration and connection. There is real power in recognising that collaboration is more than the sum of its parts. Provocations Open Space convened around the two-part question: What is the state of play and where next for creative writing in communities and education? We invited poets and facilitators Jasmine Gardosi https:// www.jasminegardosi.com and Caleb Parkin https:// couldbethemoon.co.uk to provide provocations in response.
Jasmine Gardosi suggested three things for the attendees to think about: Firstly, to celebrate the spaces that writer facilitators are offering. They are lifelines and they are needed. Secondly, to realise that writers who facilitate can lead the way, providing real examples of how these sorts of spaces can work. And thirdly, to consider how spaces can be made even better and safer. And she shared three things that she’s learned during the pandemic that feel really important to have in a space she’s providing as a facilitator. The first is having trust in students’ or participants’ creative instincts. Secondly, that the space is one of safety and acceptance. And finally, recognising the powerful need for community and the facilitator’s role in providing that.
Writing in Education 21
Conversations Agenda Participants listened to the provocations and then created an agenda of conversations inspired by the themes. 1. What is the future of children’s authors working in schools? 2. How different is teaching writing online and how do we keep people engaged, safe, effective? 3. How do we get script writing students into the industry? Caleb Parkin focussed on the museum as metaphor and as a map for reflecting on practice. Using a map of the floor plan of Bristol City Museum he adapted it to create the Museum of Creative Writing in Education in 2020. Caleb’s invitation was to walk through the museum, considering imagined spaces and objects as hooks for thinking about some important and timely themes. The metaphorical move was to create a tool for thinking about personal practice in relation to the writer facilitator’s role in wider society. How do we create safe, accessible spaces, who or what do we honour and remember, or let go of, how do we preserve our own practice and secure self-care whilst holding space for others.
4. What is the best and innovative thing you’ve been to and what can we learn and how can we use technology to facilitate and not be a barrier? 5. How do we deal with disinformation and critical thinking (or lack of) as creative writing teachers online? 6. How to develop interaction between introvert writers online? 7. How can we link with the mental health/wellbeing sector to ensure creative writing spaces are safe spaces? 8. How do we respond to confessional student writing: what are the boundaries and responsibilities? 9. What is the emerging evidence of the benefits of creative writing as a lifeline? 10. How has the experience of being in a pandemic affected people’s own writing?
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How are we feeling? At the end of the event we asked everyone to share with us on a virtual whiteboard how they were feeling. This is a cheerful reminder of why even on zoom, there’s power and strength in community. What Participants Said Thanks you for your great event today! What an atmosphere and virtual open space! It was so inspiring in this darkness of November. What a pity I had to run right after the second session. But ran happy and energetic as the conversation with the group was so lovely yet informative. Got a lot of new ideas and practices! A thoroughly inspiring session and time very well spent. It was great to share ideas with peers. Got lots of tips to avoid online fatigue in students and lots of questions answered. Also it was nice to be able to share my experience and feel I was helping others. Made me feel more confident that I do have some skills. I enjoyed the chance to meet with other children’s authors working in education, to compare notes and to exchange ideas for maintaining author visits in schools during and after lockdown. Such a lovely Zoomful of open-minded, enthusiastic people.
Though I’ve been a member for a long time, it’s the first occasion I’ve actually connected with others in the NAWE community. The most important thing I took from the Open Space was the interaction with other writers; the conversations in the break out rooms were particularly engaging and I had the chance to speak to people in other countries too. In one breakout room, there were four of us, me from the UK, and people from Ireland, Finland and Germany; it was very interesting to hear what they had to say about writing in education in their own countries. Feedback and learning from Open Space was vital in giving NAWE the confidence to shape and curate its first virtual conference, which took place 12-13 March, 2021. And we enjoyed it so much that we are considering making Open Space part of NAWE’s annual programme as a uniquely collaborative and democratic method of sharing ideas and challenges and finding solutions that can benefit all in our sector. Fiona Mason, Acting Director, NAWE You can read the full report here: https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education/ training-and-events/open-space.html
Fiona Mason is a writer and coach and during 2020-21 has been Acting Director of NAWE. With a special interest in life writing she facilitates creative writing and writing for wellbeing sessions and her current focus is on arts and healthcare. She co-founded writing development and publishing company Word After Word and has also worked in the UK arts sector for 25+ years where she continues to mentor and support a wide range of artists and organisations in theatre, live art, visual art, music and dance.
Writing in Education 23
Helping the Reluctant Writer Belona Greenwood WRITING FOR A REASON As a writer and creative practitioner, I have taught creative writing in schools and the community for over ten years and I have become familiar with the challenges of inspiring and engaging children who find writing difficult. I have found that sometimes this can be due to the mechanics of physically forming letters. The authors of a research paper on the Teaching of Cursive Writing in the first year of primary school point out the importance of automating the production of letters and words and the ‘cognitive constraint’ on higher order skills such as composing text1 if the child lacks those skills.
On one occasion I can remember using warm up activities to take a Year 4 class into hyper-drive. I used pictures of deep space, we listened to the soundscape of planets, we talked about life in other galaxies, and hot-seated aliens. The children had discussed their story ideas in pairs. We were on the launch pad, ready to zoom through the Milky Way primed for our writing adventure, when the class teacher stepped in. She listed what she wanted to see, a grammar manual in action. The spell was broken. The energy depleted. The children had returned to Planet Earth, they were no longer dancing in a nursery of stars.
In my personal experience a child can also feel defeated before they have even put pen to paper because confidence in their own writing skills are so low, reinforced by poor expectations. How is a child to enjoy writing when their teacher has informed me, in front of the child and the rest of the class that ‘this one’ is ‘weak’ in writing?
I am not denying the need for grammar and spelling, they are tools; but in my world, my job is to draw children into the adventure of writing, to nurture their imaginations and powers of invention, to play, experiment, to write confidently and freely and to always surprise themselves.
Sometimes, panic sets in and their imaginations slip away. Sometimes, this is because creative writing can be made so prescriptive that stories are expected to be written in a certain way, the teacher takes over the direction of their invention and allows little room for the child to express their unique selves. And don’t let me get started on the elevation of fronted adverbials above the joy of writing and playing with words. This is what Michael Rosen would call ‘writing by numbers.’ I often wonder how Educator Ken Robinson, who said ’creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same status,’ respond?
It was partly to meet that challenge of inspiring the reluctant writer that with artist, Kate Munro, we created The Flying Shop of Imagination. I wanted to make writing exciting and take it off the page; fuse writing with big, bold art. We used art not just to complement the text but to be an integral part of the writing. We created installations of birds with creation tales on their wings, angels populating a world of above and below, each with a story to tell and we created a labyrinth of lost letters. The Labyrinth of Lost Letters began as a project to explore the culture of letter-writing, the physical pleasures of writing, and the aesthetic beauty of handwritten letters. I invented a story about a postman
1 Semeraro C, Coppola G, Cassibba R, Lucangeli D (2019) Teaching of cursive writing in the first year of primary school: Effect on reading and writing skills. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0209978. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209978 24 Writing in Education
who presided over a sorting system for letters that were written but never sent. That was the original idea, but the project evolved into something far more real and illustrated the importance of giving real-life purpose to reluctant writers. Year 5s at a Norwich primary school were invited to write letters to a group of older people who met at the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library once a fortnight to look at old pictures and reminisce. The group, known as the Time Travellers, were from all walks of life and the group was willing to respond to letters written by Year 5 children. I held workshops with fifty Year 5 children and discovered that only twelve of this cohort had written a letter that wasn’t a thank you for a birthday or Christmas present. I was ready to introduce this lost form of communication to children enmeshed in social media. The children had a lot of fun discovering the contents of the first letter ever written, guessing the age of the first postage stamp, thinking about who they would most like to write a letter to and who they would like to receive a letter from. It was great fun and I found their answers surprising and sometimes very moving: My nan who is 100 in Jamaica, Gandhi, Barak Obama, The Queen, my grandad. We began by writing postcards describing a journey. I am writing from the deck of a boat that is currently sailing down the Danube River in Budapest. The bridges and the buildings that are lit up at night stand out like the stars in the sky. The wind is blowing so it is very chilly but beautiful. To write the letters, I asked the children to think of the recipient as a grandparent figure and to address them as Dear Time Traveller. I wanted to help those who found it difficult to start by simply describing where they were and see where their pens led them. ‘I am sitting at my desk by the window. My friend Charlie is next to me. He’s my best
friend and we play football most days…’ I asked them to think about asking questions. of writing about their lives, the sports they played, the games with their friends, the books they read. What I and their class teachers noticed was how every child was engaged and committed to writing their letters knowing that someone was going to read them. All the children participated. The letters were undistilled and natural. The children wrote what was in their hearts and their uppermost thoughts. Below are some examples: Dear Time Travellers, I try to live a normal life a lot, but I did get bullied a lot. I hate the dark but now I’m used to it. I had my light on and my mum and dad shut my door and closed my curtains now that it’s turning summer when it’s meant to be dark and when it’s night-time for us. I look out of my window and it looks like it’s daytime. I was born in London, Potter’s Bar. I am only 10 years old. Soon 11. My birthday is in November. I love going to school, friends and family. I have three brothers – little George is 7 years old, (me), 10 years old, Andrew the littlest, 6 years old, William is 12/13 years old and my sister, Eleanor is the oldest. See you, talk soon, Bye!!! Dear Time Travellers, I’m sitting here in my classroom thinking about what to write to you. At the moment, the most important thing to me is my dance class and all the shows I’m going to be in. I’ve got quite a hard decision to make – whether to do the Lord Mayor’s Procession with school or dance. If I do dance, we get breaks in between. Last time I was in the Lord Mayor’s Procession I carried a lizard puppet. Dear Time Travellers, My best day of my life I want to tell you was on my 3rd birthday when I got my first electronic. It was the new Xbox 360. I’m 9 now so the next Xbox is Xbox 1S – so there you go that was the best day of my life. The worst and coldest day of my life was when my dad and Writing in Education 25
mum left to live in different houses, and I was ill on that day so that made it worse. The Time Travellers received their letters in elaborately decorated envelopes and wrote their replies in group sessions with plenty of tea and biscuits. They shared the letters with each other. It was important that every individual child received a letter in an envelope addressed to them with a stamp and the Time Travellers responded to the children’s letters with warmth and insight. Dear, ‘It was very nice to receive your letters when some were read out. I was very impressed they were so real and from the heart. When I was your age at school, I liked maths, English and I loved sports. I grew up in a village at Ludham, in the countryside… ‘My job in the RAF was an analyst, when I first came across a computer, it was the size of a bungalow and had less capacity than your phone does… Dear S, I wish when I was your age at school that I had believed in myself a bit more. Thinking back to my time at school I wish I had asked more questions about different things. It’s not until you get older you realise these things in life. Never let anyone tell you that you are not good enough because you are. You must never let anyone bully you, it is not acceptable and you must report it.Of course, when I was your age we did not have any homework I was always playing outside, walking a lot, and I had some lovely friends. I grew up in a tiny village, in Ludham…. Another talked about being unkind to others. ‘When I was ten, I can remember being quite unkind to certain children who were in my class at school. I would laugh if they did something wrong and made themselves look silly. When I look back now, I think I should have sympathised with them. We can all remember embarrassing moments. Also, we should remember to be grateful for what other people do for us and not take things for granted. When I was ten we didn’t have so many treats as children do now. There was a war on, and everything was scarce…’ All the responses were heartfelt, and the children were thrilled to receive their letters. We put all the postcards and letters from this first exchange into an installation and it went on public display in the Millennium Library. Although the project had officially ended the letterwriting continued. After a couple of exchanges, we held a joint session at the library. Fifty Year Fives descended on about twenty-five Time Travellers. There was plenty of tea, squash, cake and shared activities, but actually, we could have left the activities out of it. The children were so excited to meet their letter-writers, all they wanted to do was to sit down and talk. The children learned about the lives of their grandparents’ generation and they learned about making mistakes, about friendship, respect and care. The children’s writing was received and responded to by the older people with such care and attention to what the children had written, no matter the spelling, or the use of grammar. Every child’s letter was a gift. Each child received a letter personally addressed to them with 26 Writing in Education
a photocopied stamp so they had the thrill of opening a letter and every letter was written to each child in response to their own words. The children were so excited when they got their first replies. The project gave something to everyone who took part. The Time Travellers shared their knowledge and experience, the children learned about the lives of others. It was a beautifully equal exchange. The feedback was encouraging and convinced me that giving reluctant writers a real-life purpose helped them to engage with the writing task and to feel valid no matter how fluently they wrote. ‘The letter writing activity that children participated in really did capture the children’s imagination and they produced excellent writing. What I really loved to see was the way that every child was validated despite ability – it has honestly been wonderful.’ Ella Barnes, Teacher, Norwich. The project went on to work with other schools and other groups of older people. In Wymondham, in Norfolk, we worked with a group of children who learnt about dementia and became dementia friends when they wrote letters to a group of dementia sufferers. ‘We so enjoyed meeting the bright and enthusiastic children of Ashleigh. They lifted all our spirits on Friday, as well as through reading, thinking about, and replying to the children’s delightful letters to us.’ Pippa Chapman, Wymondham Dementia Supporters’ Group. The children really benefitted from the experience too. ‘I am writing to thank you for an excellent visit last Friday. Although I have been involved in organising this project in school, I was unfortunately unable to attend. However, the children have come back filled with stories from their penpals and it really was a fantastic experience for them. Please pass on my thanks for the personal letters which were so inspiring for the children…’ Class Teacher, Ashleigh Primary School, Wymondham, Norfolk. It is a project we intend to continue when we are safely released from Lockdown. You can read more letters between children and the Time Travellers on our website. www.theflyingshopofimagination.co.uk
Belona Greenwood writes for stage and screen. She teaches creative writing in schools and the community through The Flying Shop of Imagination and has recently co-authored with Kate Munro a resource book, Adventures in Creative Writing for teachers and educators. Belona is the founder of Words and Women which supported and celebrated women writers in the East of England publishing six anthologies and organising eclectic literary events. Twice short-listed for Women in Publishing’s Pioneering New Venture award, Belona and co-organiser Lynne Bryan received a Norfolk Arts Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Arts.’
Any news (such as recent publications) to share with other NAWE members? please email to
publications@nawe.co.uk Writing in Education 27
From the Physical to the Virtual Matthew Tett MOVING AN ARTS FESTIVAL ONLINE AND THE IMPACT ON MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING We are living in unprecedented times, where our lives have changed significantly in little more than a year. Earlier in 2020, when the third StoryTown event was being planned, there was no discussion of it being an online, remotely delivered event. But now, when lockdowns are de rigueur, it is productive to think back and reflect on this time last year. Then, during early discussions, the focus was on venue suitability and the practicalities of face-to-face events, but now, having led the festival through a largely virtual weekend in October 2020, such concerns and uncertainties were perhaps not necessary. In other words, moving the festival to a predominantly online event went well, and worked for all in the best way one could hope for. StoryTown started life as a co-produced arts festival in 2018. It has been a joint venture between Arts Council England-funded Paper Nations, a writing incubator based at BathSpa University, and the Town Council in Corsham, a market town close to the World Heritage City of Bath. Since its inception, its focus has been to bring writing, and other arts, to the community—to increase access for all, and to empower people through different events. In 2020, the final year of the partnership, and with moving events to mainly online delivery, as was the case with many such events, the focus was quite different. From 2021, StoryTown is being financed through different funding streams due to Paper Nations’ funding not continuing.
Ellie Contreras’ creative response to Derek’s story about Oak Apple Day in Wiltshire 28 Writing in Education
Many art forms lend themselves to supporting people’s health and wellbeing, from playing music, to drawing and painting, through to performing on the stage. With StoryTown, the focus has always been largely on storytelling—but not exclusively. As with many arts events,
the intention is often to entertain—but with that comes the promotion of wellbeing, whether that is intentional, or perhaps more implicit. Many festival contributors have always had people’s wellbeing at the forefront of their plans—and in 2020, with the festival being largely online, this was more important than ever. With the global pandemic continuing to impact on life in many ways, the plans for 2021 will be similar; that is, we will reflect on successes (and things that did not go quite so well) and maintain a flexible approach, hoping for some face-toface events alongside virtual—largely depending on how things pan out throughout the year.
participants were able to reconnect with their younger selves, reliving earlier stages of their lives…’ and ‘Wellbeing was further enhanced by the participants knowing that they were making a positive contribution to their community by offering their very personal and easily understandable stories of day-to-day social history.’ In 2020, the same writer pre-recorded a reading from her debut novel, something that was made available on social media before, during and after StoryTown.
From the outset, some event providers were explicit about the role of health and wellbeing. A Corsham-based writer and lecturer set up the Corsham Creative Writing Laboratory in 2016 commented that one of her main aims was to ‘… develop understanding of the impact of creative writing on well-being and resilience, and of the role of empathy in mitigating prejudice.’ Her monthly drop-in sessions continue to engage a wide range of people, from teenagers through to those in their eighth decade. She said that ‘Many of the participants have found the sessions a safe place to explore memories, experiences and imagination and to feed back a sense of growing camaraderie and confidence.’ Such positively is fantastic, and the participants’ responses reflect the way the sessions helped—but these have never been solely linked to StoryTown; instead, they were examples of events that we have promoted, that tie in with StoryTown’s ethos.
Image from Pat Winslow and Peter Anderson’s spoken Word film ‘Hands’
Another local writer—who has her debut novel being published this year—led a series of sessions in the run-up to StoryTown 2019, with the title ‘Tadpoles, Picnics and Schooldays’. Here, the intention was different in that her sessions took place over a defined amount of time— and involved residents of a local care home. They were encouraged ‘… to remember their childhoods and share their memories and stories of what they did and how it felt. The sessions concentrated on ‘social interaction—the
In many ways, face-to-face events at an arts festival link effectively to promoting health and wellbeing. Perhaps this comes from working closely with participants, talking with them, helping with their progress. It is not so easy online, as has become the modus operandi in the global pandemic we are all living through. Or, perhaps it is a case of adapting, of changing one’s outlook, to get best results. In 2020, most Story Town’s events had to move online, using Crowdcast and Zoom as suitable platforms for delivery. Fortuitously, perhaps, some events, which were planned to be face-to-face initially, lent themselves to suiting their prospective audiences through online platforms. One event used yoga and combined it with free writing; another explicitly concentrated on writing for wellbeing and allowed participants to take techniques away with them for future use. Some sessions’ intentions were less obvious but, no doubt, helped with people’s mental wellbeing, from poetry readings, through to a live streaming of a performance by The Bookshop Band. Participants Writing in Education 29
commented on the value of being part of an online community, even if on a digital platform with strangers, for about an hour. It was clear that even though many people believe that being in the same place at the same time, in a physical sense, is necessary, to get the best experience, this was not the case. Of course, being physically present is brilliant and builds on solidarity and a sharing of interests, and it is healthy to see people in the flesh and to discuss reactions to events. However, remote workshops have the benefit of being accessible to many more people, including those who are house-bound or do not have the means to travel to events, therefore increasing the overall impact for more people. Virtual events put a whole new slant on what ‘local’ means and, for the foreseeable future, it is likely that such ways of working may well continue. Events do not have to take place over a specific short period of time to have an impact. In 2020, for example, we ran a writing competition— ‘If Only I Could’—which aimed to encourage entrants to consider what their life might have been like if we had not gone into lockdown: an opportunity to engage with escapism, to approach in a fantastical way, or perhaps with something more sober. In addition, a local poet ran a poetry competition on the theme of peacocks—a familiar sight in Corsham—which resulted in close to 150 entries. Writing as an activity is a great way of improving one’s wellbeing. A quotation that resonates (accessed on www.writingandwellness. co.uk) is ‘Somehow, in letting go and learning to love… characters… I learned to love those parts of myself, too.’ Seemingly, engaging with writing tasks is a great way to help with one’s wellbeing and this is something which I believe we should all be hanging on to and promoting as much as possible—very much like many of the events from StoryTown 2020.
with the title ‘Smile Inside’—which encouraged people to engage with things that make them smile; a poetry ‘takeaway’ event; and a song-writing workshop. In previous years, it was easier to raise the profile of events which encouraged health and wellbeing—and participating in such events can help, regardless of the topic, theme, or workshop content. With the move to online events, there was obviously the concern of people not knowing enough about technology, of things having less impact, or would-be users experiencing fatigue regarding platforms used for delivery. However, over the past year, there have been many successful examples of events which have moved online, from the worldrenowned Hay Festival through to English: Shared Futures. We have all had to adapt in so many ways—and even though such prospects can be daunting and scary, embracing this will, I believe, result in positive outcomes and experiences for many. Furthermore, it may well be here to stay, depending on the situation with Covid-19. Too much online time is not good—but it is also a great way of enriching one’s experiences and I believe that this is fundamental to health and wellbeing if, like everything, it is in moderation. References www.writingandwellness.com – accessed 17/02/2021
Despite most events being online, we were lucky to be able to host some face-to-face events. One was a follow on from 2019’s ‘The Poetic Imagination’, led by a local visual artist. Evidently, this event had to have limited numbers due to Covid-19 and government restrictions but one of this session’s main aims was to allow participants to feel ‘welcome and valuable’. The sharing nature of this session allowed people’s self-confidence to develop, in addition to comments that the workshop enabled people to feel ‘refreshed… with a renewed sense of wonder.’ Other events that linked in with wellbeing last year included a series of sessions and workshops
Matthew Tett is a teacher and freelance writer living in the south-west of the UK. He is also Writing in Education’s Reviews Editor. Since its inaugural year in 2018, Matthew has coordinated the StoryTown book festival in Corsham, near Bath. He also writes short fiction.
30 Writing in Education
I’m a writer and … Trevor Day & Ursula Canton RECONCILING IDENTITIES: WORKING IN THE SPACE BETWEEN WRITING AND TEACHING Like it or not, most of us cannot make a living from writing alone. In my own career, there was a time when I could. I (TD) could write two to four books a year and make a living wage. That balance has shifted. With the emergence of the world wide web, by the late 1990s I could see that those illustrated non-fiction books I loved writing so much – everything from The Teach Yourself Guide to Sex (yes, really) to Savage Earth – would probably be replaced, in part at least, by information online. That material might not be as rigorously researched or elegantly formulated and crafted, but it would be free to the end user, or nearly so, and could be retrieved at a distance. I could see the writing not so much as on the wall as in the ether. In response, and to help secure future employment, in the early 2000s I returned to academia part-time and registered for a doctorate in education. Even before I submitted my thesis, the department realised they had a professional writer in their midst and had me running writing workshops for doctoral students. Soon after, I became a Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Writing Fellow giving one-to-one tutorials alongside facilitating writing workshops as an independent trainer while continuing as a professional writer. Building on these experiences and the skill set I’d developed over more than 30 years – as a field scientist, then non-fiction writer, qualified teacher and educational researcher – prepared me to set up a programme to train professional writers to run writing workshops in universities. The transformation from writer to writer-educator I’d undergone myself is one I wanted to foster in others. The RLF Consultant Fellows’ programme, that I co-devised and then led, trained a diverse community of writers drawn from RLF Writing
Fellows to work with universities. That community of writers and the way they resolve their dual roles as writers and educators is the focus of this article. Writers facilitating learning The Royal Literary Fund’s Fellowship programme places established writers in UK universities where they serve as one-to-one writing tutors to complement in-house writing support. Since 1999, around five hundred authors have worked as RLF Writing Fellows offering one-to-one tutorials in over 150 higher education institutions. However, such tutorials can only reach a comparatively small proportion of students. To have wider impact, with both university students and staff, the RLF set up the Consultant Fellowship programme in 2013. Selected RLF Writing Fellows joined a nine-month programme in which they trained as independent consultants to run writing workshops in universities (Day and Swinburne, 2017). Since that initial training, fifty writers have qualified as Consultant Fellows (CFs) of whom 30 remain on the CF register and between them work with some 60 UK universities and research centres. They are a highly eclectic group, ranging from poets, novelists and dramatists, to biographers and science writers. Their backgrounds are as diverse as the range of interventions they offer. Some CFs work with undergraduates, offering highly interactive workshops – formerly face-to-face, now online. Undergraduate workshop themes range from essay-writing to critical thinking. Others work with postgraduates, offering interventions of between two hours and several days, focusing variously on writing Writing in Education 31
dissertations, theses or academic papers, or encouraging them to engage with the wider public through blogs, books or magazine and newspaper articles. A number of CFs work with staff, inspiring them to write more impactful research papers, more successful grant proposals, or devising better strategies for drawing out the writing potential of their students. Immersives are a particular CF offer, rather like on-campus writing retreats, but with workshops on certain days and students completing tasks and attending one-to-one tutorials on other days. All such learning interventions are finetuned for the target participants and evaluation scores and written feedback are gathered from participants afterwards. One thing characterises all CFs. First and foremost, they are writers. Secondarily, they are learning facilitators. Although each has their specialisms as a writer, when they work as a CF in universities they are focusing on functional writing: the writing assignments and tasks students and staff normally undertake in their working week. Many CFs dislike calling themselves ‘teachers’ preferring the term learning facilitator or writing developer. We are ‘drawing out’ rather than ‘putting in’, co-constructing knowledge with university students and staff; this reflects the ethos behind the CF training. CFs keep presenting to a minimum and actively encourage discussion and questioning. They build in plenty of opportunities for groupwork, personal reflection and writing. In CF learning interventions, typically 55–65% of the time is activity-based.
Image 2. Consultant Fellows’ workshops can be holistic, whole-body experiences
Investigating a unique community In working with universities, the usual focus of CFs is on functional writing, However, rigorous and holistic research on the medium- to long-term effect of writing development interventions in universities is comparatively scarce (Kornhaber et al, 2016; TremblayWragg et al, 2021). Given this sparsity, research on the effectiveness of CF learning interventions may have a valuable contribution to make. How and to what extent do the writing behaviour and conceptions of university students and staff change after attending one or more writing development interventions? This seems an important question given that writing lies at the heart of much academic endeavour, as both process and product. For the university, another consideration must be the cost-effectiveness of any writing development intervention – especially, where outside agencies are involved. The RLF is keen to explore the medium- to long-term impact of learning interventions led by CFs. As a starting point, we wanted to find out more about the CF community itself. How do these writers reconcile their writing and educational identities? What are their motivations and influences? What do CFs think they are bringing to the learning experience of university students and staff that is different to what other educators provide? To undertake this research, we wanted to collaborate with an ‘insider’: someone with research interests and expertise complementary to my own as a CF, and who could represent the university context. In this, we found Dr Ursula Canton, a learning developer at Glasgow Caledonian University (see box).
Image 1. In the Consultant Fellows’ training, trainees are encouraged to consider what encourages learning, and discourages it, based on their own experience 32 Writing in Education
Ursula Canton, research collaborator I would not call myself a writer, even though there hasn’t been a time in my professional life when I was not writing. My first steps as a PhD student in Theatre Studies were as dependent on writing as my current role as a writing developer. My writings encompass small blog entries and teaching materials. My publications include peer-reviewed research articles and a monograph based on my doctoral thesis. Yet writing has never been the main point. It is a necessary step to communicate what I have discovered as a researcher or to share my expertise as a teacher. I might be writing, but, unlike CFs, I do not feel I am writer. In my role as a writing developer I research and teach writing in HE. So why am I particularly interested in collaborative research into the role of CFs? Is it just curiosity and wanting to know what the ‘competition’ can offer? I do not see CFs as direct competition. We might teach in similar contexts, but our backgrounds and viewpoints are very different. My teaching emphasises insights into writing gained through research and my experience in working with academic writers. CFs, on the other hand, while also hopefully drawing upon relevant research and teaching, bring their experience as a professional writer to the fore. Writing is at the core of their professional identity. These different perspectives shape our teaching, and in doing so our contributions can complement each other, they need not compete. My field of research is writing and the teaching of writing, and as a good researcher, I cannot help wanting to find out more: What are we teaching? Why do we need to teach that? What are we missing? What works best in a particular context? Working with the RLF on evaluating the impact of their CF programme allows me to answer such questions in a wider context. This should yield fresh insights above and beyond those we glean from university staff.
To investigate how CFs self-identified, as well as their motivations and practices, in autumn 2019 22 CFs with at least 3 years’ experience after qualifying completed an in-depth questionnaire. Working within BERA (British Educational Research Association) research guidelines, CFs were offered a book voucher for their voluntary participation and 22 of the 23 qualifying CFs accepted the offer and shared their perspective with us in great detail. The survey questions began by exploring what their role as a Consultant Fellow enables them to do, the relationship between being a writer and being a CF, how one impacts on the other, and what personal factors limit the amount of CF work they undertake. Further questions explored their practice in running a specific workshop, what factors shape their workshop design, and how they would know whether they had been
successful in running it. The final questions drilled down into their experience of being a CF. To what extent did they consider the writing challenges that students and staff face were similar to those CFs experience, in their professional writing lives? What qualities do they bring as a Consultant Fellow that non-CFs (other outsiders or university staff) are unlikely to bring? In their work as a CF, what are the biggest frustrations they face? What gives them the greatest satisfaction? Here we focus on three aspects of the CF responses: how CFs reconcile their dual roles; how one role feeds into the other (or doesn’t); and the benefits of being part of a professional community whose members are both writers and educators. Reconciling the two roles: writer and learning facilitator Writers are an unusual breed. Creative writers especially, such as novelist and poets, are willing to spend years developing their craft, with comparatively little likelihood of gaining commercial success (Gouthro, 2015). They are willing to confound Maslow’s hierarchy (Maslow, 1962), choosing to self-actualise in their chosen vocation as a writer rather than live a more comfortable life with relative security. Writers bring this dedication to the craft in their practice as educators, and with it, knowledge of the practical and emotional side of bringing text to fruition, sometimes against tight deadlines and for very specific requirements. Consultant Fellows operate in the ‘Third Space’ with ‘identities drawn from both professional and academic domains’ (Whitchurch, 2009, p.407). The sociallyand psychologically-constructed nature of identity (Jenkins, 2014) is slippery and changing, both for educationalists and writers, in response to the evolving work environment (Trede et al, 2012; Gouthro, 2015). For example, many writers have had to radically change the way they work, the artefacts they create, and the way they promote themselves, with the rise of the internet age. In the last year, educators in HE have moved to working largely or entirely online. The shifts in role prompt more or less subtle changes in identity. Against this background of change, Consultant Fellows, like most other writers, appreciate that they cannot devote themselves entirely to writing. For one novelist: ‘Second to my writing, [being a CF] has become my primary focus.’ For many CFs, doing educational work provides the income that supports the writing they most love to do. For one journalist and novelist: In short, being a CF enables me to be a writer […] Being a CF allows me to continue to identify as a writer, and now also as a writer-trainer which are complementary rather than at odds with each other. For a novelist, creative non-fiction writer and journalist: Being a Consultant Fellow allows me to plan my time in a predictable way. […] This clarity, and the consequent ability to lock down income for a given year, is invaluable to a freelance writer. Writing in Education 33
And for one novelist: For me, part-time, freelance work that pays well allows me to maximize my time for writing. CF work has offered me the best rate of pay that I’ve ever had, and so frees up more time for my own work. A few CFs strongly compartmentalize their CF work, such as this dramatist: Immersive interventions […] work better for me in terms of my own writing practice: you prepare, deliver, and report on a retreat, for example, and that will take perhaps three weeks of intense and exclusive focus; but that time can be ring-fenced so that it leaves you free before and after. I’d rather this than the steady weekly engagement that somehow always runs into what should be a teaching-free day. Another CF – a journalist and creative non-fiction writer – adopts a similar approach. She prefers to work intensively with doctoral students on multi-day retreats or immersives (or their online equivalent) so that she is either working more or less ‘full-on’ as a writer/editor or ‘full-on’ in her writing development role. As she explains: … for me, teaching/coaching uses the same part of my brain as I need for my own writing. So, I find the CF work can sometimes leave me more drained and with less time for my own writing than I’d wish. Strongly compartmentalising the two roles – writer and learning facilitator – is one solution to resolving tension. However, for most CFs the two roles are much more integrated across the year, and they find themselves managing their writing and their educational work week on week. The success of CF work can create its own problems. For one creative non-fiction writer: ‘I put my writing first. Last year, my CF work took up too much time so this year I am cutting back, since I want to get a new book started.’ And for a poet and academic writer, balancing CF work with writing: I do feel my own [writing] should always be my top priority, and […] this was quite difficult to sustain. Equally, at times my own work becomes extremely demanding, as for instance when completing a new book. This too can create tension between the two activities, especially because I value them both. Despite these difficulties, for many CFs, being an educator does not just pay the bills and create time and space for writing. There are great pay offs in terms of satisfaction and fulfilling a sense of mission. Entering the domain of HE brings its own rewards, working with students and staff, as this poet reports: Also, meeting a wide range of people in HE, coming away with a sense of what’s going on, what they do, and of how interesting it all is. For this journalist and novelist: I love running the sessions! I really enjoy and find great satisfaction in enabling people to find new 34 Writing in Education
ways to approach their writing and to find new ways of solving problems with their writing! I love giving an injection of creativity into academic writing, which can get bogged down in dry language and facts. And for this novelist and children’s fiction writer: As a writer I’m on a lifelong quest to improve my writing not to just find a quick fix. I love seeing the joy students experience when you allow them to think freely, to explore and play with ideas before writing anything. The interplay between writing and facilitating learning Most CFs have found synergistic ways of navigating a course between their writerly and educational identities. For example, many have discovered powerful parallels in the processes of writing in the two settings. For one CF, who is a journalist, short story writer and novelist: The relationship between my work as a CF and my creative writing is mutually beneficial. Being a published writer means I am accustomed to developing my own work to a publishable standard – to editing and being edited. I’m also used to the emotional journey of preparing writing for a readership. I’m used to working with narrative, and to the kind of problem-solving necessary to finish both long-form and short-form fiction. I’ve had to give careful to consideration to issues like voice, narrative tension, clarity and flow. I pay careful attention to the things that can keep a reader paying attention – to the length of sentence and to their rhythm, for example. This kind of attention to detail is important for all kinds of writing, including academic writing. For a journalist and copywriter: Believe me there are many overlaps [between writing and CF work], particularly for someone like me whose career has been predominantly writing for a specific audience. Academics these days are expected to be accomplished writers / journalists / editors (often unfairly, in my view). For many respondents to the research survey, their CF work informs and invigorates their writing. For that journalist and copywriter: I’ve found teaching academic writing has improved my own writing, especially clarity of thinking and expression, and editing. While for a novelist and copywriter: [Being a CF] encourages me to read more widely than I would otherwise have done – and some of my learning on clarity and precision has been applicable to my own writing. Being part of the CF community, and working with other CFs on co-delivering courses, brings other rewards. For a creative non-fiction writer: Working closely with a [CF] colleague […] and immersing myself in the writing of gifted students generates energy and new ideas that often feed
into my own work. She adds: Most of my CF work is in immersives. Each one takes a week or so of close collaboration with a colleague to prepare, and much of the following week to deliver. […] Being a CF is a brilliant antidote to the isolation of writing. The strengths of being part of a practice-based community Reconciling the two identities is strengthened by being part of a community of practice. From inception the 9-month CF training was designed around the notion of developing a professional community of practice (Wenger, 1998). Trainees went through shared ‘rites of passage’ when they designed and implemented workshop activities, and each trainee observed and was observed by all the others, with constructive 360-degree feedback an integral part of the process. They all participated in each other’s workshops, and they all observed one another working with students. Through these shared experiences, emerging CFs bonded as a community. Once qualified, they joined the wider CF community in which all members hold equivalent standing. All are encouraged to participate through running meetings, contributing to online forums, and composing blog items for students and staff, published on the CF website. Prior to March 2020, CFs met twice a year in their region, and once every 2-3 years nationally. At the national events many CFs ran workshop sessions to share and explore good practice – everything from using walks and observing nature to shift mental state and encourage creativity, contemplation and reflection, to specific techniques for comparing star-rated research papers to highlight their effectiveness in revealing originality, significance and rigour – Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment criteria (REF, 2021). Many CFs were well aware of the value in being part of this peer community. For this creative non-fiction writer: I was co-leading an immersive recently when I decided to take part in one of the exercises my colleague was leading. Students were working on live text from their own theses, and as my manuscript was on my laptop, I decided to use that. The power of this process astounded me, and I came away so inspired that I continued work on my own manuscript all the way home on the train. She finishes: […] becoming a CF has had an enormous impact on my personal and professional life. I used to feel isolated as a writer and I no longer do. I find the work fascinating and hugely rewarding. The income I earn from it is vital, and the energy it generates is an inspiration. In March 2020, as campuses shut down, being a member of the CF community became invaluable. Very quickly CFs were meeting online to solve the problems around
transforming face-to-face workshops to an online equivalent. Most CFs have risen to the online challenge and are working closely with their university clients to support students at this particularly difficult time. Many CFs have gravitated to similar solutions, using video conferencing, especially Zoom, for highly interactive sessions of 90- or 120-minutes with up to 18 participants. Polling and break out rooms for groupwork became common ingredients. Flipping, getting participants to do pre-session activities which are then followed up on within the sessions, has been favoured by some. Flipping reverses the common practice of introducing new material ‘in class’ and then doing assignments based on that material either in class or for homework. Instead, participants can be asked to read specified background materials beforehand, watch an introductory video pre-recorded by the facilitator, or undertake preliminary tasks such as reflecting on their current writing challenges. Flipping means that the online sessions can be more focused on group activities and discussion, rather than on solo work or informationgiving. Even several-day activities, such as immersives and writing retreats, can be broken down into online wholegroup sessions, interspersed by participants writing on their own or working online in small groups, complemented by workshop leaders seeing participants for one-to-one online tutorials. Such strategies have helped compensate for the lack of conventional faceto-face contact. Indeed, most CFs are busier than ever, working closely with university staff to problem-solve how to address the multiple challenges of students at this time – including gently nurturing their emotional resilience through setting up supportive online writing groups. Twice-yearly regional CF meetings became superseded by more regular online meetings catering for the whole community, and organised by a different CF each time. Initially, these meetings responded to the practicalities of running workshops. The meetings themselves developed into a test bed for trying out different functionalities of the webinar software. Gradually the meetings evolved into two distinct kinds, reflecting the dual nature of being a writer and being a CF. Themed sessions centre on aspects of the CF role, such as giving and receiving feedback online and how best to help students foster self-supporting online writing groups. The other strand, the ‘creativity booster’ sessions, are geared towards the ‘writerly’ side, and maintaining literary productivity during lockdown. Inevitably, there are overlaps between the two strands. Creativity can benefit CF work, and tackling prosaic problems with CF work can feed into maintaining productivity as a writer.
The special qualities that CFs bring Identity operates at many levels. As writers we are familiar with the emotional challenges of struggling to put words on paper, and as CFs we can identify with Writing in Education 35
workshop participants experiencing that struggle. We can provide reassurance and offer possible strategies borne of experience. But identity also finds expression in the words we write. As Hyland (2016, p. 44) proposes, in the context of writing, ‘identity is a performance’. When we write, Hyland continues, we are: […] constructing ourselves as credible members of a particular social group, so that identity is something we do; not something we have. Almost everything we say or write, in fact, says something about us and the kind of relationship we want to establish with others. Day (2018, pp. 25–26) takes up this theme: When writing academically, we are not just writing within a discipline, we are writing for particular kinds of people within that discipline. […] […] identity in writing is an interplay between what we are bringing to a writing task, in terms of what we disclose consciously and unconsciously about ourselves through our writing, and how we are seeking to engage with, and satisfy, the community of readers for whom we are writing. Arguably, there is always a tension between expressing yourself as you might wish to, and conforming to certain conventions of the disciplinary community for whom you are writing. CFs are particularly well placed to navigate this territory and encourage students and staff to develop their ‘voice’ within the boundaries of what is acceptable within academic discourse in their discipline. As a creative nonfiction writer explains: I think it immensely important that we are professional writers, and I believe this is our greatest strength as CFs. As outsiders, we have greater freedom than other writing trainers, and academic staff. We know about the system but we are not part of it, and I think this makes our interventions refreshing, and even exciting for participants. As professional authors we depend on writing for our survival, and this is a particular strength because it means we know what works in the real world, outside university. And for one poet, who is both a CF and a university staff member: I can offer a creative solution to problem solving. I can use the elements of storytelling and writing poetry to create texts and I have in depth knowledge of writing for different audiences. All these elements may not be available to other purely academic staff or those with a professional background. Focusing on voice, narrative and protagonist – concerns of most professional writers – is something that an academic might not consciously bring to bear. But a CF can explore this with workshop participants, in a writing group setting or in one-to-one tutorials. Doing so can help bolster an undergraduate essay or doctoral thesis. It can make all the difference between success and failure when writing a grant proposal or an academic 36 Writing in Education
journal article. For example, when working with doctoral students and early career researchers I (TD) sometimes focus on choice of protagonist. Voice and viewpoint can be shaped more or less consciously. I use the real-life example of a colleague who works with stakeholders in malaria control and prevention. When writing about the success of a project, choosing the protagonist – the person, group, idea or object that is most changed over the course of the story – can transform the writing. By switching protagonist – the research team, the village community affected by malaria, the malaria parasite itself, or the mosquito that transmits it – the story can be told in the most powerful way for a particular purpose and readership.
Image 3. The protagonist
And finally, CFs can offer inspiration for those students and staff who might never have thought of themselves as writers. Many students may not have had the opportunity to work closely with a writer. For Billet et al (2010), having contact with someone in your zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1962) can be a powerful influence on choice of career. A writer who has trod the path before you can inspire you to choose a career that involves writing as the primary means of expression. For many other students – especially those who are not studying English Literature or English Language – the involvement of a professional writer brings focus to writing as something worthy of exploration, both for inspiration and for making explicit the hidden rules and assumptions underlying expression in a specific discipline. ------------In 2013, when the Royal Literary Fund set out to train RLF Writing Fellows to become learning facilitators, running writing workshops in universities, it was by no means certain that writers would find a way of accommodating the two roles – writer and educator – while working as independent consultants. That thirty remain in the CF community, and between them are working with more than 60 HEIs with many gaining substantial income from CF work, testifies to the success of the scheme. Those who have left the CF community have done so for good reasons: either to focus more or less full-time on writing, because they have gained employment in universities as creative writing lecturers, or because of retirement or ill health. The resilience of the CF community has truly been tested since it was set up. The HE landscape has shifted.
Research and teaching staff in universities have become more aware of the need to be highly engaged and responsive as educators, with many more having gained at least Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) status (Botham, 2018; AdvanceHE, 2021). Those who commission external providers have become more discriminating. With that, more teaching provision has shifted in-house. Being a dilettante educator, dipping in and out to offer the occasional inspirational workshop, might have worked several years ago, but not any more. At the same time, course curricula have become more integrated, blending face-to-face and online learning. This was happening well before the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the move to online learning since, the shift has deepened. The CF community is well placed to respond. CFs are able to navigate between their roles as writers and educators, and to do so in multiple ways that reflect their preferred practices as writers, whether in a highly compartmentalised manner or in a more integrated way, combining the two roles week on week. With a strong and healthy core in the CF community, meeting regularly online, CFs continue to learn from and support one another but now with greater urgency. If CFs are to continue to be successful – both in terms of their own income and in benefiting students and university staff – uppermost in their minds must be understanding the problems of their clients, and collaborating closely with those clients to help solve them. The value of CFs needs to be even more strongly evidence based. With that in mind, the next step is an holistic study of the effectiveness of the more intensive CF interventions, from the perspective of postgraduate participants.
References AdvanceHE (2021). Fellowship. Available from: https://www. advance-he.ac.uk/fellowship accessed Feb 1, 2021 Billett, S., Newton, J. and C.M. Ockerby (2010). ‘Socio-personal premises for selecting and securing an occupation as vocation’, Studies in the Education of Adults, 42(1), 47–62. Botham, K.A. (2018). ‘The perceived impact on academics’ teaching practice of engaging with a higher education institution’s CPD scheme’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 55(2), 164–175. Day, T. (2018). Success in Academic Writing. 2nd ed. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Day, T. and D. Swinburne. (2017). ‘Getting someone in: The role of blended professionals in HE writing development’, Educational Developments, 18(3), 20–24. Gouthro, P. (2015). ‘Who gets to be a writer? Exploring identity and learning issues in becoming a fiction author’, Studies in Continuing Education, 36(2), 173–187. Hyland, K. (2016). Teaching and Researching Writing. 3rd ed. Abingdon, UK; Routledge. Jenkins, R. (2014). Social Identity. 4th ed. London: Routledge. Kornhaber R., Cross, M., Betihavas, V. and H. Bridgman (2016). ‘The benefits and challenges of academic writing retreats: an integrative review’, Higher Education Research and Development, 35(6), 1210–1227. Maslow, A.H. (1962). Toward a Psychology of Being. Princeton, USA: D. Van Nostrand Company. REF 2021 (2021). REF 2021 home page. Available from: https:// www.ref.ac.uk/ accessed Feb 1, 2021 Trede, F., Macklin, R. and D. Bridges (2012). ‘Professional identity development: a review of the higher education literature’, Studies in Higher Education, 37(3), 365–384. Tremblay-Wragg, E., Chartier, S.M., Labonté-Lemoyne, E., Déri, C. and M-E. Gadbois (2021). ‘Writing more, better, together: how writing retreats support graduate students through their journey’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(1), 95-106. Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, USA: MIT Press. Wenger. E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Whitchurch, C. (2009). ‘The rise of the blended professional in higher education: a comparison between the UK, Australia and the United States’, Higher Education, 58(3), 407-418. Acknowledgements: Dr Anna Barker, Ann Coburn, Dr Heather Dyer and Dr Morag Joss, for e-conversations about ‘writerly’ identity.
Dr Trevor Day, originally a marine scientist and science writer, is now a social scientist, writing developer and an academic author and nature writer. In his spare time he is inclined to dive into a river or the sea given the slightest opportunity. His latest books are Success in Academic Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd ed) and Sardine (Reaktion Books), a multidisciplinary appraisal of this modest but important fish. He thrives on helping others unleash the power and precision of their writing, especially doctoral students and earlyto mid-career researchers. Trevor is Director of the Royal Literary Fund’s Consultant Fellows’ programme. Dr Ursula Canton’s career built upon but also moved away from her original disciplines in literature and linguistics (in various European languages) and then her PhD about British theatre. Circumstances and life choices led her back to language (just English this time), and she now teaches and researches academic writing at two Scottish HEIs. While the theatre connection gives her kudos when working at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, it is not something she mentions regularly when working with construction students or engineers at Glasgow Caledonian University. Writing in Education 37
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03/03/2021 12:44
Vernal At the edge of the turf In the leaf mould wet The earthworm feels the end of the world nigh And decides to extrude a red slow muscle Out of crumbling brown bank. I am silenced by its size, Pointing, ridged, glass-slick And give it right of way, but not the creeping buttercup. Last autumn, the caterpillar of the pale tussock moth shocked us: African mask over brown dimpled path Red, orange, yellow and black gashes Eating their bodyweight Our ancient oaks giving out To bracken-on-mountain. We did not touch, Only two weeks ago the razorcut edges Of fields were slumbered in drifts. I hear the Bombus sink its body in heather, And it starts to rain again, after my window is dark But gentler now, Its work was done all winter. This garden tingles in my hands All night, while I type-Urticacious be thy pillow! Green electric, green electric.
Suzanne Iuppa is a poet and conservationist working in the Dyfi Valley, mid Wales. She has taught creative writing in non-formal settings since 2012, specialising in rural outreach and creative health for carers. Poems, essays and reviews are forthcoming in Words for the Wild, Poetry Wales and Natur Cymru. All year Suzanne is a columnist for Spelt, a new literary magazine celebrating and validating rural life. She is a member of NAWE Community Writers Sub-Committee and her poetry is nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize. This summer, she will be offering workshops as Writer-in-Residence at Newtown Textile Museum. Twitter: @wildernesspoet
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Celebrating prose written by a creative writing participant Below is a prose piece written by Chrissie Borland, a participant of an adult writing group I facilitated on 14 October 2020, the fourth session in a five-week course. In this session, we looked at an extract from Elizabeth Baines’ short story A Glossary of Bread, the participants each choosing a category to generate a brief glossary for their own short story (suggestions included types of flower, tool, musical instrument, items of stationery, retro sweets). I wanted to highlight this as an example of the richly varied responses, celebrating the work produced in a class of mixed ability adults who each crafted their own story from a glossary, some of it clearly autobiographical; other stories, as with this piece, straddling the boundary between memory and unfettered imagination. I have not checked whether or not the types of fungi exist – I wanted to leave the writing as it had emerged. Chrissie has attended several writing courses, and what struck me here was a fluent narrative underscored by poetic rhythm. It could be read as a prose poem and/or a piece of flash fiction. I obtained Chrissie’s written permission to share the piece. Reference Baines, E. (2003). Available from: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/GlosBrea.shtml [Accessed 2 October 2020]
FUNGI Fungi: mysterious fruiting bodies, easily decomposed and rendered to slime, some eatable, some poisonous, secret and seductive. Autumn, time of change, rich colour falling into winter, a creeping dampness and a darkness. Black Vein There we were trudging in a file on our Sunday nature walk, notebooks dangling round our necks on pieces of string, pencils tethered to our wrists with elastic bands. My father shouts in triumph, “see, Stevie, the black vein.” Raised ribs coursing over the dome, sticky droplets on the surface. “Write it down Stevie, write it down.” I manage to scribble two words because all I can see are my grandmother’s ancient hands trembling on the counterpane, forever moving; pale, papery skin, those black veins. Her querulous voice: “who are you little one? Kiss me.” Dribble on her whiskery chin, my aunts hastening in with a basin and towel, shooing me away. Butter Ball Over the rickety style and out into Long Brownden Field, picking our way through thistles and nettles. “What luck!” cries Father. “These are rare butter balls. Pick one, we’ll have it for our tea. Note it, Stevie.” Beautiful damask globes nestling amongst the sheep muck. Warm and taut as Mother’s belly swollen with my little brother. Her plaintive voice, “come and sit with me little one, kiss me.” Powder on her downy cheek. Wanting to be back in the attic building’s musty rooms amongst the towers of books. Fly Agaric Up the steep slope into Marginals Wood, slithering round the water-filled ruts in the track. At last, fly agaric. Under browning bracken, almost hidden amongst leafy detritus. My father has not seen them. Dangerous red with liverish white spots, sweating, poisonous. I fall behind. How many would I need, just how many would I need, for my father’s tea? Chrissie Borland, October 2020 Gabrielle Mullarkey is an adult learning tutor in creative writing. She works as a creative writing tutor for Buckinghamshire Co Council Adult Learning and The Mill Arts Centre in Banbury, and runs ad hoc groups in her local area. She has had over 1,800 short stories published, in addition to three novels – the most recent of which, Four Riddles for Jane Austen & Her Artful Maid Tilly (2017) reimagined one of her favourite writers as a sleuth with a sparky sidekick.
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Wendy’s Tortoises Let’s thank our lucky stars we live in Wendy’s garden. Imagine if we were in Veronica’s! She’d put us on shitty rations or no rations at all. No rations at all says the parrot who’s been brought into the garden to enjoy the sunshine What if we strayed into Veronica’s garden by mistake? Don’t even think about it. Don’t even think about it, the sun-kissed parrot says. We wouldn’t have organic lettuce says the first tortoise. Yum, organic lettuce, says the other. You know what? What? Sometimes when I eat my lettuce I feel high. Me too. I have a beautiful feeling in my head. It’s called an endorphin rush. How do you know that? Veronica’s looking out of her window with a pair of binoculars. She doesn’t like Wendy’s garden. Bloody reptiles, she says but a gust of wind catches the words and carries them away so the tortoises can relax once more and have a lettuce trip.
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Bird Mother Easter 2020 My mother’s ninety-one, she’s in the garden, nuts for the bird box, biscuits for the dog I sent her an Easter card, with an elephant The Easter Elephant. A hundred rabbits don’t make a horse, a hundred rabbits don’t make an elephant. Rabbits scatter on the heath They’re listening to Ella Fitzgerald on tiny earphones. Birds do it, fleas do it, bees do it, even Pekineses in the Ritz do it, and Oh yes! the rabbits shout in unison, we do it. Let’s fall in love, love, love. Blue tits zoom to the nut box. There’s a robin which comes into the kitchen mother says. It flies through the house and out the front door leaving shit bombs on the wall. You think it’s the same robin? It has a routine - it hops into the kitchen, looks at me as if to say - and off through the house and out the front …. There are quite a lot of robins I guess. What’s that? Mother’s fiddling with her hearing aid. Electronic vibrations pulse down the phone. Her garden’s full of birds and dogs buried under the ash tree and a one-eyed cat called Nellie. She was nineteen. My father was cremated in a crematorium. His ashes scattered under the tree. My brother was lost at sea. Mother says: I dreamt my mother was knocking at the door. I couldn’t get myself up so I shouted out Don’t worry dear, Julian will come. Oh mother I’m hundreds of miles away. Because from time to time she uses father’s hearing aid, now he has little use for it, his voice comes down the line. I can hear you clear as a bell, how’s that old hound of mine? Oh dad there were so many, all fast asleep under the tree.
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Yesterday, mother says, the robin didn’t come. It was a fine day, all the doors and windows open. There was a robin at the bird box but it wasn’t mine, I managed to take a look. Perhaps it will come tomorrow, I say I had another visitor. Her voice is weaving around the electronic vibrations It was a song thrush, got into the hallway. It was petrified but I took it in my hands. It was so beautiful. I stepped into the garden and set it free.
Hips and Haws for Fleur I’m in a garden in north London, the wind is blowing. It’s full of trees and weeds and Sweet Williams. A single butterfly comes and goes. There’s a shaft of sunlight too, breaking through. Don’t make me go to the end of the garden. The trees are full of poets, whispering behind the leaves. Stanley Kunitz is smiling and raking the grass. How did you get here Stanley? Blown over by a westerly, he says. He wipes a hand and shrugs. Death is cruel and death is beautiful. It’s part of the story. We always knew it would happen. And now it’s happening. Don’t over think it. See it as a curtain call , the crowning encore. You should congratulate yourself you didn’t take your own life. Plenty of good people have, he says. Those who live for years, whose minds unravel, as they will – their words become seed-hoards which burst and scatter fetching up in gardens both imaginary and real like hipsters, hoboes, freight hoppers, hips and haws. He takes a cooking apple from the tree and lobs it to me.
Julian Stannard is a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. He is the author of eight collections of poetry, the most recent being Heat Wave (Salt, 2020). Heat Wave - Salt (saltpublishing.com)
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Reflecting on NAWE’s first Virtual Conference Fiona Mason What Next?
Writing in Education and Communities in 2021 and Beyond
The NAWE conference has become something of an annual fixture, a November gathering of writers working in education and community settings, coming together to share practice, lunch and swap tales from the facilitating front line over late-night drinks at the bar. Thrust into the reality of the global pandemic, we initially postponed the conference to March, imagining that it might all be over by then. We organised the virtual Open Space event to provide a sense of community in the usual November slot. Then, as the pandemic showed no signs of slowing, we finally had to admit that the usual face-to-face conference couldn’t take place.
12-13 March 2021 Online www.nawe.com
It was sad, but writers in education are a resourceful lot and many of us were getting more accustomed to zoom. The majority of formal education, from primary to HE, had shifted online. And the plethora of online workshops, courses and spoken word events, many led by NAWE members, all grew in appeal and reach as a necessary tool to combat the isolation of lockdown. In that context, we took the plunge to shift our much loved and familiar conference online.
Rather than focus on what we’d lose from a face-to-face event, we instead chose to focus on the incredible opportunity the online forum would provide, the greatest of which was accessibility. Members have long commented that there were real barriers to attending conference: travel time, travel cost, ticket prices and caring duties being the top four. The online format would solve all of this in one fell swoop. Perhaps the greatest challenge in curating the conference was how much of the old format we should retain. Did we want it to feel like putting on an old pair of slippers, comfy and familiar, or were we going to step out in something bolder and snazzier? We aimed for somewhere in between – enough of the familiar elements to make it feel like a NAWE conference, whilst embracing the technology and the opportunity to draw together contributors, speakers and participants from far and wide into two days of panels, workshops and readings. One thing I love about curating online events is that they place fewer demands on a speaker’s time. There’s no more trying to sell the virtues of the 6-hour train journey through lovely countryside for a 45-minute panel. In fact, when I reflect on the Before Time, how many of us spent a bazillion hours arriving compared to the amount of time we actually spent being or doing? Asking for an hour or two of a busy person’s time is very different to asking for a day. As a result, we found our guests eager to contribute, creating a diverse, rich and interesting line-up of panels, readings and workshops that we might not have so readily achieved otherwise. The greatest challenge to transitioning from the old familiar to the shiny and new was the demands it would place on our audience and participants. According to Professor Derek Neale, Creative Writing Qualification Lead in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the Open University, online teaching hours have a roughly 1:2 ratio to face-to-face: “The OU has found it essential to have briefer online teaching sessions compared to the equivalent face to face sessions. This is a common conclusion arrived at over a number of years, not just through Covid-19 adjustments. A common equivalence we work with now is 1-1.5 hours online for a 3-4 hours face to face session.” 44 Writing in Education
So, it was not too much of a stretch to imagine that an online conference, full of stimulating, content-rich sessions that demand focus and attention, might also prove to be very tiring. The old conference format typically had 100+ sessions across five or six concurrent streams. With many excellent proposals submitted, we could have easily replicated this. But mindful of the online environment, we curated a conference of four strands: a core strand of guest panelists, workshops and talks and then three contributed strands around the themes of wellbeing, online teaching and practice research. We anticipated that people would find it difficult to remain online for two entire days, so we recorded all but a couple of the sessions to be available to ticket holders for a further two months. This meant that attendees had agency to curate their own conference, building in as many screen-and-tea-breaks as they needed, secure in the knowledge that they could watch again across the full breadth of the conference at their leisure. Conference Highlights In a conference packed with such a fantastic array of quality events, it’s difficult to single out specific sessions for special praise. But a personal highlight was that there was a strong sense of event, which was entirely thanks to an audience that was fully engaged in the conference, playing an active role throughout. The chat was lively and the conversation honest and there was a real sense of peer support. Post-conference feedback from attenders supports these impressions. People were pleasantly surprised about how well the online format worked. Many attended who would not have otherwise been able to, and found a community of writers brimming with warmth, generosity and curiosity.
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So, What’s Next? The theme of the conference was ‘What Next?’, so did we reach any conclusions? The conversations were wide ranging across multiple topics of particular relevance in this time of pandemic. Over the space of two days, we were unlikely to reach a definitive answer to our question, but as we reflect upon the quality of the content and the feedback we’ve received, we have a strong sense of a commitment to continue sharing, thinking and planning for whatever does come next. The UK Arts Councils meet next month to continue the sector wide conversation which began at conference. Peer networks of researchers and practitioners who connected at conference are becoming established. And at NAWE, we’ve also got a much stronger sense of what we can do to support writers working across education and community settings. Our work over the next 6-12 months will focus on expanding our participation and engagement programme, providing professional development opportunities for members and non-members as writers continue to navigate the new normal and create sustainable futures for their careers and creative practice. And as we start thinking about the next conference, we want to hear from all of you. What feel like the biggest challenges and priorities right now? What can NAWE do to support you – either directly or by signposting to other opportunities? The more we know about what you need, the better job we can do of programming a conference that will feel useful and relevant. Thank You Finally, a big thank you. To all conference contributors and speakers, The Poetry Business, NAWE board of trustees, NAWE members, Mosaic, NAWE staff team, Writing West Midlands, Arts Council England, this year’s conference sponsor: York St John University, and all who played their part. Most of all, thanks to all the attenders for their enthusiasm and engagement, which truly made the conference the special event it was.
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Embracing Found Strategies in Ecopoetry Carrie Etter Over the last six or seven years, I’ve had an increasing interest in ecopoetry which has led me to value more and more the strategies of found poetry. Following John Shoptaw’s definition, I view ecopoems as those that concern the nonhuman natural world and take an ecocentric, as opposed to anthropocentric, position. As Shoptaw remarks, “Human interests cannot be the beall and end-all of an ecopoem.” In my view, ecopoetry can range from “nature poems” that show appreciation for a particular place, independent of its “human use value”, to the poetry of environmental crisis, addressing such matters as the loss of species, climate change, the accumulation of plastics in marine waters, etc. As for found poetry, the Academy of American Poets defines it thus: “Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems. A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.” As you may already anticipate from these definitions, ecopoetry and found poetry both actively draw on other texts in their composition. Many ecopoems draw on research, both experiential (visiting particular places, observing other forms of life) and textual (articles in newspapers and other periodicals, scientific reports, etc.), so incorporating such textual material into the ecopoem seems a natural development. There are four main strategies in the use of found materials in ecopoetry, erasure (also referred to as redaction), interspersal, dramatic monologue, and shape. In her erasure of this passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Janis Butler Holm has removed all of the nouns. He is a ____ who occupies every ____ of his rightful ____; he is there in proper ____ to the farthest ____. Not every ____ is himself and his best ____ at all ____ and to his finger ____. Many great ____, perhaps the ____, have more or less neutral or waste ____. You must penetrate a ____ before you reach the real ____. Or there is a good wide ____ of the ____ which is sure to put them on good ____ with the ____ of their ____. As Harriet Tarlo comments in her essay, “The Eco-Ethical Poetics of Found Text in Contemporary Poetry,” “With 48 Writing in Education
the nouns removed from these passages, the verbs of occupation and penetration leap out at us, revealing the not entirely attractive desire that the original writers projected onto natural objects or landscapes” (119). While Holm’s erasure at once creates a new poem and interrogates the original, we should also keep in mind the possibility of play in the work of erasure, that, by removing portions of a found text, we create new works that relish felicitous discoveries of the possibilities within the given material. The second strategy I call interspersal, interspersing or integrating found text among the poet’s own words. When the found material consists of nonfiction, such as government reports and newspaper articles, juxtaposed against the poet’s words its use presents a second, contrasting register that enhances the sense of differences of perspective, as we see in this passage of Wendy Mulford’s “Salthouse 1099, 1953” where italics designate the found material: The cost of protection would be out of proportion to the value of the limited land area protected: by the time the sea-bank goes the worst will be over— approximately 40% of the houses are empty much of the year— it would be cheaper to buy up all the properties at risk than to spend £500,000 on sea defences hedges tall & plump with berries hips sloes elder slide off drop in delayed harvest sea-lavender faded heather gorse burning slow crabbodies track the marsh worn wormcoils tile the pools oystercatchers scratch the air (54) In this example, the poet’s immersive description provides a implicit rebuttal to the detached valuation in the found text and raises the question of what we mean by value when we are discussing the environment. The third strategy for the use of found material is dramatic monologue—that is, integrating found material into the speech of a persona. In the following passage from Peter Reading’s book-length poem on climate change, -273.15, the incorporation of the factual material into a conversational voice diminishes its didacticism and
gives it a sense of immediacy. The passage reads: And didya read how a survey of all them Brit birds and butterflies shows there’s some sorta population decline?, [Yes, in a series of censuses that combed about every square yard of England, Scotland and Wales over forty years, more than 20,000 volunteers managed to count each bird, native plant and butterfly they could find. They reported that the populations of all the species surveyed were in sharp decline–many extirpated completely.] and didya read how two surveys of 1,200 sumthin plants showed a decrease of 28%? [Yes, frail planet undergoing its sixth great extinction–Cambrian, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous, Holocene ] The fourth and final strategy for the use of found material in ecopoetry is shape. Here the poet does not provide original text, but selects from and shapes the found material. In “Wings over Scotland”, Kathleen Jamie presents a list that starkly shows where a wild bird (protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act) was found, what kind of bird it was, how it was killed, and what the final ruling was. As we see in the poem’s opening lines, Jamie positions to the left the dead and the causes of death, to the right, the rulings that, emboldened by the poet, show the lack of action. Estate: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran). No prosecution. Millden Estate: poisoned buzzard (Alphachloralose). No prosecution. Millden Estate: poisoned golden eagle ‘Alma’ (Carbofuran). No prosecution. Jamie explains in the notes at the end of the book that this piece is “[a] ‘found’ poem, alas,” and provides a link to a website titled “Raptor Persecutions UK” (61). These then are the main strategies I’ve discovered for using found material in ecopoetry: erasure, interspersal, dramatic monologue, and shape. Using found materials via these strategies reaps numerous benefits for ecopoetry, from interrogating the original texts to effectively incorporating scientific findings to providing a way to weave together multiple registers. The use of found materials also enables the student poet looking for
a way in without resorting to cliched images or didactic rants. To be able to take a passage of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or Mary Hunter Austin’s The Land of Little Rain (both usefully out of copyright) and try an erasure of a page or intersperse their own words among the authors’ both strengthens their understanding of the original works and facilitates their creation of new work. Works Cited “Found Poem.” Academy of American Poets. Available from: https://poets.org/glossary/found-poem (1 November 2020). Jamie, K. (2015) The Bonniest Companie. London: Picador. Mulford, W. “Salthouse 1099, 1953.” (2011) The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry. Ed. Harriet Tarlo. Exeter: Shearsman Books. Reading, P. (2005) -273.15. Highgreen: Bloodaxe. Shoptaw, J. (2016). “Why Ecopoetry? There’s No Planet B.” The Poetry Foundation. Available from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/ articles/70299/why-ecopoetry (20 October 2020). Tarlo, H. (2009) “Recycles: The Eco-Ethical Poetics of Found Text in Contemporary Poetry.” The Journal of EcoCriticism 1.2, pp. 114-30.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carrie Etter has published four collections of poetry, most recently The Weather in Normal (UK: Seren; US: Station Hill, 2018), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She also edited Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets (Shearsman, 2010) and Linda Lamus’s posthumous collection, A Crater the Size of Calcutta (Mulfran, 2015). She also publishes essays, short fiction, and reviews. She has taught creative writing at Bath Spa University since 2004, where she is Reader in Creative Writing.
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Engaging students in (distance) learning Gaja Kołodziej Over the years and continents, I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting many excellent writers. Unfortunately, great artists do not automatically mean great teachers. While studying in Poland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, I was reminded over and over again that having knowledge and the ability to share it are two very different things. In arts in particular the bar is raised which causes, at least to me, an equal amount of challenge and frustration. Back in the day, modern teaching was about the art of making presentation slides. Teachers used to sweat over finding the perfect ratio of text, graphics, transitions, animations, and colourful highlights—as student-friendly as possible, to accompany lectures and tutorials. To some, it is still more black magic than a well-practised balance. These days, however, slides are not enough. Teachers are encouraged (if not forced) to record videos, run online discussions, use tools and software supporting distance learning. Suddenly teaching no longer involves face to face contact. Instead, it has evolved into a virtual presence which is a tough substitute in terms of a student-teacher relationship. Raised by a mother-teacher, I never wished to follow her footsteps. In my youth, school seemed like a forced labour camp I preferred to avoid rather than to become involved with. Looking back, I see the problem lay in the lack of choice—I learnt what I had to instead of what I wanted to know. Only when given a choice, I realised the empowering nature of the ability to determine one’s future. Empowering students has become the goal of my teaching, and it continues to influence both my virtual and personal interactions with students. According to self-determination theory, people have three psychological needs which affect their motivation and choices. These three needs are: competence (a feeling of having necessary skills to complete a task), autonomy (a feeling of being in control of one’s life), and relatedness (a sense of belonging and connection with others). By addressing these needs, teachers can support students’ inherent potential and guide them towards growth. While the theory may sound less familiar to some than to others, the key concepts are rather logical and sensible, as it often happens in psychological science which tends to discover what has been there all along. The theory is adopted by Maggie Hartnett, the author of Motivation in Online Education, who assigns corresponding solutions 50 Writing in Education
to each of the three needs. These solutions are again logical and sensible—well-known to teachers focused on facilitating learning experience. To address the issue of competence, Maggie Hartnett advises teachers to provide students with supportive guidance, useful feedback, and clear guidelines. At the same time, she stresses the importance of offering students ongoing encouragement and optimal challenges—not too difficult to avoid self-doubt, and not too easy to prevent disinterest. In terms of autonomy, she recommends supporting students’ individuality by offering them choices. Indeed, choices! Food and fuel in leading students towards growth by allowing them to take control over their lives. Using a non-controlling language is just as important, for it supports and fosters students’ independence. The third and final need is called relatedness but is also known as connection. A corresponding solution is simple: to be considerate and respectful, always including, never excluding. To engage with students by establishing a personal connection through self-disclosure. Hence, to be an insider, not an outsider observing others from distance or even worse from above. To be a coach rather than an educator, a friendly hand, an ally on a learning journey. Perhaps, these solutions are not a novelty to you. If fact, I hope it is so. And yet the reality rarely matches our dreams. Although I was aware of these guidelines long before reading Hartnett’s book, every now and then I catch myself disregarding them. Whether it is caused by time, pressure, or other circumstances, it doesn’t matter, for the impact on students (especially sensitive arts students) can be detrimental. So I keep reflecting on my teaching practice, and keep trying to improve myself. These days when teachers are expected to also be IT experts, these guidelines are more difficult to follow. But in the ever-changing world with its speeding technology, novel professions, global living, and multiple citizenships, old-school teaching should be discarded as no longer applicable. In view of the current pandemic and future ones to come, virtual teaching is here for good. We all have to adjust and make the best of it. Instead of reminiscing, let us learn to use the software to its fullest potential. And search for ways to provide encouragement and feedback as personal as possible in this impersonal reality. The pandemic has challenged us as teachers,
but we have also been given a choice: to see it as an opportunity or a drawback. We should appreciate the choices we have as they encourage us and our students to grow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gaja Kołodziej, PhD, AFHEA, is a novelist, a creative writing teacher, and a member of the Polish Writers’ Association. She published ten novels in YA, NA, women’s fiction, and romance genres. She has a master’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in creative writing.
Understanding Character Complexity through Personality Psychology Kira-Anne Pelican
Writing in Aspects of a Novel in 19271, British author E M Forster is well known for having made the contrast between “round” and “flat” characters. According to Forster, while round characters are complex, engaging and feel real, they also typically transform and continue to surprise the reader in believable ways. By contrast, flat characters are consistently described in terms of a few fixed personality traits, but serve the useful purpose of supporting the main characters and storyline. Although literary criticism has for many years resisted the notion that we should consider any aspects of fictional characters as though they are real, the tide may now be beginning to turn2. For writers of realist fiction as well as creative writing tutors, the idea that central characters should feel believable and multi-dimensional is widely received. Despite this, definitions of character complexity remain so vague as to be almost useless in practice. While some authors define character complexity as meaning that the character is layered, dimensional and flawed, these definitions throw up more questions than answers. What exactly is layering in relation to
character complexity? How many dimensions does a complex character need and what are these dimensions? Without a robust framework for understanding fictional character complexity, how are we able to know when it is achieved? Of course, we may feel that a character has sufficient complexity, but wouldn’t it be helpful if we could back up those feelings with evidence? In my NAWE 2021 Conference session, expanded upon in my book The Science of Writing Characters (2020)3, I proposed that the Big Five model of personality provides a useful and valid definition of character complexity4. This Five Factor model is widely accepted within psychology as the best method of understanding individual differences within the ways in which people behave, relate to others, experience the world emotionally and construct belief systems. That is to say, that it is a robust model of personality. The Five Factor model reveals that personality is only captured in full when described across five independent dimensions: Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience.
1 Forster, Edward Morgan. Aspects of the Novel. Vol. 19. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1985. 2 Vermeule, Blakey. Why do we care about literary characters?. JHU Press, 2010. 3 Pelican, Kira-Anne. The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. 4 Costa Jr, Paul T., and Robert R. McCrae. "From catalog to classification: Murray's needs and the five-factor model." Journal of personality and social psychology 55.2 (1988): 258. Writing in Education 51
One of the first dimensions that we notice in others, Extroversion vs Introversion, describes the degree to which someone is outwards facing, gaining energy from their social interactions, as compared to being inward facing, quieter and reflective. Agreeableness vs Disagreeableness reveals how caring, selfless and cooperative an individual is, as opposed to being selfish and having little regard for others. Neuroticism vs Emotional Stability measures the strength of people’s emotional sensitivity to the world. Conscientiousness vs Unconscientiousness captures individual variations in responsibility and dutifulness. Finally, Openness to Experience vs Closed to Experience measures the degree to which we are open-minded or closed minded. Each of these five dimensions expresses a continuum of personality and each of these are independent of each other. That is to say that the degree to which someone rates on Extroversion, has no relationship with the degree to which they rate on Emotional Stability. Since variances across these personality dimensions are normally distributed across the population, the vast majority of people that we meet in our day to day lives lie somewhere in the middle of each of the five personality dimensions. For example, most people aren’t exceptionally introverted, or exceptionally extroverted, but instead fall somewhere between these extremes. More memorable people – and therefore more memorable characters – will therefore tend to be the outliers. They are more likely to be characterised as having personality traits falling closer towards the extremes of each personality dimension. As an example, it follows that a character who is shown to be particularly assertive, talkative and upbeat, personality traits associated with being highly extroverted, is far more likely to stay in our minds than a character who is neither particularly extroverted nor introverted. For writers of realist fiction, this may be a useful insight into how to create characters that are more memorable. Psychological research reveals that while personality captures our “core self” or the way in which we behave when we’re acting most authentically, we typically exhibit a variety of behaviours in our everyday lives, some of which are more “in character” than others. This is because we adapt our behaviour according to our mood, the social context and what it is that we are hoping to achieve. The influence of these factors on behaviour may help us to better understand why many of the most compelling characters often behave in surprising but believable ways, just as E. M. Forster observed. Take, for example, the character Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo (Larsson, 2005), and how she transforms from the quiet, reflective introvert to active, violent and sadistic when feeling threatened by a man. Given the character’s traumatic backstory, her initially surprising “out of character” behaviour feels completely believable in the circumstances and even more so when we see her character repeat this behaviour every time she is placed in a similar situation.
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In my NAWE 2021 Conference session I noted that for some writers the Big Five model of personality may be a useful starting point when developing new characters. Other writers may prefer to develop their characters intuitively, write a treatment or first draft, then use this framework as a tool for further reflection on their characters. If they have received a note that their main characters are too “thinly drawn”, or that they lack believability or are unengaging, this approach provides a robust framework for understanding why. For creative writing tutors, personality psychology may be useful as an analytical tool - as a method of interrogating character complexity and helping students solve problems related to this. When research into personality psychology offers many fascinating insights into why some fictional characters are more believable, compelling and memorable than others, it feels time that we should explore it. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kira-Anne Pelican, PhD (Bangor, 2017), MBPsS is a writer and independent researcher who is interested in psychological approaches towards character development. She is the author of The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). Her original screenplays have been optioned by the BBC and ITV and she gives regular workshops on character psychology to universities, film schools, colleges, and writing conferences.
The potentials of creative writing in healthcare education: a learning journey of theory into practice Roshni Beeharry I have previously presented versions of my work in using writing with chronic pain patients and healthcare education, to healthcare and healthcare education audiences, firstly at the Association of Medical Humanities (AMH) conference, Shadows and Ashes, June 2018, and then as a short presentation for Irish Network of Healthcare Educators (INHED), so it was a real honour and privilege to be selected by the NAWE committee to present to a new audience of largely non clinical colleagues in education and writers, from across the UK and Ireland , writers and poets who had worked/work in medical schools or in healthcare, Writing for Wellbeing practitioners, and I was delighted to also “meet” two fellow clinician-writers (who use writing with students and/or colleagues as part of their work). A bit about me I have been a writer since childhood (short stories), and a poet and a doctor since my mid-20s, moving formally to a Medical Education career working in University settings since 2011 (and giving up clinical practice that year). During my full time Specialist Registrar training (the period of specialist training in a field, in my case Rehabilitation Medicine), I trained on the MA Creative Writing & Personal Development, Sussex university in 2003-5,with the main aim of using writing alongside my clinical skills, with patients and those in the community, for wellbeing. I was specifically drawn to this idea because returning to writing and discovering the healing potential of writing poetry in particular, after my brother died, helped me in my grief process, another lifelong journey. My dissertation project was a participatory arts action research project, running a weekly creative writing workshop over the three weeks of an inpatient with inpatients on a Chronic Pain inpatient management, at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, then one of only two such inpatient programmes in London, where I had trained the year before as part of my Rehabilitation Medicine training programme, my chosen speciality.
The literature review as part of that degree, gave me a deeper understanding of the concepts of the Arts in Health and Narrative Medicine [1], a field much more advanced at the time of my research project (2005), in the US than in the UK, citing Dr Rita Charon, physician and the pioneer of Narrative Medicine, based at Columbia University Medical School, USA: “it is medicine practised with narrative competence “to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness.” (Charon (2016) in Zaharias (2018)) My interest in the Arts and Health and in the Medical/ Health Humanities continued unabated, and developed in various forms, and this interest and work led me to being invited to be a Poetry and short prose reviewer, for two peer-reviewed American medical journals, Family Medicine [2] and Families, Systems & Health [3], since 2017. In 2013, I completed my MA in Clinical Education, at the Institute of Education London, and chose to do my dissertation in the field of creative writing in health care education, as I was excited about the potential to run writing workshops as an educator with medical students, utilising the skills I had gained on my first MA and also my developing facilitation skills as an educator, each of which of course complimented, fed into and strengthened the other skill set, and continue to do so. In October 2020, I set up my small business Storied Selves [4], Writing for Wellbeing & Personal Development, offering writing workshops for the public, those in healthcare related fields , organisations and those receiving care in healthcare, social care and community settings. A satisfying culmination of a 15 year learning journey, and of course, happily so, the start of another learning journey!
1 Zaharias G. (2018) What is narrative-based medicine? Canadian Family Physician March: 64(3): 176–180. This paper gives an excellent overview of the field, the varying definitions and aims of Narrative Medicine or Narrative -based Medicine as it is also called, and the leaders in the field in the USA and UK. 2 Family Medicine journal, https://journals.stfm.org/familymedicine/ 3 Families, Systems and Health https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/fsh 4 Storied Selves http://storiedselves.com/ Writing in Education 53
Overview of my NAWE presentation The 50 minute workshop fell into two parts: Part I: A summary of my unpublished systematic review ‘The potentials of creative writing in healthcare education’ (2013) Part II: Theory into practice: a learning journey • Special Study Module in Creative Writing for Personal & Professional Development for Medical Students • Discussion of delegate thoughts, and ideas re. collaboration between writers and healthcare professionals (HCPS), running writing events in healthcare education and /or healthcare settings. The project findings in overview: Research questions: • What are the potential benefits and applications of using creative writing within clinical education? • What are the potential ‘mechanisms’ by which writing can achieve its educational effects in clinical education? (The only aspect of this that I had scope to discuss in this workshop was to openly acknowledge the “cringe-inducingness’” of the word ‘mechanisms,’ for something as inherently non-mechanistic as creative writing, even in 2013 -it was written as here, in inverted commas in my dissertation to acknowledge this.) International literature from health care and humanities database search including MEDLINE, humanities databases was searched, and the stringent systematic review process resulted in 32 articles, spanning from the USA (69% of articles), UK(19%)Canada (6%), Australia(3%)and Chile(3%): • 14 articles (44%) involved writers-in -residence and/or healthcare professionals developing and facilitating writing workshops in healthcare and education settings • 12 were purely descriptive articles, reports or general reviews of the field • 6 other articles including 1 opinion piece, 1 conference paper, 3 commentary pieces, 1 narrative review The literature was reviewed through the lens of reflective practice & creative writing pedagogy, and key findings included: • Writing workshops took place in the workplace (i.e., the healthcare learning environment) in 50% of articles-primary care and hospitals,77% in GP practice; 50% took place in university settings • with 62% of creative writing activities focusing on postgraduate healthcare professional learners • The chart below indicates the percentage of the creative writing workshops lead by profession. It is interesting to see the majority of workshops were facilitated by doctors, and it great to see the collaboration of writers and healthcare
professionals facilitating workshops, in 24% of the articles.
Moreover, of the 13% of articles which involved interdisciplinary learners at all levels being participants (‘the learners’) in writing workshops, one article depicted undergraduate healthcare students AND Creative Writing students writing together, which is something I would love to develop with writers in education , for as the authors of that article put it :”Literature and writing as a shared language to promote community service and education.” [5] The following chart shows that the majority of ‘learners’ in the writing workshops were medics:
Thematic analysis and open coding of the literature, revealed seven main themes which formed the basis for my ongoing personal and professional work using writing, to date: Creative writing in healthcare education settings can: • Enhance empathy and compassion • Enhance communication skills-written and verbal • Maintain clinician well being • Contribute to professional development • Contribute to teamwork • Reflective practice • Foster creativity, sense of play My conclusions were that: • Creative writing (CW) contributes to personal and professional development of healthcare students and staff, in several ways as depicted above. • The possible ‘mechanisms’ as to how writing may help healthcare professionals achieve the above, involve a combination of : - Creative writing pedagogy - Expressive writing pedagogy
5 Donohoe M and Danielson S (2004) “a community- based approach to the medical humanities’, in Medical Education 38:204-217) 54 Writing in Education
- -
Reflective writing pedagogy Workshops may be facilitated by writers and/ or healthcare professionals and educators themselves, but collaboration and exchange of transferable skills should be explored for a rich, interdisciplinary team approach.
I then went onto present the two versions of my Special Study Modules [6] in Creative Writing for Personal and Professional development that I developed and ran for Year 1 medical students at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and Year 3 medical students at Brighton & Sussex Medical School (BSMS). With burnout and mental health issues being a major issue in the healthcare professions - clinical anxiety and depression are particularly prevalent in medical students, (and increasingly so now given the pressures and demands of the pandemic to NHS staff and trainees at all levels), I have long felt creative writing, alongside the established reflective writing in healthcare training, could be a low-cost, portable, enjoyable and easily integrated way that we can support ourselves and other peers, to articulate some of the experiences and emotions that otherwise go untold and unshared. This was a large factor for developing the SSM. My formal module aim was: “to provide students with a workshop-based introduction to creative writing , giving students an easily accessible tool to explore their sense of self , their developing personal and professional identity as well as a means to explore their relationships and response to others, such as colleagues and patients, in the context of their training.” I created an educational module and assessment rubric, whereby the writing group was a small group educational activity. I adapted the six week module and writing exercises for the Year 3 students at BSMS (eight week module), who were working on a daily basis as Year 3 is the first year of clinical training in hospitals and GP practices. Student reflections or as I call it, “Roshni’s Word Ward Round” on the last session of the module by BSMS Year 3 medical students:
Reflection/discussion points for delegates in my NAWE workshop Of course not all of these points were covered in the timespan of the workshop, and I have added others afterwards as part of this article, and to keep the conversation going I hope, and I would love you as readers of this article to consider and share your thoughts with me: • In my initial systematic review project of 2013,do the figures for who the facilitators of writing groups surprise you as writers/writer in healthcare/writers in healthcare education (from your stance as nonclinicians and as clinician-writer if you are one)? • Are you surprised that the writing workshops in the systematic reviews most of them were facilitated by healthcare professionals and not writers/writers in education? Any thoughts or reservations re HCPS running workshops? • What are your experiences/observations in the fields of writing in healthcare education, in healthcare, Arts in Health, Medical Humanities, Writing for Wellbeing, particularly over the recent years since the 2013 period of my study? Are things changing? • Collaboration and Faculty development : - What support can HCPs offer to support Writers in healthcare and healthcare education for example, who may not be familiar with the unique and often not overt conditions in healthcare environment? - Who else can support us as writers and healthcare professionals in this endeavour? E.g. NAWE, LAPIDUS [7] and other organisationswhich ones? The journey continues… I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this area, and perhaps in response to the questions above, and I am very keen to collaborate with writers, writer in education more to mutually support each other in this field, and perhaps create modules and projects that can mutually enrich the training of all our students, and us as educators and writers, in a truly interdisciplinary way. Please feel free to contact me on contact form on my website Storied Selves, http://storiedselves.com/ ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr Roshni Beeharry is a poet, writer, former NHS Consultant, Medical Educator and Creative Writing for Wellbeing Practitioner (http://storiedselves.com/), who integrates creative writing in her work with healthcare students and professionals. She holds an MA in Creative Writing & Personal Development, University of Surrey and MA in Clinical Education, IOE, London.
6 Special Study Modules were brought in to the medical undergraduate curriculum as part of the medical professional’s regulatory body the General Medical Council (GMC) reforms of 1993, Tomorrow’s Doctors, now in its fourth iteration as Outcomes for doctors in 2019(www.gmc.or.uk/) These gave medical students an opportunity to study an area outside the core science-based curriculum for up to eight weeks, including, for the first time, literature and humanities subjects. 7 Lapidus International the main non accrediting body for Writing for Wellbeing practitioners www.lapidus.org.uk/ Writing in Education 55
Writing Inside and Outside the Boxes Amina Alyal and Oz Hardwick cameras, rendering sessions less personal, and following discussion purely in the Chat thread can sometimes be frustratingly slow and tiring, for all its positive attributes.
In early Spring 2020, our lives were suddenly reduced to boxes on a screen, necessitating rapid adaptation to virtual communication. We have learned to work and socialise in isolation, sometimes monk-like, boxed into the four walls of a single room, prey to absentmindedness of the most profound sort, as we look not at our surroundings but at places elsewhere and far away, or get lost in sometimes destructive rumination. Our mental health has suffered and amongst other things we have been encouraged to exercise mindfulness. In this essay, we want to think about ways in which our writing practices may have changed during the pandemic – not necessarily for the worst – and to suggest an activity for reintroducing elements of “In Real Life” experience into our virtual creative world. We believe that, although the pandemic may have been released like the ills from Pandora’s box into the world, as in the original story, hope is still there. As the pandemic took hold, an article in The New Yorker (April 2020) by Rick Moody asked “Why Teaching Literary Arts over Zoom doesn’t quite work” – needing, as he says, “a classroom with bodies in it,” because writing is about “bearing witness” and “grappling with the complexities of another.” Many of us will be in sympathy with this view: neither of us had even heard of Zoom in mid-March 2020, whereas a week or so later, after a frantic weekend learning how to use it, we were delivering our first Zoom classes. We were nervous about showing our homes to students, and worried about how to engage them online. In fact, it worked very well, with overwhelmingly positive student feedback. Of course, not everything was satisfactory: even a year on, many students are still reluctant – or unable – to turn on 56 Writing in Education
In other ways, though, some have really benefited from online learning. Online attendance and participation opens up accessibility to many who cannot leave the house or travel, because of disabilities, lack of funds, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances. As early as May 2020, students in a study at the University of Washington were expressing hope that aspects of online participation would remain in Higher Education after the pandemic for some of those reasons. Furthermore, in our isolation, we have paradoxically found ways of joining up with writers from further afield than is ever possible outside the virtual world, and have been able to pursue opportunities for collaboration, encouraging us to think outside the box. As Nykopp, Mattunen and Erkens found in their preCovid, November 2018 article, collaboration between writing students online necessarily involves what they term “social” elements – commenting on each other’s work and so on. By October 2020, Rowana Miller writing on Slate.com is exploring the “richer” experience of Zoom chat which, while having some limitations as noted above, also allows for parallel discussions to take place, and for comments and questions to be noted and picked up by the facilitator at appropriate points in the discussion. It has always been difficult for some students to raise their hands in a real-life class, and this is one feature that may be useful to keep after we go back to meeting in person. During the pandemic, many of us have had our writing really flourish – the writers of this article, for instance, amongst lots of other similar activities, have carried out online retreats with the Writer’s HQ, participated in Michael Loveday’s Slouch to 5K and taken part in Amanda White’s Daily Haiku group, in which she sets up a weekly renga we can all participate in. At the same time, as our mental health has suffered, we have been encouraged to practice mindfulness; to take in small things on our daily walks, for example. This is a conscious act of focused attention, recalling William Henry Davies’ oft-quoted poem “Leisure” (1914): A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. Kelly Moffatt in her article in How to Respond in a
Pandemic (ed. Ferrante and Caldeira) talks about the attentive focus one brings to reading poetry or writing poetry – and she likens it to meditation, or prayer; a whole engagement, a “slowing down when our minds are rushing forward in a haze of anxiety, confusion, and over-information. It involves a sudden attentiveness […] an engaged contemplative practice” (Moffatt 2021: 58, 59). Moffatt compares the focused attention paid to individual words in reading or writing poetry to the mindfulness of observing objects around her on her daily walks. So, much like the monastic in their cell or cloister, we can sit in our rooms or follow our regular local walking routes, and meditate on the small things around us. These things can nourish both us and our creativity, sometimes providing concrete images as starting points for imaginative composition. With these diverse issues in mind, we began to think about ways in which, as both writers and teachers of writing, we could take the best possibilities which arise through online communication and combine them with a mindful approach to the familiar, thereby refreshing creative practice. In thinking of bringing together these elements of our circumscribed lives, we were reminded of the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont’s (1846-1870) famous simile from Les Chants de Maldoror (1869): “As fair as … the chance meeting of a sewing-machine and an umbrella on an operating table” (Lautréamont: 193). Championed by surrealist poet and theorist André Breton (1896-1966) in Mad Love (1937), his dizzying celebration of the marvellous in the everyday, this visual yet intriguingly imprecise simile – there are way more questions than answers in the image – has retained its power of delightful surprise long after the work from which it is taken has become largely forgotten. Its strength is multivalent but at its heart is the simple juxtaposition of objects that don’t belong together in a space which is home to neither. Apart from the more readily observable effects of the pandemic over the past year, one thing that has diminished through consecutive periods of lockdown is a sense of surprise. Our worlds have become smaller, our routines more repetitive; and, concomitantly, we have found escape into the reassuringly familiar tropes of Netflix binges and the comforting nostalgia of old music. Patterns have become mundane as we have sat at screens and walked the same circuits and, because of this, we may have lost some of our opportunities to stumble upon those surprising juxtapositions which, even if they are not as strikingly odd as Lautréamont’s iconic example, form the tinder-boxes to ignite our creative processes. While, as noted above, many of us have found our writing flourish during the past year of uncertainty, at the same time anecdotal evidence suggests that a great many writers have been struggling to write, and we suspect this reduced opportunity for stumbling across surprising juxtaposition may have a lot to do with it. Even as we sit at our screens, with the whole world and its wonders just a tap away, we are at a remove: everything is happening somewhere else. In considering this problematic separation of ourselves from the immediate, we recalled The Futurist Cookbook (1932) of Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti (1876-1944) and its witty celebration of the senses. Marinetti’s book is a playful mix of menu and manifesto for largely inedible food to be accompanied by prescribed perfumes, poetry, music, or even stroking squares of fabric or sandpaper while listening to the noise of an aircraft engine in the kitchen – while diners’ eyes, naturally, should be closed, the better to experience the bizarre repast (Marinetti: 95-6, 194 and 204). While we may not all have a handy aircraft in the kitchen, however, we do have things around us which can, if we let them, encroach upon our set routines and nudge us in unexpected directions. In Rick Moody’s New Yorker article mentioned above, he characterises the challenge of online teaching in the arts as trying “to cause the humanness to shine through the ones and zeroes.” It is our belief that this humanness becomes tangible in surprise, in the tactile, and in anything that breaks through the quiet tyranny of the domestic, electronic, and psychological boxes in which we have found ourselves over the past year or so. Invoking Lautréamont (via Breton) and Marinetti, we devised the following online exercise to crack open the boxes and release the jacks within – an exercise we have run with our first year undergraduates on Microsoft Teams, and at the NAWE What Next? virtual conference on Zoom in March 2021, thereby drawing in writers with very different levels of experience. As participants were readying themselves, we asked them to visualise a room they remembered that was not a domestic setting and was not their present environment, such as, for example, a classroom, a meeting room or office, or a waiting room. We explained that over the following twenty minutes we would be giving short phrases and words that we would like them to copy verbatim, between which we would offer prompts and instructions. We made it clear that nothing would be repeated, so if they misheard anything due to a poor signal, they should just use what they thought we might have said and carry on. Likewise, any ambiguities should be resolved how they thought best: the important thing is to incorporate any technical shortcomings – they are, after all, part of the experience of being in the moment – rather than let them interfere with the flow of writing. With one final injunction to remain open-minded and to not worry too much about making sense, we commenced. In what follows, underlined words were to be written down, while prompts are in brackets: For a long time (choose an emotion) was (the room you have pictured). (Now, describe the light in the room. Do this by considering the quality of light in the room you are in now, and consider how it would look in your remembered room: really think about how it would strike surfaces, what it would highlight or hide). I turned at the sound of a dropped (a small object near to you), and there was (someone you can see a picture of – say a few words about them, focusing on one or two particular features) They held a box the colour of (something you can see made out of natural materials – say a few words about it) Writing in Education 57
and, looking into my eyes, they told me that (take two texts from close at hand – they could be books, newspapers, receipts, leaflets, text messages, or anything – and pick a random phrase from each). In the stillness that followed, I heard (sit in silence for a moment and write what can you hear). As they offered the box to me, it smelled of (something close to you. Most things have a smell, however subtle, so hold something close and really focus on it), and in my hand it felt like (something close to you – really think about the texture, temperature, and so on) As I watched, the box opened by itself and inside was (the emotion you started with) and a picture of (a picture you can see – whether it’s a photograph, a print, or an item of packaging – as with texts, we’re surrounded by images). I took my (emotion) and I stepped into the picture to the sound of (something you can see or hear from where you are that can make a noise but isn’t at the moment). There, (specify a place in the picture), I saw (whatever the small object was that you heard drop earlier). I stooped to pick it up but it was as heavy as (something you can see that’s heavy). I closed my eyes and saw (close your eyes for a few moments – what do you see?). All I could hear was (the last person you spoke to without a face covering), reminding me that (your next appointment or deadline). Their voice sounded like (something you saw last time you left the house). We did not ask leading questions following either iteration of the exercise but invited any comments and reflections. More than half of the participants responded, with both groups overwhelmingly positive. “Fun” was the most commonly-used word, with short responses commenting in various ways upon the “comforting” guidance through the “twists and turns,” which offered a “really interesting way to engage” that “dusted away the cobwebs!” A number of the longer responses, however, reflected in greater depth on the experience and specifically its effect on the writer and their work. Most noted the “surprising things/details” which, as one respondent noted, “replicate chance encounters which happen outside, but in our own interior world” and, in turn, as another observed, “connect to memory, which is also something we’ve lost over the past year, or we’ve retreated into.” Ultimately, it was a commonplace which perhaps summed up the exercise most succinctly, with one respondent saying that “it was really helpful for helping you think outside the box.” This more than anything is surely what writers need at present, a way of escaping the constraints of imposed boxes in which it has been so easy to become trapped. We believe that the reintroduction of surprise and conscious reconnection with the sensory, even to a small extent, is all it takes to break out, and responses to this exercise have confirmed that a group can be led into this realisation, even online.
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Works cited Breton, A. (1987) Mad Love, trans. Mary Ann Caws. University of Nebraska Press. Lautréament, Le Comte de. (2011) Maldoror and the Complete Works of the Comte De Lautréament, trans. Alexis Lykiard. Exact Exchange. Lobos, I. and University of Washington. (2020) No one left behind: COVID-19 pandemic underscores need for accessibility. [online] 20 May. Washington: University of Washington. Available at: https://www.washington.edu/uwit/stories/covid-19pandemic-underscores-need-for-universal-accessibility-on-theweb/ [Accessed 13 March 2021]. Marinetti F. T. (2014) The Futurist Cookbook, trans. Suzanne Brill. Penguin Classics. Miller, R. (2020) Long Live the Zoom Class Chat. Slate, [online] 8 October. Available at: https://slate.com/ technology/2020/10/long-live-zoom-class-chat-remotelearning.html [Accessed 9 March 2021]. Moffett, K. (2021) Idea 6 Slow Down, Pause Reflect: Creative Writing. In: Ferrante, J, and Caldeira, C. Eds. (2021) How to Respond in a Pandemic: 25 Ideas from 25 Disciplines of Study. Los Angeles etc: Sage. Moody, R. (2020) Why Teaching Literary Arts Over Zoom Doesn’t Quite Work. The New Yorker, [online] 13 April. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/13/ humanism-vs-zoom [accessed 9 March 2021]. Nykopp, M., Marttunen, M. & Erkens, G. Coordinating collaborative writing in an online environment. J Comput High Educ 31, 536–556 (2019). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12528-018-9203-3 [Accessed 12 March 2021]. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Amina Alyal is Senior Lecturer in English at Leeds Trinity University. She is programme leader for English and Creative Writing, and teaches on the Creative Writing MA. She has published widely in journals and anthologies, and has two collections, The Ordinariness of Parrots (Stairwell Books, 2015) and Seasons of Myth (Indigo Dreams Press 2016). Oz Hardwick is Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University, where he leads the postgraduate Creative Writing Programme. He is author of nine poetry collections and chapbooks – most recently Wolf Planet (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2020) – editor of several anthologies, and author of numerous academic articles on aspects of literature and art.
Action Learning Panel Discussion at the NAWE Conference Fiona Linday Panel Chair Fiona Mason (Co-Director of NAWE), facilitator Julia Payne (The Hub), presenter Suzanna Roland (set member), Fiona Linday (set member). Our introductions came from Fiona Mason. She spoke about organising the Action Learning, peer coaching course from the National Association of Writers in Education. This online training was brought to us via the Hub’s Julia Payne. I welcomed the twenty-two Conference delegates (with several of our set members) and thanked NAWE for having us. To start, I shared a screenshot of the NAWE Action Learning Set from late 2020, which brought back fond memories of the six sessions of timely training. Then, I reminded the delegates of my article “Writers In Education, Winter 2020 issue 82 - Action Learning Programme,” which appeared on page 65. To summarise, there, I reported on the process of attending a new NAWE action learning set to help weather the ongoing pandemic storm. That is where set members develop new insights, plans and understanding to help fellow set members unlock their own insights. This timely group coaching taught us how to use open questions to help us tackle the big decisions ahead. I told how it was best to describe how peer coaching works by modelling it. As a mock-up, I asked the panel to picture the usual scene of twice as many of us grouped around a table or via Zoom. Basically, the set report in on how they are doing, bringing our attention to any difficulties in their practice during a bidding process. That’s when we decide who does what. Julia spoke briefly about her experienced role as an Action Learning Programme Facilitator and how the action learning conversation illustration is more straightforward to model than explain. For the panel purposes, Julia facilitated our conversation, and Susanna ably took the presenter’s role, explaining the issues around a random topic. This particular conversation was about her sister’s birthday meal that night. We all had the chance to ask clarifying questions such as, “What will make tonight a special night?” Then, Julia activated an online spinner tool to generate open questions like what/where/why/when/how? Thus, we all tried to help resolve Susanna’s issue.
We did this by asking clarifying questions to show off the power of open questions. We had less time than usual to show this process of just twenty minutes. Several open questions from us followed like, What food and drink have you already got? When will you do the first job towards tonight’s celebration? How else could you treat your sister?” Susanna took time to answer the questions, explaining how she was busy at the conference and had little time to prepare a meal. This presenter was given time to conclude her own response and have light bulb moments from our prompts. That encourages the formulation of these actions from Susanna. She reflected back that she could re-schedule her afternoon, order a takeout meal and concentrate on providing the cocktail drinks and organising the dancing! Julia asked what Susanna was taking away from the session. Susanna said that she could listen to some of that afternoon’s conference events later the next week, as they were available to listen to for quite a while. Also, she aimed to be better organised in future to allow an optimum work/life balance. We reflected upon Susanna’s calm approach, which helped her multi-task. And we acted as cheerleaders stressing the importance of having a social life. Julia further explained the uses of Action Learning in various arts and commercial groups. Fiona Mason asked us to define Action Learning. I responded that Action Rebel time nurtures my own writing, and I cherish the bonus of the wisdom from this new peer network. My new network has helped me gain a fantastic book review of my new collection. Also, during training, I presented about the process of applying for an Arts Council England grant. After a few attempts, I’m happy to say that perseverance paid off, and I start a new funded commissioned anthology project this April. That success came from the set boosting my confidence to keep applying via Grantium. Also, I gained the confidence to embark on another coaching contract.
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When asked how the Action Rebel set has been adapted, we shared how our monthly meetings are shorter with activities to develop our own practice built-in. We seven are taking turns to lead the sessions and producing exercises to spark new writing. The NAWE set renamed themselves as Action Rebels. The NAWE set has evolved into this supportive virtual writers’ bubble. With us all having less time, our present arrangement is more applicable to this set to allow time for nurturing our own writing as well as facilitating a couple of conversations. The fellow Action Rebel set member Suzanna Roland’s feedback:
“I enjoyed being part of the panel (despite feeling quite ill after Covid jab the day before!) I thought it was interesting to use a non-work example. It made the session fun and accessible whilst showing the techniques and possibilities of action learning. Overall I enjoyed the conference and spending time with other writers, even if it was online!” My feedback is that I found the panel discussion fascinating to host, and acknowledge the expert guidance of Julia was essential to make the discussion work realistically. Thus, I very much appreciated the support of the entire panel
1-2-1 Sessions Upclose Editing Shelagh Weeks The members of the upclose-editing and mentoring team (https://www.upclose-editing.com) offered free mentoring sessions for twelve NAWE members during this year’s online conference. Writers sent approximately 2,500 words for us to read in advance and for us to give feedback on and discuss. When we had overcome the initial IT and Zoom complications (often to do with unstable network connections), we agreed that the whole process had been a thoroughly enjoyable experience, especially engaging with writers in this tailored and focussed space. Attending the conference both as contributors and attendees made the two days more interactive and meaningful, and as a team it felt rewarding to step outside of our normal business mode and to work for free. Reading such a collection of disparate work, it was interesting to match the voice and/or face with the writing voice. It was also interesting to engage in a colloquy with fellow members of NAWE while trying to efficiently deliver feedback in a tight twenty-minute slot. Our conversations ranged across a complex matrix of issues to do with ideas, structures, themes, language, characterisation, specificity – and that ever-thorny subject, getting an agent. Several of the NAWE conference members whom we talked to were already published, some were PhD students, and others were just launching into the business of writing seriously (even if their work was humorous) and tackling that slippery beast - the contemporary novel. We would like to offer this sort of event again, perhaps working with young, or disadvantaged writers, perhaps as contributors at next year’s NAWE conference, whether online or face-to-face. Having attended many NAWE conferences in the past, having offered many teaching sessions and having been a member of the HE committee, 60 Writing in Education
I found this year’s event strangely liberating. I was less exhausted, more relaxed, more focussed and surprisingly, more productive. I hope those that we engaged with felt the same and had as much fun as we did. Our questionnaire feedback suggested that our sessions were indeed useful. Here are some of the comments: ‘Getting a professional opinion on the story and its voice was especially useful… a close reading of the text and generous insights into its nuances and where these could be more clearly brought out.’ ‘The advice on editing the prologue, and the advice on the English-speaking publishing market ….was extremely helpful and I appreciate it a lot!’ ‘Suggestions about booking in at sessions with individual agents run at writing festivals was helpful, as well as checking out querying hashtags …. also to establish more clearly for myself who my target audience is.’ ‘It was really helpful having someone fresh to look at the beginning of my manuscript as I prepare it for submission.’ ‘Your help was invaluable.’ Wonderful!’
Writing Historial Fiction: The distant past, the recent past, and
the future with an eye on the past
Claire Gradidge, Lisa Koning & Andrew Melrose ‘Why are we so attached to the severities of the past? Why are we so proud of having endured our fathers and our mothers, the fireless days and the meatless days, the cold winters and the sharp tongues? It’s not as if we had a choice,’ said Hilary Mantel when talking about Wolf Hall. Writing historical fiction is by its very nature problematic. Not because of the facts history provides but because of, as Mantel also said, ‘the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.’ Our conception of reality depends on the socio-culturally lived experiences which inform our daily lives. Intrinsic to this is the historical past which has brought us here. In The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley said, ‘The past is a foreign country they do things differently there...’ and yet the people who populate that foreign country are no different from you or us, except they are informed but a different sense of culture and experience and of course their own history. We, three writers/academics, discuss their own novels set in the distant past, the near past and the historical future, talking about how factual events and creative imagination collide into a story worth telling about people.
The joy of historical fiction is that it can take the reader back in time, to another period and place. My novel The Keeper of Seven Secrets - is set in sixteenth-century Antwerp, with the aim of bringing to life in words, a world depicted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is not a story about the painter himself, but a fictional narrative set in his world containing themes suggested in his work. But, like most writers of historical fiction, I faced the challenge of recreating a world that is both familiar yet strange and unknown. This creative undertaking
requires equal research and invention, to construct the historicity of characters, settings and events believable to the reader. I was dealing with a period set over 450 years ago, where conclusive facts and verifiable truths are thin on the ground. What information remained was often recorded by those with a vested interest and produced for a particular purpose, such as moral advice or political gain. Therefore, the veracity of contemporary accounts is challenging. Any details uncovered can be questionable in authenticity, often revealing conflict between different sources and containing large gaps. The Education of a Christian Woman, a sixteenth century manual by Juan Luis Vives, offers advice on how an honourable woman should behave. However, it was written by a man for well-educated men; whether this was how all women behaved, or if they agreed, cannot be assumed. Writers such as Rabelais, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Karel van Mander, are other sources I have turned to in order to get a broad picture. And this was a deliberate strategy. The writer of historical fiction must be a creative inventor using the tools to hand. Such as with Hilary Mantel and her novels on Thomas Cromwell demonstrate: the Seymours and the Boleyns may have told his story differently from each other but Mantel’s job was to deliver a believable consensus. Yet such invention comes with inherent boundaries. We are dealing with real periods of history with known facts (or perceived as such). The art of this invention reaches its greatest potential when it constructs a world that the reader feels is real. This realness can be difficult to identify or define, but it is when the reader senses authenticity. They know the story is a work of fiction and accept it may not be factual, but it is recognisable from a historical perspective. If we accept that the writer of fiction can also be an inventor, there still lies the dilemma of how to deal with history effectively for the discerning reader. From my own literary research, it would seem there is no correct approach to take, merely examples that can be followed. Some writers have taken a real event and with artistic treatment transcended the truth, often claiming to give it a truer, deeper reality. Others are doggedly faithful to what factual information remains. Regardless of where a writer stands on how they wish to deal with history, what is apparent is that, regardless of how history is used, it is complicated. In my case, I was working with paintings depicting scenes from sixteenth century Flanders. Such as with this painting, entitled Peasant Dance, on first glance it would appear to provide us with an image of everyday people Writing in Education 61
enjoying themselves. But as I found to be most typical of Bruegel – all is not what it seems – and while he suggests much, he gives away very little. Let’s look a little closer…
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Dance, 1567
Beneath this woman here is a jug handle, perhaps referring to a sixteenth century idea of the jug representing virtue, or in her case, broken virtue. And as for her pretty dress? Actually, a woman wearing yellow at this time was synonymous with prostitution. And it doesn’t end there – from her dress hangs keys – indicating she has property – and a purse full of money. It would seem Bruegel has much to imply about her. And as for her partner, numerous art historians have debated over what might be going on with his legs which are certainly in an odd position. I could keep going, revealing so much more within this one painting, but my aim was simply to highlight some examples of my challenge. In 1962 György Lukács said, What matters therefore in the historical novel is not the retelling of great historical events, but the poetic awakening of the people who figured in those events. What matters is that we should re-experience the social and human motives which led men to think, feel and act just as they did in historical reality. The journey of my novel began with the compelling world of Carnival, specifically pre-seventeenth century, that stood out. A world that was turned up-side-down, taking place outside the normal rules that governed society; a time of celebration, play and excess. It was a moment when everything was permitted, bordering between art and life, a performance with no boundaries between performers and audience. It offered the potential for new perspectives, new order, by showing the relative nature of all that exists. But importantly once Carnival was over, everything returned back to the ‘old’ ways. I was hooked and to use a writer’s term, I hoped it would hook my reader. Researching Carnival led to the time period for the novel: mid sixteenth century, a fascinating yet turbulent era in history, with much taking place from social, cultural, artistic, economical and religious perspectives. Major 62 Writing in Education
events are easily uncovered, but details, such as how common people lived, is less well documented. But there are paintings, and a very rich and engaging world depicted by Bruegel. Going back to Lukács’ advice – I set about understanding society: what people did, why they did it, and what kept them awake at night. I began with books, reading everything I could find out about the painter and his work. But I wanted to experience Bruegel’s work and stand before them, to see the details for myself, and I was fortunate to see his paintings in Brussels, Antwerp, Vienna and Bath. The Once in A Lifetime exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum provided insight into the detail contained within his work. Other artist interpretations of Bruegel’s work have also been influential. Mlyn i krzyz (The Mill and the Cross), a 2011 film by Lech Majewski is an ekphrastic interpretation of another of Bruegel’s paintings. The premise behind The Keeper of Seven Secrets began with Bruegel’s Nederlandish Proverbs, or The Blue Cloak. There is a wealth of information in this painting, but it is the couple in the centre that captured my interest. She wears a daring red dress, no headpiece, unlike the other women in the painting. She’s young; not so the man she is embracing. He’s stooped and walks with a stick. A long hood covers his face, and he has a greying beard. The proverb goes, “She hangs over her husband the blue cloak, deceiving him” and in Dutch, the saying still exists today: to be wrapped in a blue cloak is to be deceived. The couple are in fact, a cuckold and his dishonest wife; an interesting parallel with the ideal of Carnival and renewal and ‘out with the old and in with the new.’ There are numerous references in Bruegel’s work to cuckoldry, suggesting that it was something more than just a rare occurrence. Such as the couple’s placement within this painting, and also the choice of a bright blue colour for the man’s cloak. In Bruegel’s painting Children’s Games, there is a young girl leading a boy who wears a blue cloak. It would seem that Bruegel believes a woman’s capacity to deceive a man, starts at a very young age. My research began to uncover a complex relationship, beyond a simple act of adultery. Such as the quote by St Jerome (c. 320-420) “Woman is the root of all evil”, the concept of the dishonest woman has existed for a very long time, even going back to Eve in the Old Testament. My research uncovered numerous instructions written by and for learned men of the time, teaching how to lead honourable lives. For example, Joseph Swetnam advised in 1615 that: women have a thousand ways to entice thee and ten thousand ways to deceive. It would seem, that
by the sixteenth century, with such a long history of not being able to trust women, men had created a situation where they lived in fear of being cuckolded whether it was actually true or not. Twelve Proverbs revealed another perspective on the cuckold man, one beyond a fool being tricked by a much younger wife. The quote associated with this painting is “I put myself under a blue hood, the more I am known the more I duck” and this reveals a very different cuckold, one that is well aware of what is going on. Eva, the protagonist in The Keeper of Seven Secrets is a young woman, forced by circumstance, to marry a much older man. Eva finds herself with a dead husband and in a difficult predicament. She needs an heir. But all is okay, because as Rabelais tells us, learned men believe it is not only possible, but legitimate, for a woman to carry a child for 11 months. What this delving has taught me is that quite simply, things are not always quite as they seem and indeed, as Bruegel’s painting shows, the truth can be stranger than fiction itself. It has been an interesting journey.
The setting for my first published novel, a historical crime fiction set in World War II and titled The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox, is Romsey, in Hampshire, the small market town where I was born and brought up. The idea for placing my narrative in my home town was inspired by practicality and nostalgia – it was a place I knew well, and my memories of growing up there in the 1950s and 60s were not so different in terms of social conditions and physical environment from those of the wartime years. My choice of genre was an homage to the Golden Age detective novels of authors like Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers and Josephine Tey. Though their fictions were set in their contemporary world, they reflect the period around the Second World War, and as such, prove a valuable resource for the modern writer of historical crime fiction like me. These novels had formed the backbone of my reading as I grew up, and were to underpin the research involved in my PhD.
For my thesis, I proposed to write a full-length historical crime fiction, contextualised by a critical commentary exploring parallels of my work to the Golden Age fictions. Though my primary intention was to research and write a novel that would fulfil my academic goals, I wrote with one eye forward, looking to the time beyond my PhD, when I could look for a publisher for the novel. In devising my plot, I began with two discrete elements. A plaque in Southampton Guildhall commemorates the victims of a disastrous air raid – most of them children, two of whom were never identified – and I couldn’t help wondering how this could possibly have happened. Why would the disappearance of these two children not have been resolved? Though the damage done to the victims’ bodies no doubt made identification difficult, the idea that these two were not claimed seemed unbearably poignant.
The second element was based on speculation that a murderer might attempt to get rid of their victim’s body in the aftermath of an air raid. The real-life case of Rachel Dobkin, killed by her husband in April 1941 and buried in a cellar to simulate an air raid casualty, proved influential for my novel. Rachel’s body was not discovered for eighteen months, but despite her husband’s efforts to hide his crime and her identity, forensic investigation proved that she had been murdered. The question of identity was crucial to solving the case, and though Dobkin had tried to obliterate any recognisable features, Rachel was identified by what was then cutting-edge technology: a photograph of her living face being matched to one of the exhumed skull. At this point, her husband became prime suspect, and was apprehended, charged and found guilty. He was duly hung for his crime in 1943.
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A similar issue of identification as key to solving a murder was at the heart of my novel: once the victim is known, the trail leads inexorably to the killer. While the plot and characters of my novel were fictitious, the setting was as true as I could make it. Sources such as Mass Observation diaries, local history holdings and published histories of life on the Home Front served to underpin my work. Myths persist that WWII was a time when ‘everyone pulled together’ but I felt it was important that I also represented darker aspects of life in small town England: attitudes towards sexual behaviour and illegitimacy, social class, and issues like anti-semitism. These gave me real-life motives for my characters, and for the murder. Then, as now, murder is a heinous crime, and not something which could be presented as a bloodless puzzle to solve. In early 2018, once my PhD was granted, I set out to discover whether my novel might be commercially viable. By chance, I came across the details of the Richard & Judy ‘Search for a Bestseller’ competition. Without any real expectation of winning, I entered, and was amazed – and delighted – when in January 2019, I discovered I’d won. That first book was published in August 2019, and two more novels in the series were commissioned. The second is to be published in October 2020 under the title Treachery at Hursley Park House, and I have just started work on the third.
I’m writing a novel at the moment which is set in the present with the past as a huge influence. Jacques Derrida wrote that the ‘future, this beyond, is not another time, a day after history. It is present at the heart of experience. Present not as a total presence but as a trace …’ (Derrida 1978: 95). That trace is the collection of experience we gather as we walk in present time, with a future in mind. Writing the novel is a long process and in between I have written and published a couple of things, using the material I have located, which I am going to talk about here. Because what I have found in creating the small peripheral projects – namely a loose memoir and a collection of songs https://andymelrose.bandcamp.com/ album/fisherrow - is they have relied a great deal on two significant factors, analepsis and prolepsis. 64 Writing in Education
Let me explain what I mean. Analepsis: looking back, not as a flashback, like the kind you get in a story; not as a historical story like the one’s Lisa and Claire have been talking about either, but as something which is part of me and exists as an echo of my past as I negotiate an uncertain future, and an uncertain way of addressing that uncertain future. But it’s also an echo of a shared past, the shared past, the historical and cultural past I have with others, which influences the “now” of anything I write, the now of the story, the now of the poem which allows me to anticipate the future. The history of experience which makes us all, dictates how we got here, who were are and what we write. But because of world events (in this case the coronavirus pandemic, though it could be war, famine and so on) it is a future is less knowable than it was before the present crisis began. But in considering this analepsis idea we can also think about: Prolepsis: the projection from the present because with the benefit of experiential hindsight – though the ‘present’ has a way of disrupting the ever same nature of the past. As I have already said, the future is no longer what we thought it was. The future from January 2020 isn’t the same as the one we are currently viewing in early 2021. Prolepsis then, is essentially our vision of the future from the position of the now, with the benefit of hindsight, which may or may not be useful. However, for me at least, this idea of writing the future with an eye on the past has two registers. The first of these is the exterior, the physical, factual and historical truth, such as that which writers of historical fiction give us – which Lisa and Claire discussed above. But the second is the internal, knowable, emotional, philosophical and thoughtful engagement. The poetics of life, if you will. We, all of us have an inner voice, but none of us ever really know what’s going on inside the head of others. So the writer’s job is to place themselves into the head of characters with a credible dialogue and thought process built on their own, learned and vicarious experience. So using prolepsis with analepsis as a projection of the future from the present, with the benefit of past experience, is useful. It’s where and what we think the future (even tomorrow) will be, as informed by our past experience while reflecting from the ‘now’ of our own story. Let me give a light-hearted example. Carol King singing, ‘will you still love me tomorrow’ isn’t really a question but a rhetorical hope that you will. Analepsis, takes us back to the experience of what went before but which impacts on the ‘now’. Previous broken love affairs, heartbreak, young love, all the accumulated speedbumps in our life’s journey bring us to who we are, and Carol King singing, will you still love me tomorrow, is aligned to the simple fact that past experience says while I hope so, it is possible you will not. Historical experience tells us this is so, even vicarious experience,
allows for that. But that song brings me to the idea of how we experience history and how it becomes part of our cultural DNA. Writing a single narrative across different codes
leaving it offers a familiar strangeness which I have to write into my future because it’s a part of me. Indeed it is my historical imprint. Thus as writers, each of us dredge our own echoes, we can see how the story of experience can be influenced by personal experience without being biographical – as opposed to the vicarious experience and research implicit in historical fiction. But even in historical fiction what it does is allow us to see into the inner life of our characters. The past may seem like it is a foreign country but actually they don’t do things a lot differently there. They live and love and hope and dream just as we do – only they have a different sense of their own history and cultural experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
I like to write across codes and genre, and in writing Fisherrow – which is a CD and a book, a collection of poems, prose, pictures, lyrics and songs - my past informs the narrative journey as I reach out in the present to where I am going in the future. The whole Fisherrow project is infused with this idea and its only now, after looking back at it, I can see the project isn’t about nostalgia but hope for the future, and the wordplay around the different narrative codes isn’t playful dipping in here and there but actually a voice finding spaces in which to speak. Crossing the narrative codes through poetry, prose, pictures and lyrical content allows a broad brush to bring poetics to the ideas I wanted to explore. The echoes of place, of music, of sound, of people, of a sense of self I recorded were my own thoughts distilled into a story. Their ever presence are the continuities we carry with us through our lives.
Dr Claire Gradidge has a Doctorate in Creative Writing. She has lectured in the subject since 2012, as well as mentoring and teaching in Adult Education. She has previously had short fiction and poetry published. Her first novel, The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox, is a historical crime fiction set in Hampshire in WWII. It won the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and was published in August 2019. She is currently working on a sequel. Dr Lisa Koning has a Doctorate in Creative Arts (Creative Writing) and lectures in Creative and Professional Writing. She writes predominantly historical fiction. Having been published in the Historical Novel Society anthology, her subsequent first novel is now being represented by an agent. She has also published in Axon: Creative Explorations, is the Publications and Editorial Manager for NAWE and is writing on Professional Writing for Palgrave’s Approaches to Writing series. Prof Andrew Melrose is Emeritus Professor of Writing at the University of Winchester, UK. He has over 150 films, fiction, nonfiction, research, songs, poems and other writing credits, including 33 scholarly or creative books. He is currently working on The Boat, an extended poem, book and exhibition about people migrating to safer countries on boats.
This is what I mean in my analepsis then. The echoes of my own past, my own history, my own cultural engagement, which shape the story of my now. In many ways it is my Scottishness, though I haven’t lived there for over 40 years. It’s my homeliness if I was ever to say where I was going back to, and yet forty years after Writing in Education 65
Post Covid-19, can community writing have its cake and eat it? Jane Moss Jane Moss reflects on the impact of lockdown on community writing groups and their facilitators, with some silver linings and ideas for future practice drawn from lively discussion in Zoom breakout rooms during the Elephant in the Zoom conference session. This article draws on insights and suggestions shared by participants in that session, with acknowledgments and thanks. Seeing the full house for The Elephant in the Zoom session I hosted at the start of the NAWE Conference was like meeting up with my lost tribe after the year of lockdown. Those of us who practice in community settings peered at each other from our Zoom windows. Several of us were in our garden offices and sheds, built or adapted in the past year to give us somewhere - anywhere - in which to work once community venues and local spaces were no longer available. The session was an opportunity to explore with fellow practitioners what I call the ‘elephant in the Zoom’: the experiences we have had little chance to speak about together since lockdown changed the way we work, and the unforeseen challenges as well as the benefits we discovered as we navigated the enforced digital away of working. Above all, the elephant is the question about how we now move forward into a future of blended practice, a mix of digital and traditional methods, and ensure that no one is left behind. I have been acutely aware since March 2020 of the people unable to join in online, because of resources, skills, or personal preference. I want to see them again and understand how I can adapt my work to accommodate everyone. I set the scene for our discussion by describing a community writing group in a rural and coastal area of Cornwall, where I live and work. In normal times, the writing group’s strong social element is expressed by meeting in familiar community venues: a village hall, a local café, outdoor spaces including a community garden and an orchard, and occasionally a quiet corner of the village pub or somebody’s house. None of these were possible from 23 March 2020 so we resorted to Zoom. Immediately we missed some regular participants who were unable to join in. Lack of laptops or smartphones, or the skills and confidence to use them in unfamiliar ways, or even at all in a couple of cases, were the barriers to be overcome. Some have never made it back and some have chosen to wait until we can do it ‘properly’, as they call it. I noticed a new element to my facilitator role: IT coach 66 Writing in Education
and trouble shooter for those who had never used their laptop or phone for more than calls and texts. We all missed the sociability tea and cake during a writing session, the spontaneity of conversation, the creative riffing off each other as creative ideas are shared, and the sense of community engendered by a group gathered around the same table. Although Zoom provided its own intimacy and sense of gathering, it was not the same. Many of us, it seems, are now considering how to readapt to post-lockdown life. Do we continue online, with the national and even international reach some of us have discovered? Do we revert to real places, or do we devise a more agile and blended way of working in which participants can engage through their preferred platform, digital or actual? A question about workload occurs to me: how to manage the prospect of running certain events twice, online and real, and how to ensure that what I do is inclusive and accessible. There have been gains and losses in the move to digital platforms: better accessibility for the house bound and those with limited mobility, but exclusion for those who lack the ability or inclination to take part online. The ease of simply dialling into Zoom represents a welcome reduction of workload for those of us used to setting up meeting rooms, arranging refreshments, and factoring in travel time and expenses. But the quality of the participatory experience is qualified. Discussion in the conference session produced a rich array of experiences and ideas, generously shared. There seem to me to be three categories to be considered for future community writing practice: 1. The benefits of online facilitation 2. Some drawbacks 3. Messages to the future: tips for new ways of working 1. The benefits of online facilitation • Suddenly, our reach is global. We can connect with people from around the world and hear different perspectives • For many, it is more accessible: no need for travel or accessible buildings • Zoom does create a sense of community and at least we can still meet • We discover breakout rooms: intimate spaces for sharing • Screen sharing works perfectly for writing groups. Indeed it might have been made for us as writers
• Some of us working in schools find we can deliver sessions to more than one class at a time, so schools get more from the day • Many of us find we have more time and fewer overheads • As we get used to it, there is a real sense of trust in a Zoom group • Under lockdown, the ability to keep going and meet regularly online gives people much-needed routine and structure • People enjoy joining in from the comfort of home and we get to know each other in a different way when we see our individual contexts • As we experiment, we start to find creative ways to work on Zoom: using the chat thread for relay writing, introducing visual and audio material, and encouraging people to use their own devices to share material on screen • Participants who lack confidence to begin with gradually adjust and become more digitally confident
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2. Some drawbacks • We miss the conviviality of the live writing group in a real space; the chat, the spontaneity and the cake • Practitioners in schools point out that most schools don’t have permission to show children on screen. Delivering sessions to blank screens with videos off is difficult • As well as lack of confidence or desire to join in digitally, some people have caring responsibilities at home which make it hard for them to participate • After a day of work-from-home Zooming or home schooling, the last thing some people want to do is join another Zoom session for a writing group • There is facilitator Zoom-fatigue, as one session follows another. Too much screen time is tiring in a way that real events are not. Eyesight and posture suffer • We have to work to engage everyone and optimum group size is a question. Anything up to about 15 is manageable in terms of all voices being heard, but larger than that means some stay in their isolated Zoom windows, unheard • We might not want people to see our own home context: boundaries need to be respected in online practice • Without clear instruction at the start people will turn their videos off. Being muted helps sounds quality but blank screens diminish the sense of community • We can’t feel the energy in the room. Body language is hard to read, and private conversations in breaks or afterwards are impossible • Dodgy wifi and lost connections are unwelcome interruptions to the flow 3. Messages to the future: tips for new ways of working • The good news is we can keep working online if we have to • You can still enjoy the cake, but you have to bring your own • A wifi booster is a good investment • Future forms of blended practice could see mixed
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groups participating in real spaces and online, and continuing to meet via Zoom after or in addition to live workshops We want to carry on reaching global audiences There is a role for libraries who can help train and support people to get online There are benefits to finding a collaborator; working with a co-host who can help manage larger numbers and co-pilot the Zoom room We must keep using our community spaces. They need us back and our communities need the social contact in familiar safe spaces The most successful digital workshops find ways to vary the programme with a mix of activities and breaks to reduce the amount of passive screen time Some of us are trying out other sharing platforms: Slack and Trello, also Seesaw, MeWe and Facebook Rooms There’s a need for some Zoom ground rules and agreed etiquette, which can be suggested or elicited from a group: for example starting with some technical housekeeping to make sure everyone is familiar with the tools of muting and unmuting; asking for videos to be on unless there is good reason; agreeing whether or not to use the chat thread; agreeing how to attract attention, whether with a physically raised hand or the digital symbol; letting people know it’s alright to come back in via the same link if they fall out of the session Regular breaks to rest eyes and move around help maintain concentration for facilitators and participants. Screen breaks every half hour or so seem to work well After a workshop allow yourself some down time with fresh air Invite people to bring their own beverages and cake for a longer break midway, or to hang back at the end for a chat. Even on Zoom, some sort of social interaction can be achieved if it is planned into the time.
Did we think of everything? Probably not, but this is a conversation that will continue among us as we head out of lockdown (hopefully never to return). How blended is the future? Can we have our cake and eat it, digitally and in the real world of community practice? Let’s think about it and keep sharing inspiration.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jane Moss lives in Cornwall. She is a full time writer and facilitator of community writing groups and creative writing retreats. She has hosted writing groups for Princess Alice Hospice, Surbiton Library, Kingston Carers Association, Macmillan, Helston Museum, Cornwall Counsellors Network, Cornwall Scope, St Agnes Miners and Mechanics Institute, and Tremayne Hall community centre near Falmouth. She is co-host of www.thewritingretreat.co.uk, a Paper Nations Channel Partner, a member of Lapidus, and a member of NAWE’s Community Writing sub-committee. Jane’s PhD on the novel as a vehicle for community participation is funded by AHRC at Falmouth University. www.janemoss.com. Writing in Education 67
Mindfulness Meditation for Writers Kylie Holmes For most of my life, I’ve been occupied with different forms of writing, which can sometimes be difficult to maintain. The reason for this is that I’ve allowed distractions to consume me, and I get caught up with the drama of life. Have you ever driven somewhere and can’t remember how you got there? Have you walked into a room and suddenly realised that you have no recall as to why? Or perhaps you absent-mindedly ate your lunch and can barely remember the taste, or even that final mouthful. You were distracted, perhaps still working at the time, watching television, or reading. Nowadays, people find it increasingly difficult to appreciate stillness. Have you considered incorporating mindfulness and meditation into your life? Meditation is scientifically proven to improve concentration, which can assist you with your creative writing. Meditation can bring clarity into your daily living, whilst mindfulness quenches every writer’s longing to expand and express their creative selves. When people think of meditation, a picture may form in their mind of cheesy new age music, with people chanting ‘Om’. I’ve been using mediation and mindfulness on and off for 30 years. I returned to these practices in March 2016. This is because my ex-husband was working in the Ivory Coast. He was at a beachside bar before gunman launched a shooting rampage that left at least 18 people dead. A horrific wave of panic ensued my whole being. That night my mind was trapped in cycles of worry as I sat up and watched the news as I desperately tried to reach him. Thankfully, he was not hurt, but some of his friends lost their lives. In the early hours of that morning, I retreated to bed, exhausted, armed with my iPad. I began to feel a heavy sense of dread and nausea rising so I found some meditation music to help me get to sleep. Some place, deep inside my being, connected to inner peace. I turned to meditation and mindfulness because I wanted to reduce the amount of stress in my life, especially with my ex-husband working away from home. My four children were picking up my stresses which I felt was unfair to them. I longed for greater peace of mind and began searching for new meaning in life and I was also simply looking to increase my own sense of happiness. I also carried out extensive research in finding a structured meditation and mindfulness course to refresh my training. 68 Writing in Education
Frustrations When the courses arrived, I stopped practising meditation and mindfulness and I don’t know why. In the early days, I did become more annoyed with myself if I didn’t do my meditation. Despite all the experience I have had in 30 years, I assumed that the exercises automatically brought me inner peace, but it made me cranky for a number of reasons. My mind just kept wandering, the mind chatter was manic, and I began to think I just wasn’t the kind of person who could meditate. My first attempts at any kind made me more stressed and anxious than I usually am. Even though this was normal, I did go through a stage of obsession with ‘getting it right’. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and instead of being calm, I became cantankerous with myself and others. I had forgotten that one of the biggest misconceptions about meditation is that I am not allowed to have thoughts flying around in my mind. The more I forcefully tried to let go of my manic thoughts, the more they increased! By learning from the beginning again, I understood that I can’t stop my thoughts. I just noticed the thoughts without attaching to them or judging them. By the end of the first month, something just clicked. I had stopped trying to stomp my thoughts out and instead I just let them flow freely as I concentrated on my breath. My breath became my anchor and the first time I noticed I had done this successfully was when I looked at the clock feeling that only five minutes had passed. In actuality, 20 minutes had gone by. During the first month I felt sleepy after meditation. By the second month I felt more alert afterwards. When the third month arrived, I felt more focused during the day. I drank fewer cups of tea, turned to water and when I started doing guided visualisations and meditations, I really found them relaxing. I felt less rushed with my life and more confident in dealing with what life threw at me. I felt the more I practiced meditation I was less bogged down by the many things on my mind. With mindfulness, I began to live fully in the present moment. I looked forward to my twice daily ritual in easing the anxiety and stress. My next goal was to apply these skills to assist me with my creative writing degree. I begin with gentle introductions to make ‘writing’ simpler, more productive, and much more enjoyable. I found that instead of demanding myself that I reach a target, I asked myself, ‘what topics I would like to write about?’. I’ve learnt that
being mindful is much more than an action or a state of mind, it is a way of life. From experience, I’ve learned to stay in the present moment, giving full attention to the task at hand. But too often we focus on the future or on the past and we forget to simply be. Being Good Enough As a writer, I strive to do well. If, like me, you’ve been knocked by others about the quality of your writing and have held on to the false belief that you’re not good enough, it can be hard to kick-start positivity into your life. The following tips may be simple, but they are very effective: Find a quiet spot so you can relax. This can be a room in your house, a place in your garden or secluded spot in your local park. It doesn’t matter where it is, providing it gives you some privacy and it appeals to you. Get out your notepad and pen or even laptop and simply ask yourself this question: ‘How can I let go of limiting beliefs?’ For 20 minutes, allow yourself to free write whatever comes to you. Regular Practice Regular practice is more important than overdoing it initially. Use mindfulness at the key times of the day when you feel stressed, or when you need to calm your nerves or simply to find a little peace in a frantic life. It’s very tempting to rush headlong into new behaviours but slowly, and steadily and frequently is the key to success. Find time in your busy schedule Circle it on your calendar, put a reminder on your mobile phone and give priority to your mindfulness writing practice. It can be very easy to forget or to run out of time, even more so if your life is spiralling out of control with day-to-day demands. Put notes up in strategic places around your home or at work. This will naturally bring your thoughts back to the present. Mindful Walking Practice a walking meditation. Feel the rhythm of each movement, feel the soles of your feet as they make contact with the ground, loosen your shoulders, shake out any tension, feel the breath coming in and out of your lungs and consider what it feels like to be alive. Note the scenery around you - the colour of the sky, the trees, listening to the sounds of birds or the rumble of traffic. Be aware of it all. Where ever you are, you can still be mindful. Live in the present It’s easy to live in the past and get caught up with remembering when writing didn’t work and think about when writing didn’t go very well. Why not sit down at your writing place and think about a place you have observed recently and, as if you were still there, start to write what you see? Don’t analyse your writing and let your mind decide what to write and what to let go.
Appreciate what you have You may be totally focused on striving purposefully towards your writing goals, but don’t forget the simple things in life. Irrespective of your personal objectives, mindfulness will help you to achieve your goals, providing your mind stays fixed in the present, focusing on life as it unfolds. Whether the day is a good or bad one, you will have lived it to the full and that means something. Take time to appreciate your health, the weather, hearing birds singing and the weather. Embrace your emotions When you are feeling flat and are experiencing a variety of life challenges that tests your patience, the last thing you think about is living in that moment. From my own experience, emotions are incredibly strong, and they can be overwhelming in their intensity. Emotions are fleeting as they have a starting point, a middle and an ending. At that moment in time, it may seem overwhelming but if you say to yourself, ‘this soon will pass’, it will help not to bottle up the emotions. It is far better to experience the emotions, observe them, understand them and free those emotions with kindness. Be aware of your thoughts Again, from my own understanding, negative thoughts can be destructive which may lead to self-sabotaging your life. When we don’t live in the moment, we don’t realise our thoughts are caustic. During your times of mindfulness, tune in on those thoughts. If they are intense, try not to allow the thoughts to overwhelm you. As little as 10 minutes of mindfulness and meditation a day can help you reap great benefits for your writing. From my own experience, the ‘best’ meditation is the meditation that works for you, at this stage of your writing life. I’ve used meditation combined with mindfulness techniques to help my concentration and to build my confidence in writing in various genres. Mindfulness and Meditation can assist you with procrastination, self-sabotage and self-criticism and is the easiest way for many writers facing to overcome ‘writer’s block’. New to meditation? Here are some easy steps to get you started Prepare yourself by finding a comfortable position in which to rest, and take a few deep breaths. Breathe out all tension, and negativity and breathe in patience and kindness. Let go of thoughts, feelings and tensions stored in your mind, body, spirit. Feel the earth beneath your feet and take three gentle cleansing breaths. Keep your feet on the floor, so that you’re grounded. Visualise them like the roots of a tree coming down from the soles of your feet. With each breath, allow your roots to go even deeper, through fresh, underground springs and deep-water tables. Just allow your eyelids to close ... and relax your mind by thinking of something pleasant ... try to let go of any Writing in Education 69
negative thoughts which come into your mind. Visualise them as beautiful bubbles floating up into the atmosphere and gently disperse into the universe. Relax even more deeply. Imagine, sense, or visualise a white light in front of you, surrounding you and consuming all your lower vibrations. Allow any negativity to pass into the flame. (pause for two minutes) Imagine, sense, or visualise yourself floating in a sea, lake or outdoor swimming pool. Allow the gentle water to support you and feel the warmth of the sun on your face. Listen to the whispers of the muse giving you bursts of inspiration, new ideas, and boosts of self-confidence.
they continue to move through and around your body... Feel your hands, arms, feet, legs, your head, your mind, your heart and let your breath guide you back to a full conscious awareness of yourself. and open your eyes. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kylie Holmes is a Hypnotherapist, Meditation Mindfulness teacher. She is also a writer, author of 2 children’s book and 3 spiritual books. Kylie teaches meditation mindfulness to children and adults of all ages. Dyslexia has proven to be a challenge to Kylie, but then so did learning how to drive a car! Her favourite jobs include inspiring children and adults to discover their writing passions and being a mum to her four children Jade, Amba, Leo and Ruby.
(pause for five minutes) It is now time to return to the present day. Make your journey back into your body. Bring your awareness back to your breath. Feel you’re in and out breaths as
Ethics and Life Writing – Other Mothers Shanta Everington Patrick Wright and Shanta Everington, Creative Writing PhD students at The Open University, co-presented on the ethical considerations involved in their life writing projects. Shanta talked about her PhD work-in-progress, Other Mothers, a life writing hybrid form combining interview material, poetry, fiction, personal essay and collage, curating and creating women’s stories of adoption, surrogacy and egg donation. This paper opens up debates around the ethical issues of representing others in life writing. What do you think of when you imagine a ‘mother-tobe’? Is it a woman in skinny jeans checking her phone to hear if her surrogate has gone into labour? Is it a woman answering a social worker’s questions as she is assessed for her suitability to adopt? Contemporary explorations of motherhood in life writing have, with a few notable exceptions, primarily focused on the biological mother raising the child she gave birth to. There is a dearth of life writing by and about women who have become mothers through the routes of adoption, surrogacy and egg donation, and their silent partners – the birth mothers, surrogate mothers and egg donors – who have made motherhood possible for them, sometimes at a personal cost. Inspired by my personal experience as a biological 70 Writing in Education
and adoptive mother, my PhD project seeks to address this gap. The thesis comprises a book-length piece of life writing, Other Mothers, and a critical commentary, Curating and Creating: Voices of adoption, egg donation and surrogacy exploring the methodological, ethical and artistic considerations involved in a transforming life into literature. I interviewed six mothers to obtain their stories: Alison, a mother via egg donation and adoption; Charlotte, an egg donor whose eggs have created two babies for two different families; Ruby, who travelled to India to find a surrogate, and now has two children via two different surrogates; Wren, a surrogate who carried two babies for one couple; Lorraine, an adoptive mother of two who was adopted herself as a baby; and Margaret, a birth mother in her seventies who gave her baby up for adoption fifty years ago. (All names have been changed.) After interviewing and transcribing the material, the form evolved organically to combine edited verbatim sections, descriptions of photographs, narrated scenes from meetings, reimagined memories, poetry and personal essay sparked by interviews and selected quotes from published books. In this way, I became the seventh voice within the project. Sally Cline speaks of biography as serving as a window
on the times, that her writing on Zelda Fitzgerald’s life ‘became not merely a window into a destructive marriage but also a window into an unjust time in history for women who wished to achieve’ (2010, p. 25). Similarly, I wanted my biographical portraits on ‘other mothers’ to illuminate the diverse and changing landscape of motherhood, leading to a deeper understanding, not just of one particular life, but of the wider social and cultural factors. The juxtaposition of diverse stories and voices, alongside my own responses to the material, allows a richer interpretation and understanding of the labyrinth of ‘other motherhood’, than that afforded by a single voiced memoir. Ethical considerations were involved at all stages of my research. The first step before I could embark on recruiting and interviewing women for the project was to obtain approval from the OU Human Research Ethics Committee. A number of stipulations were made by the committee, including that: participants could only be recruited via ‘gatekeeping agencies’ (those used were Adoption UK, Surrogacy UK, Donor Conception Network and Natural Parents Network), all stories must be anonymised and a suitably qualified counsellor must be involved to offer optional debriefing to participants in case the interviews triggered emotional distress. Social sciences researcher, Ann Oakley, has written extensively on her experience of in-depth interviews of women in the late 60s to 70s for research on ‘housework’ and ‘transitioning to motherhood’. In her paper, ‘Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms?’ (Oakley, 2005, pp. 217-32), Oakley says that sociology methodology mainly operates a ‘masculine paradigm’ of interviewing behaviour, establishing a rapport as a means to an end to get interviewees to answer set questions, which offers a reductionist view of interviewers and positions interviewees in a passive role, exploring this as at odds with women’s models and not being a good fit for feminist interviewers interviewing women. Oakley talks about the significance of: the interviewee’s and interviewer’s feelings, interviewees asking the interviewer personal questions (e.g. do you have children?), hospitality (being offered tea etc.), transitioning to friendship, and views the ‘textbook code’ (e.g. do not get involved) as adopting an exploitative attitude to interviewees as purely instruments of data rather than human beings. Oakley argues that in practice it is difficult to establish rapport (a traditional goal) without answering interviewees’ questions (which in sociology research, should be batted away by commenting that it is the interviewer’s job to gather opinions rather than offer them), claiming there is ‘no intimacy without reciprocity’ (p226). Certainly, the women I interviewed wanted to know about my own experiences of motherhood, particularly interested in asking me questions about my experience of adoption (e.g. egg donor Charlotte asked how old my son was when I adopted him, birth mother Margaret asked if he has any contact with his own birth mother). To varying degrees, the women opened up to me as more than a researcher. In ‘Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives – Relational Ethics in Research With Intimate Others’, Ellis
(2007) deals with ethics from an ethnographer’s point of view, discussing dilemmas arising in research where she either had a relationship with the biographical subject or developed a relationship (or became ‘friendly’) with the subjects over the period of research. She highlights the limitations of pseudonyms, detailing how anonymised subjects recognised themselves in the text of one of her books, exploring the fall-out: I failed to consider sufficiently how my blunt disclosures in print might affect the lives of the people about whom I wrote. Instead I cared about how committee members reacted to my dissertation and whether my manuscript would be published as a book. Although I didn’t appear often in the text as a character, I considered the story I wrote to be my realist, sociological story about them, not their story… (Ellis, 2007, p.10) As a mother interviewing other mothers, I felt a connection with my participants and a responsibility as a researcher, leading me to deliberate over potentially unflattering character portraits, ruminating on the inherent moral ambiguities. I asked myself how I would like my own complex experiences of motherhood presented. Couser’s Vulnerable subjects: Ethics and life writing (2004) discusses the issue of informed consent and who is capable of giving it, exploring the inherent problems of parental memoirs, straddling an authorised and unauthorised biography, whereby parents assume rather than request rights: ‘What are intended by parents as beneficent acts may be perceived by their children, once grown, as violations of their autonomy, acts of appropriation or even betrayal’ (Couser, 2004, p. 57). Mindful of the impact of autobiographical writing on my own children, I had to make an ethical decision over how much of my own story as a biological and adoptive mother to include in the creative writing for my project, and how this could potentially violate my children’s privacy. The personal essays I wrote for inclusion in the project explore my experience of pregnancy loss and my experience of training and preparation to adopt, ending on seeing a video of the baby who went onto become my son. I took a decision not to include any other discussion of either of my children in the creative writing, nor reveal other aspects of their personal stories, which I see as belonging to them. Likewise, although I adopted as part of a couple, I decided to present only my own parenting journey; my children’s father has his own story. In ‘The Unseemly Profession: Privacy, Inviolate Personality and the Ethics of Life Writing’, Paul Eakin explores a key consideration for life writers: whether the writer has objectified the person whose life is being documented, transforming him or her into a ‘thing’ (p166). This links with Couser’s critique of adoptive father Michael Dorris’s memoir of raising an adopted son, The Broken Cord ,which Couser says reduces his son to a ‘case study’ (Couser, 2004, pp. 56-73). Couser explores how after diagnosis of foetal alcohol syndrome, literary treatment of Dorris’s son, Adam, changes from ‘a fully individualized character’ to becoming ‘a type Writing in Education 71
and his story a case history’ (Couser, 2004, p. 60–61). This made me question whether my initial decision to select six women to interview by category (adoptive mother/birth mother/egg donor/mother via egg donation/surrogate mother/mother via surrogacy) was reductionist, reducing the women to ‘types’ rather than individuals. In reality, the women who came forward did not fit easily into one category – the first, Alison, being a mother through adoption and egg donation, the second, Charlotte, being an egg donor, biological mother and stepmother etc. All aspects of these women’s lives that were discussed were fascinating, not just the ring fenced aspects associated with their ‘categories’. Linking these discussions on appropriation and Oakley’s assertion of the ‘masculine paradigm’ of social sciences interviewing, likewise a biographer has been traditionally reviewed as an ‘expert/authority’ narrating the life of their ‘subject’. The biographer has traditionally remained absent in the text and/or presented as objective, their processes invisible to the reader. Literary editor, Boyd Tomkin (as cited in Cline and Angier, 2010, pp. 149-151), talks about ‘a new wave of biographical literature’ over the past two decades, which ‘puts the storyteller centrestage, and makes a drama out of his quest for the subject’ (p.150). The idea of having the biographer centre stage may be viewed as an innovative way of working but the inclusion of a meta-narrative, writing about the process of life writing, doesn’t eliminate the risk of appropriation. If the biographer is no longer an absent voice but acknowledged as a person with their own role in the journey of narrating another’s life, how does this shift the paradigm? This idea of the storyteller as a pivotal character can be seen in Alexander Masters’s biography, Stuart: A Life Backwards (2006), which relays the author’s meetings with a homeless man named Stuart over a period of two years. However, despite the apparent progressive approach of Masters including himself as a character in Stuart’s story, as a middle class author writing the biography of a vulnerable homeless person, Masters can be said to be ‘articulating the other’. This can be problematic in terms of the unbalanced power dynamic, with its inherent potential for appropriation or even exploitation. A number of ethical issues are involved including: Stuart’s vulnerability and ability to give informed consent; relational ethics (as Masters interviewed Stuart over a period of two years, developing a relationship with him; and how Stuart is represented, the notion of exoticising ‘the other’. Masters examined homelessness from the ‘outside in’. My project differs in that I am exploring ‘other motherhood’ from the vantage point of a biological and adoptive mother, one could say ‘from the inside’. Although I cannot claim to know what it feels like to be anyone other than myself, and have not experienced what my interviewees have, the overlaps and shared experiences with the mothers interviewed alter the dynamic between researcher and researched. Can I be defined as articulating the other, if I am the other? Clearly, there are still delicate issues to be negotiated. I am not a vulnerable birth mother who felt she was coerced into adoption; I am a PhD researcher seeking to gain an academic qualification from the interviews. 72 Writing in Education
I am a White British interviewer interviewing women from cross-cultural backgrounds. There is a fine line between ‘appreciation’, seeking to deepen understanding of another’s experience, and ‘appropriation’, using an aspect of another experience/culture/identity that is not your own for your own personal interest or gain. There are no easy answers to ethical conundrums, no set rules that apply to every situation. Rather there are principles that can be applied, other writers’ and researchers’ experiences – good practice and mistakes – to draw on. This papers is an attempt to reflect on the ethical decisions made throughout researching and writing up the Other Mothers project, knowing it remains an area of open dialogue. References Cline, S. and Angier, C. (2010) The Arvon Book of Life Writing, London, Menthuen Drama. Couser, G. T. (2004) Vulnerable subjects: Ethics and life writing, New York, Cornell University Press.
Cusk, R. (2002) A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother, London, Fourth Estate.
Donovan, S. (2013) No Matter What: An Adoptive Family’s Story of Hope, Love and Healing, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Eakin, P. (1999) ‘The Unseemly Profession: Privacy, Inviolate Personality and the Ethics of Life Writing’ in How our lives become stories: Making selves, New York, Cornell University Press, pp142-146. Ellis, C. (2007) ‘Telling Secrets, Revealing Lives – Relational Ethics in Research With Intimate Others’, Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 13, no. 1 pp3-29. Etter, C. (2014), Imagined Sons, Bridgend, Seren Books. Jolly, A. (2017) Dead Babies and Seaside Towns: One Mother’s Journey to Surrogacy, London, Unbound. Kay, J. (1991) The Adoption Papers, Glasgow, Bloodaxe Books. Kay, J. (2010) Red Dust Road, London, Picador. Masters, A. (2006) Stuart: A Life Backwards, London, Fourth Estate.
Morrissette, M. (2005) Behind Closed Doors: Moving Beyond Shame and Secrecy (Voices of Donor Conception), Colorado, Donor Sibling Registry.
Oakley, A. (2005) The Ann Oakley Reader: Gender, Women and Social Science, Bristol, Policy Press. Schaefer, C. (1991) The Other Mother: A Woman’s Love for the Child She Gave Up for Adoption, New York, Soho Press. Winterson, J. (2011) Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, London, Vintage. ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Shanta Everington teaches Creative Writing at The Open University, where she is studying for her PhD. She has an MA Creative Writing with Distinction from MMU and has taught at UEL and The Brilliant Club. Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and Cinnamon Literature Prize, publications includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction. s.d.everington@open.ac.uk https://shantaeverington.wordpress.com/
The Ethics of Life Writing: Full Sight of Her Patrick Wright readers, reviewers and critics, memoirs about personal grief are unsettling, unsavoury, or unethical’ (216). They mention Frances Saunders for instance writing in The Guardian, who appears to echo these views. ‘Some argue,’ they observe, ‘that grief, like pain, is unable to be communicated effectively and that private grief should remain private, rather than invite a voyeuristic form of readership’ (216). This led me to ask: Does voyeurism imply some kind of separation or distancing between the reader and the subject matter? And is the object of the voyeurism the deceased, the author—or both? I feel that my writing—rather than voyeurism—invites empathy and connection. Moreover, in a similar mode to how Christopher Reid writes about his wife, Lucinda, or C.S. Lewis writes about his wife, Joy, I present Kim as three-dimensional—the animating presence of the collection. I am, in Saunders’ words, a modest observer of my sorrow rather than a declaimer of it (Saunders, 2011). My loss is secondary to the person I mourn, who remains a subject. As a consequence, I avoid one pitfall of the socalled grief memoir: using or even exploiting the dead to generate creative content. My debut poetry collection, Full Sight of Her, is published by Black Spring Press (2020). It’s largely about a sevenyear relationship I had with my partner, Kim, before she passed away in 2017. About 70 percent of the poems were written while Kim was alive. She inspired many of them and was an avid supporter of my work. The book also includes her photography. She was a practicing artist— and an artist with a visual impairment: a subject I’ll touch upon later with reference to her images. In part, my paper responded to current scholarship on grief writing. This is represented by a recent article published in New Writing on collaborative creative writing about grief by Rachel Robertson and Helena Kadmos. They write how ‘Autobiographical writing about personal loss is fraught with dilemmas around ethics and the representation of other people’s lives, and their deaths, and about the complexities of writing about bereavement experiences—how, in fact, grief can be written. These issues continue to be debated in life writing scholarship and amongst authors of memoir and auto/biography’ (Robertson and Kadmos, 2020: 214). These authors, in the same discussion, also refer to the genre of the grief memoir. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking is one example they provide. Robertson and Kadmos correctly note that ‘For some
The genre of poetry—given the language is often rather oblique or elliptical—offers more disguise as I see it than more conventional life writing narratives on grief or mourning. I avoid voyeurism, too, in the sense that mourning is interspersed with moments of love and joy. This suggests that Kim’s passing can only be approached from within the context of our love and shared life together. The use of metaphor also provides a way to convey loss without self-indulgence or sentimentality. I am left wondering, though, if critics such as Saunders are participating (consciously or not) in a shaming of those who grieve or need to go on grieving. This again occurred (though in a way that I didn’t feel was deliberate) in my Q and A session, where one question— about when I thought my mourning might come to an end—had the familiar and ironic undertone of ‘can’t you just get over it?’ I replied along the lines of how grief doesn’t end so much as become compartmentalised into life and creative practice—at least for me, anyway. Indeed, those who mourn can be often met with anger or frustration, rather than compassion; and I suspect this manoeuvre is similar to scapegoating—where, in a structural and cultural sense, the Other is shunned or cast aside, rather than empathised or identified with. The latter, for me, may be construed as an opportunity to Writing in Education 73
connect with the grief-stricken. Seen this way, neither the author nor the deceased is an Other: they are potentially us (you and me). However, I appreciate that this can be emotionally risky for the reader: to recognise that loved ones can be lost; that what we hold most dear is never as secure as we’d like to think. So, I believe that voyeurism might be more of an issue if the author or deceased is regarded as an Other. And this dynamic can often belong to the reader—it’s not necessarily within the author’s influence. It’s worthwhile pointing out that it’s only the final third section of the book (arranged, incidentally, into a dramatic three-act structure) where the theme of grief becomes explicit—and then it enacts what Bernadette Brennan has understood as a ‘a creative, positive form of mourning … mourning as an ongoing creative work’ (Brennan, 2012, n.p.). It’s not, that is, a self-indulgent record of my feelings. She quotes Susan Sontag’s argument that memory is an ethical act and suggests that ‘grief memoirs can be ethical works’ (2012, n.p). Nevertheless, my book isn’t technically a grief memoir. Yes, it draws on autobiographical content —and yet it’s poetry. And our story is told in fragments rather than in descriptive accounts with a linear narrative. I’m also aware there’s a long tradition of male writers finding inspiration in women (as their muse, or otherwise). This can be problematic if the woman in question is not given agency. Though Kim is presented as the creative force in the book. Likewise, at no point do I present myself as powerful: on the contrary, I’m rather powerless in the face of illness. Another reference point in this context is Douglas Dunn’s Elegies (written about his first wife, Lesley). So, I see Kim as part of a symbiotic partnership and as a catalyst who inspired me to complete the remaining 30 percent of the book. As I was writing the early poems, particularly, she would often make observations and urge me to write them down. Creative decisions were easier when we could dialogue, and trickier afterwards, when I had to do my best to re-create her voice in my head. But this still felt like a collaboration: in our case a creative partnership doesn’t end because of death. I think describing the book as a tribute or homage is fine too—as conferring respect is important. In actual fact, the book is there (more than any other reason) to honour our love and life together. Often, as I’ve suggested, my writing—especially towards the end of the process—took on Kim’s concerns, followed her thematic interests, and adopted her voice. This I now regard as part of my internalisation process, which can often occur through mourning. More recent poems have taken this further, where I’ve made use of prosopopoeia and written in Kim’s voice (from the dead), or written as her in the form of a dramatic monologue. I’m aware that possible ‘ventriloquising’ is an issue here; and I admit to some cognitive dissonance in, on the one hand, feeling guilt about going too far in this direction and, on the other, giving voice to her experience. This has left me 74 Writing in Education
thinking about appropriation and whether or not I am guilty in some sense or other; though I’m also aware that such feelings of guilt (‘survivor guilt’, quite possibly) are likely to be a symptom of major loss. Appropriation can be defined loosely as the adoption of elements of one identity by another. But appropriation usually occurs without respect for or an understanding of context. So, my familiarity with Kim, her blessing and consent are key—which, fortunately, she was able to provide. There’s also, in a slightly more detached sense, my celebration of an unsung female artist. I’m also addressing prejudice around blindness (for instance, those visually impaired often see a great deal, but may see differently, and can still be visual artists and photographers). There’s nobility I think in drawing attention to these issues; and I’m appreciating dual authorship, even if this is only manifest in subtle ways. I give Kim as much credit as I can on the inner pages. At the same time, I’ve had her wishes in mind, and dual authorship wouldn’t have been something she wanted. She’d want me to be seen as owning the words, even though I utilised her words and phrases from my notebook. I also displayed in my presentation Kim’s photography— her ‘light documents’ as she called them. These represented for her, in her own words, ‘a beautifully abstracted and tonally biased world’. A selection of her high contrast photographs (significantly, these were the only pictures she was able to see in terms of form) are placed at moments of intermission in the collection— before each ‘act’ so to speak. There’s also an image of Kim at the end: the reader is finally introduced to her visually. Kim didn’t show a great deal of interest in having her photography exhibited during her lifetime, though she raised no objections to having a platform, and she had a modest online presence. As I see it, making use of her artwork is both an act of mourning and a resistance to it. Perhaps all this has sounded like an apologia of sorts— perhaps one that wasn’t strictly necessary. With such books, criticisms (or self-criticisms) can always be levelled and may be unavoidable; and there’s always the possibility of a cynical reading. Yet I’m writing from my perspective and working through my feelings in the tradition of the lyric. Of course, the book is about myself as an author; but it’s an author in a relationship (extending beyond death) and an author in a process—of grief, self-critique, reflection, amongst other things. The poems are also a kind of alchemy—in ensuring beauty survives through tragedy. I ended my session by asking some further questions— of myself and my audience: How should the domain of privacy in creative writing be demarcated? Or, to paraphrase Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida (with reference to his ‘Winter Garden Photograph’), what remains ‘just for me’? What do I decide not to share and to keep for myself? Have I
already, including through this account, ‘over-shared’ to an extent—in way that breaks an unspoken code of social or critical discourse? And another question: at what point does the kind of ‘after death’ collaboration I’ve outlined slip into melancholia or interfere with other pursuits? How does our commitment to the dead, in other words, conflict with life? I would be grateful for further dialogue on these ideas. Please contact me at the following: Email: patrick.wright@open.ac.uk Twitter: @saturnineone My poetry collection, Full Sight of Her, is available to purchase through Black Spring Press: https://blackspringpressgroup.com/products/full-sightof-her
References Brennan, Bernadette (2012) ‘Frameworks of Grief: Narrative as an Act of Healing in Contemporary Memoir,’ TEXT 16.1, http://www.textjournal.com.au/april12/brennan.htm.
Robertson, Rachel, and Helena Kadmos (2020) ‘Crossing the shadow line: collaborative creative writing about grief,’ New Writing, 17:2, 214-225.
Saunders, Frances (2011) ‘Too Much Grief’, The Guardian, 11 August, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/19/ grief-memoir-oates-didion-orourke. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight Of Her, published by Eyewear (2020). He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and his poems have appeared in several magazines, most recently Agenda, The High Window, and Wasafiri. He teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University.
The Liminal Zone:
A Metaphor for the Interface between Teaching and Creative Practice Mandy Haggith Introduction For creative artists in education, there is considerable interplay between teaching and creative activity, with each influencing the other. These effects can sometimes be negative, e.g. when teaching uses so much creative energy that creative practice is side-lined or even impossible, yet they can also be positive, e.g. when students are inspired by their teacher’s creative work. The Liminal Zone research project is exploring the balance between such positive and negative effects and how positive interactions between teaching and creative practice can be nurtured, in order to make recommendations for spreading good examples. As a poet, novelist and teacher, I am deeply interested in the findings for my own personal well-being and career, as well as to help others. Inquiry at the interface between Art, Research and Teaching, seeking to integrate and develop synergies between these roles, is known as A/R/Tography (Gouzouasis et al. 2008). The wider Arts-Based Research movement (of which A/R/Tography is a part) has demonstrated the power of creative and artistic practice as research inquiry(Leavy 2015), including creative writing (Harper 2008) and ‘poemish’ writing (Lahman, Richard & Teman 2019), and the benefits to students when teachers bring their creative practice into their
teaching role (Vanada 2017). It has also shown that ‘[c]rossing boundaries, boundary encounters and boundary partnerships are necessary for the integration of a landscape of practice’(Wenger-Trayner et al. 2015). As exemplars of boundary crossers, ‘hybrid’ academicartist practitioners have been studied, exploring how they manage the ‘uneasy’ boundary crossing between academia and art through ‘identity work’ (Lam 2019). The concepts of hybridity, boundary crossing and identity work will help to elucidate the teaching/creative practice boundary. Insights about institutional support for teaching and creative practice are being sought by exploring the liminal tidal zone metaphor. Use of metaphor is a key method in poetic inquiry as it provides a powerful way to articulate emotion and generate new insights(Gitlin & Peck 2008), (Barrett 2011),(Vincent 2018), (FernándezGiménez, Jennings & Wilmer 2019). Beyond its use as a literary device, metaphor has been promulgated for other disciplines, including educational discourse (Cameron 2003). Wenger proposes collective exploration of metaphor as a method for facilitating social learning in the central of three stages: engagement, imagination and alignment (Wenger 1998). Leggo encourages researchers ‘to linger in the spaces of binary oppositions in order to build bridges like metaphors from one vertex to Writing in Education 75
another’(Leggo 2008). The liminal metaphor in particular has been shown to be important in identity studies (Beech 2011). In a teaching context, Todd claims that ‘exploring the existential dimensions of pedagogical relationships … requires a language of in-betweenness, or liminality’(Todd 2014). A tidal zone metaphor exploration seems therefore particularly relevant for building meaningful knowledge exchange between hybrid artist/ teachers. Background and Rationale With the increasing success of creative practice University degree courses there is a growing need for staff who can sustain both teaching and creative practice, but there has been little research into the experience of these ‘hybrid’ staff, the methods they use to maintain balance between the two areas of their role and the support University management can provide to them. The risks of creative burn out of staff are high, as this causes loss of experience and expertise from Universities, so this is a significant issue. A sustainable situation is needed where creative practice and teaching nurture each other and boundary crossing is facilitated. The research takes the tidal zone as a central metaphor, using this archetypical liminal zone to represent a fruitful ebbing and flowing dialogue between our roles as artists and teachers. Research aim and questions The overall aim of this project is to explore how creative arts teachers can achieve a synergy between their teaching and creative practice and how employers can empower them to do so. The primary research question is: How can universities support synergies between teaching and creative practice of arts staff? Subsidiary questions are: • What is the extent and nature of boundary crossing between creative and teaching practice by university arts staff?
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•
What insights can be generated from the intertidal zone as metaphor for the experience of the creative/teaching interface?
Methodology This is a mixed methods action research project, involving four action research cycles: an initial quantitative inquiry (survey), followed by a participatory qualitative (appreciative and arts-based) inquiry, then triangulation or ‘integration’ of data (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie 2004:22) and then discussion of the results. The first cycle of the research will be a quantitative inquiry cycle to establish the extent to which Scottish university creative arts staff experience interaction between their creative and teaching work. This will be by means of an online survey. Questions will seek to determine: • the proportion of teaching staff who carry out creative practice at work and/or in their own time; • how many experience a positive effect of teaching on their creative practice, and vice versa; • experience of the temporal balance between teaching and creative practice; • measures staff find helpful in achieving positive interaction between the aspects of their work; • metaphors and methods for conceptualising links between creative and teaching practice. The survey evidence will be analysed to provide a comparative overview of staff experience of the creative and teaching practice interface. It will also be used to identify up to 12 participants for the subsequent qualitative inquiry. Selection of participants will attempt to achieve a mix of artform and location. The second action cycle will use appreciative inquiry interviews in coastal locations to explore the experience of creative arts teachers and the tidal zone metaphor. Results of these interviews will be fed back to all participants who will be invited to take ownership of the ongoing research process as full and equal partners, forming a creative community of A/R/Tography practice. Reflection will involve me doing a poetic
inquiry. The other participants will be invited to reflect creatively on this metaphor in their own artform. In the third cycle, results of the quantitative and qualitative phases will be triangulated collectively at a reflective retreat for the community of practice, using concepts developed in the qualitative phase to explain and understand the quantitative results or indicate dissonances that may indicate interesting complexities in the relationship between teaching and creative practice. This will also involve curation of an exhibition of the artworks, drawing out these concepts. The final action research cycle will involve dissemination of results to all survey responders, to senior management at UHI and other participants’ universities, and to wider bodies such as Universities Scotland (and NAWE!), sharing insights, seeking feedback and nurturing best practice.
Gitlin, A. & Peck, M. (2008) ‘Educational poetics: an aesthetic approach to action research.’. Educational Action Research 16 (3), 309-319
Conclusion
Leggo, C. (2008) ‘Astonishing silence: Knowing in poetry’. In Handbook of the arts in qualitative research, ed. by Knowles, J.G. & Cole, A.L.,. Los Angeles, Calif.; London: Sage, 166-175
Many University creative arts teachers feel themselves to be inhabiting a liminal zone, as partial outsiders to academia, and this hybridity can limit their ability to nurture the next generation of creative talent. It is necessary to challenge what Lam (2019:17) calls the ‘higher status’ afforded to science and social science research in Universities compared to creative practice, addressing it through both individual identity work and institutional support. There are many issues, from contractual to well-being focused, from literary to curatorial, from pedagogical to managerial, which are likely to be raised by this project with relevance to the academic community across Scotland and beyond. If you would like to know more, please get in touch, or complete our survey here: https://www.inverness. uhi.ac.uk/research/centre-for-remote-and-sustainablecommunities/projects/the-liminal-zone-a-metaphor-forthe-interface-between-teaching-and-creative-practice/ References Barrett, T. (2011) ‘Breakthroughs in action research through poetry.’. Educational Action Research 19 (1), 5-21 Beech, N. (2011) ‘Liminality and the practices of identity reconstruction.’. Human Relations 64 (2), 285-302
Cameron, L. (2003) Metaphor in educational discourse. London: A&C Black
Fernández-Giménez, M.E., Jennings, L.B. & Wilmer, H. (2019) ‘Poetic Inquiry as a Research and Engagement Method in Natural Resource Science’. Society and Natural Resources 32 (10), 1080
Gouzouasis, P., Leggo, C., Irwin, R.L. and Springgay, S. (2008) Being with A/r/tography. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers Harper, G. (2008) ‘Creative writing: words as practice-led research.’. Journal of Visual Art Practice 7 (2), 161-171
Johnson, R.B. & Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (2004) ‘Mixed Methods Research: A Research Paradigm Whose Time Has Come’. Educational Researcher 33 (7), 14
Lahman, M.K.E., Richard, V.M. & Teman, E.D. (2019) ‘ish: How to Write Poemish (Research) Poetry.’. Qualitative Inquiry 25 (2), 215-227 Lam, A. (2019) ‘Hybrids, identity and knowledge boundaries: Creative artists between academic and practitioner communities’. Human Relations
Leavy, P. (2015) Method meets art: arts-based research practice. New York, N.Y.; London: The Guilford Press
Todd, S. (2014) ‘Between Body and Spirit: The Liminality of Pedagogical Relationships.’. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48 (2), 231-245 Vanada, D.I. (2017) ‘Teaching for the Ambiguous, Creative, and Practical: Daring to be A/R/Tography’. Art/Research International 2 (1), 110-135
Vincent, A. (2018) ‘Is There a Definition? Ruminating on Poetic Inquiry, Strawberries and the Continued Growth of the Field’. Art/Research International 3 (2), 48-76 Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
Wenger-Trayner, E., Fenton-O’Creevy, M., Hutchinson, S., Kubiak, C. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015) Learning in landscapes of practice :boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practicebased learning. New York; New York: Routledge; Routledge
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mandy Haggith is a lecturer in literature and creative writing at the University of the Highlands and Islands. After a decade in academia in her twenties, she spent twenty years working as a freelance writer, researcher and activist, including co-ordinating a global network of campaigners seeking to stop the pulp and paper industry from ravaging the world’s forests. She is the author of five novels, four poetry collections and a non-fiction book, and editor of the tree poetry anthology, Into the Forest. Find out more about the A-B-Tree project at http://www. mandyhaggith.net/a-b-tree.asp
Writing in Education 77
Making a Literary Podcast:
a Flexible Form for Writing, Teaching and Research Dr Sherezade García Rangel & Dr Amy Lilwall for fiction and discussions of practice, and to understand podcasting as a creative collaboration suited to writing in education. This was the seed that eventually led to developing my own independent podcasting practice in 2019 with On The Hill. Amy and I have continued to collaborate and we joint forces to run a literary podcast workshop for NAWE2021. In this article we summarise the workshop’s key ideas, we discuss our podcasting experience and practice, the benefits it brings to our writing, teaching and research and share some tips to help you get started. Defining the literary podcast Figure 1 Amy Lilwall and Sherezade Garcia Rangel at the Falmouth History Archive, The Poly (2019)
Arriving at the podcast form – Sherezade In the summer of 2019, as an early academic with a plan and an idea, I set out to learn how to make a literary podcast. I had no training, adopting instead Vincent Van Gogh’s perspective on a letter to Anton van Rappard, “I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it” (1885). As a listener, I was fascinated by the podcast form, and finding myself in an institution with the right equipment and technical support, I decided to begin to test using the podcast as a literary form. Afterall, writers were already engaging in making or taking part in podcasting (Mahnke, 2014; Eddo-Lodge, 2018; Longform, 2020; The New Yorker, 2007) and I wanted to know how I could use it to make and disseminate practice-led research, use it as a collaborative tool for creative projects, and explore how far could the podcast go as a place to tell stories. Nest Podcast (2018) for FalWriting was the first approximation where I commissioned a team of students and staff to write a story one letter at a time under the premise that someone finds a nest. The podcast features each letter read by its writer and a conversation with the host and producer, a student at the time and now a voice actor for my award-winning podcast On The Hill, where the writer discussed the writing process and the tension of not being able to communicate with the previous or following writer anywhere else but in the letter itself – a key creative constrained of the project. Nest’s first letter was written by Amy Lilwall, a principal writer for On The Hill. This project enabled us to test the podcast form 78 Writing in Education
Figure 2 Sherezade recording at The Soundhouse, Falmouth University (2020).
Like a short story, a poem, a novel or a script, I understand the podcast as a form of literature which enables writers to tell stories, evoke places and feelings, describe people and help us share and learn about the human experience. The podcast takes us back to oral storytelling and creates an immediate and intimate connection with voice, and it is within this that lays its immense potential. The podcast, which is relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, can be delivered freely and widely through digital platforms, augmenting the writer’s audience. Published to a set rhythm – whether all at once or serialised – it can not only reconnect us to the beginnings of storytelling but to some of its more industrialised practices, such as serialised publication in parts. For writers in education the advantages of podcasting practice continue, for not only is podcasting a great
tool for their own writing practice, but it can also aid the teaching of creative writing and provide a place to conduct and articulate research. Practicing and teaching podcasting has enabled me to develop a multimodal writing practice (Barnard, 2017) and gain skills through a range of new roles including producer, podcast host, sound artist and editor. As a lecturer I have noticed the benefits of having an independent podcasting practice. I have gained confidence in public speaking, learnt to manage my time better (for workshops, seminars and lectures), and the practice of making an overarching narrative for On The Hill has helped me craft better narratives for my modules. Being the host of a podcast has taught me how to build a relationship with the listener and this has reinforced my teaching practice. As I writer, making a podcast has enabled me to learn how to write better for audio, how to be more daring, experimental and playful with my practice and how to engage with archival material to bring its texture into contemporary storytelling. My writing skills are embracing sound and as my independent podcasting practice grows – and with it more opportunities to make audio, such as my collaboration for SoundArt’s Lighting Birds: A Game of Sonic Tag (2020) – I look forward to enhancing my practice across these different mediums. An Awareness of Sound: A Podcasting Writing Exercise 1. Write an evocative sentence inspired by a place you love. 2. Read it aloud experimenting with different ways to deliver it. 3. Reflect on the sound and delivery: is there anything you could remove or add, or edit/rewrite to achieve a better sound? 4. Go back to the sentence and edit/rewrite as you like, paying close attention to how the sentence behaves in audio form. This is one of the key skills for a writer/podcaster.
Craft and Podcast – Amy
Figure 3 Amy Lilwall recording at The Soundhouse, Falmouth University (2020)
The above exercise encourages writers to think about how sentences can be constructed on order to be evocative and clear when read aloud. Before contributing to On The Hill, I often wondered about the enunciative talents of audiobook readers and news presenters, but had never thought about crafting the written word specifically to be listened to. It has now become part of my process to read aloud when I’m writing and in doing so, I am encouraged to think about the differences between reading and hearing a story. Among other things, I have to pause in the right places, emphasise certain words and generally make sure that a listener can follow the thread of the story. I am not yet very good at it, and this has also made me realise the skill involved in striking the right balance. When thinking about the elements of narrative, I have had to pay close attention to the following in spoken stories: •
Narration – My narrator very much becomes a character. They cannot fade back into the walls as narrators of prose are often allowed to do. The exercise above may have shown you that voice gives us access to the emotion of the story and so it makes sense to endow an identified narrator with this emotion. This is why first person works so well and is probably preferable – even if this means using a peripheral narrator. In one of my stories written for On The Hill (about Ellen Cuffe, Countess of Desart) I use second person as this perspective also keeps the listener close and involved.
•
Dialogue – When speaking a story, I have to be very clear on dialogue attribution as, unlike readers of audiobooks, I am not particularly good at voices! When reading dialogue on the page, the visual cues allow us to navigate the conversation seamlessly. This isn’t the case, of course, when listening to a story being read. Here again, learning how to pause (to signal change of speaker) as well as a heavyhanded use of dialogue attribution is very helpful here.
In the Classroom Writing for On The Hill has reminded of a long-known idea about a human being’s natural capacity for narrative. A quote by H. Porter Abbott captures this nicely: ‘For anyone who has taken a child to the movies and watched her pay attention, it is hard to believe that appetite for narrative is something we learn, rather than something that is built into our genes.’ (Abbott: 2002) In her book Monkey’s with Typewriters, writer Scarlett Thomas reinforces this idea: ‘We already work confidently with patterns and shapes in narratives, although we might not always realise this.’ (Thomas: 2012) She mentions specifically the power of the ‘anecdote’ and how our favourite funny anecdotes—often well rehearsed—highlight a tendency to order and dose information in such a way that it follows the rhythm of story. Most people are capable of doing this well and, very often, spontaneously. In the classroom, one exercise I ask my students to do is record a story without thinking about it. In doing this, I Writing in Education 79
encourage them to consider the idea that people think in narrative. We discuss the way that human beings can tell a story without dwelling on the delaying tactics required to create suspense, or the arrangement of events and blind spots in the story that will make for that impactful twist at the end. We apply these techniques automatically. So, how does this help students when they are writing for sound projects? Well through recording an anecdote and listening back to it, they discover that the special ingredient that comes to life when they are recorded— voice—is a very powerful vehicle for story. The texture of the human voice, among other things, enhances the intimacy of the podcast. Famous podcasts such as Lea Thau’s Strangers and spoken word story telling events such as The Moth play on this. An example I referred to during the conference is simply called Alfie and was recorded by a second-year Single Honours Creative Writing student in October 2020. The example has a basic aim—to tell the story of the student’s little dog, Alfie— but is unedited. The listener will notice that this story has a clear beginning, middle and end. They might also notice the literariness in the images used, such as when the student compares a snowy day to a black and white movie. They won’t fail to note the emotion in her voice: her laughter, her pauses, how she lengthens and allows breath into the word ‘amazed’ to describe how she feels when she brings puppy-Alfie home; her slight sadness at telling us that ‘he’s an old-man dog now’. This curation of moments that summarise Alfie’s life support the simplicity and impact of the ending— ‘You don’t have to be of the same blood as people to become family’. The recording is a minute long but contains all the ingredients of story. The efficacy of this simple story also proves that students don’t necessarily need recording studios; human beings carry recording equipment on them. In 2017, I supervised a group of third year students who had decided to write and record a series of short stories as part of their final year project. One member of the group spent hours under a duvet-covered table in order to recreate recording studio conditions. They also seemed to have a great time creating their own sound effects through walking up and down stairs, opening creaky doors, pulling corks out of bottles and stamping in the bathtub (for giants’ footsteps as I’m sure you will have guessed). In her article entitled ‘Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community’, Alison Peipmeier refers to ‘scrappy messiness’ as part of the charm of Zines. I believe that the intimacy of podcasts—often spoken right into your ears—as well as their quirkiness allows for the same kind of scrappy messiness, and this is where the ‘human’ ingredient is found. In her article for the New Yorker ‘How podcasts became a seductive and sometimes slippery mode of storytelling’ (Mead: 2018) Rebecca Mead comments that podcasts are ‘fashioned for every conceivable interest or taste’. Podcasters have the freedom to air exactly what they want as their fate isn’t governed by the threat of the rejection pile. With this in mind, our final piece of advice would be to think of your own idea for a podcast—as niche as you can make it! On The Hill, Sherezade’s podcast about stories from Falmouth cemetery, has 80 Writing in Education
proven its worth as a storytelling platform, a means of enriching teaching and research, a hub for collaboration and, most appealingly, a creative output over which its producer retains complete control. If you are quite taken with the idea, why not have a go yourself? References Barnard, J. (2017) The Multimodal Writer: Creative Writing Across Genres and Media. London: Red Globe Press. Mahnke, A. (2015) Lore [podcast]. Available from: https:// www.lorepodcast.com/ [Accessed 12 March 2021].
Eddo-Lodge, R. (2018) ‘About Race’ [podcast]. Available from: https://www.aboutracepodcast.com/ [Accessed 12 March 2021]. FalWriting. (2018) Nest [online]. Available from: https:// falwriting.com/search?q=nest [Accessed 12 March 2021].
SoundArt. (2020) Lighting Birds: A Game of Sonic Tag [online]. Available from: https://www.soundartradio.org.uk/a-game-ofsonic-tag/?fbclid=IwAR2HfQikt0D-lDmybvazRLDgj1HIbtTm7 7rylk8XBcLNuS1APyiutJME1lM [Accessed 12 March 2021]. Abbott, Porter H. (2002) The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: The University Press. pp. 2-3.
Mead, R., 2021. How Podcasts Became a Seductive—and Sometimes Slippery—Mode of Storytelling. [online] The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2018/11/19/how-podcasts-became-a-seductive-andsometimes-slippery-mode-of-storytelling [Accessed 27 March 2021]. Oliver, A. (2020) Alfie. Unpublished recording, University of Lincoln.
Piepmeier, Alison. (2008). Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community. American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography. 18. 213-238.
Thau, L. (2012) Stranger [podcast]. Available at: https://www. storycentral.org/strangers/ [Accessed 27 March 2021].
Thomas, S. (2012) Monkeys with Typewriters: How to Write Fiction and Unlock the Secret Power of Stories. Edinburgh: Canongate. pp. 28 – 29.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Sherezade García Rangel teaches English and Creative Writing at Falmouth University. She is a Research Fellow at the Wiley Digital Archive for the Royal Geographic Society. She is the founder and host of the award-winning literary podcast, On The Hill. Her writing has appeared in Gutter Magazine, Hwearf and others. Amy Lilwall teaches Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. Her first novel, The Biggerers, was published by Point Blank in 2018. Amy has written for Short Fiction in Theory & Practice, New Writing, Writing in Practice and The Literary Platform. Amy is also a contributor to the award-winning On The Hill podcast.
Read On: New ways to engage young people with reading and writing Helen Preston The email below is written by a young woman who participated in the activity called “My life in Strips”, an activity in the Read On project. This young woman, now aged 21, is called Linn Isabel Eielsen, and she was 18 and a student at a local college in my home town when she participated and won the first My life in Strips competition in 2018. The competition had 155 contributions in 2018, from students and pupils in England, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Norway. Linn was a bit of a talent before Read On, and has since 2018 established herself as an artist. She is a cartoonist, a writer, an illustrator and a musician, she has her own comic strip in both newspapers and in social media, and she is also an illustrator for a Norwegian publisher. Anyone interested in her work, can visit her web site: www. linneielsen.com Read On is not just a project for people like Linn, but also for all students and pupils aged 12-19 who would like to take part in creative work within the world of reading and writing in various ways. The aim of the project is to develop 1219 year olds into active readers and to motivate their interest and ability in creative writing. The aim is also to involve and inspire teachers and librarians to communicate literature in as many ways as possible to increase young peoples involvement in the world of literature. For more information, see https://readon.eu
Three years ago, some friends in my high school dragged me to a poster in the hallway. I stared at it, and shook my head. There was no point in even applying, because there was no way I was going to place, nevertheless win. They told me to join in anyways. I silently took their advice, and applied some of my comic strips to the first “My Life in Strips” competition. A couple of months later, I received the notion that I had won. This was the start of realizing that my comic and art maybe could be something. Maybe it already was something? Getting the prize was amazing, but the true value was lying in the fact that someone believed in me. Someone saw something in me and my drawings, and wanted me to keep telling my stories. Last year, I was the youngest person to have illustrated a book for Cappelen Damm, the biggest publishing house in Norway. Today I’m finishing off my third book, and later this year my comic L-innsikt will turn 5 years old. I’m drawing, writing and creating every single day, and doing things I never even dreamed of doing. I’m forever grateful for the opportunities and experiences Read on has given me, and for the seed of self-confidence that was planted in me by the programme.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Helen Preston is a school leader from Norway. Her school is lead partner in the Read On project (gro.helen.preston@skole.rogfk.no)
Competitions and programmes like “My Life in Strips” and “Read On” are incredibly valuable for young people. They engage, inspire, motivate, and give us something back for our hard work. Being young today can be difficult, and the need to express ourselves in healthy ways, is tremendous. Thank you for inspiring and motivating us to create content in forms of art, text, music and photography. And thank you for teaching me to believe in myself, by believing in me first! Sincerely, Linn Isabel Eielsen aka. @Linnsikt
Writing in Education 81
Embrace the Machines!
Online Writing Instruction Towards Preserving Humanity David Moody & Bern Mulvey In 2020, the challenges of online instruction became familiar to many educators as their institutions shifted to online education during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this talk, two instructors shared their efforts, experiences, and eventual expertise in leading online-only classrooms. The title of the talk, “Embrace the Machines,” is a call to action that is not new in the field of online education; however, these instructors challenge the definition of machine, machinery, and mechanization in their talks with the goal of discovering a panacea for the malaise of online learning felt by students and teachers alike. Their talks take an autoethnographic approach to first-hand experiences with designing and delivering online courses in creative writing to traditionally in-person students. The shared context of the speakers’ backgrounds is important to the discussion. Both speakers represent a major R1 university located in the US southwest. At this university, creative writing and literature courses are open for enrollment to majors and non-majors alike. The average length for an inperson course at this institution is 15 weeks, but online courses typically are a 7.5-week session. In either case, undergraduate creative writing courses have an average enrollment cap of 25-30 students. Each instructor traditionally has taught online and in-person courses in rhetoric and composition, literature, and creative writing, meaning that they encounter students just starting their university lives as well as those preparing to graduate. In the spring 2020 semester, the university shifted a majority of 15-week in-person courses online, a move that extended into the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters. These courses offered limited in-person options to students and share the same issues typical of online education, including issues related to technology, a lack of direct interaction/socialization, perceptions of online courses being easy alternative to--or a subpar version of--a “real” class, self-motivation, and distractions found in environments not crafted for education purposes (i.e. coffee shops; home) (Friedman, 2020). In addition to these pre-existing challenges, problems specific to the pandemic online shift include • • •
students and instructors being forced to adopt unfamiliar technology, student and instructor resistance to online environments, disengagement sourced in the video chat experience,
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• • •
students and instructors expecting “the same class but online,” student and instructor uncertainty about the future in general, and a loss of intrinsic motivation due to overwhelming extrinsic systemic deterrents.
Many, if not all, of the above challenges are rooted in that these students did not opt into online learning. It was compelled. This obligatory shift and begrudging participation in a seemingly mandatory environment is unlike what many students expect from a college experience. Mulvey focuses on the challenges specific to teaching and learning writing in an online environment. Beginning writers typically lack awareness of audience needs, as well as familiarity with the wide variety of techniques available to writers to meet those needs. For this reason, many interactions (peer editing, group and class discussion, etc.) in a traditional writing course serve important functions beyond assessing individual understanding of the course materials. Students are also being socialized into a more sophisticated awareness of the community of readers/writers around them, a community of individuals with thoughts, backgrounds, ambitions, etc. different from their own--i.e., they are learning about “audience.” How to recreate this crucial learning experience in a fully online class? Mulvey proposes a community-centric approach to online courses. In this case, the mechanism of the classroom is student interaction, and once set in motion, students follow suit, focusing on how they can support each other throughout the online experience. Having a sense of community leads to a perception of an audience, a feature of online courses that can be underdeveloped by way of Zoom’s (and other group video tool’s) camera-off mode. With audience awareness in place, student interaction, participation, and course investment improves. But what are the best practices for building an online community? Mulvey proposes five key features be included in online writing courses: • • • • •
Exposure to a wide variety of readings Small and large group discussion (readings, techniques, ideas and issues) Workshops of student writing One-on-one conference opportunities with instructor Struggling students identified early
Furthermore, Mulvey emphasizes the importance of four teaching tools available in most well-known Learning Management Systems: • Zoom Video Conferencing • Discussion Boards • Announcements • Analytics
foregrounds problem-solving within a given scenario. However, in a course filled with students who perceive the online version as a simulation or stand-in for the “real” course, the real-world is what seems to be missing. Moody argued that to simulate the seriousness of the real world, it became necessary to incorporate live moments of making choices with real-world impact.
Finally, Mulvey highlights the pedagogical possibilities with each of these tools, including: • Breakout room/poll/share screen functions in Zoom • Methods of achieving effective online peer review via discussion boards • Community creation via the course announcement function • Using analytics proactively to find/fix issues early, rather than penalize later
Gamification of a course can provide a serious-scenario experience. A gamified class is one “in which some, many, or all of the elements of curriculum and instruction correspond to and bear the hallmarks of various game mechanics” (Cassie, 2016). Games playfully simulate aspects of real life by engaging six principles: 1. Strict rules that all players must follow 2. Conditions for success that are clearly defined 3. Satisfaction of a drive to succeed 4. Variable path of action (i.e. ways to win as well as lose) 5. Variable outcomes within predictable sets if gameplay is repeated 6. Four “mother” mechanics: agon (skill); alea (luck); mimicry (identity); ilinx (entropy)
Following Mulvey’s contextualizing talk, Moody shifted the discussion to a specific example of applying the above features to online creative writing courses using a game design approach. His talk “Letting Them Choose Their Own Adventure,” Moody took a problem-solution approach to issues of non-participation, disengagement, and agency loss in online writing courses. Student agency is generally low due to institutional restrictions. The recent forced shift to online-only education exacerbated that lack of agency. Additionally, the loss of a “real life” social element removes a motivator for participation. With less drive to participate, students decline to use whatever agency they have. Moody discussed how he has faced similar challenges to agency and participation as a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum. Rather than restricting visitors to stay on a predetermined planned path, he adapts to their interests, being willing to shift the discussion to which ever painting catches their attention. He notes that all museum options are valid since the curator has already vetted them when creating each gallery. The result of this adaptative approach his improved participation in conversation. Moody proposed bringing this choice-centric and curatorial approach to classroom design. Choice-focused course design has been linked to increases in student effort, task performance, and subsequent learning (Marzano, 2010). Additionally, when given choice by teachers, students perceive classroom activities as more important, resulting in increased engagement. Choice creates a perception of individual autonomy which positively influences intrinsic motivation and perceptions of agency (Getty, 2018). This agency, grounded in making content and assignment choices, transitions the course from a push model (passive info delivery) to an interactive model, where the learner makes the same types of decisions she’d make in a real-world environment (Briggs, 2013). Moody addressed how choice is an invitation to act that answers the implicit question “What now?” For this reason, choice-centered course design fundamentally
In gamified courses, these features inform course mechanics that can sustain student engagement in online courses. This gamification framework, paired with a course’s focus on creative writing, echoes the gamebooks popularized in the 1980s by the series Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) and Fighting Fantasy, gamebooks reemerged in popularity in the 2010s. These books emphasize reader participation. Each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character’s actions and the plot’s outcome. Pulling from gamebooks feature and a gamification framework, Moody outlined his gamified creative writing classroom. • The course should be student-centered in its use of the 2nd person singular “you” address found in all course documents ranging from the syllabus to language in online modules • Coursework should foreground “discovery” of content as opposed to mastery of content already discovered by others • Students should be encouraged to view themselves as the protagonist of their own education narrative. • The design should emphasize student choice in each activity, similar to the “If you want to _____, then turn to page____” format common to gamebooks • The design should be modular with concise units that could be rearranged as needed. • The course should be text-based, not tech-based, to promote accessibility and to emphasize written language over media consumption At the core of this design is choice. Students who have opportunities to express voice and choice on important matters become leaders in their own education narratives. Building choice into design can appear as asking questions (choosing to interrupt the system); managing time usage; self-organizing tasks; selecting Writing in Education 83
Figure 1
which texts and resources to use (choice of learning material); opting whom to work with (collaborative choices); selecting which products to create; and identifying overall sequence of choices (BIE Rubric for PBL, Davis, 2016). The latter four design features are the primary factors in a CYOA course. • “Selecting which texts and resources to use” can take the form of a curated bank of readings from which students select two to read, compare, and respond. • “Selecting which products to create” can take the form of a curated bank of prompts for creative activities from which student select one to complete (i.e. style mimicry or form usage) • “Opting whom to work with (collaborative choices)” can take the form of a required minimum number of responses per workshop discussion but not assigning group members or tasking who-replies-to-whom. • “Identifying overall sequence of choices” can take the form of tasking students with reflective writing assignments at the end of each unit (and the overall course), with the goal of individual’s mapping their choices and choice outcomes to craft a personal learning narrative. An example of these four features incorporated into a single assignment can be found in Figure 1 (above). This image shows an assignment from an upper-division online course in travel writing. In this assignment, students are asked to select one text from two banks of curated readings, write a critical response to those readings, and reply to two posts from other classmates. Unpictured in the reflective activity that takes place at the end of the course. A similar example can be found in Figure 2 (next page) in which students are tasked with writing a brief essay 84 Writing in Education
in response to a writing prompt. The key feature is that students may select and complete any of the three prompts. In both the reading response and the writing prompt response, students are invited to evaluate the possible paths for completing the assignment, finding a path that best suits their interests. By curating the readings so that they all represent a key feature (i.e. untrustworthy narrators) and by curating the writing prompts to empathize a common objective (i.e. writing in fulfillment of poetic meter), students collectively practice the same skill but do so in a way that provides them a sense of agency, thereby improving their engagement, investment, and attention retention. Through an awareness of student backgrounds, an effective usage of available online tools, and a gamified design, online creative courses can be a thriving learning environment for students. It is important to “embrace the machine” of online teaching technology, but it is equally important to remember that writing is a technology that transforms the ways in which one thinks (Ong, 1982). Central to that technology is its user--the student--who becomes part of the mechanization of the tool’s usage. The instructor, then, works most actively in the pre-teaching phase of course design to develop a system in which the student can act independently but within defined parameters. By anticipating troubles in a lesson and designing paths away from options that would result in that trouble, and by using feedback to show students what they still need to do to reach an objective, creative writing instructors can fulfill Jackson’s (2009) call to “never work harder than your students” while also being creative, embracing play as a seriously engaging feature of online learning.
Figure 2 References Bentley, Jim. 2016. “Project Design Rubric.” Buck Institute of Education Rubric for Project-Based Learning. Briggs, Saga. 2013. “20 Ideas For A Choose-Your-OwnAdventure Model of Learning.” InformED, www.opencolleges. edu.au/informed/features/a-choose-your-own-adventuremodel-of-learning/. Caillois, Roger. 1961. Man, Play and Games. Free Pr. Cassie, Jonathan. 2016. Level up Your Classroom: the Quest to Gamify Your Lessons and Engage Your Students: The Quest to Gamify Your Lessons and Engage Your Students. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Deterding, Sebastian et al. 2011. “Gamification. Using GameDesign Elements in Non-Gaming Contexts.” CHI ’11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM. 2425–2428. Web. Friedman, Jordan. 2020. “Tackle Challenges of Online Classes Due to COVID-19.” U.S. News and World Report. https:// www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-toovercome-challenges-of-online-classes-due-to-coronavirus
Getty. Amy. 2018. “Choose Your Own Adventure: The Quest for Student Agency in an American Literature Class.” Currents in Teaching & Learning. Vol. 10 Issue 1, p32-38. 7p. Jackson, Robyn R. 2009. “Never work harder than your students and other principles of great teaching.” Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Marzano, Pickering. 2010. The Highly Engaged Classroom. Marzano Research Laboratory. Ong, Walter, 2002. Orality and Literacy. Routledge. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: David Moody teaches creativity and composition at Arizona State University. He is a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum and former production editor for The Cortland Review. David’s recent poetry appears in Juked, The Florida Review, and Watershed Review. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University. Bern Mulvey has published two books of poetry—The Fat Sheep Everyone Wants (Cleveland State University Press) and Deep Snow Country (Oberlin College Press)—two chapbooks and a number of articles, book chapters and essays. He teaches writing at Arizona State University.
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The Value of Writing Constraints in the Generative Workshop John Vigna It began like many writing experiments started out, by posing a challenge. In 1960, two men made a bet. Bennett Cerf, the founder of Random House, challenged Theo Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, that he couldn’t write an entertaining children’s book using just 50 different words. Cerf bet Dr. Seuss $50 that he couldn’t do it. The result was Dr. Seuss’s book, Green Eggs and Ham. The book has sold more than 200 million copies in the last 60 years, making it the most popular of Seuss’s works and one of the best-selling children’s books in history. Was it the bet itself or the creative power of limitations that led to Dr. Seuss’s creative solution, one enjoyed by millions of readers over the years? THE RIGIDITY OF RULES Rigid rules and forms may seem counter-intuitive to novelists and short story writers, but by creating restrictions and slowing down the writing pace, you can actually generate creative thinking. History and literary history, specifically, is filled with examples of people who embraced their limitations rather than fought them. George R.R. Martin wrote his best-selling novels on an old DOS machine running WordStar 4.0, ancient word processing software. This ensured a distraction-free environment where he could produce his best work. (He’s also not on Facebook or Twitter.) The Canadian writer, Mona Awad, read “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens, a work noted for his imagistic exercises in perspective. Stevens’s structuring principle offered Awad a constraint to focus on discrete glimpses of a woman’s struggle with body image and explore how that struggle played out in specific scenarios: dressing rooms, a tense lunch with a female friend, a visit with a parent, sex, a cardio machine war at the gym. Her book, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, selectively focuses on moments, tensions, dynamics, relationships she wanted to explore, creating the sort of multi-faceted portrait she was interested in. 13 ways, 13 stories. If our limitations can provide us with the greatest opportunity for creativity and inventiveness, how can we work with our students to let their limitations fill them with strength and give them an enormous learning opportunity? 86 Writing in Education
THE GENERATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP In a generative writing workshop, students create new material, experiment with form and technique and develop their aesthetic. However, when low stakes writing experiments with specific constraints are incorporated, it moves students to the edge of their competency where new material, insights and breakthroughs can take place. Constraints help students scaffold their writing projects by trying new strategies, taking stylistic risks and working without the pressure or judgement that polished work often provides. Writing with constraints also helps writers deepen their process, lays the foundation for rich discussion and reflection, and helps them become more skilled writers. WHAT ARE CONSTRAINTS? “Constrained writing” is a literary technique where you create rules and limits for your writing. Constraints are common in poetry, which often requires the writer to use a particular verse form. For example, haiku is a popular form of constrained writing. It’s a form of poetry that originated in Japan, and it’s structured with three lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively. In prose forms, an obvious example of constrained writing is Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters. The plot is conveyed through mail or notes sent between various characters. The book is “progressively lipogramatic” — as the story proceeds, more and more letters of the alphabet are excluded from the characters’ writing. As letters disappear, the novel becomes more and more phonetically or creatively spelled, and requires more effort to interpret. And so, the writing becomes more constrained as the story progresses. When you’re hemmed in, when you’re constrained, there’s great freedom with those boundaries. You can write things out of you. HOW CONSTRAINTS HELP YOUR WRITING The constraints in our writing often force us to make choices and cultivate skills that would otherwise go undeveloped. They drive creativity and foster skill development.
They give us a starting and end point instead of a blank page. They kick start a project and force us to do the work. They break down complex topics of craft and technique and allow us to work on them by applying our learning to those specifically, instead of within the scope of a larger work. And in doing all of these things: they can hoodwink you into completing bold work, longer work. I supervise six novel thesis’s every year from very talented writers and if there’s one thing they have in common it’s a fear of writing a book. It seems too big! Where do I begin? How do I maintain energy to do it? Am I smart enough? Etc. Writing constraints can put parameters around their work, breaking it down into smaller, more manageable parts. In many ways, reaching the next level of creative performance is simply a matter of choosing and completing the right constraints. HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT CONSTRAINTS When using constraints to improve your skills, a less is more approach is advised. 1. Decide what specific skill you want the students to develop. The more specific the skill, the easier it will be to design a good constraint. For example, in writing fiction, students rely heavily on backstory or flashbacks as a way to write a story, often to make up for a lack of story in the fictive present. That’s too general and it’s something they are comfortable with. By writing with the constraint of no backstory or flashback, it helps them develop creative different ways to move the narrative forward, to reveal character, to include conflict, to raise the stakes, etc – aspects which are invaluable in strong fiction. 2. Design a constraint that requires this specific skill to be used. Be clear, specific and detailed. Offer steps to complete it, like good help instructions. Rather than the openness that general “writing prompts” generally create. 3. Get your reps in. Constraints can accelerate skill development, but they aren’t a magic pill. You still need to put in your time. These are not one offs. Build them so one precedes the other. Avoid having them feel like busy-work and scaffold them towards longer works. The best plan is useless without repeated action. What matters most is getting your reps in. The iterative nature of writing. EXAMPLES OF WRITING CONSTRAINTS To set up constraints within a generative workshop, start with considering the language in describing the activities. For example, try using the term “writing experiments” instead of writing exercises or writing prompts. A writing experiment suggests just that. It’s an opportunity to experiment within a set of constraints that are applied in the writing. An experiment offers students an opportunity to take risks, to move to the edges of
their competency and to play. An experiment suggests that the reward is the experiment, therefore it feels like a low stake’s activity. Tie each experiment to a particular aspect of the tutor’s teaching: craft, technique, emotions, politics, readings, etc. This ensures that students welcome the experiments and see their value in being able to generate material. A writing exercise can imply something less serious, or disposable or something to be taken less seriously, and perhaps offer less of an opportunity to take risks in the work. And a writing prompt is a term that’s perhaps diluted now given the millions of sites that offer writers “prompts” to start writing. In general, prompts can be less structured and constrained. When reviewing students’ work on their writing experiments, treat these as low stakes activities that are marked complete or incomplete. Offer light and encouraging feedback (when working with undergraduate students) and ask questions or raise possibilities the experiment has generated with graduate students. Offering comments on the experiments creates an ongoing conversation between student and tutor on how the progress is going, what’s emerging, what’s being left behind – rare conversations that are part of the creative process rather than after the fact. Scaffold the experiments to build upon each other from week-to-week and to help students work further with in developing each experiment more deeply. Design each experiment to help generate material for a major submission (full short story) so the experiments feel connected, to help writers explore different aspects of their material in taking stylistic risks. When students work on experiments that lead to stories in progress, this helps them develop a process entrenched in the spirit of generating material, getting comfortable with what emerges, curious, seeing patterns develop, discovery and openness, being more vulnerable to their material instead of being critical of it. ADDITIONAL TIPS When designing writing experiments for your students, consider the following tips: • Encourage students to share their reflections on the experiment, not the experiments themselves. The students should do the work on their own and share it with the tutor, not the class. They work independently with the tutor with notes, discussions and revision and share instead their reflections on the challenges of the work, not the work itself. This takes them away from the challenges of writing for their peers in a workshop where student texts form the basis for discussion. • Coach students to create their own constraints. Developing constraints can motivate students and engage them in a focused experiential learning moment, therefore helping them develop into skilled writers • Invite students to write about how they used their constraints. For example, they might write a selfWriting in Education 87
•
• •
reflection or review on how they completed their work, what challenged them, why and how they worked around those challenges solidifies the learning. Reflective writing helps student writers learn to interrogate their own writing, which in turn helps them learn how to write. Avoid creating experiments that feel like disposable exercises. Although these are generative exercises, the experiments should be relevant to what the students are doing. They should never appear as “make busy” work. Students will lose faith in the process and in you. Be transparent. Explain the prompt and tell them why they’re doing it. Impose constraints on longer works. For example, challenge them to write a story without any backstory, use of flashbacks and to remove all instances of “She felt/heard/saw/looked/tasted,” etc.
RESULTS Since working with students in a generative workshop characterized by writing experiments, I have seen some of the most exciting work produced by students in writing fiction. They work in different forms (list stories, language-driven stories, form stories, etc), try different points of view and voices, experiment with verb tenses and narrative devices. Not only are they producing more exciting and accomplished work, but it’s clear that the
process is both daunting and exciting to them. They approach their writing with an openness and curiosity rather than feeling pressure to produce work that would otherwise be read and discussed by their peers in a traditional workshop. The students demonstrate a command of their intent and process and are better able to work with revision as a result of having gone through different ways of exposing their work to themselves. They are profoundly changed as writers, more open and receptive to following hunches and ultimately more in touch to access their writerly instincts. So, yes, while they are learning important tools of craft and technique, they are ultimately learning how to trust themselves. After all, isn’t this our goal for student writers? ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Vigna’s first book of fiction, Bull Head, was selected by Quill & Quire as an editor’s pick of the year and was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Bull Head was translated and published in France (2017) by Éditions Albin Michel (Loin de la violence des hommes). Named one of 10 writers to watch by CBC Books, John is an Assistant Professor of Teaching and Pedagogy Chair at the University of British Columbia School of Creative Writing where his focus is on pedagogical and curricular strategies for 5000 creative writing students across the MFA, BFA and BA Minor programs including online/ blended teaching innovations. His novel, No Man’s Land, is forthcoming in Fall 2021.
Interested in making a Creative Contribution to Writing in Education? Please ensure the submission has some connection to the theme of the issue, or relevance to Writing in Education in general. We’re especially interested in creative pieces (poetry, flash fiction, short form prose) that might have been produced as an outcome of an idea that is being shared in the magazine. For example, you might discuss using poetry as inspiration on a Creative Writing workshop and share some of the group’s outputs and then include a piece you have produced yourself in response to the workshop. We will also accept standalone contributions if accompanied by a brief context paragraph. 88 Writing in Education
Research-informed approaches to Teaching Online Francis Gilbert I was delighted to share some of my ideas about researchinformed online teaching at the NAWE conference. My talk was well attended with seventy people watching it live. It is now on the NAWE website as a video talk. Since the 2000s, I have been using videos and online platforms like blogs in my teaching. As a school teacher in a large secondary school until 2015, I created websites to bring together all the vital information about the topics I was covering. Wordpress blogs are particularly good at marshalling together multiple sources of information, and providing you as a teacher a chance to offer your views and strategies. You can see my blog about William Blake here: https://williamblakereloaded.wordpress. com/ It includes the YouTube videos I made where I perform and sing Blake’s poems, and also analyse them. I cannot pretend to be a great singer or songwriter at all, but I improvised music around Blake’s poetry as a way of showing my pupils (and others) that creative writing can be played with, interpreted and performed. At the beginning of my NAWE workshop, I used puppets to tell a story which illustrated my key points about teaching online. I cannot pretend to be expert puppeteer or storyteller, but I offered my show in the spirit of playfulness. In Figure 1 you can see my ‘inner princess’ – the person in me who desires to be perfect – meeting the magic wizard who the princess wants to solve all her problems with teaching online.
Figure 1 My inner princess meets the online wizard who will solve all my problems.
Figure 2 The princess meets her inner demons The rest of my talk involved my inner princess learning about all the solutions that could help her climb out of the learning pit. While this opening to my talk might seem rather naive, substantive research shows that when teachers turn their explanations into stories, then their students remember their central points much better. Glonek & King write: Teachers should not apologize for using their storytelling skills in class nor should they feel that their students are always best served by covering large quantities of expository material in a PowerPoint presentation. (2014: 40) Stories are great ways of assembling disparate bits of information and presenting them in a meaningful, motivating and memorable fashion. They are what Deleuze & Guattari would call ‘assemblages’ (2004) – bits of stuff brought together into a dynamic whole. They ‘territorialise’ information – give a grounding, offer a landscape – but they also afford their audience ‘lines of flight’ (Deleuze & Guattari 2004: xvi): a chance to find their own flow, to escape from someone else’s story and find their own one. I suggest in my talk that a good way of territorializing your thoughts/feelings about online teaching and find your own ‘line of flight’ is by starting a learning journal about your experiences. Such a journal should be professional in focus but also deeply personal (Bolton 2006). It should be full of things like ‘venting’.
Sadly, the wizard disappears and my inner princess falls down the ‘learning pit’: the place where learners get stuck. There, she meets a devil, who represents her doubts.
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Figure 3 illustrates what venting involves.
Figure 3 Venting drawing by the author
Another way of more precisely exploring your feelings is by drawing a circumplex which psychologists use to itemise how people’s affect (their emotions) (Tseng 2014). Figure 4 is a circumplex I made to show the vital emotions involved in everyday life.
Figure 4 The author’s drawing of a circumplex
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Figure 5 is my circumplex about online teaching.
Figure 5 My circumplex about online teaching
You can see that ‘high arousal’ and pleasure in me is generated by positive student feedback, but high arousal ‘displeasure’ by negative feedback. Both generate a great deal of energy, but in different ways. So, the thing here is to consider how best to use this energy. I argue that as an online teacher you must take a ‘Growth Mindset’ approach (Dweck 2014) to online teaching as opposed to a ‘Fixed Mindset’. The two approaches are outlined in the following table: Fixed Online Teaching Mindset
Growth Online Teaching Mindset
I’ll look stupid if I say I don’t know how to do it
I’ll learn from discussing things that confuse me
I must never make any mistakes
Learning from my mistakes will help me improve
I can blame people and situations if I don’t succeed
By understanding how other people and situations affect me, I’ll become more aware of what helps me and what does not
Either you have that ability to operate the technology and teach online or you don’t
I can learn and grow as a teacher all the time, no matter how old I am: taking the right attitude towards the technology will help me
Better to give up rather than suffer from stress
These online classes are complete nightmares
Reflecting upon practice is a complete waste of time, it will just stress me out
There will be stressful times, but with a mindful approach, I will acknowledge and accept my feelings and this will help me relax in the long run These online classes are challenging, but I’ll discuss them with colleagues and experiment with some different strategies if things don’t work out Actually I can learn a great deal from reflecting and analysing my practice
This is probably the most important point I made. With teaching online, you are always going to fall into the ‘learning pit’ (Figure 6). There will be times when you want to give up because it is such a new and challenging area in so many ways. Trying things out, learning from your mistakes is the way to improve. This is how technically accomplished people become technically accomplished.
learning (2012: ABC Learning Design 2020). Please watch the video presentation for more on this. My central advice is to adopt a Growth Mindset to online teaching. This is easy to say, but difficult to carry out in practice because it is a tricky, contentious and stressful process, fraught with many issues. But it is being aware of your emotions and learning to respond in a way that will help you grow as a person and a teacher which ultimately helps the most. This is what the research really shows. References Bolton, Gillie. “Narrative Writing: Reflective Enquiry into Professional Practice.” Educational Action Research: Health and Social Care 14.2 (2006): 203-18. Web. Deleuze, G., Guattari, F., (Translated Massumi, Brian. (2004). A thousand plateaus capitalism and schizophrenia (Continuum impacts). London: Continuum.
Dweck, C. (2014). Teachers’ Mindsets: “Every Student has Something to Teach Me”: Feeling overwhelmed? Where did your natural teaching talent go? Try pairing a growth mindset with reasonable goals, patience, and reflection instead. It’s time to get gritty and be a better teacher. Educational Horizons, 93(2), 10-15. Glonek, K., & King, P. (2014). Listening to Narratives: An Experimental Examination of Storytelling in the Classroom. International Journal of Listening, 28(1), 32-46.
Hew, K.F. (2016) on ‘Engagement: lessons from MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)’, British Journal of Technology, Vol 47, no 2 2016: https://www.bera.ac.uk/news/covid-19online-teaching-and-learning Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a design science : Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. New York, NY: Routledge. ABC Learning Design (2021) URL accessed 24th March 2021: https://abc-ld.org/6-learning-types/
Tseng, A., Bansal, R., Liu, J., Gerber, A.J., Goh, S., Posner, J., Colibazzi, T., Algermissen, M., Chiang, I., Russell, J.A. & Peterson, B.S. (2014) “Using the Circumplex Model of Affect to Study Valence and Arousal Ratings of Emotional Faces by Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders”, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 1332-1346. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Francis Gilbert is a senior lecturer in education at Goldsmiths, University of London and head of the MA in Creative Writing and Education. He has published many books, mainly focused upon educational themes, including ‘I’m A Teacher, Get Me Out of Here’ (Short Books 2004) and ‘The Last Day of Term’ (Short Books 2011). Most recently he published a novel, ‘Snow on the Danube’ (Blue Door Press 2019).
Figure 6 Falling Down the Learning Pit
During the rest of presentation, I offer some researchinformed strategies for developing meaningful online learning, which included Hew’s excellent research into what works with Massive Open Online Courses (2016) and Laurillard’s seminal ABC method of designing online Writing in Education 91
REVIEWS Imagined Spaces
Low, G. and Gunn, K. (eds) The Voyage Out Press 2020 ISBN 978-0-9955123-4-4, Paperback, £14.99
Emma Bolland and Elizabeth Chakrabarty’s contribution to this provocative and absorbing collection of essays is illustrated by a series of photographs featuring closeups of two hands writing in notebooks whose pages overlap. As a series, these images are entitled “Together writing”. Contemplating them now, as we enter our second year of Covid-19, I cannot help reflecting on the transience of things and how the modes of living we have taken for granted—the social gatherings, the hugs, the conferences, the ease of travel to the next town or the other side of the globe—have been so fundamentally transformed by the virus. As societies and individuals, we find ourselves in a state of essay as we adjust to Zoom birthdays, home schooling, elbow bumps, or the Covid swerve as we pass someone on the pavement or in the supermarket aisle. Although “essay” is now more often understood as referring to a piece of academic writing produced by students as evidence of their learning and conforming to a structure which requires a conclusion, the essay, as it was originally understood, derives its name from the French essayer—to try. An essay is an attempt at something and it can never be complete. It is an intellectual exploration, a ramble into the unmapped spaces of the essayist’s mind which may leave footsteps and cairns for others to follow but is unlikely to find its way into the Ordnance Survey. Here be dragons. Gail Low and Kirsty Gunn, themselves essayists and teachers of the form (or, perhaps, emergence), state in their introductory essay, “Tracing Lines”, that their ambition for this collection is to reclaim “ruminations, wanderings, 92 Writing in Education
attempts, tests, approaches, transgressive and speculative writings”. This they succeed in doing in an anthology which is as varied in form as it is in content and offers an entrancing journey into its contributors’ “imagined spaces”, and thus into the reader’s own. Seven of the eighteen essays offered are collaborative works, but, in the questing spirit of the anthology, they are rarely seamless, rather written as conversations between the writers. This makes them essays in the ur-sense aspired to by Low and Gunn—attempts at completion, the committing to paper of the collaborative thought process rather than the polished end result of the conversations. They result from the editors’ decision to encourage creative pairings, and are often presented as edited transcripts of email exchanges (or photographs of hands performing “together writing”). Some of these pairings, such as that between Bolland and Chakrabarty, arise out of the editors’ interventions. Others, for example that between the architect Lorens Holm and Paul Noble, the creator of the drawing project, Nobson Newtown, were born out of externalities—here an exhibition of Noble’s work, in Susan Nickalls’ “Mind the Gap”, the opening of Kengo Kuma’s V & A Dundee. Several of the essays include visual images as well as the written word. As Holm quotes Noble in Politics of Small Places, “’I don’t think in words, I think out of words.’” I took particular delight in “The Strange Performance of Ink on Paper” in which the artist Whitney McVeigh pairs her works with enigmatic poetic texts. This is perhaps
the essay which most explicitly opens up a space for the reader’s imagination and reflects this through a layout which leaves generous white spaces on the page. Others are more traditional and, of these, Dai John’s “Between the Lines” stands out as a vivid memoir of an operational deployment to Kosovo during the Balkan War, when John was a serving army officer. Constructed as much like an intelligent, and often funny, thriller as an essay, this piece shifts effortlessly from the liminal space of the aircraft carrying soldiers to the conflict zone through the interior space in which the soldier tries to make a whole of his separate lives, to the balancing liminal space of the journey home from war. There are no arrivals, merely anticipations. John writes with elegance
and suppressed emotion about a way of life which is as provisional and edgy as the essay form itself. A final note of praise for this absorbing and original collection: the book itself is an object of desire, the printing of both text and images of a good quality on heavy paper, the cover design elegant and spare. A book to cherish, both for its physical presence and its contributors’ capacity to lead the reader up many charming and mysterious garden paths. Sarah Bower is a novelist, sometime essayist and short story writer based in Norwich. She is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University where she is currently studying for a PhD in creative and critical writing.
Teaching Through Stories: Renewing the Scottish Storyline Approach Hoeg Karlsen, K. and Haggstrom, M (eds): Waxmann, 444 pages, paperback As someone who has been a creative writer, as well as teacher of English and Drama, for many years, I am fully aware of the transformative power of stories. But as a senior lecturer who has been closely involved in Teacher Education (TE) for the last decade (in England), I must confess I was largely ignorant of the Scottish Storyline Approach to TE—that is, until I was given the opportunity to review this wide-ranging and thoughtful study. Long after finishing it, I find myself returning to it—using its ‘stories’ to critically reflect on my own practice as a teacher-educator and the various ways in which the many exemplary case studies included here could be incorporated into PGCE programmes I co-lead on, or contribute to in more peripheral terms. The anthology comprises nineteen discrete chapters, (including fourteen peer-reviewed publications), and is helpfully organised across three defined ‘strands’: Learning about Storyline (‘as a pedagogical approach,
and concerns a broad variety of content fields, interdisciplinary and collaboration within TE’), Learning through Storyline (in which ‘studies address various subject-specific outcomes of The Storyline Approach (TSA), such as the learning of mathematical knowledge, sustainability and aesthetic learning’) and Learning in Storyline (which attempts to ‘give a more complete perspective on the TSA). The entire collection represents practical applications of the approach written by researchers and practitioners with ‘experience in initial teacher education’. In their introduction, editors Kristine Hoeg Karlsen and Margaretha Haggstrom provide newcomers with a brief history of TSA and efforts made in schools that adopt the approach, (covering Early Years, Primary, Secondary and Post-16) to prepare pupils to ‘meet the demands of the internationalised cultures and policies of the twentyfirst century’. They also make the point that many TE Writing in Education 93
programmes (even the internationally regarded PGCE) have been ‘criticised for a lack of connection between theory and practice’. Moreover, TE programmes that adopt TSA naturally become more didactic—actively encouraging participants to become inclusive, flexible, creative and more critically engaged in their own development as reflective classroom practitioners. In summary, TSA in TE casts the trainee, teacher-educator and professional placement as Existents, (characters and setting), which then respond to Events (key questions, happenings an actions). Many UK schools actively publish and promote various ‘Learning Journeys’ teacher and pupil will make together, and the very best do this for their pastoral provision, as well as their subject curriculums. The editors make a clear case that a similar (albeit far more meta-cognitive approach) to developing apprentice teachers, has helped TE providers across the world produce a range of exceptional outcomes for all those involved in TSA, as exemplified in the wealth of case studies included. The diverse range of contributions means there is something here for everyone involved in TE, with standout chapters including: ‘Co-operative Learning: The Power of Positive Interdependence in Storyline’ (Karlsen and Hoeg), ‘Making Sense of Sustainable Development (Storhaug and Eie) and ‘Storyline and Ideology: How to Avoid Manipulation in Teaching’ (Schwanke). Chapters adhere to the same underlying structure, making the
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whole text much easier to navigate than other academic tomes written and compiled in a similar vein; this helps the reader to construct a narrative of their own through the challenging material. Furthermore, the whole collection remains highly accessible at all times due to some excellent editing. Pursuing the TSA theme to its natural conclusion: here, it’s as if a multitude of voices and perspectives belong to a single narrator. Evidently, assembling some of the world’s leading authorities on TE programmes that have experimented or embedded TSA in their philosophy and practice, makes for a well-informed, enjoyable and rewarding experience for the lay and informed reader, alike. In essence, this is one story about the power of stories that comes highly recommended. Paul Taylor-McCartney is a doctoral researcher with Leicester University, following a part-time PhD in Creative Writing. His research interests include dystopian studies, children’s literature and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a range of notable UK and international publications including Aesthetica, The Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature, Education in Practice (National Association of Writers in Education), Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine and Dyst: A literary Journal. He lives and works in Cornwall.
Paradise Block Ash, A. London: Serpent’s Tail (2021) ISBN: 9781788165549 £12.99, 240 pages (review based on a 25-page sampler) During its thirty-five-year history, Serpent’s Tail has earned a reputation for exploring the byways of contemporary fiction, scoring hits with a variety of nonmainstream writers who might otherwise have struggled to find a home. Judging by this 25-page sampler from Alice Ash’s debut story collection, Paradise Block, they may have found another winner. Ash is a Brighton-based writer and filmmaker who’s secured a two-book deal with the press after publishing fiction in journals like 3:AM Magazine, Mxlexia, and Popshot Quarterly, together with reviews in the TLS. Her biggest success to date is the longlisting of her story ‘Eggs’ for the Galley Beggar Prize 2019, and the sampler includes this story, and one other, ‘Black, Dark Hill’. ‘Eggs’ is told from the point of view of a young girl living in Paradise Block with her brother, Little Vincent, and their mother, referred to only as She. There’s a fire in the flat which the girl initially fails to notice because she’s listening to Robbie Williams on her headphones: no one is injured, but the event traumatises the already dysfunctional mother. Over the following days, the young girl gradually takes a senior position in the household, and the mother/daughter roles reverse. The mother regresses to a childlike state, increasingly demanding and petulant, even physically shrinking in size: at the end She is shown wearing the daughter’s school uniform and singing along to Robbie Williams in a scene which references the opening. At the same time, her daughter begins to age physically, developing varicose veins and arthritis. We might view this reversal as a comment on inherited gender roles, with the daughter caught in the tramlines of social expectations—we see a well- meaning neighbour, Min, give her the gift of a ‘Little Lady’ apron, for instance, and teach her how to cook eggs—a symbol of both reproduction and sustenance—in order to feed her mother and Little Vincent. The naive narrator knows nothing of this, however, relating a world only half understood: the limited perspective creates a semisurreal atmosphere that is simultaneously striking and unsettling.
‘Black, Dark Hill’ has a similar surreal feel, offering a dreamlike account of a young woman in a boat with her boyfriend. Her sexual desire for him is met with indifference, and an accusation of neediness; his coolness turns to annoyance as she spills lemonade in the boat, and her longing for connection and sexual acknowledgement are ignored. Throughout the story, the girl focuses on her shadow in the water, which develops a life of its own in tandem with her increasing frustration; ultimately it intervenes, capsizing the boat and drowning her boyfriend. Again, the perspective is interesting: the story is told from an external narrator’s perspective who refers to the unnamed protagonist as ‘Our girl’, a strategy which implies ownership, but also seems to endorse her deadly rebellion. It is another disturbing, original and quietly compelling piece. The two stories are linked by location, taking place in a town called Clutter, and I have the impression that the complete collection will include recurring characters and themes, with the town and the apartment block at its heart. I will certainly be keen to read the whole thing when it’s published, as it’s impossible to get a full sense of Ash’s range and aesthetic from two stories. As it stands, it is an intriguing taster, promising yet another worthwhile addition to this publisher’s pleasingly unconventional list. Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty-five years, where he led the creative writing programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write fulltime. He is the author of twenty books, including poetry, fiction and scholarship, the most recent of which is Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic (2020).
Writing in Education 95
EXCITING WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING
Inspire: Exciting Ways of Teaching Creative Writing is an innovative anthology written by a wide spectrum of creative teachers who have a wealth of diverse experience. The focus here is on communicating how to teach creative writing in imaginative, practical and socially just ways. There is a particular emphasis upon helping people of all ages and backgrounds write stories, poems, plays and creative nonfiction, including memoir and autobiography. Here you’ll learn many ways of teaching creative writing, including:
Brankin, E., Gilbert, F. And Sharples, C., London: Gold Publishing (2021)
• How to decolonise creative-writing workshops • How to use therapeutic writing to cope with lockdown and bereavement • How to help students get creative in their essay writing • How to seek inspiration in nature and landscapes Inspire is essential reading for teachers, writers, academics and anyone who values creativity.
CLCL
A CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE CULTURE AND LEARNING (CLCL) ANTHOLOGY
EXCITING WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING
• How to use social media to engage teen writers
AN ANTHOLOGY
AN ANTHOLOGY
INSPIRE AN ANTHOLOGY
Inspire: Exciting Ways INSPIRE to Teach Creative Writing
CLCL
A CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE CULTURE AND LEARNING (CLCL) ANTHOLOGY
CREATIVE WRITING EDUCATORS
INSPIRE EXCITING WAYS OF TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING
Editors: Emma Brankin, Francis Gilbert and Carinya Sharples In association with the MA in Creative Writing and Education, Goldsmiths
Though Francis Gilbert, in his introduction to Inspire: Exciting Ways of Teaching Creative Writing, references the “contentiousness” of teaching creative writing, the objectives of this edited collection of essays are simple: to “encourage the reader to write imaginatively, to learn more about creative writing and how to teach it.” This broad remit means that it does not necessarily aim to tackle this contentiousness, but offer a productive, nurturing space for writers and writing educators to put forward their methods for effective engagement in creative writing of all kinds. Writers with a reflexive practice will surely not be short of what to teach; it is how and why we teach where we can find true inspiration. As such, most compelling are the contributions that begin with an approach, a provocation, a framework derived from the writer’s own personal experience as a writer, educator or student, and offer suitable material with which this new approach can be applied. This is the case with the standout “How to Read a Poetry Class: Teaching Poetry in the 21st Century” by Tjawangwa Dema which encourages the writereducator to consider the writer-student’s position in the world. “Good literary citizenship” engages with the world around it and Dema posits that the intellectual “restlessness” of the innovative creative writing classroom, rejecting the “grandstanding” of the old guard, has the ability to engender empathetic “citizen learners.” Who teaches and how it is taught should take as much consideration of what is being taught. The old guard, or the established way of doing things, is also challenged in “Beyond ‘Harpoons and Dinghies’: Creating Diverse Stories and Social Engagement to our Creative Writing Classrooms” by Gaar Adams. This article uses as a springboard Eric Bennett’s argument that the Iowa Writing Workshop’s lasting influence on creative writing teaching and the importance it places on writing the self, rather than politics, means that students are rarely encouraged “to begin with a wider lens.” Believing ambitious writing educators will result in students writing imaginatively, Adams sets students a formidable task to “write a story of migration across generations that uses economic or political factors as the impetus.” The prompt yields impressive results: a 96 Writing in Education
carrot for us to develop our own ideas to inspire similarly ambitious writing that has the ability to bring out the experiences of conventionally lesser heard voices. Kirsty Gunn and Gail Low’s article, “Creative Essaying”, continues the theme of disruption to the established order by subverting student expectations by setting assignments where the purpose is to read and respond like a creative writer, rather than a literary scholar or critic. Gunn and Low’s students, trained to believe “that a display of mastery and expertise is the only way to write”, found it difficult to produce the “personal, performative and imaginative” responses the educators sought, leading some to ask when they were going to have chance to work “on my own writing.” But for those that relished the experience, the outputs proved more stimulating for the educators, too. “I won’t let essays in my classes simply be about conveying information,” Gunn and Low write, “I want pleasure. I want affect. And I want these for our young people, too.” An inspiring stance indeed. Numerous contributors are extremely generous in proffering topical prompts, exercises and entire lesson plans—even their own creative writing—which could be immensely useful to the writer-educator seeking an instant pick-me-up. However, less successful contributions are the essays that lead with content, usually a simple idea plucked from the writer’s own practice to try as a standalone exercise in a group situation. The anthology’s emphasis on face-to-face teaching is stark, too, when reading from a place of lockdown. It is likely, even once lockdown measures are relinquished, that the digital environment will continue to feature in future creative writing pedagogy, so Emma Brankin’s piece on her positive experiences of classes that exploit the multimodal possibilities of social media was especially welcome. But, nevertheless, it is clear that Inspire will inevitably do just that: for all kinds of writers and educators, at all points in their writing career. Sophie Parkes-Nield is a writer and PhD candidate at Sheffield Hallam University.
The Multimodal Writer Barnard, J. Macmillan International Higher Education (2019) ISBN 9781137607911 paperback, £19.99
The discipline of creative writing “has arrived at a stalemate,” says Josie Barnard. On the one hand, it fears the challenges of writing across different modes; on the other, it recognizes the need to do so. But time is running out. In what’s being called “the fourth industrial revolution”, creativity is forecast to become one of the top three skills workers will need (alongside complex problem solving and critical thinking). Creatively flexible writers “can be at the vanguard of conceiving new genres and pioneering new means of creating and disseminating stories”. If our creativity is all that stands between us and the robots, we’d better get up to speed. But how? There’s no mystery to writing across genres: most writers do it already, if only to make a living. Barnard herself has written fiction and non-fiction, as well as journalism and scripts, and taught Creative Writing for 20 years. There are artistic benefits too: she draws on interviews with novelists, poets and screenwriters to show how practitioners mix up the long slog of a novel, for example, with a shorter, fact-based piece needing different skills. There are fascinating insights into the creative process: actor and author Charlie Higson writes with music, but to avoid distraction, uses a fixed playlist—different for each project. Novelist Kate Pullinger, commissioned to write a piece of fiction for smartphones, talks about the difficulty of finding the right language to describe text without pages. The term changed from “slice”, to “thread”, and finally to “screen”. For many writers the challenge will lie in embracing different platforms and technologies. Barnard suggests that “genres will emerge that haven’t been conceived yet”. Readers are already used to, for example, interacting with authors on-line; novels have been written on Twitter; fans join in the mix with fanfiction.
Cutting, pasting, plundering—they are all elements of creation. Images—from video clips to emojis—can be included in a narrative, making the reader jump from the traditional, linear reading path to a spatial, comparative one: “In multimodal productions, these reading paths intertwine.” One of the casualties of this creative free-forall is the skill of self-editing, an area Barnard identifies for further research. To help writers develop their own individual multimodal writing practice, the book sets out a “model of creativity”. This includes examining one’s own resources, and writerly personas, such as the Artist-self and Editor; and analyzing existing creative projects. For creativity to flourish, a degree of self-knowledge, as well as self-trust, is vital. But how can these new approaches be taught in the Creative Writing classroom? As Barnard, a judicious user of quotes, says, it’s a setting traditionally seen as “low tech and quaintly humanistic”. She sets out ten assignments, ranging from mapping your own writerly resources to writing a story without words, using screenshots and emojis. There are suggestions for working collaboratively, such as plotting a novel from a text message; and practising interview techniques to develop the art of “good listening”, as well as discussing the pros and cons of open, closed or “clean” questions. Other assignments look at turning random strangers’ social media posts into a coherent narrative; and using graphs and pie charts to analyze a short piece of fiction. Each assignment has helpful, separate tutor and practitioner notes. The idea of “bold exploration” occurs frequently, and Barnard stresses the importance of play in creative thinking. If the digital aspect sounds daunting, Barnard points Writing in Education 97
out that new technologies are not required for any of the assignments; it’s fine to start learning digital skills development offline. More important is “helping students build confidence in negotiating the digital sphere”. She cautions, too, against presuming that students will always be familiar, or comfortable, with the technology. And she advises that showing them when you’re not can be a powerful bonding experience.
Sarah Hegarty’s short fiction has been published by Mslexia, Cinnamon Press and the Mechanics’ Institute Review, and shortlisted for the Fish and Bridport prizes. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester and is writer-in-residence at George Abbot School, Guildford. www. sarahhegarty.co.uk
Appropriately for its subject, this is a multi-layered, multi-faceted book, with plenty of practical advice. Well researched and scholarly, it is thought-provoking and useful.
Count Our Blessings: Short stories and poems of identity and hope Linday, F. Onwards and Upwards Publishers Rockbeare(2021) paperback, £9.99 We have all become very used to living turbulent, somewhat challenging lives since the Covid-19 pandemic came into the world 18 or so months ago. Clearly, we all have different ways of managing trials and tribulations, but one thing we have all strived for is a sense of hope— and this is something that Fiona Linday’s collection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry offers readers. Leicestershire-based Linday is an established writer and facilitator. Faith plays a large part in her life and in her writing, too. In the introduction, the positive exclamation that ‘We Are Nearly There’ is indicative of the times we are living in—and the eclectic range of writing here can help readers find solace, as well as a good reason to smile, which is something we are all in need of from time to time. Much of Linday’s writing focuses on the role that faith and hope has in her life. In between the short stories, there are pieces which are reminiscent of memoir, as well as several poems. In ‘Off the Beaten Track’, a story set in an unnamed Eastern European country, the protagonist 98 Writing in Education
has a desire for security and safety. The poem ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’ has a sense of empowerment, and of wanting to ‘… move(d) on from being the victim’—something integral to life’s challenges in so many ways. Bronte, the narrator, and lead character in ‘Still First’, clearly has typical teenage attitude—and she is desperate to be a Paralympian competitor, showing she has determination by the bucketful. This collection is a veritable feast of writing. Linday says in her introduction ‘Enjoy dipping in and out of my stories’ and that is a perfect way to approach this book, although reading in one sitting would be fine, of course. Approaching the halfway point of the book, ‘The Blessings of Cotgrave Colliery in Our Back Yard’ is a definite contrast to the other pieces—here, the reader is taken on a trip down memory lane, to the life of miners and their families in the East Midlands, starting in the mid-20th Century. A contrast to this is ‘The Last Post – Turning Over a New Leaf’, a poem which is beautifully reminiscent of life in 2021. Linday writes:
‘The branches knew about vital social distancing, even then when humans were still sniffling the bitter pandemic scent.’ Interestingly, there is a link, though, between the evocative nature of ‘Blessings…’ and the hopefulness of ‘The Last Post’. Perhaps, then, life moves on, but its challenges and obstacles will always be there, something that helps us to grow and develop as humans, to tackle the unthinkable and treat such things as lessons for life. In ‘Surviving Groundhog Day with the Cross’, Linday says: ‘From day one, our activity adheres to a routine; even as the cord is cut, we are told to toe the line.’ A sense of imprisonment is prevalent here, but we can all identify with these alliterative metaphors, particularly, again, in recent times, with one lockdown after another and habitually checking for face masks as we leave the house. In ‘Love’, pathos is pervasive as a couple attempt to deal with the devastation of losing a baby: ‘The baby clothes went away – out of sight, out of mind’ is a tragic image, one that is hard to forget, not that one would want to. Autobiography crops up again in ‘My ‘New Normal’ Schedule’, a piece whose anecdotal style brings a smile,
and a story which shows us how tackling adverse situations can be a bonus—and how such an approach can contribute towards our health in many positive ways. Count Our Blessings has enlightenment and faith as its core. Linday states how writing has helped her with ‘difficult and important issues over the last two decades’ and this is something that can writing do for us all—it is cathartic, it helps to heal, it allows us to make sense of the world, no matter what our interpretation of that may be. Here, one will find a substantial but varied collection, and perhaps we should all use its title as a life mantra a little more often. Matthew Tett is a freelance educator and writer living and working in Wiltshire. He is Writing in Education’s reviews editor and he coordinates Corsham’s StoryTown festival.
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