This academic article, written by Professor Tom Dobson and I, explores the research we did looking at primary and secondary school teachers attitudes towards creative writing and redrafting. This is a rare piece of research which compares primary and secondary school teachers’ approaches to teaching creative writing. It shows that primary school teachers can be formulaic in the way they teach creative writing, using product approaches. However, in secondary schools the picture is different: teachers, particularly those, who are writers themselves, give students more agency in redrafting and shaping their writing. This indicates how professional development should involve primary and secondary school teachers in dialogue with one another to cross boundaries of practice.
Why bring all the students at a university together to learn critical thinking and research skills?
Notes have helped me remember; they’re my safe space; they’re therapeutic; and they’ve liberated my imagination
An anthology investigating how educators, creatives, and learners can liberate and uplift their voices through writing, teaching, investigating, and intentional everyday living.
An instructive and inspiring collection written by Masters’ students at Goldsmiths’ university, and pupils from South London schools. Essential reading for anyone interested in finding ways of thriving in a fractured world.
This book contains many tips for helping teachers of creative writing, written by my students on the MA Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths.
Newbolt strongly advocates imaginative ways of teaching writing, championing self-expression above rote-learning.
Aspects of the neoliberal education system can preclude the development of young writers. Feedback can be unempathetic, but it can also be productive, creating an internal dialogue that develops the writer over time.
What do primary school children in Lambeth want for their local parks? It’s February 2024, and a cold, rainy morning outside Hillmead Primary School, but inside their assembly hall, the Year 3/4 (8-9 year olds) pupils are happy and engaged. Some of their classmates are delivering speeches about what they want from their local parks […]
A case study of a mindfulness teacher, Beth, and her experiences of teaching mindfulness to 11- to 16-year-olds in several English schools
It is a cold January Sunday afternoon in 2022, but Angela Kreeger’s living room feels gorgeous, and I’m eating far too many slices of a delicious almond cake.
Our parks have a problem with young people. Older children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, feel unwelcome and unfairly blamed for things like anti-social behaviour.
How teacher-writers can improve their craft and pedagogy by writing for a specific audience, namely school children. And why they might do so.
To “diagrart” (my neologism combining the words diagrams, dialogue and art), one must write and draw, and believe you are creating art, no matter how crude you think your work to be.
Reciprocal Teaching re-orders education by fostering meaningful relationships, challenging the hegemony of neoliberal schools: it is a rebellion against their authoritarianism.
Specific therapeutic pedagogies that help people ‘vent’ their traumas and issues, with lots of practical suggestions and a rationale for ‘letting it all spill out’ in educational settings.
How freewriting and drawing can have a therapeutic effect when working online. It draws upon the experience of my students and my colleague, Dr Miranda Matthews. It also suggests a methodology for this approach.
Creative writing can be used to nurture ecoliteracie, helping people developing an organic, ecological view of language.
A summary of a presentation at NAWE Conference 2021, suggesting some ways of teaching creative writing online, using puppets, stories, drawings and metacognition.
For all creative writers who wish to explore writing processes further, using established research.
One of the purposes of teaching creative writing is ‘to heal’, in other words, creative writing is taught as a form of therapy, maybe more than is openly stated. Many teachers set therapeutic tasks so the author can learn and grow from the experience of writing about it.
Some of the lessons I learnt during the Covid lockdown, about staying sane, being mindful and engaging with technology
On Covid-19 related research, for the British Educational Research Association.