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.
A case study of a mindfulness teacher, Beth, and her experiences of teaching mindfulness to 11- to 16-year-olds in several English schools
Lorna Smith’s book could not be timelier. It is published at a point when creativity – in all its manifold forms and iterations – is under serious attack in educational jurisdictions across the world.
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.
A review of ‘Out of Time: Poetry From the Climate Emergency’
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.
“Teachers themselves should be writers” and the ways in which writing for pleasure can be nurtured by English teachers.
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.
For many, teaching Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) is daunting. The stakes are high, and the weighting on SPaG in exams has raised anxieties. Here are some tried and tested approaches.
Teaching Orwell’s “1984” as a set text in an examination-obsessed and heavily surveilled school system.
How mindfulness can be used by creative writers to develop their practice and pedagogy
Some interesting ideas about educating English teachers in relation to Teaching Standards set in 2012… However, these standards are less emphasized now than when I wrote this article.