Making Room for Writing
This is the text of an article which was originally published in NATE's magazine English Drama Media, October 2010
Simon Wrigley and Jeni Smith introduce the NATE Writing Project, arguing that teachers’ writing groups can reinvigorate the teaching of writing nationally.
It is a truth often reiterated in the UK that the teaching of writing in schools should focus on the escalation of skills and the broadening of repertoire. Certainly these things matter. However, there are other aspects of the teaching and learning of writing which, though worthy of professional attention, have for too long been overshadowed by such policy imperatives. In particular, this article argues, an emphasis on developing teachers’ own writing practices can renew a sense of writing in the classroom as personal exploration with real communicative purpose, as well as sharpen teachers’ awareness of the technical processes of writing. This argument is placed in the context of the launch of NATE’s new Writing Project which seeks to enable teachers to make room for their own writing in a way which is both personally and professionally rewarding.
Suppressing writing?
A number of elements of the UK curriculum and education policy have conspired over recent years to emphasise approaches to teaching and learning in writing which shift emphasis away from the encouragement of writing as a valuable personal and reflective act, and towards a view of writing as a functional process. For instance, it has seemed recently that writing in schools has more often been driven more by learning objectives than by a sense of the value of personal reflection. A comparison between UK and US policy initiatives is instructive. Whilst the UK has an initiative called ‘Every Child a Writer’, the US has one called ‘Every Child a Reader and Writer’; whilst the UK initiative concentrates on pupils’ progress in technical proficiency, the US project focuses on the production of ‘texts of significance’. The difference of emphasis is indicative of the aspects of writing deemed valuable – determination by state or by self.
Similarly, recent policy has been guided by the idea that school improvement can be driven by central prescription not only of content but also of method; if only the planning is sharp enough, the methods regularly reinforced, and there is sufficient ‘fidelity to the system’, pupils will make progress. As a result of this belief, much money has been spent but, as some research has found (see Joliffe 2004), passive learners and deracinated professionals have sometimes resulted.
A further example of the way in which curriculum policy can be seen to devalue writing relates to the places accorded to creative writing and literary analysis in English in schools. For example, as Bluett (2010) argues, the writing of poetry has tended to be less valued in schools than its reading. It might be that this suggests a view of the purpose of education as the manageable reception of past culture rather than as the less predictable expression of new culture.
Encouraging ownership of writing
In the light of this recent history, NATE’s new Writing Project (www.nwp.org.uk) is an attempt to shift the emphasis both to the personal and social value of writing, and towards more collaborative and self-determined approaches to teaching and learning. Building on the experience of a number of teachers’ writing groups, the project asks:
What happens when teachers meet and share their own creative and personal writing?
What professional benefit might this have?
And what can writing do for writers beyond the development of technical competence?
In these economically restricted times, teachers’ writing groups, in which teachers share their own writing and reflection both face-to-face and online, offer an inexpensive approach to making writing a deeper and more active experience for teachers – as well as their pupils. Where teachers and pupils have more ownership and greater agency, remarkable progress can be achieved through collaborative creativity, sustainable for free through the affordances of online networking.
‘Teachers of writing should write.’
It was Professor Richard Andrews who reminded us in a DCSF publication (‘Getting Going’) in 2008 that ‘teachers of writing should write.’ This publication was a catalyst for NATE’s NWP because it offered some analysis of why the rise in writing standards in England’s schools appeared to have stalled, suggesting that over-centralisation, reliance on writing ‘frames’, and so on, might be implicated.
It is well known that practising what you teach revives your sensitivity to the novice’s struggles. It also reminds you how chaotic a process writing can be, and how necessary it is to have private reflection and the encouragement of trusted readers. And this is not a new idea: the 1990 statutory orders for the National Curriculum described writing provision as ‘opportunities’ and ‘activities’. These were as much about ‘building on experience’ as about ‘progress’ (the latter being the preferred term of the 21st century):
Pupils should see adults writing. Teachers should write alongside pupils, sharing and talking about their writing, eg. in journals, notes and diagrams, so that the range of uses of writing is brought out. Pupils should be made aware of how pieces of work they have produced relate to adult uses of writing (National Curriculum 1990).
And in the National Curriculum orders for 2007 there continues to be explicit encouragement to ‘develop independence’, ‘develop ideas in depth and detail’, ‘play with language and explore different ways of discovering and shaping their own meanings’ and ‘evaluate and respond constructively to their own and other’s writing.’ In 2010, however, it seems that ‘progress’ is often conceived as outcomes independently and measurably achieved rather than, as it might have been seen 20 years ago, as processes experienced.
Making a response
NATE is not alone in expressing unease about this situation. Unsurprisingly, many similar projects (such as Everybody Writes (www.everybodywrites.org.uk), Writing Together (www.booktrust.org.uk), Teachers as Writers (NAWE: www.literaturetraining.com), and the Strategy’s own Writing is Primary (Ings 2009) have risen recently to rectify this state of affairs – all engaging communities of writers and celebrating their successes. There is also a growing feeling that education would be healthier – and standards higher – if there were less central prescription and greater professional autonomy.
This is what the independent Cambridge Review of Primary Education said in 2010:
… ( there is a ) need for teachers to exercise critical reflection ... becoming a teacher is to be inducted into a community of reflection, enquiry and debate .. enabling the teacher to evolve a rationale for his or her classroom and school work by locating in within a broader social and human context.
This echoes what Philip Pullman (2002) said in his address to English teachers at NATE conference on the importance of their creativity:
… you haven’t got the time to lie fallow, be creatively idle ... this isn’t a luxury ... and it’s a thing you need to fight for.
In the same year Tony Burgess argued that teachers need to understand what drives young people, what they want to say and which contexts best promote their writing. He also felt that there had been too much emphasis on teachers ‘delivering’ the findings of research or the prescriptions of the Strategy, rather than on critically mediating it and refining it in the culture of their own classrooms - and, in so doing, creating something new in which the teachers are acknowledged agents, not mere technicians. Of the more centralised intervention of Ofsted and the National Strategies he writes:
…(this) has not just given politicians the levers and controls they wanted to drive up standards. It has also re-described the professionalism of teachers, curbing aspirations to autonomy and self-regulation, within an externally evaluative and regulated system, driven by an active centre, setting national priorities for performance and development. (Burgess, 2002)
A national writing project?
It was in this climate that Andrews, in ‘Getting Going’, went on to recommend that the UK should implement a national writing project – as US teachers of writing have done with remarkable success over the past 30 years. The US project – which flourished initially through teacher agency rather than central funding – has brought teachers together to write, and reflect on the process, with the effect of enhancing professionalism and raising standards of writing with their students. These findings were ratified by the research investigation of Wood and Liebermann in 2000:
In the end we came away convinced that affiliation with the NWP changes how teachers think about their professional identities, responsibilities and, therefore, how they go about their work.
A visit to the current site of the project (www.nwp.org. us) shows that the US NWP continues to galvanise the profession in the US. The NWP Executive Director, Dr. Sharon J. Washington, comments that ‘thousands of teachers will return (from the 2010 NWP summer school) to school this fall with more than their batteries recharged.’ ICT has enhanced better connections with fellow professionals through local groups and online professional communities, vital to teaching and learning in today’s technological environment. A US high school English teacher alludes to the importance of learning about new digital tools for writing and the ways in which young people are using them:
We are preparing kids for a different world—a world where they need to know how to tell compelling stories. And the types of stories that are compelling these days are not just print stories.
These are precisely the benefits which we would like to provide through the NATE Writing Project for the whole UK profession (and not just the groups we describe later in this article). Maybe the time has come, economically and educationally, when such a grass-roots project in the UK could both restore professionalism and raise standards of writing – at very little cost?
NATE’s Writing Project
By facilitating teachers’ writing groups, the NWP aims to restore to teachers the status of autonomous and authoritative researchers, applying and reflecting on methods in their own classrooms, mindful of traditions of responding to pupils’ changing cultures as well as to prescribed national policy. In suggesting this, we are mindful of Raban’s critique of the last UK National Writing project (1985-9):
The lessons to be learnt from such an initiative overall seem to be that: bottom-up approaches are essential if changes in practice and ownership are to be achieved, but that it is also important to have the scope of a project theorised and informed by top-down curriculum goals and aims so that progress for teachers and children can be at least gauged, if not measured.
For these reasons, our website collects evidence of progress, and advances 5 core principles:
Teachers as agents of reform supported by face-to-face meeting and closed VLEs
Professional development through collaborative creativity and authenticity
Sustained partnership in research, analysis and experience
Free and structured approaches to teaching writing
Leading teachers collecting and disseminating evidence of effective practice
Teachers as Writers
Although we continue to work with existing NATE writing groups and with newer groups in London and Norfolk, we also set up (in Buckinghamshire in 2009) the 2-year TAW project (Teachers as Writers) with the express purpose of providing a space for teachers to write. 12 primary and 4 secondary teachers chose to join the project. They now meet once a half-term, sharing writing face to face and on a closed website, are supported by us and the e-learning Adviser, Ian Usher, and attend workshops at the British Museum and at the Institute of Education with Richard Andrews.
Teachers’ reactions on starting the project illustrated how entrenched certain attitudes about teaching of writing have become:
They felt a guilty pleasure about being asked to write, in ways they would not have felt about being asked to read.
They were nervous about sharing with others, even though they acknowledged that they often asked pupils to share immediately.
They also expressed misgivings about the quality of their writing, frequently dismissing its value, even though they prided themselves on being able to assign levels to pupils’ work, and frequently asked pupils to self-assess.
However, within a few sessions they made a number of observations whose implications began to affect how they adjusted the writing environment in their own classrooms.
Sharing the struggle
Essential to each session was that it honoured and respected each individual. Contrary to much established practice, where the suppression of self to the common good is seen as desirable, each TAW session affirmed that self-knowledge and self-expression were prerequisites for professional growth. As testament to this belief, we gave a notebook to each teacher/writer, asking them to share only when ready, and to trust in the journey we were undertaking together. Replicating this sense of trust in the classroom was one of the deepest transformations that the group experienced.
Sharing the struggle of self-expression remains a chief goal of these sessions, for by appreciating that struggle - and the pleasure of the struggle - teachers become more sensitive to their pupils’ circumstances. This is where personal and professional affirmation merge, as Tony Burgess observed 40 years ago:
(Writing) has its place. But to understand it aright I should want finally to merge the image of the writer in an image of the individual – as a person committed to his own search for meaning, who has to interpret the flow of events which happen to him and re-interpret in his own way the wisdom and knowledge of others which lie outside him, as a person who finds in language an instrument at his disposal and in writing a way of using it.” (Burgess, 1973)
Teachers value the network, the trusted audience and the private space. They read research published by influential teachers of writing in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, trying out strategies advocated by Lucy Calkins, Donald Graves, Frank Smith, Peter Stillman, David Morley, John Foggin, Sue Hackman, Ros Arnold, Peter Elbow, Linda Graham, Teresa Cremin, Gunther Kress:
Although writing development is talked about ‘in general’, it always happens ‘in particular (Calkins, 1983).
Writing teaches partly because it defines ideas more clearly, but also because it generates new ones. We write ourselves into a subject ... A productive inner dialogue is set up between ourselves as writers and ourselves as readers … It works on us as we work on it ....
(Hackman, 1987)
Writing is about a means of saying who you are and locating yourself in the world and representing yourself in the world.
(Kress, 2010)
Within a few months teachers had shared about 1,000 pieces of writing on the closed VLE, the most prolific writers posting 200 compared to the most reserved posting about 20. They also began to post responses.
Writing together
The example on the next page shows how they used the closed website to share and receive responses from other teachers on the project. The writing emerged from having gathered on Whiteleaf Hill in Buckinghamshire and written in response to exercises drawn from authors such as Kevin Crossley-Holland and others. Part of the project explored multi-sensory stimuli, including writing outside and in public spaces such as the British Museum. This was later replicated with pupils of all ages, with remarkably positive results.
Evaluating the project
Project teachers are enthused by the agency which the project has given them and their children; writing journals have flourished and previously resistant writers have developed confidence in themselves and their work. Several teachers now run creative writing clubs, and some have undertaken cross-phase writing projects. Teachers are capturing children’s attention by sharing the process of their own writing more openly, and raising standards by NOT grading every piece of children’s work. We have found so far that the agency conferred on professionals by the project deepens subject knowledge more effectively than more passive forms of transmissive CPD – a result reflected in the reflective comments made by teachers on the project:
The project has changed my attitude to writing in that it has made it far more real to me. Instead of being an idle scribble, a vague intention and an indulgence, it has become necessary and valued and a part of what I do…A writing group is such a god-send because it provides a self-sustaining forum of positive readers who help to break down the fears that shadow creativity (Secondary teacher 2010)
The project has significantly changed the way I teach writing. It has provided inside knowledge of the challenges faced by a writer, as well as the tools and fortitude needed to be successful. A major change for my teaching of the subject has been the dialogue I have encouraged around the writing process. (Primary teacher 2010)
Conclusion: telling your own story
If, as Harold Rosen wrote in 1969, every child has their own story to tell, and their own voice to tell it in, then the importance of an education in writing must be about more than becoming more technically competent. It must also deal with authenticity and responsiveness.
London teachers report that year 8 pupils have been liberated by the regular practice of ‘free writing’ (much promoted by Peter Elbow in the USA) and been motivated to write at greater length in a wider variety of styles because they knew that the individual content of their work was the focus rather than how far their writing accommodated more sophisticated technique. This is in stark contrast to advice from the National Strategy which advocates that:
Pupils’ (independent) writing should show how they have responded to learning objectives; they should not be just ‘doing writing’.
(2004, Independent Writing)
In contrast Phil Jarrett’s recent HMI report, ‘Beyond the Crossroads’ (June 2010) endorses the very principles of the Buckinghamshire TAW project (emboldened) as those which will raise standards of writing most effectively:
1. How can standards of writing be improved?
Barriers to success
Some delegates spoke about teachers’ lack of confidence about teaching writing, leading to over-dependence on external guidance and schemes, and confusion over what and how they are “expected” to teach. There was also the view that the demands of the curriculum (real or perceived) generated such urgency and pace, with the need to cover a wide range of material, that too little time was left for writing or discussion, reflection and consideration of ideas. Many delegates recognised that some teachers were too anxious to control learning, with over-directed teaching limiting learners’ autonomy. There was a belief that lessons had become repetitive with some teachers relying on the same teaching approach which did not necessarily reflect learners’ needs. Lessons were too often seen as involving “practice” writing in response to a text chosen by the teacher rather than meaningful tasks with a clear sense of context, purpose and audience. Other ideas mentioned by the group included: the need to build a stronger skills base in spelling and grammar; the lack of whole school approaches to writing; and substantial transition issues, with many teachers having an insufficient understanding of the previous or next phase of education.
What works?
Teachers and pupils working together as writers with pupils having opportunities to write beyond the classroom as well as encounters with adult writers (across different contexts).
Peer- and self-assessment against well understood and simply expressed assessment objectives that encourage pupils to take ownership of their learning. Encouraging pupils to develop their own success criteria.
Time for pupils (and teachers) on a regular basis to assess and review progress against their writing targets.
Recognising that learners need a variety of experiences and approaches to allow them to achieve success in writing e.g. making better use of a range of contexts including residential visits, visitors to the school, trips, school newsletters and sharing work online.
More emphasis on pupils having chances to explore writing, taking risks, playing with language, experimenting without the fear of assessment, perhaps writing for themselves through diaries and journals.
Allowing pupils at times to write in the knowledge that teachers will not “judge” their work.
Using marking to generate a genuine dialogue with pupils about their work, responding to the ideas rather than always “sitting in judgement”.
More choice by pupils of text type and topic.
Publication of pupils’ work whenever possible.
More imaginative use of homework for writing tasks, especially topics that are chosen by pupils, including more opportunities to write electronically, through email or online.
Developing the NATE Writing Project
Through the TAW project, and by developing NWP, NATE will continue to gather evidence that developing communities of writing teachers is not only personally and professionally empowering, but also helps them to develop young writers. We shall be publishing research findings in more detail later. NATE is now federating various groups into a national research project along similar lines to the US NWP. The hope is to establish teachers’ writing groups across the country. Each would have a private ‘closed’ space on the site for sharing and responding to writing in between face-to-face sessions. Group conveners would be asked to share some of what their groups had done – not only their own writing journeys but also their observations of pupils as writers as well as their reflections on emerging classroom practices.
References
Andrews, R. et al (2008) Getting Going, DCSF, London
Bluett, J. (2010) ‘Oh, do not ask ‘What is it’’, English in Education, Volume 44, No 1, Spring 2010
Burgess, T. (2002) Writing, English Teachers and the new professionalism, NATE Perspectives on English Teaching, NATE, Sheffield
Burgess, T. (1973) Understanding Children Writing, Penguin, London
Calkins, L. (1983) Lessons from a Child, Heinemann, Portsmouth
Calkins, L. (1993) The Art of Teaching Writing, Heinemann, Portsmouth
Elbow, P. (2002) Writing Without Teachers, Oxford University Press
Foggin, J (1992) Real Writing, Hodder Arnold, London
Graham, L. (2003) Children’s Writing Journals, UKLA, Leicester
Grainger T. et al. (2005) Creativity and Writing, Routledge, London
Graves, D. (1982) Writing: Teachers and Children at Work, Heinemann, Exeter
Hackman, S. (1987) Responding in Writing, NATE, Sheffield
Ings, R. (2009) Writing is Primary, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Joliffe, W. (2004) ‘The National Literacy Strategy; not prescriptive enough?’ (Paper given at BERA Annual Conference, September 2004)
Ofsted (2010) English at the Crossroads, HMSO, London
Kress, G. (2010), cited in Carnell, E. et al., Passion and Politics, Institute of Education, London
Pullman, P. (2002) Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
NATE Perspectives on English Teaching, NATE, Sheffi eld
Raban, B. (1990) ‘Using the ‘craft’ knowledge of the teacher as a basis for curriculum development: a review of the National
Writing Project in Berkshire’, Cambridge Journal of Education, Volume 20, Issue 1, 1990
Smith, F. (1982) Writing and the Writer, Lawrence Erlbaum, New Jersey
Stillman, P. (1989) Families Writing, Boynton Cook, New Hampshire
Wood, D. & Lieberman, A. (2000) ‘Teachers as authors: the National Writing Project’s approach to professional development’,
International Journal of Leadership in Education, Volume 3, Issue 3, July 2000