I talked before, in the Teaching Models post, about the importance of having a framework with which to structure lessons. Today we looked at lesson plans, seeing how they help with the delivery of the lesson, but also increase the efficiency of what is taught, making each lesson a sleekly muscled racehorse, with every task directly linked with the achievement of the learning objectives, rather than the blousey wandering donkey of some of the lessons I have experienced in my career. They might get you there eventually, but it'll be a slow, bumpy and uncomfortable experience.
I started trying to fill in the L.O's of my intended writing workshop. It's going to be difficult. Because I want the main outcome to be an increased emotional understanding (within the Emotional Literacy aspects of SEAL), it does not fall into the SMART bracket - it is neither specific, nor measurable, and because of the difficulties of the students I intend to work with (students excluded from or unable to engage with mainstream education) I'm not even sure if it will be attainable.
Though I've pinned my objectives down to a rough outline.... Engaging with the text, Involvement in Discussion, Expressing emotion through drawing and text. I think my aims are vague and potentially unachievable.
Partly my problem is the group I wish to target. Possibly, I've bitten off more than I can chew. It might be that students in a PRU have too many issues, SEN, behavioural, emotional, to engage with a workshop of this kind, especially in the 6-11 year old bracket I was going to take the workshop too. There are too many variables.
I might have to rethink, and go toward an older age group, and one with less specific issues. Though I was hoping to try something completely new and something valuable to the participants, I know realistically that PRU students have ingrained behaviours and to break through even to one pupil would be an outstanding achievement. Perhaps I need to walk before I run, and conduct a safer workshop for observation and practise!
SEAL (social and emotional aspects of learning) are important skills in all students and accessing empathy, self awareness and emotional literacies (see diagram below) through creative writing could provide an effective workshop.
Time to start thinking about putting down the pen and picking up the pointer, actually putting the ideas of teaching into practice.
As usual, I have many ideas and have difficulty pinning them down. It's always tricky and I know that a lack of particular focus in my studies and my life-plans and my acute descidophobia (yes, it's a real word), mean I'll flap around for a while distracting myself with new and interesting schemes to stop myself from settling too long on any one idea. I think it stems from a fear of failure. And perhaps a deep-seated lack of belief in myself to make the right choice. I'm constantly second guessing myself. Not that I'm moaning, or inviting you to pity me, I'm writing this because I'm watching myself from an outside perspective. I know myself too well. Feeling the flutterings of panic setting in, knowing that it is illogical, and damaging, but unable to affect it. I find writing it down helps. Sets the problems in stone, or at least in type. Little manageable letters that don't squirm around like the eels of thought that invade our heads, but can be re-read, mocked, if necessary, and managed.
It is with this in mind that I find myself settling to one idea, (what's with all the butterfly metaphors?) one I know will be challenging, unsettling, unpredictable, but ultimately, most rewarding.
I am interested in running a creative writing workshop for children with either SEN or behavioural difficulties, focusing on David Almond's graphic novel-type book 'The Savage'.
I will try to use the workshop as writing therapy, allowing the students to release their 'inner savage' on the page. As you can see, the style is striking, informal and messy, the writing is in the vernacular, paying no attention to spelling or grammar, which I believe will help to open up the act of writing to those students who struggle to engage in written English, encouraging them to tell their own story.
It really is a beautiful book, and the story is deeply moving. A young boy, Blue, is struggling to cope. His father has died and he is bullied at school. In defiance of the impuissance he feels, he starts to write. The character he creates is The Savage, a wild boy. Blue writes about what he knows, he and his sister and Hopper the bully all make appearances in The Savage's world. But soon The Savage crosses over into Blue's world, when he thinks that a chapter in which The Savage beats up Hopper has come true, Blue feels empowered by what he has created. The Savage personifies the feelings he cannot express.
The book tackles the issues of bereavement, bullying, abuse and has themes of love and grief, abandonment and helplessness, violence, compassion and acceptance. I feel that David Almond writes well for young people, tackling issues they feel from a realistically childlike perspective. Unlike his novels for young adults, The Savage is much shorter, set as a simple first person story-within-a-story presentation, that feels vvisceral, engaging and entertaining.
I'm hoping to read the book, talk about it and invite the students to reflect on their own inner savages, what they feel like doing but can't, what they feel but can't say. By exploring this, either as individuals or by doing a group story as an initial exercise, in the fictional world I hope to help them manifest their ideas about themselves, in drawing and writing.
I know that this is a somewhat dangerous idea. I have experience of working in schools and with SEN pupils. I know how hard it is to get some students to engage with written tasks. I also know that personal, productive writing may be very difficult for these young people to express.
There are no writing therapy books in the library, so I've ordered some online, I'll feel happier once I've read about some case studies and exercises. Other things I need to think about include:
- Length of Workshop - talk to teachers about concentration levels and adapt accordingly.
- Varying engagement/literacy levels of students - have variety of exercises that can be adapted for different abilities.
- How much art to include - I'd like to involve more creativity. Depends on school/time limits - I'll take their advice.
- Behaviour - as I'm thinking about doing this in a PRU behaviour may be a problem. An engaging programme will help, but I'll also familiarise myself with school behaviour policies.
I'm looking forward to this, but I know it will be challenging. Though I think that's why I chose it. I need to find out much more about Therapeutic Writing, particularly with young people, and plan meticulously, allowing lots of adaptability for anything that arises on the day. I know that I'm good at thinking on my feet, but because this hits sensitive subjects I want to be well prepared.
WTF in this instance obviously means what the fiddlesticks are all these acronyms. I was pretty clear when I entered into university that I would complete my teacher training in a GTP (graduate teaching program) school placement. And then they canceled that program this year. And then I find this in my local paper.....
Which seems to imply that I can do an in-school PGCE (post graduate cirtificate of education), only it's now called SCITT (or school centered initial teacher training). My Brain hurts!
The good thing is I can apply to the MSC or Mid-Somerset Consortium for a place in 2013. I wanted to do practical, school based learning, partly because I believe it's the best way to learn the many aspects of education that aren't tackled in textbooks, and partly because it's salaried. Which makes a big difference.
There are also grants offered for teachers coming in that are dependent on your marks at graduation, £5000 I believe for a 2.1 rising to a possible £9000 for a first. Wow. That's an incentive.
The trouble is that I must now pick a subject. I'm looking for an English/Drama placement but it's rare to find the two. I know that once in school it is easier to move around subjects but it would be great to train in both.
I worry a bit about the segmentaation of subjects in schools. Whillst I was a pupil it seemed clear that the system doesn't really cater for those who span the art/science devide.
I feel quite passionately about it because it has impacted me personally; as a music scholorship student I was put on a reduced timetable to allow time for practice, this meant no history, drama, dt, art among others, which then impacted my GCSE choice (I was allowed only 7, and did one of those a year early) and when I left that school to prevent the same thing happening at A-level I realised that I couldn't do both creative and scientific subjects if I wanted to be considered for any of the indepth scientific proffessions.. no point maths without physics....but then I can't do this or that etc..... a veritable dillema.
However, the current system demands that you focus your studies through the education system to what you 'want to do when you grow up'. I understand why it does this, but I have never really seen how that works in the real world, where careers change, and experience and adaptability are prized. I long for a slightly more cross-curricular approach in which history can be taught in the context of art, english or drama, science with food and english language with it's greek, latin and french roots.
I suppose I like the challenge of many subjects too, and feel I could teach Science (to GCSE) with the same passion as English or Art. I know that's not how it works, and I have thought about primary teaching, where class teachers teach many subjects, but I feel I would enjoy the challenges of secondary or higher education more.
I need to do more research of options within the system, I know that UWE offers a multi-subject secondary programme but I also know that for me, a schools based PGCE would work better.
So, after all that, a SCITT is it. And I'd better start working on an application.
I've been reading lots of fabulous books on writing....
Some are by authors about the art of authoring.....
Bird by Bird is a wonderful relation of the difficulties we face as writers, personable and revealing, Anne Lamott manages to describe all the pitfalls we place in front of us.
An experienced writing teacher, she hits on all the elements of writing, technical and psychological. I thought that this book should have been essential reading for all us Creative Writing students, and there were chapters I know I could lift and use as the basis of lessons with creative writing students. I felt she addressed the mental issues of writing (and we are all quite mental) very well, introducing ideas like Radio KFCD - the voice in your head, the importance of listening to your inner broccoli (intuition, I can't explain, just read it) and forgiving yourself for the shitty first draft - agonising but necessary.
Though this book is about writing, it is also a memoir and a exploration of why we write and what on earth we think we are doing. It is not such an instructive piece as Bird by Bird, as in directly applicable to teaching creative writing, but Atwood's style and substance make it a worthwhile read anyway.
Some books are about the technical aspects of writing........
Mend Your English is subtitled 'What you should have been taught at primary school'. I swear we weren't. Grammar, punctuation, parts of speech. Splitting the atom I understand, splitting a verb I did not. Thanks to this book, I do now. Alongside brain melting definitions, he also gives easier to understand examples of correct and incorrect usages, alongside lots of recommendations for further reading, breakdowns of the roots of words and handy hints. I know that this book will be invaluable in tutoring situations when I need to explain a consistent mistake of language to a student.
It's odd that we learn through experience, through reading and writing and listening to language, so that often I know something is wrong by the way it sounds, and yet I could not explain what is wrong. I have come across instances of students writing in the vernacular, which sounds perfectly acceptable to them but is not correct written English. In that instance I would have great difficulty explaining to them what the issue was. This book I know will help.
Some books are about teaching.........
Friere's pedagogy is something I feel quite passionate about. Though his ideas on education (Iput a link to it in a previous post) are radical and designed to liberate the subjugated classes in south america; there is a lesson to be learnt for us too. Friere says “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” If we continue to indoctrinate in the name of education the future of our society stagnates. I believe that creative and critical thinking is highly prized, but not often permitted in schools, controversial opinion I know, but student-lead critical thought means the acceptance of a degree of uncertainty, in which the educators can be challenged, which doesn't fit with results lead education. Friere says “If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed. Radical I know. Good further reading is We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change by Myles Horton and Paulo Friere.
