Poesis, literature and learning
How can the teaching of writing, and in particular of writing about poetry, be developed though a shift in pedagogical approach towards a focus on ‘poesis’ (making) to develop the engagement and motivation of A Level English Literature Students?
This is Theresa Gooda's MA thesis of 2014. Theresa is the group leader of NWP Sussex, and has kindly allowed us to post her work on this site.
This is Theresa Gooda's MA thesis of 2014. Theresa is the group leader of NWP Sussex, and has kindly allowed us to post her work on this site.
ABSTRACT:
Secondary English teachers are responsible for teaching both reading and writing yet the relationship between the two is complex, and they are often taught as separate components. This study investigates the potential of writing to strengthen students’ reading responses to poetry. Acknowledging that pedagogical approaches to the teaching of poetry often emphasise analysis at the expense of creativity and enjoyment, the research explores strategies including free writing, student voice and opportunities for public and private writing as part of the metacognition process; the specific teaching of poetic structure with an emphasis on the poetic function of language in its literal sense of ‘making’; and the encouragement of student perception of greater symbiosis between reading and writing.
Secondary English teachers are responsible for teaching both reading and writing yet the relationship between the two is complex, and they are often taught as separate components. This study investigates the potential of writing to strengthen students’ reading responses to poetry. Acknowledging that pedagogical approaches to the teaching of poetry often emphasise analysis at the expense of creativity and enjoyment, the research explores strategies including free writing, student voice and opportunities for public and private writing as part of the metacognition process; the specific teaching of poetic structure with an emphasis on the poetic function of language in its literal sense of ‘making’; and the encouragement of student perception of greater symbiosis between reading and writing.
Introduction and Rationale
Reading and writing are the central tenets of secondary English teaching. But the relationship between reading and writing is both complex and contentious, particularly in the light of recent changes to the National Curriculum (coming into effect from September 2014) and the decision of many English departments to reunite the assessment of these two previously separate components. The influential Bullock Report of 1975 worked from the premise that ‘reading must be seen as part of a child’s general language development and not as a discrete skill which can be considered in isolation from it’ (Bullock, 1975: xxxi). Yet Cox, by 1989, part of the National Curriculum English Working Group, clearly separates them in terms of programmes of study and assessment, and makes no mention of link between the two. (Cox, 1991) By the end of the second phase of National Curriculum with its focus on Assessing Pupil Progress (APP), ‘reading and writing have been torn asunder as if they are two separate unrelated entities’(Tharby 2014).
In my current setting, a large rural comprehensive school in Sussex, I am interested in considering in particular why writing is so challenging to teach and learn. I want to better understand current trends and issues in the teaching of writing in relation to my own experience, as well as exploring historical shifts in approaching the teaching of writing and contribute to the heated debate over the role of knowledge about language in relation to the production of real writing (Parker, 1980).
My role as Director of English for the last four years follows a further fourteen years’ experience of English teaching across three other schools. As head of department I am directly accountable to governors and senior management for public examination results, which have been controversial in English for the last two years (BBC, 2013) (Sherrington, 2012).
The notion of reading for pleasure is well established now (ESARD, 2012) and the majority of English teachers will regularly themselves read for pleasure; indeed, see this as a fundamental part of their role of being an English teacher (NUT, 2010). Few though, will ‘admit’ to writing for the same reason. Across the two English departments I worked with, five out of 24 teachers, or around 21%, undertook writing that they considered to be ‘for pleasure’ and on a par with the kind or amount of reading that they did. And yet reading and writing have had equal weight across Key Stage Three (KS3) since the inception of the National Curriculum, and carry equal weight in all General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) courses for English Language currently; the assessment objectives are similarly distributed on the A Level English courses.
English teachers approach an interesting crossroads, now, with the new national curriculum to be implemented from September 2014 (Department of Education, 2013). The focus on ‘creativity’ as one of the ‘4Cs’ underpinning English teaching, welcomed in English 21/Playback (QCA, 2005a) and in Taking English Forward (QCA, 2005b), seems to have disappeared almost entirely at KS3 and Key Stage Four (KS4). GCSE examined writing tasks are limited to two questions on the current Assessment and Qualification Alliance (AQA) English Language paper (AQA, 2012) and invite students to write a letter or blog post followed by an argumentative or persuasive piece for a magazine or newspaper. At Key Stage Five (KS5) the existing ‘recreative’ element has been removed from all draft A-level specifications for English Literature for first teaching 2015 (Sharvell, 2014). There is little requirement or incentive for any kind of writing that might be considered for pleasure or ‘creative’ rather than transactional; writing which is imaginative and inspiring, especially fiction.
As a National Writing Project (NWP) leader for Sussex working with a group of teachers across three schools, I have regular experience of writing ‘for pleasure’, and opportunity for professional development in the pedagogy and practice of teaching writing. The NWP, begun in 1973 at the University of California, has at its heart is the idea that writing is a complex activity; ‘more than just a skill or talent…a means of inquiry and expression for learning in all grades and disciplines’ (Nagin, 2006:3). Writing project practice requires teachers to become writers in order to teach writing. In the UK the project is in its infancy, founded in 2009 by Dr Jeni Smith and Simon Wrigley. It is a grass-roots project which researches writing and the teaching of writing investigating what happens ‘when teachers gather together to share their writing regularly’ (Smith, 2012: 10) and attempting to capture the shifts in pedagogy which occur in response to this process. A stage further is to consider the impact on reading following a sustained writing intervention: the focus of this research.
So, since the craft of writing is so broad and complex, in order to limit the focus of this study to a suitably manageable size and area I have elected to investigate the potential of writing to strengthen students’ reading responses to poetry. I have chosen to apply the principles of the NWP whilst focusing specifically on the poetry unit of ‘Love Through the Ages’ for A2 English Literature AQA Specification A (AQA, 2013). Acknowledging that pedagogical approaches to the teaching of poetry often emphasise analysis at the expense of creativity and enjoyment, the research explores strategies including free writing, heightened awareness, student voice and opportunities for public and private writing as part of the metacognition process; the specific teaching of poetic structure with an emphasis on the poetic function of language in its literal sense of ‘making’; and the encouragement of student perception of greater symbiosis between reading and writing.
I will be taking opportunities to implement strategies that support NWP principles at KS5, and will attempt to explore the impact that this has on writing and reading, and in particular the effect on motivation of students towards both creative and critical writing in response.
I teach in a school which has moved from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ according to the most recent OFSTED report (November 2013). As a department we consistently secure very good results at all key stages – between 82-88% A*-C in English Language over the last three years, for example, and significantly above national average which hovers at around 63%. At AS and A-level across the faculty in English Language and English Literature, we do very well again: typically 100% A*-E, and around 75% A*-C. But we don’t always make the full expected levels of progress and are therefore not perceived to be ‘adding value’ across the ability range. This is particularly pertinent to middle-ability learners in the sixth form, where senior management have identified a particular weakness and are encouraging departments to find ways to address this progress gap for middle-ability learners. A middle-ability learner for the purposes of this study is one who achieved GCSE grades of C-B in the subjects which they have elected to study at A-level. High-ability learners have achieved in the A-A* range.
I am also conscious that the examiner’s report for the series prior to the one which my students will sit allowed that higher marks were awarded when students addressed not just the language of the poems but the way in which they worked with other elements such as antithesis, parallelism and the way in which they were rendered more memorable by the ‘shift in meter’ at the end of the poem. (AQA, 2013b: 4) Perhaps this factor might be significant in moving those middle-ability learners: my idea is that if they can ‘make’ meter they might be better equipped to comment on it.
I will aim to teach my Year 13 poetry class from a ‘writing’ starting point rather than a more traditional reading approach, thereby significantly altering the focus of current departmental lesson plans. My hunch is that KS5 students cannot write about poetry effectively because they cannot write poetry. By putting creativity and enjoyment at the heart of the learning, I anticipate that improved critical writing will follow. Whilst I hope that this shift in pedagogical approach will be of benefit across the ability arrange, I will take account in particular of any impact on those identified as middle-ability learners: four students from a class of nine. I have addressed any potential ethical issues with this approach in 3.4
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Literature Relating to the National Writing Project (NWP)
Because Writing Matters (Nagin, 2006) reviews the National Writing Project from its early history and synthesises its reasons for coming into existence, before outlining contemporary trends and issues in relation to teaching and writing and going on to explore the professional development of teachers of writing. 'One form of participation above all others is expected at NWP staff development: writing teachers must write.’ (Nagin, 2006:65) This expectation grounds practitioners in the actual process of writing, so that teachers are doing what they require their students to do. This is a gulf that I keep returning to: the dichotomy between the perception of English teachers as readers, but not as writers, even though both aspects continue to have equal weighting under the new national curriculum orders. Elbow notes that it is 'sad to define teachers as people who read, not as people who write,' (Elbow, 2000: 9) and, ‘exemplary teachers of writing are themselves writers’. (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 8)
Nagin contests that all teachers across a school should be teachers of writing, and that the assessment of writing should not take place exclusively in English lessons. (Nagin, 2006: 16) It is interesting, since here in the UK and certainly in my school we seem to share the idea that all teachers are teachers of ‘literacy’, but that is not the same thing as being a teacher of ‘writing’ across the curriculum. Literacy, it seems, is reduced to elements of spelling, punctuation and grammar, and the specifics of these pertaining to different subject areas across the curriculum.
Considering why writing is so challenging to teach and learn, Nagin makes the case that,
'Even the most accomplished writers say that writing is challenging, most notably because there is so much uncertainty embedded in the process of doing it.' (Nagin, 2006: 9) He also cites evidence to show that writing improves when a student writes often, encouraging me to increase the frequency with which I invite students to write during their lesson time. He concludes that writing also has a positive effect on reading comprehension. This is at the heart of my work with the Year 13 students, since their analysis of reading is what is ultimately being examined across the four assessment objectives for English Literature. (AQA, 2013: 10-11)
The idiosyncratic nature of writing and writers is discussed, and the subsequent difficulties inherent in trying to meet writers' needs in a classroom, raising the question of how to actively create a 'rich and diverse array of writing experiences’ within, for me, the confines of a single unit of work. (Nagin, 2006:12) Given the premise that writing is never learned once and for all but is inevitably a recursive process and as such ‘deserves constant attention from kindergarten to the university’ (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 8), Nagin proposes that, 'Teaching writing well involves multiple teaching strategies that address both process and product, both form and content.’ (Nagin, 2006: 16) He explores in some detail how writing was taught in the past, identifying the focus on a finished exemplar with no consideration of purpose or processes and an emphasis on correctness, but states that there is no evidence to show that instruction in grammar leads to improvements in writing directly. (Nagin, 2006:21-23) He is very pejorative about any kind of formulaic teaching of writing, and of course this is what is often resorted to in an effort to drive up standards at GCSE and A level in particular. Instead he promotes an inquiry driven method of writing instruction, and offers some practical strategies for teaching critical thinking and enquiry, or structuring an argument, many of which I have used in the lesson planning for the action research group; sentence combining, for example, evolving from transformational-generative grammar, popularised in the 1970s and arising from the notion that language has a syntactic base or deep structure, which consists of a series of universal rules that generate the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence, and another series of rules, called transformations, that act upon the phrase-structure to form more complex sentences. (Nagin, 2006:27)
Wrigley (2013) charts the progress of similar groups in the UK. Currently on a much smaller scale than its NWP counterpart in the US, there are 20 established groups with a membership of approximately 200. What seems especially valuable about the NWP approach is that reflection ‘begins with learning and then moves out to teaching’. (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 29)
'To develop as writers, students also need the opportunity to articulate their own awareness and understanding of their processes in learning to write. Research has shown the importance of such meta cognitive thinking in becoming a better writer.' (Nagin, 2006: 82)
Nagin argues for students to be offered a choice of writing topics. This meta-cognitive aspect, alongside the notion of choice, which also feature prominently in the design of my intervention for the research.
Nagin’s work was particularly useful in helping to frame the context for many of the processes that I wish to explore, but lacked immediacy since it is firmly rooted in the US education system. Chapter five’s exploration of forms of assessment in the US is interesting, but lacks direct relevance for my own situation with no direct correlation in objectives. Similarly, some of the discussion on English Language-Learners (ELL) in chapter two lacks direct relevance given the particular demographic of my current school, which has few ELL learners, and none currently studying English Literature at KS5.
2.2 Literature Relating to Theory and Practice of Free Writing
Elbow considers the transformative power of writing in many of his essays. He discusses the power of free writing leading one to know something that wasn’t known before the writing began, and making connections between things previously unseen.
Introducing first the notion and importance of private writing, he asserts that it results in ‘better’ material for public writing but observes that the benefit is only there if ‘during the act of writing, I really treat my words as only for me, and invite myself to write things I wouldn't share with others.' (Elbow, 2000: 36) He discusses changing attitudes to writing by 'building safety' into the start of a course, thereby reminding me of the importance of creating the right environment with my sixth form students in order to facilitate private or free writing. Graves (2003) advocates a similar process of organising the right conditions within the classroom.
Elbow outlines interesting binary oppositions in the writing process, 'the path to really good writing...is seldom the path of compromise or the golden mean...We need extremity in both directions,' (Elbow, 2000: 54) and then in teaching generally. 'Good teaching calls on two conflicting abilities or stances: positively affirming and critically judging.' (Elbow, 2000: 55) He goes on to argue for a less adversary rhetoric in general, which he then applies to theories of writing allowing him to address the dichotomy between the creative writing process and the editing process, concluding that, 'we will probably do better at encouraging productive binary thinking if we acknowledge a realm or motive of language use that particularly invites it, namely, dialectic as opposed to rhetoric.' (Elbow, 2000: 73)
He moves then to creating this realm by exploring what he describes as 'the generative dimension' in two principles: the first being the need for 'inviting chaos'(Elbow, 2000: 83); simply putting down words on the page without worrying about their organisation, or in fact, disorganisation. He claims that 'freewriting turns out to be the easiest way to learn how to do this,' defining it as 'simply private, nonstop writing...what you get when you remove most of the constraints in writing.' (Elbow, 2000: 85) He talks about how useful it can be to move in and out of the freewriting mode at different stages in the writing process, suggesting that it can be 'especially helpful at moments of blockage and confusion'. (Elbow, 2000: 86) He also points out how empowering it can be to generate lots of raw material to work from, how it enables writers to naturally drift into writing metadiscourse, and the impact which freewriting can have on voice and dynamic in writing. In an example of his own freewriting he explains how, for him, the 'main experience that makes writing POSITIVE and REWARDING is the experience of surprise: steaming along and writing something you didn't "know" before.' (Elbow, 2000: 91) This view is echoed by Lieberman and Wood, ‘Writing produces occasions to foreground and clarify thinking; to record, shape and analyse experiences; to express internal lives; to explore ideas learned from others.’ (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 19) The work of the National Council of Teachers of English NCTE similarly acknowledges this: ‘When writers actually write, they think of things that they did not have in mind before they began writing. The act of writing generates ideas.’ (NCTE, 2004) They suggest that this notion of writing is a medium for thought is important in several ways, offering a number of important uses for writing beyond creation. These include: identification of issues, problem solving, question construction, reconsideration of position, and experimentation. ‘This insight that writing is a tool for thinking helps us to understand the process of drafting and revision as one of exploration and discovery, and is nothing like transcribing from pre-recorded tape.’ (NCTE, 2004).Collectively these ideas reinforce my intention to provide frequent opportunities for the students to undertake free writing,n not just in generating creative responses for poetry writing, but in reflecting on the poetry they encounter and their own thinking in relation to it.
Elbow notes that, as teachers, particularly, we need to
‘distinguish and emphasise "private writing" in order to teach it, to teach that crucial cognitive capacity to engage in extended and productive thinking that doesn't depend on audience prompts or social stimuli.' (Elbow, 2000: 106)
He points out that schools offer little or no privacy in writing, nor opportunity for students to experiment, since everything that students write is set by a teacher and collected in to be marked; also that school characteristically offer little or no 'social dimension for writing'(Elbow, 2000: 110), since it is only the teacher who reads. Hughes observes similarly that, ‘when an English teacher invites from his pupils imaginative disclosures about people, he generally has School tradition against him.’ He notes that ‘the imagination likes a wide open field of action, fifteen minutes of licence and immunity.’ (Hughes, 1967: 51) It sounds to me exactly like Elbow’s definition of freewriting.
Elbow argues, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that students need to practise writing that is the most private and also the most public. This raised interesting questions to extend the parameters of my study. Elbow’s essays have clearly helped shaped my thinking about the importance of freewriting and how to introduce it in the classroom. I also intend to find ways to make the students' writing more public in order to give experiences at both ends of the spectrum. ‘Public presentation has the power to motivate and produce high-quality work’. (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 17)
What is problematic about Elbow's essays in this collection is that they represent his own evolution as a writer and are not always underpinned by theory or empirical research. Nevertheless I have elected to adopt a number of principles and ideas in my own piece of classroom research.
A more practical examination of a creative writing technique for pupils inspired by Surrealist Automatic Writing and Elbow's free-writing occurs in Dream Writing (Smith, 2010). Smith argues that Dream Writing can free expression and raise standards. Noticing an inability to write persuasive prose on the part of her Media Students, Smith says that she was 'interested in exploring what 'voice' could become when the bridge between imagination and expression is less mediated by the teacher' (Smith, 2010: 246). She employs the term 'Dream Writing' as a more appropriate term than either Automatic or Free Writing for 'a technique which brings unformed ideas into being, as well as the dream of what this might allow the writer to become.' (Smith, 2010: 247) Smith describes in detail work with a small group of just four students over a three month trial period, examining writing in close detail at the start and at the end of the process, when students have been using Dream Writing for just a few minutes at the start of each English lesson. She finds that, 'it seems they are more imaginative when the rules are relaxed and when they do not think they are being read', as well as observing that their writing, 'shows a confidence with ideas, words and language that appears to give the students access to a richness in their creative writing they did not display before the trial.' (Smith, 2010: 254)
She also notes the importance of the process in providing, 'an opportunity to play with ideas that may not be appropriate in assessed work'. (Smith, 2010: 255)
2.3 Literature relating to the writing and teaching of poetry
The poet Ted Hughes suggests in his ‘handbook’ for the teaching and writing poetry a number of exercises and techniques for beginning the writing process. He seems to be foregrounding the ideas of Elbow when he says that students should ‘develop the habit of all-out flowing exertion, for a short, concentrated period, in a definite direction’. (Hughes, 1967:23)
Fry talks about writing poetry as a 'dark and dreadful secret', (Fry, 2007: xi) an embarrassing confession for an adult to make. This is a transition that I recognise as taking place in the classroom somewhere between KS3 and KS4. Students in Year 7 accept poetry writing as a natural part of their curriculum, but by KS4 seem reluctant to engage with this activity publicly. I have one KS4 student, for example, who emails ‘anonymously’ with poetry written outside the classroom. Fry argues that for other art forms, such as painting or music, there are a wealth of 'how to' manuals on offer for the beginning practitioner, but the same cannot be said of writing poetry. He adopts a back to basics approach to the teaching of poetry, encouraging the reader to undertake a series of poetry-writing exercises, many of which I will use in the teaching sequence.
Forsyth's irreverent exploration of how to turn the perfect English phrase is evangelical about the need for rhetorical figures and writing itself to be learnt. He claims that, ‘Shakespeare got better simply because he learnt’ and likens writing without understanding rhetorical figures to 'cooking blindfolded'. (Forsyth, 2013: 3) He notes the current obsession of English teachers with what a poet 'thought'.
'Rather than being taught how a poem is phrased, schoolchildren are asked to write essays on what William Blake thought about the Tiger…yet poets are not people who have greater thoughts than others, they are simply able to articulate those thoughts in a more 'exquisite' way. (Forsyth, 2013: 5)
In exploring current contexts for the teaching of poetry, Lockney and Proudfoot suggest that as teachers we, ‘inhabit a space between encouragement for a creative pedagogy set against the more prescriptive effects of an assessment driven curriculum’, (Lockney and Proudfoot, 2012: 150) and argue that traditional pedagogies surrounding close reading of poetry serve to ‘intensify the notion that it is the teacher’s role to ‘unlock’ the meaning of the poem for pupils.’ (Lockney and Proudfoot, 2012: 151) This is an idea echoed by Xerri (2012) who repeatedly refers to the ‘mystique’ surrounding the teaching of poetry. My intervention with the A-level students begins with the express aim of demystifying the process by equipping the students with the means to create and craft poems themselves.
Whilst the small scale project of Lockney and Proudfoot (2012) was conducted with a Year 10 GCSE focus class following the AQA specification which introduced an unseen poetry question, there are a number of parallels which might usefully be drawn in relation to my own action research. Firstly, the A-level class selected for the study experienced the same extremely limited opportunity for assessment of poetry writing on their own GCSE study, and have to analyse at least one and maybe two unseen poems on their final examination paper. Secondly, the structured use of individual creative writing tasks, eliciting peer response and the workshop style of providing multi-modal stimuli all mirror the kind of techniques that I plan to use.
Their finding, suggesting that the increased potential for pupils to both engage with the poetry and to develop their identity as meaning makers through the creation of poetry (Lockney and Proudfoot, 2012) is also something that I hope to replicate in my own classroom.
2.4 Policy Documents, Examination Documents and OFSTED Guidance
The current AQA Specification A for GCE English Literature requires students to explore the effects of 'language, form and structure' of texts both unseen and as part of their wider reading to which they will refer in the exam. (AQA, 2013a) It is also assessed as part of their coursework, though very few opt for a poetry text as one of their comparatives. Their core coursework text is Othello, much of which is written in blank verse and would invite exactly the kind of structural analysis that I taught through the lesson sequence.
Recent examiner reports accentuate the importance of writing in the reading response, ‘The quality of students’ written expression was often a marker of their achievement’ (AQA, 2013b: 3) as well as citing examples of strength in students’ ability to write about structure in poetry effectively in relation to language,
‘Some impressive comments were made on Jonson’s versification, but there were also some limited ones, such as when students asserted that it was written in iambic pentameter, or was a ballad. One examiner advises, helpfully, that those who are unsure about such technical aspects might be better to avoid guessing and comment on other features instead’ (AQA, 2013c: 5).
My plans to focus on technical aspects will, I hope, remove any element of guesswork on the part of my students.
Moving English Forward, whilst focusing specifically on KS3 and KS4 identified weaknesses in the teaching of poetry specifically, as part of the negative impact of tests and examinations on provision for English, including ‘an emphasis on analytic approaches at the expense of creative ones’ (OFSTED, 2012: 44). My teaching sequence intervention will seek to redress this balance.
3 Research Strategy
3.1 Methodology
I have opted for a multi-method, interpretive action research project which includes several stages to the research following the identification of the problem and formulation of my research question, ‘How can the teaching of writing, and in particular of writing about poetry, be developed through a shift in pedagogical approach towards a focus on ‘poiesis’ to develop the engagement and motivation of A-Level English Literature Students?’
I begin from an interpretivist epistemological position. Access to any kind of given or socially constructed is in itself socially constructed. I am also acutely conscious of the multiplicity of possible causes associated with anything which takes place in the classroom, and aware of the difficulty of isolating particular factors, particularly given my plan to combine a focus on freewriting with a structural approach to the creation of poetry.
Action research is the most suitable paradigm for my research since the primary intervention, the ‘shift’ in pedagogical approach I am aiming for, necessitates a series of iterations informed and directed by an analysis of the evidence gathered on route. My lesson plans will change in the light of the reactions of the students and their perceived levels of engagement and changing response, as well as in consideration of the associated literature and comparable research findings (Burton, 2009: 124). It will operate as a recursive and cyclical process of study designed to achieve some concrete change: that of improving motivation of A-level students with an aspect of the English Literature course perceived as challenging, namely poetry analysis.
Another reason that I have opted for this kind of action research project is because of the closeness of action research to ‘reflective practice’, something which I am frequently engaged in as a classroom practitioner. This might be perceived as ‘both a strength and a drawback’ since the ‘generation of so-called evidence is often derived from ad hoc experiences’ (Burton, 2009: 125). I am anxious to guard against this temptation and aim to ensure that my methodology within the action research design is as rigorous and systematic as possible, but it is certainly the case that I am undertaking the action research to improve my own professional practice in a collaborative way within my setting.
Action research theorists offer various models or cycles in which thinking, doing, and watching are interwoven and repeated throughout the research activity. For this project I have combined models as described by Altrichter, Posch and Somekh (1993) and Brown and Dowling (1998) in terms of understanding the problem and defining the project, implementing an action and observing the results before entering a reflective evaluation phase or ‘interrogation mode’.
Since my research is taking place in a natural setting (my classroom) using multiple methods, I will use an interpretive paradigm (rather than a positivist one) in my research approach, in order to make sense collectively of the information that I collect. I desire to draw meanings and conclusions that will have direct impact on the writing of my students, and want to be able to respond to trends in data as they emerge. Though the intervention is pre-designed and developed from the literature review, lesson by lesson plans are emergent rather than tightly prefigured.
Burton (2009: 128) identifies the trend more recently in action research to involve the ‘active participation of pupils’ and I certainly seek to achieved this in my research design, with students being aware of the interventions as well as the reasons for their implementation from the outset and thereby achieving ‘transparency’ within the action research (Burton, 2009: 139).
Based on this shift in pedagogical approach, the nature of evidence collected will be predominantly qualitative since my wish is to understand meanings, experience, ideas, and other less tangible elements of classroom practice. This will include consideration of the work the students produced at different stages of the implementation, and their response to it in group interviews. The inclusion of an assessment-type response at the start and end of the research phase will allow for a small amount of quantitative data for analysis, but is not the primary aim of the design. It will, however, enable me to triangulate research outcomes. Students will be invited to submit some of their writing to be included as ‘data’ as part of the action research, for the purpose of comparison of the kind of creative and analytical writing which students were undertaking at stages of the intervention. The freewriting samples will form a foundation of my evidence, but their analysis is inherently problematic on a number of levels, explored later.
There is a small element of experimental approach to the design, in the creation of a ‘control’ group by which some measurement for comparison might be engendered. This has been created naturally by the teaching structures in my setting: there are two teachers teaching the poetry side of the A-level course in my setting, and therefore might be considered to be an ‘allied approach’ (Burton, 2009: 66). Whilst full discussion of the intervention has been undertaken in the spirit of collaboration, the second teacher has opted to continue with existing departmental schemes of work allowing opportunity for comparison of the two groups at the end of the research phase. The ethical aspects of this decision are considered in 3.4 and discussed further in 4.
3.2 Methods
I have planned a specific half term unit for the teaching of love poetry to one group of KS5 Literature students which focuses on technical aspects of poetry and will regularly invite students to create poetry as a means of response to it. There will also a strong focus on the introduction of free writing as a regular part of lesson time in order to frequently provide that ‘fifteen minutes of licence and immunity’ (Hughes, 1967: 51). It will therefore be a purposive, pre-designed intervention (Brown, 1998: 40). The student responses will be used to inform the study and my interrogation of it. I considered, but rejected a grounded theory approach, though also based within the interpretive paradigm, since I was could not honestly say that I was entering the research setting of my classroom without ‘holding any preconceptions or socio-cultural/political biases’ (Burton, 2009: 66).
The first method as part of the action research will be to undertake a structured assessment piece of writing based on a past examination paper. This assessment will be repeated at the end of the project, so that there will be some quantitative data for comparison, as described above.
Alongside this, a second method of generating data will comprise semi-structured interviews with the participants about their learning during and after the process. Interviews at the end of the process will inform my final judgements about student motivation in relation to the study on this part of the course. A number of issues arise here. Holstein and Gubrium suggest that ‘the interview conversation is framed as a potential source of bias, error, misunderstanding, or misdirection (Silverman, 1997: 141). In addition, according to Watts the interviewer ‘may only hear a response compatible with the picture which is taking shape’ (Watts, 1987: 27). Particularly with the ‘active interview’ process (Silverman, 1997:140) which requires the interview to stimulate and provoke the responses, there will inevitably be the temptation to both design the questions to suit the direction of research, as well as hearing only those ‘compatible’ responses. Conversely, perhaps, though still potentially distorting observations is the notion that a ‘respondent’s answer may reflect the expectations of the interviewer’ (Watts, 1987:37), and in particular in this instance the figure of authority which I represent (perhaps) as their A Level English teacher. Aware of these potential drawbacks, I will aim to mitigate as far as possible in a variety of ways discussed in 3.4.
During the trial I will increase the amount of writing students do by introducing writing journals and providing free writing opportunities within lessons regularly, in both creative and critical contexts. As part of this process and within the planning for the teaching sequence, I will then be able to consider other ideas for what might constitute ‘next steps’ once free writing has been introduced. I will teach some ‘mechanics’ of poetry writing so that students will be asked to create different types of verse pertaining to those we are studying for analysis, including different sonnet forms using trochaic and pyrrhic substitutions, for example. Throughout the process I will also use NWP group responses to explore teacher attitudes to writing and the teaching of writing to inform the lesson planning process.
In terms of sampling I will work with one Year 13 class of 9 students, and use the other equivalent class effectively as a control group since they are following the original schemes of work as planned collaboratively by the teachers in the department. I will seek throughout to triangulate all evidence collected in relation to the study, and thereby to minimise the effects of observer bias (invalid information resulting from the perspective I might bring and impose to the study through my relationship with the National Writing Project). In this sense I have opted for a quasi-experimental design in my action research.
I did consider more quantitative research methods such as open questionnaires but rejected them on the basis that the kind of responses required to inform the research would lend themselves much more to narrative style than multiple choice answers. I would be unlikely to obtain ‘detailed or profound information’ in this format (Burton, 2009: 74). A questionnaire approach might also be more beneficial when dealing with a larger group as opposed to my focus on a small class of nine students.
Thirdly, through case study, exploring systems within my own classroom over the half term time period on a small scale with the aim ultimately of improving my own practice. I am also intent on providing some small amount of knowledge which might then be shared across the department in my own setting, since it is rich in context; perhaps changing our scheme of work and approach generally across the English Literature course at KS5 with possible implications for preceding key stages
I anticipate that using the three methods I have described will generate useful data for triangulation.
So, of the two paradigms most frequently associated with educational research (that of the positivistic/scientific and the interpretative paradigm) I have opted for an interpretive, mixed methods approach since I am seeking to develop insight and a deeper understanding of how the teaching of writing works on a small scale in my own classroom.
3.3 Data Analysis
The design of my action research will enable a number of different opportunities for data collection.
An important part of the process based particularly on the reading of Elbow (2000) and Graves (2003) will be to provide opportunities for public as well as private writing. These will then be used as part of the qualitative data to inform my analysis and evaluation of the action research. I intend that opportunities for students to undertake private writing will be rich in the lesson time itself. Polished pieces for publication in and beyond the classroom will take place at the midpoint of the study. The students will be invited to submit work for display and for external ‘competition’ where appropriate. So there will be ‘polished’ pieces for analysis, as well as free writing examples.
The interviews with students are another method of generating qualitative data.
So my judgments about the way in which students’ writing has changed will be evidence-based, and include a range of supplementary information that emerges outside the two formal assessment aspects through case study, necessitating a strong degree of triangulation: the ‘filtering, linking and distilling of a diverse body of information’ (Burton, 2009: 167). Any resulting claims must though, be justified, necessitating that my reasoning must be made as explicit as possible and enable me as a researcher to detect the faults in my reasoning and interpretation of the data.
Given the idiosyncratic character of practitioner research such as this, any claim for generality beyond the research setting of my school would be inherently problematic.
3.4 Research Ethics
The best interests of the students will be the primary consideration throughout the study.
Students will be encouraged to give personal responses in interviews, and to shape the direction of discussions, which will take place in the classroom, and will be conducted in small groups to help facilitate dialogue; a format that the class in question are already familiar with.
The quantitative data collection (in the form of their before and after assessments) is a normal and expected part of their course; students are assessed at half termly intervals as part of current practice, so this will reflect no change for them.
Consent from all participants has been obtained before any research was conducted. In gaining consent, all staff and Year 13 students have been made clear about their role in the study and how any relating data will be used ensuring that this complies with point 25 of the Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (BERA, 2011) which is concerned with confidentiality and anonymity. Each participant has been made aware of their right to withdraw at any point if they do not wish for their work and data to be included in the study. Throughout, I will ensure, wherever possible, to keep to the usual practices and workloads of the participants: observations and interviews are scheduled to be conducted during usual class times. In the collection, analysis and reporting of data, I will maintain an ethical stance based on the importance of effective outcomes for the school that can be continued into the future.
Whilst there is an element of experimentation to my study in the sense that I am changing some aspects of pedagogical approach, and using some comparison with a control group, I am confident that there will not be a detrimental effect on either teaching group. The study is short (spanning 6 weeks, comprising a series of approximately twelve fifty minute lessons, and representing less than 5% of teaching time in the subject over the duration of the course); if the results demonstrate the desired effect there is teaching time remaining to use the techniques with the control group. Similarly, if I began to notice that the pedagogical shifts are working to the detriment of the group, there is time within the curriculum to return to the original departmental plan which has proven success over a long track history of securing results above those of similar centres.
All students’ names and initials that have been used in this study are pseudonyms to protect identity.
4 Findings, Analysis and Discussion
I was attempting to conduct a small-scale, in-depth research project with the overall aim of discovering whether a changed approach to the teaching of poetry at A2 by immersing students in its writing and construction rather than the more traditional approach of repeated analysis of canonical poets and poems would lead to an enhanced experience for the students in terms of increased motivation and engagement, and whether this would have long term benefits. Nagin notes that, 'As a result of involvement with NWP programmes, teachers often become teacher-researchers who examine in depth what is going on in their classrooms,' (Nagin, 2006: 66) which is exactly the position in which I found myself.
This was carried out by devising a sequence of ‘poesis’ lessons (examples of which are outlined in detail in Appendix 1). The study then employed a variety of research methods to collect data and evidence in relation to the aim of the research, namely examining students’ written responses critically, measuring ‘before’ and ‘after’ exam practice responses and interviewing the students. The findings from the research have been collated and analysed in conjunction with the research question, literature review and the themes that became apparent throughout the research.
The research questions was: How can the teaching of writing, and in particular of writing about poetry, be developed though a shift in pedagogical approach towards a focus on ‘poesis’ (making) to develop the engagement and motivation of A Level English Literature Students?
Given that I have selected an interpretivist theoretical perspective, I am interested in aspects of the classroom that are unique, individual and predominantly qualitative. There is a small amount of quantitative data analysis in relation to assessment scores before and after the intervention because it suited my purpose and this mixed methods approach helped to clarify some of my thinking about the shift in pedagogy. Brown concludes that the best option for quality in research will always be for a dialogical use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods since ‘ the adoption of a dual approach involving both qualitative and quantitative techniques can help in over-coming such tendencies to what we might refer to as naïve empiricism’ (Brown, 1998:83).
The first strand of my study was really concerned with the idea of teachers of writing being practitioners of their craft. My work with the National Writing Project (including leading the half termly meetings of the Sussex branch of the NWP) has been instrumental in furthering my understanding of exactly how important this is.
'We don't find many teachers of oil painting, piano, ceramics, or drama who are not practitioners in their fields. Their students see them in action in the studio. They can't teach without showing what they mean. There is a process to follow' (Graves, 2003: 6).
I have made my own writing an integral part of my teaching now, and would not consider setting a writing task that I would not undertake myself. I wrote with the students throughout the project; they understood that this was part of the process, and were often keen to see what I had written. They found it 'reassuring' that my first attempts at trochaic tetrameter, for example, were as clumsy as theirs, often more so. ‘Modelling helps teachers understand their own writing. Because they model various elements of the writing process, they will know what to observe’ (Graves, 2003: 50-51).
The pattern of lessons changed quite dramatically, so that they regularly began with an opportunity for some free writing, albeit free writing that was consciously directed. I encouraged the students to see the writing as their own, private reflections, and made sure that they wrote somewhere that I would not automatically see it; i.e. away from their ordinary workbooks, thereby encouraging the idiosyncrasy and power of their individual voices, inviting a ‘writer-based’ response that moved towards Elbow’s argument for ignoring audience. (Elbow, 2000) prompts ranged from broad, free-ranging questions such as ‘what is love?’ to more tightly focused ones such as ‘write honestly about Bright Star by Keats. What did you think of the poem?’ (Lesson 6, Appendix 1) or ‘what is your reaction to Yeats’ gift in ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’?’ (Lesson 7, Appendix 1)
Remembering that submission of freewriting was voluntary, and given that the intended ‘audience’ for the free-writing is the student themselves, I did not have a full data set to analyse. Some students were reluctant to relinquish their private writing, and perhaps rightly so, since I had, from the outset, emphasised the notion of privacy.
Of Bright Star, one student wrote very candidly: ‘Why have such a long, rambling part in the middle just to say you don’t want to be isolated like the star? Lines 3-8 are completely pointless and serve to extra enlightenment or explanation. The end is also rather confusing…’ This is the writing of an A-grade AS level student. As far as I could tell she would never articulate something like this in class discussion, but yet it was important for her to come to some understanding of why the poet chose to balance the poem in this way. The free writing served as an introduction to this, since the honesty of words like ‘pointless’ and ‘confusing’ would never make it to a final essay for this student. ‘When you allow freewriting to create an arena of trust, there is no telling what kind of writing will emerge’ (Elbow, 2000).
Another example, again from an A grade AS candidate, helps to emphasise the process of developing thought. ‘He says that being poor he has only his dreams, but doesn’t he have her? Or maybe he would have her if he stopped dreaming about what he could have. Maybe she is not as precious to him as he seems to want to show.’ This early freewriting then becomes: ‘The repeated use of light, and the repeated use of the word on the end of each line gives the impression of stitching, which could suggest that the poem itself is the cloths of heaven which he wishes to give. His love, perhaps, is not as endless as he implies as he seems to think more of his own poetry and his ‘dreams under your feet’ than he does of his lover.’ The second sophisticated interpretation synthesising assessment objectives AO1 and AO2 seems to me to have arisen directly from the first freer and far less analytical version.
Both examples of freewriting that I have quoted contain questions from the students themselves (rather than from me); questions which then seemed to be answered in later, formal written responses. ‘By doing this exploratory ‘swamp work’ in conditions of safety, we can often coax our thinking through a process of new discovery and development.’ (Elbow, 2000: 96)
There was still a reluctance to share writing orally within the group, even after repeated practice and invitation. ‘When…sharing their work, the work that is going well serves as a stimulus for the others in the class. Strong voices are contagious, just as the teacher with a strong teaching-writing voices helps children to have voices of their own’ (Graves, 2003:29). I did find that I was called upon regularly to submit first, but I suspect that this might change with regularity and familiarity in the classroom.
From the interview with the students collectively at the end of the project, (an excerpt from the transcript appears in Appendix 2) it seems that students enjoyed the opportunity to
forget about the reader, and agreed that it helped them arrive at new meanings that they may not have arrived at where they being self-consciously literary and ‘writerly’.
The second aspect of my research was concerned with what the students wrote formally. I tried to analyse this data with the awareness that ‘any text is susceptible to any number of analyses, depending upon the nature and specificity of the theoretical framework’ which is being employed (Brown, 1998: 89).
Following the series of intervention lessons, when the students were encouraged to use structural analysis of their chosen poems as a starting point, the comments from the students were at times, astonishing:
E: (Of The Voice by Thomas Hardy) ‘The first stanza of ‘The Voice’ manipulates the use of meter, as it consists of two iambic hexameter lines and one of iambic pentameter in order to convey how hardy (sic) feels about his past relationship with his wife; he loves her, but not how he should have. The use of these two types of meter gives the poem a distorted rhythm, to reflect the theme of guilt and regret. The last stanza is fragmented and there is no pattern of rhythm or return to iambic meter at all…resulting in a weak ending, representing the weakened relationship.’
S: (Of Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning) ‘The poem opens in dialectic form with the poem being the answer to the opening question, ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ The breadth of the answer shows the narrator’s surety and scope of their love for their partner. She uses increasing amounts of caesura throughout, illustrating the increasing breathlessness of the narrator; they want to explain the way they love this person, but they have to keep control.’
The technical awareness of control in both poems has led the students to a far greater insight into their chosen poems than a traditional linguistic analysis would have done. That has been made possible by their own experiences as writers of poetry, of choosing words and phrases for themselves, of creating pentamer, hexameter and caesura in these two examples. This could be noticed across the work of the whole group, including those identified as middle-ability learners. The clarity of structural understanding seemed to be less secure amongst the less able students in the class, so that a few weeks later they no longer seemed to have the command of the metacognitive aspects of the poetry, making meaningless statements about structure, or misusing more complex terms that they had previously seemed to understand.
This was reinforced by their assessment scores. Whilst this was never intended as a quantitative study, I am a practitioner in a community that functions around hard data. Within education, there is a strong pull towards realism and positivism and therefore as teachers we are continually negotiating that tension. I measured before and after the intervention the marks achieved on a poetry analysis question, and then once more after a break of approximately six weeks – so there were three classroom assessment points in total. Series 1 below represents before the intervention, series 2 the results immediately post it, and series 3 a half term later. Even allowing for differences in the level of challenge on the respective papers (though all were past papers created by the exam board) there were some interesting, and unexpected findings:
Figure 4.1
Showing outcomes for individual students before (Series 1), immediately after (Series 2) and then six weeks following the intervention lessons (Series 3)
There was an immediate and positive impact for all bar two of the students following the intervention, but a half term later this was negligible. It could be argued that you would expect to see the middle ‘spike’ for most students during the teaching of the poetry unit, however that might be delivered since they are being immersed in that topic. Certainly it would suggest a significant level of engagement and motivation with the subject matter.
The next stage of the research was to consider the students’ own responses and evaluation of their own levels of engagement and motivation in response to the action research intervention through interview. I did not undertake ‘habituation’ as outlined by Brown (1998) in preparation for the audio recording of student interviews in terms of introducing the recording device (an Ipad) into the setting before the data collection began. However, the device is unobtrusive, and I did spend some moments engaging in settling phatic talk with the students at the start of the recording in order to reduce the inhibiting effect that it may have on some students. They were positive about the impact on their ability to discuss the structure and form of poetry in their own creative responses. ‘Before I would just say one sentence on it and it would be really menial awful. Now I feel like I can say something that is relevant and intelligent.’ (AC, Appendix 2)
I am very conscious of observer bias in my interpretations here; in any future intervention of this sort I would certainly consider having the interviews conducted more independently from me to mitigate against the student responses mirroring my expectations.
The final stage of the research was to consider the impact on actual results, so I turned to the final outcomes of the students on their A-level paper. This was less to measure motivation, and more to validate my study with some kind of quantitative impact. It is necessary to remember, however, that the marking of A-level examinations in English is more subjective that in other subjects. For their final A-level examination I was interested in the correlation between their poetry answer and their prose/drama answer.
Figure 4.2
Showing outcomes for final examination comparing poetry response with prose drama response and arranged from lowest to highest GCSE Max 8 scores.
I looked at results overall and then at how students had performed specifically on the unseen poetry analysis question. I also considered how students had done on that question in comparison with the other; i.e. which was the stronger response. The data initially seemed problematic to assimilate.
For the summer 2014 paper, students were invited to compare two poems: the Good Morrow by John Donne and Talking in Bed by Philip Larkin (AQA, 2014: 4-5). The format of the paper is that students analyse four unseen texts from poetry, prose and drama, so two will be from one genre, but the students don’t know which two until they open the exam paper. This year the genre comparison, happily for me and this study, was poetry.
Of the nine students in the group, 6 achieved above their Agreed Target Grade (ATG) based on Fischer Family Trust Data (FFTD), the progress measure currently employed by the school. Two were on target and one was below. (Appendix 3)
The more I looked at the data, the more some clear relationships began to emerge, though the interpretation of those patterns is complex, surprising and not what I had predicted (or indeed, hoped). ‘Any judgements or evaluations of pupil performance must be evidence-based, but will also include supplementary information that has emerged outside the formal assessment procedure’ (Burton, 2009: 125).
What the data seems to confirm is that the intervention was more effective for those students at the upper end of the ability range. For the three students who achieved an A*, two performed significantly better on the poetry question: 10 marks and 4 marks, respectively. For the third student, equal marks were achieved on both questions. These three students responded well to the intervention in their group interview, citing both increased motivation and better understanding of the structural aspects of the poetry. Four students in total did the same or better on the poetry question. The remaining five students in the group performed worse on the poetry question, as shown in figure 5.1, where the students are arranged in order of ability based on GCSE max 8 scores moving from lowest to highest (so the first four columns represent the middle ability students within the group.
Of the students identified as middle ability learners, those indicated in the first four columns of figure 4.2 and having a GCSE Average Point Score (APS) of below 6.5; three were above target and one was below. However, three of the four also performed worse on the poetry question than on the other genres. The one who performed better did so by 6 marks.
One might argue that the poetry question is perceived as being intrinsically harder and that those students would have performed less well on that question with or without the intervention; this might be borne out by the performance of those A* candidates doing better or as well on the poetry. In the control group, only four of the students ‘favoured’ the poetry question. The control group was made up of 10 students, and all four who achieved higher marks on the poetry were indeed A or A* candidates.
5 Conclusions
Burton, Brundrett, Jones warn that researchers must ‘be prepared for unexpected finding to emerge, which may necessitate the revision of the original idea’ (2009: 129) I had assumed, wrongly it transpires, that my intervention of teaching the analysis of poetry from a ‘making’ perspective first would have the desired effect of increasing the students’ ability to articulate critical points of analysis. This was perhaps true for some, but certainly not all, students. And had immediate, but perhaps not long term impact for some members of the group.
The conclusions below also need to be considered in relation to the limitations of the research. If I were to undertake something of this kind in the future with a quantitative element, I would perhaps consider more closely the preceding sets of data (in class assessments and exam data) for the A-level classes within the department, and limit the types of changes that I was making to the teaching in order to better isolate their impact. I would also enlist the help of colleagues from the outset so that both the research itself and the analysis of data was shared by trusted peers to further mitigate against observer bias.
5.1 Freewriting
The free writing samples which I analysed provided, in the first instance, a valuable insight into the thought processes of students on the course. My own experiences with NWP, and the data set from students which emerged in triangulation with assessment pieces leads me to conclude that free writing is a useful tool at this stage of student learning on the A2 course in terms of both responding to texts and in creating their own. Working at this level with middle and higher ability students at KS5 meant that the students were able to articulate very clearly their own learning and processes. I agree with Elbow that, ‘as teachers, particularly, we need to distinguish and emphasise ‘private writing’ in order to teach it, to teach that crucial cognitive capacity to engage in extended and productive thinking that doesn’t depend on audience prompts or social stimuli’ (Elbow, 2000: 96). There were occasions following the period of the intervention in which we encountered a text or an idea that excited students and their response was to ask, ‘Can we free write about this?’ As a technique this has become embedded in their own practice as learners and therefore I interpret this as contributing to motivation: several different members have requested it independently of me.
Moving forward, I want to use the idea of free writing as a starting point on which to build the teaching of writing processes, and use the students' own writing as a means of teaching the aspect of writing about poetry which students typically find the most difficult, namely the notion of writing about structure. If they are able to 'do' it for themselves, it seems reasonable to suggest that their ability to analyse it in the work of others will be improved. After discussion and evaluation with A-level colleagues, the department has adopted a streamlined version of the lesson sequence as part of the shared scheme of work. Since we always try to work as collaboratively as possible (there are four teachers including myself currently responsible for the delivery of the A-Level Literature course) we will develop them further over the forthcoming academic year.
But I am also conscious that ‘About one topic in four or five is the hot topic for children, or any professional writer’ (Graves, 2003:29). This means that I will have to let the reigns go somewhat and provide a greater degree of choice than I have done in this initial piece of research. Hughes puts it even more dramatically stating that it is an ‘infallible’ rule that you, ‘you write interestingly only about the things that genuinely interest you’ (Hughes, 1967: 96). It is hard to negotiate the inherent tensions in teaching an exam board specification and in allowing students to follow their own interests at the same time.
I am also aware that, based on the interviews at the end of the intervention, some students were not always able to allocate immediate value to the free writing opportunities in an results-driven culture. One student commented that certain topics worked well and those seemed to be the ones that were directly text focused, rather than those which truly did give free reign to consider theme – those which for Elbow invited a binary approach for students encouraging students to consider aspects of text simultaneously. I wonder if this is a product of students being assessment-objective aware and exam-focused and unwilling to divert too much time away from other areas of curriculum study, even whilst valuing those areas simultaneously. ‘We spent quite a long time doing creative things whereas in the exam you’re not asked to do that’ (HE, Appendix 2). Another student pointed out that the ‘working out of your own thinking’ approach might have more benefit in being applied to coursework. This is also something to consider: perhaps free writing activities might be built into this aspect of the course during the coursework writing period. It is also possibly worthy of further investigation. If students progress to Higher Education the free writing approach may continue to gain more value for them.
5.2 Poesis
I have already begun to address my practice at KS3 and KS4 as a result of my action research. Year 7 students, for example, have been busy creating personal responses to A Midsummer Night’s Dream though trochaic tetrameter verses in the style of Shakespeare. The notion of allowing students to regularly experience the process of writing in order to better facilitate its analysis continues to have far-reaching effects all over the curriculum and this is a way of working that I am sure that I will continue to explore.
5.3 Publishing
Like Elbow, Graves also describes the importance of ‘publishing’ during the process of writing, suggesting that for younger pupils this should be one in every five pieces, and for older students one in two or three. He describes publishing as ‘some form of binding’ which can be checked out from the classroom or school library (Graves, 2003). This is an area that I am keen to explore further, and can use my role as subject leader to facilitate this across the department in a more systematic way. It might include using the digital screens available in the department to display examples of successful writing, and display, as Graves suggests in the school library, or Learning Resources Centre (LRC). From a motivation point of view, the students described the sonnet writing and annotation for publication as ‘fun’. From a teaching point of view, whilst the end product might not be considered great literature, they certainly seemed to consolidate learning about aspects of poetic structure in a very immediate way, and one which was clear for me to assess in terms of understanding, regardless of the creative merit of the work.
5.4 Middle Ability Learners
Did we ‘add value’ to those middle ability learners? Looking at final examination performance was not part of the original design of the action research, but it was inevitable that I would consider it given the timing of the conclusion of the study. Tentatively I would like to suggest that the intervention has been a successful one in terms of student motivation and engagement for all levels of learner, and it is demonstrated very clearly in the test and examination performance of students at the upper end of the ability arrange. For students to understand elements of the writing process seems to be beneficial as reflected in the students’ interview responses, even if that is not reflected consistently in examination outcomes. From my interpretivist position we are exploring something much more complex than that which can be measured through a single set of examination results. Acknowledging that pedagogical approaches to the teaching of poetry often emphasise analysis at the expense of creativity and enjoyment, the strategies employed such as free writing, encouraging student voice and opportunities for public and private writing as part of the metacognition process, all seem to be important aspects of classroom practice. The specific teaching of poetic structure with an emphasis on the poetic function of language in its literal sense of ‘making’; and the encouragement of student perception of greater symbiosis between reading and writing remain central tenets of my teaching, though, given the complexity and idiosyncratic nature of the writing process itself, it would be difficult to draw any hard and fast rules for the teaching of it. At the very least I consider that I am just a little further along that journey as a result of the research project and at the very least have begun to find additional ways to ‘empower students and help them to like to write’ (Nagin, 2006: 18).
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Appendix 1
Excerpts from the Teaching Sequence
Mastering poetry Tasks from Lesson 6
Objectives:
Task One:
Re-read Bright Star. Free writing exercise – what is your response to this poem? (Remembering that this private and will not be read!) What questions would you like to ask Keats about it?
Task Two:
Share some of those questions and see if they can be answered.
Task Three:
Consider your favourite images from the start of the lesson. What is love? How would you choose to express it? Shorter freewriting exercise.
Task Four:
Write a love sonnet in pairs. Use a Shakespearian or Petrarchan form. Strict time limit – 28 minutes (two minutes per line!)
Revise what has already been learned – list of 6 p49
Mastering Poetry Tasks from Lesson 7
Objectives:
Starter: ‘Score’ your love sonnet using the following system:
Task one: Free writing exercise. You are a millionaire, and have all the world’s riches at your disposal. What could be the most precious gift in the world that you might give to the person you love most of all? Money is no object. Be creative! What would be the best way to give this gift to someone?
Then:
Write it down on paper and wrap it up to give. Spend no more than thirty words but describe colour, shape, size, properties.
Share objects, and their symbolic value.
You don’t have that money – what would you give instead?
Task Two:
Read Yeats’ poem.
Discussion: What are the cloths of heaven?
What do you notice about rhythm and structure?
How would you describe the last line?
How does it scan?
Freewriting What is your reaction to Yeats’ gift in ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’
Give definitions and see if you can find them in the anthology.
Monometer – 1 beat, Dimeter – 2 beats, Trimeter, Tetrameter, Hexameter, Heptameter, Octameter
Discuss prominence of each as represented in our anthology.
Task Three: Give historical context. A reminder about iambic pentameter, heroic couplets ‘serious poetry’. Hexameter and heptameter – more suited to classical and European languages, not as ‘stress-timed’ as English. May sound a little cumbersome in English, though writers such as Hardy and Kipling have undertaken successfully.
Task Four:
Trochees end their lines in weakness
Iambic lines resolve with strength
Write the following:
Homework: LOVE SONNETS. Create a version for publication/display. Two pages. The first should be the love sonnet complete and decorated and beautiful, the second should be a ‘clean’ version but annotated demonstrating the different techniques you have used. Show the scansion using appropriate symbols.
Indicate your weak endings, enjambement and caesura, and any substitutions you have made.
Be truthful – if you want to comment on things that haven’t worked, that is just as valuable as being able to identify what has.
Appendix 2
Excerpts from transcript of interview – 27th February 2014
T: Do you feel that you can write about structure better now and is that of value?
S: Yes. I feel that I can say something intelligent now rather than just like the ‘structure’s good.
A: Before I would just say one sentence on it and it would be really menial and awful. Now I feel like I can say something that is relevant and intelligent.
T: Would you read a poem for structure first or read for meaning first?
D: It depends if you have very obvious structure points.
H: You’ve got to understand the meaning of a poem first.
S: But sometimes structure helps you to do that.
T: What about the freewriting?
E: I think it was good for getting all of your ideas out to start with, and then developing them.
S: As long as it’s about something.
T: What do you mean by that? You didn’t like doing the creative ones?
S: Not as much, no.
H: It was better when we were freewriting about the poems.
T: What about the fact that it is not marked? Some students find that problematic.
S: That was good because it didn’t have to be marked and I didn’t feel self-conscious about what I was writing. Too much of our writing gets marked.
T: Could it be helpful in the planning part of even writing an exam essay?
E: More useful for coursework. (Murmurs of agreement)
T: Where there any points where you think it made it a difference to the way you responded to a poem? Did you come to any new understanding? Was there an example in a poem?
E: In the Nims one. Definitely. I came to a new realisation.
S: A moment of epiphany.
A: I just thought it’s really clever.
T: What about you L, you’re strangely quiet…how do you feel about freewriting?
L: It’s all right, but maybe not all the time. Some of the subjects that we wrote about didn’t really seem relevant.
T: In the beginning I kind of wanted to practice it a bit so that you really got the idea and felt free enough to do it. I should have started with some more specific tasks, perhaps. What about writing the sonnets?
S: That was quite fun.
M: It was difficult but it means that you appreciate it, what the poets do, and how you can vary the techniques and stuff.
C: We have to have learned it in the first place to do it.
D: You’re like proving you know it which I think is quite good because it’s like testing your ability.
C: I think it was good. I think it would be better than studying definitions, more practical.
A: It wouldn’t have gone in, the other way.
H: It was definitely useful actually writing it. It gave me confidence to know that I could do it.
T: Anything you would say about doing it differently or doing it better?
S: Maybe like it was a little bit too long.
H: We spent quite a long time doing creative things whereas in the exam you’re not asked to do that.
Reading and writing are the central tenets of secondary English teaching. But the relationship between reading and writing is both complex and contentious, particularly in the light of recent changes to the National Curriculum (coming into effect from September 2014) and the decision of many English departments to reunite the assessment of these two previously separate components. The influential Bullock Report of 1975 worked from the premise that ‘reading must be seen as part of a child’s general language development and not as a discrete skill which can be considered in isolation from it’ (Bullock, 1975: xxxi). Yet Cox, by 1989, part of the National Curriculum English Working Group, clearly separates them in terms of programmes of study and assessment, and makes no mention of link between the two. (Cox, 1991) By the end of the second phase of National Curriculum with its focus on Assessing Pupil Progress (APP), ‘reading and writing have been torn asunder as if they are two separate unrelated entities’(Tharby 2014).
In my current setting, a large rural comprehensive school in Sussex, I am interested in considering in particular why writing is so challenging to teach and learn. I want to better understand current trends and issues in the teaching of writing in relation to my own experience, as well as exploring historical shifts in approaching the teaching of writing and contribute to the heated debate over the role of knowledge about language in relation to the production of real writing (Parker, 1980).
My role as Director of English for the last four years follows a further fourteen years’ experience of English teaching across three other schools. As head of department I am directly accountable to governors and senior management for public examination results, which have been controversial in English for the last two years (BBC, 2013) (Sherrington, 2012).
The notion of reading for pleasure is well established now (ESARD, 2012) and the majority of English teachers will regularly themselves read for pleasure; indeed, see this as a fundamental part of their role of being an English teacher (NUT, 2010). Few though, will ‘admit’ to writing for the same reason. Across the two English departments I worked with, five out of 24 teachers, or around 21%, undertook writing that they considered to be ‘for pleasure’ and on a par with the kind or amount of reading that they did. And yet reading and writing have had equal weight across Key Stage Three (KS3) since the inception of the National Curriculum, and carry equal weight in all General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) courses for English Language currently; the assessment objectives are similarly distributed on the A Level English courses.
English teachers approach an interesting crossroads, now, with the new national curriculum to be implemented from September 2014 (Department of Education, 2013). The focus on ‘creativity’ as one of the ‘4Cs’ underpinning English teaching, welcomed in English 21/Playback (QCA, 2005a) and in Taking English Forward (QCA, 2005b), seems to have disappeared almost entirely at KS3 and Key Stage Four (KS4). GCSE examined writing tasks are limited to two questions on the current Assessment and Qualification Alliance (AQA) English Language paper (AQA, 2012) and invite students to write a letter or blog post followed by an argumentative or persuasive piece for a magazine or newspaper. At Key Stage Five (KS5) the existing ‘recreative’ element has been removed from all draft A-level specifications for English Literature for first teaching 2015 (Sharvell, 2014). There is little requirement or incentive for any kind of writing that might be considered for pleasure or ‘creative’ rather than transactional; writing which is imaginative and inspiring, especially fiction.
As a National Writing Project (NWP) leader for Sussex working with a group of teachers across three schools, I have regular experience of writing ‘for pleasure’, and opportunity for professional development in the pedagogy and practice of teaching writing. The NWP, begun in 1973 at the University of California, has at its heart is the idea that writing is a complex activity; ‘more than just a skill or talent…a means of inquiry and expression for learning in all grades and disciplines’ (Nagin, 2006:3). Writing project practice requires teachers to become writers in order to teach writing. In the UK the project is in its infancy, founded in 2009 by Dr Jeni Smith and Simon Wrigley. It is a grass-roots project which researches writing and the teaching of writing investigating what happens ‘when teachers gather together to share their writing regularly’ (Smith, 2012: 10) and attempting to capture the shifts in pedagogy which occur in response to this process. A stage further is to consider the impact on reading following a sustained writing intervention: the focus of this research.
So, since the craft of writing is so broad and complex, in order to limit the focus of this study to a suitably manageable size and area I have elected to investigate the potential of writing to strengthen students’ reading responses to poetry. I have chosen to apply the principles of the NWP whilst focusing specifically on the poetry unit of ‘Love Through the Ages’ for A2 English Literature AQA Specification A (AQA, 2013). Acknowledging that pedagogical approaches to the teaching of poetry often emphasise analysis at the expense of creativity and enjoyment, the research explores strategies including free writing, heightened awareness, student voice and opportunities for public and private writing as part of the metacognition process; the specific teaching of poetic structure with an emphasis on the poetic function of language in its literal sense of ‘making’; and the encouragement of student perception of greater symbiosis between reading and writing.
I will be taking opportunities to implement strategies that support NWP principles at KS5, and will attempt to explore the impact that this has on writing and reading, and in particular the effect on motivation of students towards both creative and critical writing in response.
I teach in a school which has moved from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ according to the most recent OFSTED report (November 2013). As a department we consistently secure very good results at all key stages – between 82-88% A*-C in English Language over the last three years, for example, and significantly above national average which hovers at around 63%. At AS and A-level across the faculty in English Language and English Literature, we do very well again: typically 100% A*-E, and around 75% A*-C. But we don’t always make the full expected levels of progress and are therefore not perceived to be ‘adding value’ across the ability range. This is particularly pertinent to middle-ability learners in the sixth form, where senior management have identified a particular weakness and are encouraging departments to find ways to address this progress gap for middle-ability learners. A middle-ability learner for the purposes of this study is one who achieved GCSE grades of C-B in the subjects which they have elected to study at A-level. High-ability learners have achieved in the A-A* range.
I am also conscious that the examiner’s report for the series prior to the one which my students will sit allowed that higher marks were awarded when students addressed not just the language of the poems but the way in which they worked with other elements such as antithesis, parallelism and the way in which they were rendered more memorable by the ‘shift in meter’ at the end of the poem. (AQA, 2013b: 4) Perhaps this factor might be significant in moving those middle-ability learners: my idea is that if they can ‘make’ meter they might be better equipped to comment on it.
I will aim to teach my Year 13 poetry class from a ‘writing’ starting point rather than a more traditional reading approach, thereby significantly altering the focus of current departmental lesson plans. My hunch is that KS5 students cannot write about poetry effectively because they cannot write poetry. By putting creativity and enjoyment at the heart of the learning, I anticipate that improved critical writing will follow. Whilst I hope that this shift in pedagogical approach will be of benefit across the ability arrange, I will take account in particular of any impact on those identified as middle-ability learners: four students from a class of nine. I have addressed any potential ethical issues with this approach in 3.4
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Literature Relating to the National Writing Project (NWP)
Because Writing Matters (Nagin, 2006) reviews the National Writing Project from its early history and synthesises its reasons for coming into existence, before outlining contemporary trends and issues in relation to teaching and writing and going on to explore the professional development of teachers of writing. 'One form of participation above all others is expected at NWP staff development: writing teachers must write.’ (Nagin, 2006:65) This expectation grounds practitioners in the actual process of writing, so that teachers are doing what they require their students to do. This is a gulf that I keep returning to: the dichotomy between the perception of English teachers as readers, but not as writers, even though both aspects continue to have equal weighting under the new national curriculum orders. Elbow notes that it is 'sad to define teachers as people who read, not as people who write,' (Elbow, 2000: 9) and, ‘exemplary teachers of writing are themselves writers’. (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 8)
Nagin contests that all teachers across a school should be teachers of writing, and that the assessment of writing should not take place exclusively in English lessons. (Nagin, 2006: 16) It is interesting, since here in the UK and certainly in my school we seem to share the idea that all teachers are teachers of ‘literacy’, but that is not the same thing as being a teacher of ‘writing’ across the curriculum. Literacy, it seems, is reduced to elements of spelling, punctuation and grammar, and the specifics of these pertaining to different subject areas across the curriculum.
Considering why writing is so challenging to teach and learn, Nagin makes the case that,
'Even the most accomplished writers say that writing is challenging, most notably because there is so much uncertainty embedded in the process of doing it.' (Nagin, 2006: 9) He also cites evidence to show that writing improves when a student writes often, encouraging me to increase the frequency with which I invite students to write during their lesson time. He concludes that writing also has a positive effect on reading comprehension. This is at the heart of my work with the Year 13 students, since their analysis of reading is what is ultimately being examined across the four assessment objectives for English Literature. (AQA, 2013: 10-11)
The idiosyncratic nature of writing and writers is discussed, and the subsequent difficulties inherent in trying to meet writers' needs in a classroom, raising the question of how to actively create a 'rich and diverse array of writing experiences’ within, for me, the confines of a single unit of work. (Nagin, 2006:12) Given the premise that writing is never learned once and for all but is inevitably a recursive process and as such ‘deserves constant attention from kindergarten to the university’ (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 8), Nagin proposes that, 'Teaching writing well involves multiple teaching strategies that address both process and product, both form and content.’ (Nagin, 2006: 16) He explores in some detail how writing was taught in the past, identifying the focus on a finished exemplar with no consideration of purpose or processes and an emphasis on correctness, but states that there is no evidence to show that instruction in grammar leads to improvements in writing directly. (Nagin, 2006:21-23) He is very pejorative about any kind of formulaic teaching of writing, and of course this is what is often resorted to in an effort to drive up standards at GCSE and A level in particular. Instead he promotes an inquiry driven method of writing instruction, and offers some practical strategies for teaching critical thinking and enquiry, or structuring an argument, many of which I have used in the lesson planning for the action research group; sentence combining, for example, evolving from transformational-generative grammar, popularised in the 1970s and arising from the notion that language has a syntactic base or deep structure, which consists of a series of universal rules that generate the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence, and another series of rules, called transformations, that act upon the phrase-structure to form more complex sentences. (Nagin, 2006:27)
Wrigley (2013) charts the progress of similar groups in the UK. Currently on a much smaller scale than its NWP counterpart in the US, there are 20 established groups with a membership of approximately 200. What seems especially valuable about the NWP approach is that reflection ‘begins with learning and then moves out to teaching’. (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 29)
'To develop as writers, students also need the opportunity to articulate their own awareness and understanding of their processes in learning to write. Research has shown the importance of such meta cognitive thinking in becoming a better writer.' (Nagin, 2006: 82)
Nagin argues for students to be offered a choice of writing topics. This meta-cognitive aspect, alongside the notion of choice, which also feature prominently in the design of my intervention for the research.
Nagin’s work was particularly useful in helping to frame the context for many of the processes that I wish to explore, but lacked immediacy since it is firmly rooted in the US education system. Chapter five’s exploration of forms of assessment in the US is interesting, but lacks direct relevance for my own situation with no direct correlation in objectives. Similarly, some of the discussion on English Language-Learners (ELL) in chapter two lacks direct relevance given the particular demographic of my current school, which has few ELL learners, and none currently studying English Literature at KS5.
2.2 Literature Relating to Theory and Practice of Free Writing
Elbow considers the transformative power of writing in many of his essays. He discusses the power of free writing leading one to know something that wasn’t known before the writing began, and making connections between things previously unseen.
Introducing first the notion and importance of private writing, he asserts that it results in ‘better’ material for public writing but observes that the benefit is only there if ‘during the act of writing, I really treat my words as only for me, and invite myself to write things I wouldn't share with others.' (Elbow, 2000: 36) He discusses changing attitudes to writing by 'building safety' into the start of a course, thereby reminding me of the importance of creating the right environment with my sixth form students in order to facilitate private or free writing. Graves (2003) advocates a similar process of organising the right conditions within the classroom.
Elbow outlines interesting binary oppositions in the writing process, 'the path to really good writing...is seldom the path of compromise or the golden mean...We need extremity in both directions,' (Elbow, 2000: 54) and then in teaching generally. 'Good teaching calls on two conflicting abilities or stances: positively affirming and critically judging.' (Elbow, 2000: 55) He goes on to argue for a less adversary rhetoric in general, which he then applies to theories of writing allowing him to address the dichotomy between the creative writing process and the editing process, concluding that, 'we will probably do better at encouraging productive binary thinking if we acknowledge a realm or motive of language use that particularly invites it, namely, dialectic as opposed to rhetoric.' (Elbow, 2000: 73)
He moves then to creating this realm by exploring what he describes as 'the generative dimension' in two principles: the first being the need for 'inviting chaos'(Elbow, 2000: 83); simply putting down words on the page without worrying about their organisation, or in fact, disorganisation. He claims that 'freewriting turns out to be the easiest way to learn how to do this,' defining it as 'simply private, nonstop writing...what you get when you remove most of the constraints in writing.' (Elbow, 2000: 85) He talks about how useful it can be to move in and out of the freewriting mode at different stages in the writing process, suggesting that it can be 'especially helpful at moments of blockage and confusion'. (Elbow, 2000: 86) He also points out how empowering it can be to generate lots of raw material to work from, how it enables writers to naturally drift into writing metadiscourse, and the impact which freewriting can have on voice and dynamic in writing. In an example of his own freewriting he explains how, for him, the 'main experience that makes writing POSITIVE and REWARDING is the experience of surprise: steaming along and writing something you didn't "know" before.' (Elbow, 2000: 91) This view is echoed by Lieberman and Wood, ‘Writing produces occasions to foreground and clarify thinking; to record, shape and analyse experiences; to express internal lives; to explore ideas learned from others.’ (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 19) The work of the National Council of Teachers of English NCTE similarly acknowledges this: ‘When writers actually write, they think of things that they did not have in mind before they began writing. The act of writing generates ideas.’ (NCTE, 2004) They suggest that this notion of writing is a medium for thought is important in several ways, offering a number of important uses for writing beyond creation. These include: identification of issues, problem solving, question construction, reconsideration of position, and experimentation. ‘This insight that writing is a tool for thinking helps us to understand the process of drafting and revision as one of exploration and discovery, and is nothing like transcribing from pre-recorded tape.’ (NCTE, 2004).Collectively these ideas reinforce my intention to provide frequent opportunities for the students to undertake free writing,n not just in generating creative responses for poetry writing, but in reflecting on the poetry they encounter and their own thinking in relation to it.
Elbow notes that, as teachers, particularly, we need to
‘distinguish and emphasise "private writing" in order to teach it, to teach that crucial cognitive capacity to engage in extended and productive thinking that doesn't depend on audience prompts or social stimuli.' (Elbow, 2000: 106)
He points out that schools offer little or no privacy in writing, nor opportunity for students to experiment, since everything that students write is set by a teacher and collected in to be marked; also that school characteristically offer little or no 'social dimension for writing'(Elbow, 2000: 110), since it is only the teacher who reads. Hughes observes similarly that, ‘when an English teacher invites from his pupils imaginative disclosures about people, he generally has School tradition against him.’ He notes that ‘the imagination likes a wide open field of action, fifteen minutes of licence and immunity.’ (Hughes, 1967: 51) It sounds to me exactly like Elbow’s definition of freewriting.
Elbow argues, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, that students need to practise writing that is the most private and also the most public. This raised interesting questions to extend the parameters of my study. Elbow’s essays have clearly helped shaped my thinking about the importance of freewriting and how to introduce it in the classroom. I also intend to find ways to make the students' writing more public in order to give experiences at both ends of the spectrum. ‘Public presentation has the power to motivate and produce high-quality work’. (Lieberman and Wood, 2003: 17)
What is problematic about Elbow's essays in this collection is that they represent his own evolution as a writer and are not always underpinned by theory or empirical research. Nevertheless I have elected to adopt a number of principles and ideas in my own piece of classroom research.
A more practical examination of a creative writing technique for pupils inspired by Surrealist Automatic Writing and Elbow's free-writing occurs in Dream Writing (Smith, 2010). Smith argues that Dream Writing can free expression and raise standards. Noticing an inability to write persuasive prose on the part of her Media Students, Smith says that she was 'interested in exploring what 'voice' could become when the bridge between imagination and expression is less mediated by the teacher' (Smith, 2010: 246). She employs the term 'Dream Writing' as a more appropriate term than either Automatic or Free Writing for 'a technique which brings unformed ideas into being, as well as the dream of what this might allow the writer to become.' (Smith, 2010: 247) Smith describes in detail work with a small group of just four students over a three month trial period, examining writing in close detail at the start and at the end of the process, when students have been using Dream Writing for just a few minutes at the start of each English lesson. She finds that, 'it seems they are more imaginative when the rules are relaxed and when they do not think they are being read', as well as observing that their writing, 'shows a confidence with ideas, words and language that appears to give the students access to a richness in their creative writing they did not display before the trial.' (Smith, 2010: 254)
She also notes the importance of the process in providing, 'an opportunity to play with ideas that may not be appropriate in assessed work'. (Smith, 2010: 255)
2.3 Literature relating to the writing and teaching of poetry
The poet Ted Hughes suggests in his ‘handbook’ for the teaching and writing poetry a number of exercises and techniques for beginning the writing process. He seems to be foregrounding the ideas of Elbow when he says that students should ‘develop the habit of all-out flowing exertion, for a short, concentrated period, in a definite direction’. (Hughes, 1967:23)
Fry talks about writing poetry as a 'dark and dreadful secret', (Fry, 2007: xi) an embarrassing confession for an adult to make. This is a transition that I recognise as taking place in the classroom somewhere between KS3 and KS4. Students in Year 7 accept poetry writing as a natural part of their curriculum, but by KS4 seem reluctant to engage with this activity publicly. I have one KS4 student, for example, who emails ‘anonymously’ with poetry written outside the classroom. Fry argues that for other art forms, such as painting or music, there are a wealth of 'how to' manuals on offer for the beginning practitioner, but the same cannot be said of writing poetry. He adopts a back to basics approach to the teaching of poetry, encouraging the reader to undertake a series of poetry-writing exercises, many of which I will use in the teaching sequence.
Forsyth's irreverent exploration of how to turn the perfect English phrase is evangelical about the need for rhetorical figures and writing itself to be learnt. He claims that, ‘Shakespeare got better simply because he learnt’ and likens writing without understanding rhetorical figures to 'cooking blindfolded'. (Forsyth, 2013: 3) He notes the current obsession of English teachers with what a poet 'thought'.
'Rather than being taught how a poem is phrased, schoolchildren are asked to write essays on what William Blake thought about the Tiger…yet poets are not people who have greater thoughts than others, they are simply able to articulate those thoughts in a more 'exquisite' way. (Forsyth, 2013: 5)
In exploring current contexts for the teaching of poetry, Lockney and Proudfoot suggest that as teachers we, ‘inhabit a space between encouragement for a creative pedagogy set against the more prescriptive effects of an assessment driven curriculum’, (Lockney and Proudfoot, 2012: 150) and argue that traditional pedagogies surrounding close reading of poetry serve to ‘intensify the notion that it is the teacher’s role to ‘unlock’ the meaning of the poem for pupils.’ (Lockney and Proudfoot, 2012: 151) This is an idea echoed by Xerri (2012) who repeatedly refers to the ‘mystique’ surrounding the teaching of poetry. My intervention with the A-level students begins with the express aim of demystifying the process by equipping the students with the means to create and craft poems themselves.
Whilst the small scale project of Lockney and Proudfoot (2012) was conducted with a Year 10 GCSE focus class following the AQA specification which introduced an unseen poetry question, there are a number of parallels which might usefully be drawn in relation to my own action research. Firstly, the A-level class selected for the study experienced the same extremely limited opportunity for assessment of poetry writing on their own GCSE study, and have to analyse at least one and maybe two unseen poems on their final examination paper. Secondly, the structured use of individual creative writing tasks, eliciting peer response and the workshop style of providing multi-modal stimuli all mirror the kind of techniques that I plan to use.
Their finding, suggesting that the increased potential for pupils to both engage with the poetry and to develop their identity as meaning makers through the creation of poetry (Lockney and Proudfoot, 2012) is also something that I hope to replicate in my own classroom.
2.4 Policy Documents, Examination Documents and OFSTED Guidance
The current AQA Specification A for GCE English Literature requires students to explore the effects of 'language, form and structure' of texts both unseen and as part of their wider reading to which they will refer in the exam. (AQA, 2013a) It is also assessed as part of their coursework, though very few opt for a poetry text as one of their comparatives. Their core coursework text is Othello, much of which is written in blank verse and would invite exactly the kind of structural analysis that I taught through the lesson sequence.
Recent examiner reports accentuate the importance of writing in the reading response, ‘The quality of students’ written expression was often a marker of their achievement’ (AQA, 2013b: 3) as well as citing examples of strength in students’ ability to write about structure in poetry effectively in relation to language,
‘Some impressive comments were made on Jonson’s versification, but there were also some limited ones, such as when students asserted that it was written in iambic pentameter, or was a ballad. One examiner advises, helpfully, that those who are unsure about such technical aspects might be better to avoid guessing and comment on other features instead’ (AQA, 2013c: 5).
My plans to focus on technical aspects will, I hope, remove any element of guesswork on the part of my students.
Moving English Forward, whilst focusing specifically on KS3 and KS4 identified weaknesses in the teaching of poetry specifically, as part of the negative impact of tests and examinations on provision for English, including ‘an emphasis on analytic approaches at the expense of creative ones’ (OFSTED, 2012: 44). My teaching sequence intervention will seek to redress this balance.
3 Research Strategy
3.1 Methodology
I have opted for a multi-method, interpretive action research project which includes several stages to the research following the identification of the problem and formulation of my research question, ‘How can the teaching of writing, and in particular of writing about poetry, be developed through a shift in pedagogical approach towards a focus on ‘poiesis’ to develop the engagement and motivation of A-Level English Literature Students?’
I begin from an interpretivist epistemological position. Access to any kind of given or socially constructed is in itself socially constructed. I am also acutely conscious of the multiplicity of possible causes associated with anything which takes place in the classroom, and aware of the difficulty of isolating particular factors, particularly given my plan to combine a focus on freewriting with a structural approach to the creation of poetry.
Action research is the most suitable paradigm for my research since the primary intervention, the ‘shift’ in pedagogical approach I am aiming for, necessitates a series of iterations informed and directed by an analysis of the evidence gathered on route. My lesson plans will change in the light of the reactions of the students and their perceived levels of engagement and changing response, as well as in consideration of the associated literature and comparable research findings (Burton, 2009: 124). It will operate as a recursive and cyclical process of study designed to achieve some concrete change: that of improving motivation of A-level students with an aspect of the English Literature course perceived as challenging, namely poetry analysis.
Another reason that I have opted for this kind of action research project is because of the closeness of action research to ‘reflective practice’, something which I am frequently engaged in as a classroom practitioner. This might be perceived as ‘both a strength and a drawback’ since the ‘generation of so-called evidence is often derived from ad hoc experiences’ (Burton, 2009: 125). I am anxious to guard against this temptation and aim to ensure that my methodology within the action research design is as rigorous and systematic as possible, but it is certainly the case that I am undertaking the action research to improve my own professional practice in a collaborative way within my setting.
Action research theorists offer various models or cycles in which thinking, doing, and watching are interwoven and repeated throughout the research activity. For this project I have combined models as described by Altrichter, Posch and Somekh (1993) and Brown and Dowling (1998) in terms of understanding the problem and defining the project, implementing an action and observing the results before entering a reflective evaluation phase or ‘interrogation mode’.
Since my research is taking place in a natural setting (my classroom) using multiple methods, I will use an interpretive paradigm (rather than a positivist one) in my research approach, in order to make sense collectively of the information that I collect. I desire to draw meanings and conclusions that will have direct impact on the writing of my students, and want to be able to respond to trends in data as they emerge. Though the intervention is pre-designed and developed from the literature review, lesson by lesson plans are emergent rather than tightly prefigured.
Burton (2009: 128) identifies the trend more recently in action research to involve the ‘active participation of pupils’ and I certainly seek to achieved this in my research design, with students being aware of the interventions as well as the reasons for their implementation from the outset and thereby achieving ‘transparency’ within the action research (Burton, 2009: 139).
Based on this shift in pedagogical approach, the nature of evidence collected will be predominantly qualitative since my wish is to understand meanings, experience, ideas, and other less tangible elements of classroom practice. This will include consideration of the work the students produced at different stages of the implementation, and their response to it in group interviews. The inclusion of an assessment-type response at the start and end of the research phase will allow for a small amount of quantitative data for analysis, but is not the primary aim of the design. It will, however, enable me to triangulate research outcomes. Students will be invited to submit some of their writing to be included as ‘data’ as part of the action research, for the purpose of comparison of the kind of creative and analytical writing which students were undertaking at stages of the intervention. The freewriting samples will form a foundation of my evidence, but their analysis is inherently problematic on a number of levels, explored later.
There is a small element of experimental approach to the design, in the creation of a ‘control’ group by which some measurement for comparison might be engendered. This has been created naturally by the teaching structures in my setting: there are two teachers teaching the poetry side of the A-level course in my setting, and therefore might be considered to be an ‘allied approach’ (Burton, 2009: 66). Whilst full discussion of the intervention has been undertaken in the spirit of collaboration, the second teacher has opted to continue with existing departmental schemes of work allowing opportunity for comparison of the two groups at the end of the research phase. The ethical aspects of this decision are considered in 3.4 and discussed further in 4.
3.2 Methods
I have planned a specific half term unit for the teaching of love poetry to one group of KS5 Literature students which focuses on technical aspects of poetry and will regularly invite students to create poetry as a means of response to it. There will also a strong focus on the introduction of free writing as a regular part of lesson time in order to frequently provide that ‘fifteen minutes of licence and immunity’ (Hughes, 1967: 51). It will therefore be a purposive, pre-designed intervention (Brown, 1998: 40). The student responses will be used to inform the study and my interrogation of it. I considered, but rejected a grounded theory approach, though also based within the interpretive paradigm, since I was could not honestly say that I was entering the research setting of my classroom without ‘holding any preconceptions or socio-cultural/political biases’ (Burton, 2009: 66).
The first method as part of the action research will be to undertake a structured assessment piece of writing based on a past examination paper. This assessment will be repeated at the end of the project, so that there will be some quantitative data for comparison, as described above.
Alongside this, a second method of generating data will comprise semi-structured interviews with the participants about their learning during and after the process. Interviews at the end of the process will inform my final judgements about student motivation in relation to the study on this part of the course. A number of issues arise here. Holstein and Gubrium suggest that ‘the interview conversation is framed as a potential source of bias, error, misunderstanding, or misdirection (Silverman, 1997: 141). In addition, according to Watts the interviewer ‘may only hear a response compatible with the picture which is taking shape’ (Watts, 1987: 27). Particularly with the ‘active interview’ process (Silverman, 1997:140) which requires the interview to stimulate and provoke the responses, there will inevitably be the temptation to both design the questions to suit the direction of research, as well as hearing only those ‘compatible’ responses. Conversely, perhaps, though still potentially distorting observations is the notion that a ‘respondent’s answer may reflect the expectations of the interviewer’ (Watts, 1987:37), and in particular in this instance the figure of authority which I represent (perhaps) as their A Level English teacher. Aware of these potential drawbacks, I will aim to mitigate as far as possible in a variety of ways discussed in 3.4.
During the trial I will increase the amount of writing students do by introducing writing journals and providing free writing opportunities within lessons regularly, in both creative and critical contexts. As part of this process and within the planning for the teaching sequence, I will then be able to consider other ideas for what might constitute ‘next steps’ once free writing has been introduced. I will teach some ‘mechanics’ of poetry writing so that students will be asked to create different types of verse pertaining to those we are studying for analysis, including different sonnet forms using trochaic and pyrrhic substitutions, for example. Throughout the process I will also use NWP group responses to explore teacher attitudes to writing and the teaching of writing to inform the lesson planning process.
In terms of sampling I will work with one Year 13 class of 9 students, and use the other equivalent class effectively as a control group since they are following the original schemes of work as planned collaboratively by the teachers in the department. I will seek throughout to triangulate all evidence collected in relation to the study, and thereby to minimise the effects of observer bias (invalid information resulting from the perspective I might bring and impose to the study through my relationship with the National Writing Project). In this sense I have opted for a quasi-experimental design in my action research.
I did consider more quantitative research methods such as open questionnaires but rejected them on the basis that the kind of responses required to inform the research would lend themselves much more to narrative style than multiple choice answers. I would be unlikely to obtain ‘detailed or profound information’ in this format (Burton, 2009: 74). A questionnaire approach might also be more beneficial when dealing with a larger group as opposed to my focus on a small class of nine students.
Thirdly, through case study, exploring systems within my own classroom over the half term time period on a small scale with the aim ultimately of improving my own practice. I am also intent on providing some small amount of knowledge which might then be shared across the department in my own setting, since it is rich in context; perhaps changing our scheme of work and approach generally across the English Literature course at KS5 with possible implications for preceding key stages
I anticipate that using the three methods I have described will generate useful data for triangulation.
So, of the two paradigms most frequently associated with educational research (that of the positivistic/scientific and the interpretative paradigm) I have opted for an interpretive, mixed methods approach since I am seeking to develop insight and a deeper understanding of how the teaching of writing works on a small scale in my own classroom.
3.3 Data Analysis
The design of my action research will enable a number of different opportunities for data collection.
An important part of the process based particularly on the reading of Elbow (2000) and Graves (2003) will be to provide opportunities for public as well as private writing. These will then be used as part of the qualitative data to inform my analysis and evaluation of the action research. I intend that opportunities for students to undertake private writing will be rich in the lesson time itself. Polished pieces for publication in and beyond the classroom will take place at the midpoint of the study. The students will be invited to submit work for display and for external ‘competition’ where appropriate. So there will be ‘polished’ pieces for analysis, as well as free writing examples.
The interviews with students are another method of generating qualitative data.
So my judgments about the way in which students’ writing has changed will be evidence-based, and include a range of supplementary information that emerges outside the two formal assessment aspects through case study, necessitating a strong degree of triangulation: the ‘filtering, linking and distilling of a diverse body of information’ (Burton, 2009: 167). Any resulting claims must though, be justified, necessitating that my reasoning must be made as explicit as possible and enable me as a researcher to detect the faults in my reasoning and interpretation of the data.
Given the idiosyncratic character of practitioner research such as this, any claim for generality beyond the research setting of my school would be inherently problematic.
3.4 Research Ethics
The best interests of the students will be the primary consideration throughout the study.
Students will be encouraged to give personal responses in interviews, and to shape the direction of discussions, which will take place in the classroom, and will be conducted in small groups to help facilitate dialogue; a format that the class in question are already familiar with.
The quantitative data collection (in the form of their before and after assessments) is a normal and expected part of their course; students are assessed at half termly intervals as part of current practice, so this will reflect no change for them.
Consent from all participants has been obtained before any research was conducted. In gaining consent, all staff and Year 13 students have been made clear about their role in the study and how any relating data will be used ensuring that this complies with point 25 of the Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (BERA, 2011) which is concerned with confidentiality and anonymity. Each participant has been made aware of their right to withdraw at any point if they do not wish for their work and data to be included in the study. Throughout, I will ensure, wherever possible, to keep to the usual practices and workloads of the participants: observations and interviews are scheduled to be conducted during usual class times. In the collection, analysis and reporting of data, I will maintain an ethical stance based on the importance of effective outcomes for the school that can be continued into the future.
Whilst there is an element of experimentation to my study in the sense that I am changing some aspects of pedagogical approach, and using some comparison with a control group, I am confident that there will not be a detrimental effect on either teaching group. The study is short (spanning 6 weeks, comprising a series of approximately twelve fifty minute lessons, and representing less than 5% of teaching time in the subject over the duration of the course); if the results demonstrate the desired effect there is teaching time remaining to use the techniques with the control group. Similarly, if I began to notice that the pedagogical shifts are working to the detriment of the group, there is time within the curriculum to return to the original departmental plan which has proven success over a long track history of securing results above those of similar centres.
All students’ names and initials that have been used in this study are pseudonyms to protect identity.
4 Findings, Analysis and Discussion
I was attempting to conduct a small-scale, in-depth research project with the overall aim of discovering whether a changed approach to the teaching of poetry at A2 by immersing students in its writing and construction rather than the more traditional approach of repeated analysis of canonical poets and poems would lead to an enhanced experience for the students in terms of increased motivation and engagement, and whether this would have long term benefits. Nagin notes that, 'As a result of involvement with NWP programmes, teachers often become teacher-researchers who examine in depth what is going on in their classrooms,' (Nagin, 2006: 66) which is exactly the position in which I found myself.
This was carried out by devising a sequence of ‘poesis’ lessons (examples of which are outlined in detail in Appendix 1). The study then employed a variety of research methods to collect data and evidence in relation to the aim of the research, namely examining students’ written responses critically, measuring ‘before’ and ‘after’ exam practice responses and interviewing the students. The findings from the research have been collated and analysed in conjunction with the research question, literature review and the themes that became apparent throughout the research.
The research questions was: How can the teaching of writing, and in particular of writing about poetry, be developed though a shift in pedagogical approach towards a focus on ‘poesis’ (making) to develop the engagement and motivation of A Level English Literature Students?
Given that I have selected an interpretivist theoretical perspective, I am interested in aspects of the classroom that are unique, individual and predominantly qualitative. There is a small amount of quantitative data analysis in relation to assessment scores before and after the intervention because it suited my purpose and this mixed methods approach helped to clarify some of my thinking about the shift in pedagogy. Brown concludes that the best option for quality in research will always be for a dialogical use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods since ‘ the adoption of a dual approach involving both qualitative and quantitative techniques can help in over-coming such tendencies to what we might refer to as naïve empiricism’ (Brown, 1998:83).
The first strand of my study was really concerned with the idea of teachers of writing being practitioners of their craft. My work with the National Writing Project (including leading the half termly meetings of the Sussex branch of the NWP) has been instrumental in furthering my understanding of exactly how important this is.
'We don't find many teachers of oil painting, piano, ceramics, or drama who are not practitioners in their fields. Their students see them in action in the studio. They can't teach without showing what they mean. There is a process to follow' (Graves, 2003: 6).
I have made my own writing an integral part of my teaching now, and would not consider setting a writing task that I would not undertake myself. I wrote with the students throughout the project; they understood that this was part of the process, and were often keen to see what I had written. They found it 'reassuring' that my first attempts at trochaic tetrameter, for example, were as clumsy as theirs, often more so. ‘Modelling helps teachers understand their own writing. Because they model various elements of the writing process, they will know what to observe’ (Graves, 2003: 50-51).
The pattern of lessons changed quite dramatically, so that they regularly began with an opportunity for some free writing, albeit free writing that was consciously directed. I encouraged the students to see the writing as their own, private reflections, and made sure that they wrote somewhere that I would not automatically see it; i.e. away from their ordinary workbooks, thereby encouraging the idiosyncrasy and power of their individual voices, inviting a ‘writer-based’ response that moved towards Elbow’s argument for ignoring audience. (Elbow, 2000) prompts ranged from broad, free-ranging questions such as ‘what is love?’ to more tightly focused ones such as ‘write honestly about Bright Star by Keats. What did you think of the poem?’ (Lesson 6, Appendix 1) or ‘what is your reaction to Yeats’ gift in ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’?’ (Lesson 7, Appendix 1)
Remembering that submission of freewriting was voluntary, and given that the intended ‘audience’ for the free-writing is the student themselves, I did not have a full data set to analyse. Some students were reluctant to relinquish their private writing, and perhaps rightly so, since I had, from the outset, emphasised the notion of privacy.
Of Bright Star, one student wrote very candidly: ‘Why have such a long, rambling part in the middle just to say you don’t want to be isolated like the star? Lines 3-8 are completely pointless and serve to extra enlightenment or explanation. The end is also rather confusing…’ This is the writing of an A-grade AS level student. As far as I could tell she would never articulate something like this in class discussion, but yet it was important for her to come to some understanding of why the poet chose to balance the poem in this way. The free writing served as an introduction to this, since the honesty of words like ‘pointless’ and ‘confusing’ would never make it to a final essay for this student. ‘When you allow freewriting to create an arena of trust, there is no telling what kind of writing will emerge’ (Elbow, 2000).
Another example, again from an A grade AS candidate, helps to emphasise the process of developing thought. ‘He says that being poor he has only his dreams, but doesn’t he have her? Or maybe he would have her if he stopped dreaming about what he could have. Maybe she is not as precious to him as he seems to want to show.’ This early freewriting then becomes: ‘The repeated use of light, and the repeated use of the word on the end of each line gives the impression of stitching, which could suggest that the poem itself is the cloths of heaven which he wishes to give. His love, perhaps, is not as endless as he implies as he seems to think more of his own poetry and his ‘dreams under your feet’ than he does of his lover.’ The second sophisticated interpretation synthesising assessment objectives AO1 and AO2 seems to me to have arisen directly from the first freer and far less analytical version.
Both examples of freewriting that I have quoted contain questions from the students themselves (rather than from me); questions which then seemed to be answered in later, formal written responses. ‘By doing this exploratory ‘swamp work’ in conditions of safety, we can often coax our thinking through a process of new discovery and development.’ (Elbow, 2000: 96)
There was still a reluctance to share writing orally within the group, even after repeated practice and invitation. ‘When…sharing their work, the work that is going well serves as a stimulus for the others in the class. Strong voices are contagious, just as the teacher with a strong teaching-writing voices helps children to have voices of their own’ (Graves, 2003:29). I did find that I was called upon regularly to submit first, but I suspect that this might change with regularity and familiarity in the classroom.
From the interview with the students collectively at the end of the project, (an excerpt from the transcript appears in Appendix 2) it seems that students enjoyed the opportunity to
forget about the reader, and agreed that it helped them arrive at new meanings that they may not have arrived at where they being self-consciously literary and ‘writerly’.
The second aspect of my research was concerned with what the students wrote formally. I tried to analyse this data with the awareness that ‘any text is susceptible to any number of analyses, depending upon the nature and specificity of the theoretical framework’ which is being employed (Brown, 1998: 89).
Following the series of intervention lessons, when the students were encouraged to use structural analysis of their chosen poems as a starting point, the comments from the students were at times, astonishing:
E: (Of The Voice by Thomas Hardy) ‘The first stanza of ‘The Voice’ manipulates the use of meter, as it consists of two iambic hexameter lines and one of iambic pentameter in order to convey how hardy (sic) feels about his past relationship with his wife; he loves her, but not how he should have. The use of these two types of meter gives the poem a distorted rhythm, to reflect the theme of guilt and regret. The last stanza is fragmented and there is no pattern of rhythm or return to iambic meter at all…resulting in a weak ending, representing the weakened relationship.’
S: (Of Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning) ‘The poem opens in dialectic form with the poem being the answer to the opening question, ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ The breadth of the answer shows the narrator’s surety and scope of their love for their partner. She uses increasing amounts of caesura throughout, illustrating the increasing breathlessness of the narrator; they want to explain the way they love this person, but they have to keep control.’
The technical awareness of control in both poems has led the students to a far greater insight into their chosen poems than a traditional linguistic analysis would have done. That has been made possible by their own experiences as writers of poetry, of choosing words and phrases for themselves, of creating pentamer, hexameter and caesura in these two examples. This could be noticed across the work of the whole group, including those identified as middle-ability learners. The clarity of structural understanding seemed to be less secure amongst the less able students in the class, so that a few weeks later they no longer seemed to have the command of the metacognitive aspects of the poetry, making meaningless statements about structure, or misusing more complex terms that they had previously seemed to understand.
This was reinforced by their assessment scores. Whilst this was never intended as a quantitative study, I am a practitioner in a community that functions around hard data. Within education, there is a strong pull towards realism and positivism and therefore as teachers we are continually negotiating that tension. I measured before and after the intervention the marks achieved on a poetry analysis question, and then once more after a break of approximately six weeks – so there were three classroom assessment points in total. Series 1 below represents before the intervention, series 2 the results immediately post it, and series 3 a half term later. Even allowing for differences in the level of challenge on the respective papers (though all were past papers created by the exam board) there were some interesting, and unexpected findings:
Figure 4.1
Showing outcomes for individual students before (Series 1), immediately after (Series 2) and then six weeks following the intervention lessons (Series 3)
There was an immediate and positive impact for all bar two of the students following the intervention, but a half term later this was negligible. It could be argued that you would expect to see the middle ‘spike’ for most students during the teaching of the poetry unit, however that might be delivered since they are being immersed in that topic. Certainly it would suggest a significant level of engagement and motivation with the subject matter.
The next stage of the research was to consider the students’ own responses and evaluation of their own levels of engagement and motivation in response to the action research intervention through interview. I did not undertake ‘habituation’ as outlined by Brown (1998) in preparation for the audio recording of student interviews in terms of introducing the recording device (an Ipad) into the setting before the data collection began. However, the device is unobtrusive, and I did spend some moments engaging in settling phatic talk with the students at the start of the recording in order to reduce the inhibiting effect that it may have on some students. They were positive about the impact on their ability to discuss the structure and form of poetry in their own creative responses. ‘Before I would just say one sentence on it and it would be really menial awful. Now I feel like I can say something that is relevant and intelligent.’ (AC, Appendix 2)
I am very conscious of observer bias in my interpretations here; in any future intervention of this sort I would certainly consider having the interviews conducted more independently from me to mitigate against the student responses mirroring my expectations.
The final stage of the research was to consider the impact on actual results, so I turned to the final outcomes of the students on their A-level paper. This was less to measure motivation, and more to validate my study with some kind of quantitative impact. It is necessary to remember, however, that the marking of A-level examinations in English is more subjective that in other subjects. For their final A-level examination I was interested in the correlation between their poetry answer and their prose/drama answer.
Figure 4.2
Showing outcomes for final examination comparing poetry response with prose drama response and arranged from lowest to highest GCSE Max 8 scores.
I looked at results overall and then at how students had performed specifically on the unseen poetry analysis question. I also considered how students had done on that question in comparison with the other; i.e. which was the stronger response. The data initially seemed problematic to assimilate.
For the summer 2014 paper, students were invited to compare two poems: the Good Morrow by John Donne and Talking in Bed by Philip Larkin (AQA, 2014: 4-5). The format of the paper is that students analyse four unseen texts from poetry, prose and drama, so two will be from one genre, but the students don’t know which two until they open the exam paper. This year the genre comparison, happily for me and this study, was poetry.
Of the nine students in the group, 6 achieved above their Agreed Target Grade (ATG) based on Fischer Family Trust Data (FFTD), the progress measure currently employed by the school. Two were on target and one was below. (Appendix 3)
The more I looked at the data, the more some clear relationships began to emerge, though the interpretation of those patterns is complex, surprising and not what I had predicted (or indeed, hoped). ‘Any judgements or evaluations of pupil performance must be evidence-based, but will also include supplementary information that has emerged outside the formal assessment procedure’ (Burton, 2009: 125).
What the data seems to confirm is that the intervention was more effective for those students at the upper end of the ability range. For the three students who achieved an A*, two performed significantly better on the poetry question: 10 marks and 4 marks, respectively. For the third student, equal marks were achieved on both questions. These three students responded well to the intervention in their group interview, citing both increased motivation and better understanding of the structural aspects of the poetry. Four students in total did the same or better on the poetry question. The remaining five students in the group performed worse on the poetry question, as shown in figure 5.1, where the students are arranged in order of ability based on GCSE max 8 scores moving from lowest to highest (so the first four columns represent the middle ability students within the group.
Of the students identified as middle ability learners, those indicated in the first four columns of figure 4.2 and having a GCSE Average Point Score (APS) of below 6.5; three were above target and one was below. However, three of the four also performed worse on the poetry question than on the other genres. The one who performed better did so by 6 marks.
One might argue that the poetry question is perceived as being intrinsically harder and that those students would have performed less well on that question with or without the intervention; this might be borne out by the performance of those A* candidates doing better or as well on the poetry. In the control group, only four of the students ‘favoured’ the poetry question. The control group was made up of 10 students, and all four who achieved higher marks on the poetry were indeed A or A* candidates.
5 Conclusions
Burton, Brundrett, Jones warn that researchers must ‘be prepared for unexpected finding to emerge, which may necessitate the revision of the original idea’ (2009: 129) I had assumed, wrongly it transpires, that my intervention of teaching the analysis of poetry from a ‘making’ perspective first would have the desired effect of increasing the students’ ability to articulate critical points of analysis. This was perhaps true for some, but certainly not all, students. And had immediate, but perhaps not long term impact for some members of the group.
The conclusions below also need to be considered in relation to the limitations of the research. If I were to undertake something of this kind in the future with a quantitative element, I would perhaps consider more closely the preceding sets of data (in class assessments and exam data) for the A-level classes within the department, and limit the types of changes that I was making to the teaching in order to better isolate their impact. I would also enlist the help of colleagues from the outset so that both the research itself and the analysis of data was shared by trusted peers to further mitigate against observer bias.
5.1 Freewriting
The free writing samples which I analysed provided, in the first instance, a valuable insight into the thought processes of students on the course. My own experiences with NWP, and the data set from students which emerged in triangulation with assessment pieces leads me to conclude that free writing is a useful tool at this stage of student learning on the A2 course in terms of both responding to texts and in creating their own. Working at this level with middle and higher ability students at KS5 meant that the students were able to articulate very clearly their own learning and processes. I agree with Elbow that, ‘as teachers, particularly, we need to distinguish and emphasise ‘private writing’ in order to teach it, to teach that crucial cognitive capacity to engage in extended and productive thinking that doesn’t depend on audience prompts or social stimuli’ (Elbow, 2000: 96). There were occasions following the period of the intervention in which we encountered a text or an idea that excited students and their response was to ask, ‘Can we free write about this?’ As a technique this has become embedded in their own practice as learners and therefore I interpret this as contributing to motivation: several different members have requested it independently of me.
Moving forward, I want to use the idea of free writing as a starting point on which to build the teaching of writing processes, and use the students' own writing as a means of teaching the aspect of writing about poetry which students typically find the most difficult, namely the notion of writing about structure. If they are able to 'do' it for themselves, it seems reasonable to suggest that their ability to analyse it in the work of others will be improved. After discussion and evaluation with A-level colleagues, the department has adopted a streamlined version of the lesson sequence as part of the shared scheme of work. Since we always try to work as collaboratively as possible (there are four teachers including myself currently responsible for the delivery of the A-Level Literature course) we will develop them further over the forthcoming academic year.
But I am also conscious that ‘About one topic in four or five is the hot topic for children, or any professional writer’ (Graves, 2003:29). This means that I will have to let the reigns go somewhat and provide a greater degree of choice than I have done in this initial piece of research. Hughes puts it even more dramatically stating that it is an ‘infallible’ rule that you, ‘you write interestingly only about the things that genuinely interest you’ (Hughes, 1967: 96). It is hard to negotiate the inherent tensions in teaching an exam board specification and in allowing students to follow their own interests at the same time.
I am also aware that, based on the interviews at the end of the intervention, some students were not always able to allocate immediate value to the free writing opportunities in an results-driven culture. One student commented that certain topics worked well and those seemed to be the ones that were directly text focused, rather than those which truly did give free reign to consider theme – those which for Elbow invited a binary approach for students encouraging students to consider aspects of text simultaneously. I wonder if this is a product of students being assessment-objective aware and exam-focused and unwilling to divert too much time away from other areas of curriculum study, even whilst valuing those areas simultaneously. ‘We spent quite a long time doing creative things whereas in the exam you’re not asked to do that’ (HE, Appendix 2). Another student pointed out that the ‘working out of your own thinking’ approach might have more benefit in being applied to coursework. This is also something to consider: perhaps free writing activities might be built into this aspect of the course during the coursework writing period. It is also possibly worthy of further investigation. If students progress to Higher Education the free writing approach may continue to gain more value for them.
5.2 Poesis
I have already begun to address my practice at KS3 and KS4 as a result of my action research. Year 7 students, for example, have been busy creating personal responses to A Midsummer Night’s Dream though trochaic tetrameter verses in the style of Shakespeare. The notion of allowing students to regularly experience the process of writing in order to better facilitate its analysis continues to have far-reaching effects all over the curriculum and this is a way of working that I am sure that I will continue to explore.
5.3 Publishing
Like Elbow, Graves also describes the importance of ‘publishing’ during the process of writing, suggesting that for younger pupils this should be one in every five pieces, and for older students one in two or three. He describes publishing as ‘some form of binding’ which can be checked out from the classroom or school library (Graves, 2003). This is an area that I am keen to explore further, and can use my role as subject leader to facilitate this across the department in a more systematic way. It might include using the digital screens available in the department to display examples of successful writing, and display, as Graves suggests in the school library, or Learning Resources Centre (LRC). From a motivation point of view, the students described the sonnet writing and annotation for publication as ‘fun’. From a teaching point of view, whilst the end product might not be considered great literature, they certainly seemed to consolidate learning about aspects of poetic structure in a very immediate way, and one which was clear for me to assess in terms of understanding, regardless of the creative merit of the work.
5.4 Middle Ability Learners
Did we ‘add value’ to those middle ability learners? Looking at final examination performance was not part of the original design of the action research, but it was inevitable that I would consider it given the timing of the conclusion of the study. Tentatively I would like to suggest that the intervention has been a successful one in terms of student motivation and engagement for all levels of learner, and it is demonstrated very clearly in the test and examination performance of students at the upper end of the ability arrange. For students to understand elements of the writing process seems to be beneficial as reflected in the students’ interview responses, even if that is not reflected consistently in examination outcomes. From my interpretivist position we are exploring something much more complex than that which can be measured through a single set of examination results. Acknowledging that pedagogical approaches to the teaching of poetry often emphasise analysis at the expense of creativity and enjoyment, the strategies employed such as free writing, encouraging student voice and opportunities for public and private writing as part of the metacognition process, all seem to be important aspects of classroom practice. The specific teaching of poetic structure with an emphasis on the poetic function of language in its literal sense of ‘making’; and the encouragement of student perception of greater symbiosis between reading and writing remain central tenets of my teaching, though, given the complexity and idiosyncratic nature of the writing process itself, it would be difficult to draw any hard and fast rules for the teaching of it. At the very least I consider that I am just a little further along that journey as a result of the research project and at the very least have begun to find additional ways to ‘empower students and help them to like to write’ (Nagin, 2006: 18).
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Appendix 1
Excerpts from the Teaching Sequence
Mastering poetry Tasks from Lesson 6
Objectives:
- Explore freewriting as a tool for reflection on poetry
- Put all learning from previous lessons into practice by writing either a Shakespearian or a Petrarchan sonnet.
Task One:
Re-read Bright Star. Free writing exercise – what is your response to this poem? (Remembering that this private and will not be read!) What questions would you like to ask Keats about it?
Task Two:
Share some of those questions and see if they can be answered.
Task Three:
Consider your favourite images from the start of the lesson. What is love? How would you choose to express it? Shorter freewriting exercise.
Task Four:
Write a love sonnet in pairs. Use a Shakespearian or Petrarchan form. Strict time limit – 28 minutes (two minutes per line!)
Revise what has already been learned – list of 6 p49
- End-stopping: how the sense, the thought, can end with the line.
- Enjambement: how it can run through the end of a line.
- Caesura: how a line can have a break, a breath, a pause, a gear change.
- Weak endings: how you can end the line with an extra, weak syllable.
- Trochaic substitution: how you can invert the iamb to make a trochee.
- Pyrrhic substitution: how you can downgrade the beat of an interior (second, third or fourth) foot to turn into a doubly weak or pyrrhic foot.
Mastering Poetry Tasks from Lesson 7
Objectives:
Starter: ‘Score’ your love sonnet using the following system:
- 5 points for trochaic and pyrrhic substitutions
- 2 points for enjambements
- 2 points for feminine endings
Task one: Free writing exercise. You are a millionaire, and have all the world’s riches at your disposal. What could be the most precious gift in the world that you might give to the person you love most of all? Money is no object. Be creative! What would be the best way to give this gift to someone?
Then:
Write it down on paper and wrap it up to give. Spend no more than thirty words but describe colour, shape, size, properties.
Share objects, and their symbolic value.
You don’t have that money – what would you give instead?
Task Two:
Read Yeats’ poem.
Discussion: What are the cloths of heaven?
What do you notice about rhythm and structure?
How would you describe the last line?
How does it scan?
Freewriting What is your reaction to Yeats’ gift in ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’
Give definitions and see if you can find them in the anthology.
Monometer – 1 beat, Dimeter – 2 beats, Trimeter, Tetrameter, Hexameter, Heptameter, Octameter
Discuss prominence of each as represented in our anthology.
Task Three: Give historical context. A reminder about iambic pentameter, heroic couplets ‘serious poetry’. Hexameter and heptameter – more suited to classical and European languages, not as ‘stress-timed’ as English. May sound a little cumbersome in English, though writers such as Hardy and Kipling have undertaken successfully.
Task Four:
Trochees end their lines in weakness
Iambic lines resolve with strength
Write the following:
- Two quatrains of iambic tetrameter
- Two quatrains of alternating tetrameter and trimeter
- Two quatrains of trochaic tetrameter – one pure trochee, one with docked weak endings
Homework: LOVE SONNETS. Create a version for publication/display. Two pages. The first should be the love sonnet complete and decorated and beautiful, the second should be a ‘clean’ version but annotated demonstrating the different techniques you have used. Show the scansion using appropriate symbols.
Indicate your weak endings, enjambement and caesura, and any substitutions you have made.
Be truthful – if you want to comment on things that haven’t worked, that is just as valuable as being able to identify what has.
Appendix 2
Excerpts from transcript of interview – 27th February 2014
T: Do you feel that you can write about structure better now and is that of value?
S: Yes. I feel that I can say something intelligent now rather than just like the ‘structure’s good.
A: Before I would just say one sentence on it and it would be really menial and awful. Now I feel like I can say something that is relevant and intelligent.
T: Would you read a poem for structure first or read for meaning first?
D: It depends if you have very obvious structure points.
H: You’ve got to understand the meaning of a poem first.
S: But sometimes structure helps you to do that.
T: What about the freewriting?
E: I think it was good for getting all of your ideas out to start with, and then developing them.
S: As long as it’s about something.
T: What do you mean by that? You didn’t like doing the creative ones?
S: Not as much, no.
H: It was better when we were freewriting about the poems.
T: What about the fact that it is not marked? Some students find that problematic.
S: That was good because it didn’t have to be marked and I didn’t feel self-conscious about what I was writing. Too much of our writing gets marked.
T: Could it be helpful in the planning part of even writing an exam essay?
E: More useful for coursework. (Murmurs of agreement)
T: Where there any points where you think it made it a difference to the way you responded to a poem? Did you come to any new understanding? Was there an example in a poem?
E: In the Nims one. Definitely. I came to a new realisation.
S: A moment of epiphany.
A: I just thought it’s really clever.
T: What about you L, you’re strangely quiet…how do you feel about freewriting?
L: It’s all right, but maybe not all the time. Some of the subjects that we wrote about didn’t really seem relevant.
T: In the beginning I kind of wanted to practice it a bit so that you really got the idea and felt free enough to do it. I should have started with some more specific tasks, perhaps. What about writing the sonnets?
S: That was quite fun.
M: It was difficult but it means that you appreciate it, what the poets do, and how you can vary the techniques and stuff.
C: We have to have learned it in the first place to do it.
D: You’re like proving you know it which I think is quite good because it’s like testing your ability.
C: I think it was good. I think it would be better than studying definitions, more practical.
A: It wouldn’t have gone in, the other way.
H: It was definitely useful actually writing it. It gave me confidence to know that I could do it.
T: Anything you would say about doing it differently or doing it better?
S: Maybe like it was a little bit too long.
H: We spent quite a long time doing creative things whereas in the exam you’re not asked to do that.