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DOI: 10.1111/j.1754-8845.2011.01115.

English in Education Vol.46 No.1 2012

Celebrating creativity collaboratively: inspiring PGCE English trainees to teach creative writing
Bernadette Fitzgerald1
University of the West of England

Lorna Smith
Bath Spa University

with

Jan Monk
University of Bath

Abstract Creativity in writing


In the context of recent and on-going changes in the National Curriculum, this article outlines an initiative collaboratively undertaken by PGCE English tutors at three neighbouring universities in the South West of England; with their 70 Secondary English trainees, they challenged themselves as creative writers, guided by a T. S. Eliot Prize-winning poet and a professional story teller and writer. The article explores their quest to translate the renewed emphasis derived from policy to (re)introduce creativity into the English classroom. Their inter-university collaboration sought to develop their PGCE trainee teachers self condence as creative writers; provide an experimental experience of how to stimulate the creative process in the classroom; and encourage them in turn to nurture their students as creative writers and appreciative, critical readers of others creative writing. We offer a case study which has the focus of teaching for creativity whilst simultaneously being an act of creative teaching. Finally, questions which emerged during the enterprise are posed about the role of creative writing in the secondary English classroom.

Corresponding author: bernadettetzgerald@live.co.uk

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2012 The Authors. English in Education 2012 National Association for the Teaching of English. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Bernadette Fitzgerald, Lorna Smith and Jan Monk

English in Education Vol.46 No.1 2012

Keywords
Creative writing, creativity, modelling, inter-university collegiality

The concept of creativity may trail clouds of glory, but it brings along a host of controversial questions Boden, 1994:1 Creative teachers, creative learners Trainee teachers on PGCE English courses are by denition, graduates experienced, successful writers. Look around a whole-cohort PGCE lecture and you may well be in the company of graduates who bring different creative skills and dispositions, such as, for example, ceramicists, chefs, chemists, cellists. Scan a PGCE English group and within this emerging community of professional practice you will encounter individuals whose journeys have brought them to this meeting place via diverse, tangential academic pathways: media/lm studies, cultural studies, linguistics, drama, literature canonical, classical, contemporary and multicultural. We assert that what gives coherence and vitality to an effective teacher training programme, which could otherwise be reduced to no more than the sum of its atomistic pedagogical competences, is a wholehearted, open-minded willingness to plan for, model and nurture creativity within trainees professional learning. Not since the late 1960s and early 1970s the years of English through experience as parodied in Gareth Owens poem Miss Creedle Teaches Creative writing (1988: 45), (1) has there been such a groundswell in favour of offering creative learning opportunities to students in the English classroom. In the 1980s, curriculum initiatives such as the National Writing Project (SCDC: 19851988) reected and informed an upsurge of English teachers interest in supporting their students to be real writers; students were to experience and understand the impact and power of using the writing process as they crafted their writing through multiple drafts in a workshop atmosphere, producing writing in a range of genres for real audiences and purposes. However, the impact of the publication in local and national league tables in the 1990s of English Key Stage 3 SATs and GCSE examination results arguably diminished creative risk-taking in the English classroom. How to assess creativity in students writing has always been contentious; as creativity was not explicitly being graded and rewarded within public examinations, some felt that it was a time-greedy luxury to which they could not justify allocating class time in the accountable, public examination years. Permission, mandate, serendipity We believe that only now are the variables lined up in synergy to allow, indeed to sanction, the elusive concept of creativity to be fostered again in the English classroom. Strange bedfellows include: the demise of KS3 SATs, the

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Celebrating creativity collaboratively

Coalition governments loosening of central control of education, and underpinning all, the seminal Report All our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (NACCCE, 1999). This Report was introduced by the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport with the words: We must change the concept of creativity from being something that is added on to education, skills, training and management and make sure it becomes intrinsic to all of these. (p.6) This was coupled with the drive from industry Kress (1995: v11) culture of innovation proposing that Englands competitive knowledge economy needs to be supplied with young people who have received creativity in their education. Robinson (2006) goes onto explore how creativity is necessary to safeguard the economic future of Britain and other nations, arguing that if creativity is not encouraged in students, the western world will be without the problem-solvers of the future. Although the Every Child Matters (2003) agenda has not been at the forefront of thinking of late, it is worth remembering that this idea connects the Enjoy and Achieve strand very specically to the Achieve Economic Well-being strand. Additionally QCAs framework for Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills which applies to all young people aged 1119, requires us to develop their skills as creative thinkers. Concurrently, QCAs English 21 consultation (2005) invited national debate about what a curriculum t for purpose in the twenty rst century should include and went on to advocate the inclusion of more creativity in the curriculum. A further signicant driver for the inclusion of creativity has been the opening statement in the latest version of the mandatory English National Curriculum that one of the four key concepts in English is creativity. This places creativity at the heart of the English curriculum, thus recognising the importance of activating pupils imagination and securing their commitment to learning. Furthermore, consistent with and reinforcing this positioning is the inclusion by Ofsted (2010) of reference to creativity in the new framework for inspections. Similarly, within the wider UK context, creativity is recognised as an important element; in Scotland, for example, it identied is a theme within Curriculum for Excellence. The Schools White Paper The Importance of Teaching (2010) reveals the Coalition governments intention to reduce the amount of guidance, materials and prescription which central government offers to schools. This reects the governments intention that teachers in the second decade of the twenty rst century should be free to use their professional judgment about how to teach. Most recently, in March 2011, the English National Strategy with its quasiprescriptive detailed curriculum content and accompanying pedagogy was scrapped. English teachers are thus now freed and, furthermore, mandated by the National Curriculum to place creativity at the heart of their students learning.

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Impact on teacher training: creating the classroom climate This new imperative has also had an immediate impact on university PGCE English tutors who, until the Teaching School model of initial teacher training is implemented, are charged with preparing the next generation of English teachers to be able to support the growth of their students creativity. The current Professional Standards for Teachers which outline the list of competences which PGCE trainees have to demonstrate include : Have a creative and constructively critical approach towards innovation... (Q8). Furthermore, the Ofsted Grade criteria for the Inspection of initial teacher education 200811 which outline the features of trainees operating at three levels of competence state that key aspects of the noticeable characteristics of performance of Outstanding trainees include that they will take risks when trying to make teaching interesting, are able to deal with the unexpected and grab the moment; Inspire and communicate their enthusiasm to learners; Have an intrinsic passion for learning; Show innovative and creative thinking lateral thinker The gauntlet was thus thrown down to teacher trainers to exhort and support their PGCE trainees to aspire to meet these criteria which go beyond achieving the competence required to gain a Satisfactory pass in the QTS Standards. As PGCE English tutors, our challenge is to train English teachers who will know how to teach in a creative way, understand why it is crucial to do so and then create opportunities and resources to encourage their students to approach learning creatively in the classroom today and as lifelong-literate citizens. Caveats Notwithstanding this clear movement in the direction of creativity in the classroom, there remain two constraining caveats. In The Schools White Paper (2010), there is an emphasis on Knowledge: the word knowledge occurs 28 times, ominously reminding English teachers of Dickens satirical savaging in the opening chapter of Hard Times of a factual, Utilitarian education as espoused in Gradgrinds emphatic defence of knowledge. (The chapter in which Dickens dramatises the privileging of fact over fancy in the classroom by the teacher Mr. MChoakumchild is entitled Murdering the Innocents!) A search of the White Paper reveals no hits at all for creative and only one statement that includes Creativity: It is our ambition to reduce unnecessary prescription, bureaucracy and central control throughout our education system. That means taking a new approach towards the curriculum. At over 200 pages, the guidance on the National Curriculum is weighing teachers down and squeezing out room for innovation, creativity, deep learning and intellectual

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exploration. The National Curriculum should set out only the essential knowledge and understanding that all children should acquire and leave teachers to decide how to teach this most effectively. (4.1) We must take heart from the implication that it is understood that creativity produces knowledge (acknowledging Blake the true method of knowledge is experiment), but it is simultaneously unsettling that we are given no further explanation, rationale or guidance. There is also a possible tension for English teachers between a new emphasis on teaching functional skills and objective competences and the drive to facilitate and inspire creative writing in the English classroom. Whilst we appreciate that these aspects of English can be complementary, there is a danger that the former, which it is easier to measure and assess, may be given more weight and therefore more classroom time than the latter. So the battle for creativity is embarked upon but not yet won. What is creativity? The National Curriculum (2007) identies creativity as one of the four key concepts underpinning the English curriculum. One could ask whether it is signicant that Creativity is the second item in a list that has Competence at its head. Nevertheless, a working denition of creativity in the classroom is provided:
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making fresh connections between ideas, experiences, texts and words, drawing on a rich experience of language and literature using inventive approaches to making meaning, taking risks, playing with language and using it to create new effects using imagination to convey themes, ideas and arguments, solve problems, and create settings, moods and characters using creative approaches to answering questions, solving problems and developing ideas

Dymoke (2011) summarises various denitions of creativity, from formal dictionary denitions to those coined by writers and thinkers. She points to the difference between those who see creativity as the preserve of geniuses, whose new inventions and ideas go beyond the ordinary and for whom creative acts mark them out as special, and those who see creativity as something that enables any person to create a work that is original and has value, that might pave the way for others. She suggests that, for the purposes of English teaching, a helpful nomenclature and denition are those coined by Anna Craft (2001: 56) little c creativity (LCC). This pertains to how we live our lives, how we identify and actively initiate or respond to the challenges and contexts in which we nd ourselves, how we innovate, make choices, or affect changes in order to move on. The genius, the inspired individual, the

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visionary - those who might compose operas and solve complex scientic problems - have big C creativity. This distinction is useful to those training to teach in an inclusive classroom which supports the personal development of diverse learners. LCC chimes with Ken Robinsons denition of creativity (2006), the process of having original ideas that have value. (Our trainees judged that Robinsons TED lecture had been very creatively interpreted by RSA Animate and would therefore recommend this version to colleagues both for its stimulating content and its inspiring graphics.) And in turn, Robinsons denition echoes that of NACCCE in the previous decade: creativity is imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value (Stevens and McGuinn 2004: 31). The implication of all these denitions is that creativity is democratic: it is a potential in all of us, something from which anyone can prot. Robinson does not dene the concept of value, but suggests that the value may be both individual and social, including inter-cultural. We support the notion that if the value of a creative act is felt by even one person, it is justied and should be appreciated. Rhetoric to reality Robinson (2010), arguing for a shake-up of the whole education system, suggests that creativity must be brought into schools through a learning revolution, yet before that revolution comes, English teachers must nurture creativity in their students as best they can. In order to do so, teachers must accordingly nurture creativity in themselves. Many have emphasised the importance of the role of the English teacher as creative practitioner, for example, Teachers cannot develop the creative abilities of their pupils if their own creative abilities are suppressed. (NACCCE, 1990:90) By participating in a creative writing experience, teachers not only open up new perspectives for their student-learners, but also for themselves. This is challenging, as being creative involves risk-taking for teachers and their students: a pre-requisite is that trusting relationships and mutual respect have been developed. In accepting these assertions, we as teacher trainers were challenged to create opportunities for our PGCE trainees likewise to discover (or rediscover) their own creativity at the onset of a teacher training programme. We bore in mind that even for English PGCE trainees in a loosely homogenous group, asking them to write creatively themselves with and in front of their peers as we ask students to do may well be challenging them to confront their own demons. Dymoke (2011:149) suggests that trainees may well need to be given supported opportunities, early in their training to take risks, experiment with creative approaches (including poetry writing activities) and to develop a critical awareness of creative writing pedagogy.

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The research project Our aims with this inter-university collaboration were to enable PGCE trainees at the very beginning of their journey towards becoming English teachers to experience for themselves a shared creative writing opportunity in dialogue with peers in a social context and, as a consequence, to have the condence to encourage creative writing in their classrooms. We also hoped to create a community of creative practice and to emphasise the value of working collaboratively. Indeed, Moss (2001) suggests that creativity is fostered by a pedagogy of relationships which emerges in response to a pedagogy of listening to oneself and others, whilst Malaguzzi asserts, The most favourable situation for creativity seems to be interpersonal exchange, with negotiation, conicts and comparison of ideas and actions being the decisive elements. (Creativity, Community and ICT) During the rst week of the course, trainees from Secondary English PGCE courses at Bath Spa University and The University of the West of England and from the Middle Years English and the Secondary English programmes at the University of Bath participated in a Celebration of Creativity Conference hosted at Bath Spa University, as summarised in Table 1. Although we have not analysed the trainees qualitative responses, the impact statements selected and cited are representative of all the written evaluations. As Barrs (2000) reminds us, a key principle when supporting the effective writing of apprentice writers is facilitating collaboration with their peers. Given that our trainees were already expert writers, our focus was not on teaching them technical skills but on developing their understanding of the creative writing process; this was made explicit with trainees, who went on to discuss how to embed the teaching of necessary technical skills within creative writing at the point of need in schools. Impact on trainees Our next step was to ascertain the impact which this initial emphasis on creativity, creative writing and working collaboratively had generated on our trainees own teaching on placement. It was interesting to explore the ways in which the trainees had interpreted and adapted their shared creative experience according to the contexts in which they were teaching. At a followup workshop in January 2011, working in inter-university groups, they reected critically upon their rst school placement teaching experiences. The following questions were deliberately designed to provide a wider perspective on creativity than the starting point given by the Conference.
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How was your students creative writing best developed? What were the barriers (if any) to teaching creative writing in the department - and what strategies could overcome them? What were the barriers to your own creativity (if any) and what strategies could be used to overcome them?

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Table 1
Learning Multi-sensory, multi-modal awareness-raising Impact: trainees said [I] appreciated having an open ended technique. I liked using visual devices to bring out thoughts and ideas [I realised] that creation as a concept is different for each individual. [It] opened up ways of being creative and reminded me of the things that inspire me. [It] encouraged me to think about how many creative skills I actually have.

Teaching

Bernadette Fitzgerald, Lorna Smith and Jan Monk

2012 The Authors. English in Education 2012 National Association for the Teaching of English.

Friday 10th September 2010: morning Backdrop on arrival

Slide presentation of series of haiku on themes of nature and place, illustrated, with accompanying music

Thought piece keynote

Critical perspectives on creativity in the National Curriculum

Poetry focus: Writing Alongside and Together

Philip Gross: poetry reading, discussion of his perspectives on creativity and his creative process See Figure1

Challenge thinking on denitions and roles of creativity in the classroom Construct independent visual representation of own creative journey Further developing thinking on creativity from a published writers perspective

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Table 1: Continued
Learning Impact: trainees said

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Teaching

Plenary led by Course Leaders

Independent and collaborative structured/ scaffolded poetry writing; production of individual and group poems Poetry Walk: collaborative out-of-classroom and outdoor poetry walk incorporating shared authoring of phrases, leading to individual poetry writing Celebration of work created and oral reection on the processes

Changing the environment by going and looking outside inspired creativity. Encouraging every member of the group to contribute small parts which create a whole [was valuable]. [I] encountered the anxieties that a child may experience when faced with a creative task. Having the chance to write our poems and feeding off each others thoughts was extremely rewarding and invaluable. Experienced the work of a story-teller

Celebrating creativity collaboratively

2012 The Authors. English in Education 2012 National Association for the Teaching of English.

Friday 10th September 2010: afternoon Narrative focus: The Bones and Flesh of a Story

Anthony Nanson: dramatic performance of his short stories

Table 1: Continued
Teaching Exercises to encourage exploration of narrative structure: drama, speaking and listening, mime, free-writing, paired and group-work activities Learning Impact: trainees said

Bernadette Fitzgerald, Lorna Smith and Jan Monk

2012 The Authors. English in Education 2012 National Association for the Teaching of English.

Plenary facilitated by Course Leaders

Written reection of the days activities and the impact on their professional development

Useful individual, pair and group writing, drama and speaking and listening activities all worked together to enhance the creative experience. [I realised] I had produced a piece of creative writing without realising it. I have lots of new ideas and increased condence in my creativity. There is room for playfulness in the curriculum.

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Figure 1:
Working collaboratively can be a great aid (paradoxically) to finding your own individual style and ideas. It is also good for learning to look at your own work with objective eyes. Responding to unexpected elements from somebody else watching how your own ideas can develop in directions you would not have planned in advance gives confidence in working with the unforeseen things that our own minds and the language give us when a poem-in-progress comes alive. Taken from a resource used at the conference: Philip Gross Sept. 2010

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What were the barriers (if any) to your students creativity and what strategies could be used to overcome them? What place does ICT have in fostering creative writing in the classroom? What opportunities are there for cross-curricular creative writing?

Trainees discussed how they had built upon strategies which they had experienced as part of the Conference as well as other stimuli for creative writing. These included the use of: drama activities and vocal tasks, art and visual stimuli, teachers modelling creative writing and showing a willingness to take risks which can result in making mistakes, group work to promote condence as supportive, peer-led learning helped some of their students to redress low self-esteem and lack of condence, out of classroom learning opportunities. It was interesting to explore the various rationales behind their selection of different strategies and approaches. The sentiments in the following quotations are representative of comments made by a signicant majority of the PGCE trainees in their written reections: I believe that an English teacher needs to model for the students how to write creatively and be able to say and show why it is important to be creative and be willing to take risks and show their creative writing to their students. An English teacher needs to be a creative writer as you can then relate to your students writing process more easily and support them and have a better understanding of the elements that make creative writing effective. The following additional strategies which the PGCE trainees shared with each other were drawn from either PGCE university-based taught sessions or from the practice of teachers in their placement partnership schools:

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the use of ICT including the interactive whiteboard and lming equipment, inserting creative writing within the context of a multi-modal text, expecting to have to be able to justify to students that it is ok to be creative, use of puppets. A further development for one cohort of these PGCE trainees was to lead creative writing workshops for all Year 8 students in a partnership school, working in collaboration with undergraduate Year 3 students on their universitys Creative Writing BA degree course. Looking forward Craft (2005:131) reminds us that: Interrelationships between creative teaching, teaching for creativity and creative learning are still being explored and dened. Teachers and schools are, therefore, faced with the challenge of rening and elaborating the ways in which we can understand and enact these approaches to teaching and learning. Our early ndings are that students creative writing can be stimulated and supported through learning in a creative, multisensory context within a community of peers in which risk taking is encouraged and supported in a safe and supported environment; additionally, we suggest that, where possible and appropriate, taking advantage of opportunities for out-of-classroom learning can stimulate creative writing. We acknowledge that being able to draw on the expertise of published writers to work with our PGCE trainees was a luxury. However, it is possible to replicate our approach by working in collaboration with one or more likeminded colleagues, within a school, a university or beyond it. Various individuals could be responsible for planning, resourcing and leading different aspects of a series of creative writing workshops, each element of which could involve multi-sensory and collaborative strands. At the time of writing, we are awaiting changes to the National Curriculum, the QTS Standards for Initial Teacher Training and a re-conceptualisation of teacher training within Teaching Schools. What status will be conferred on creative writing in this new landscape which has yet to be mapped? As English teachers, it is our responsibility and privilege to respond to the challenge in Pullmans 2002 NATE conference address that we foster our own creativity: You havent got the time to lie fallow, be creatively idle you need to feed your soul And its a thing you need to ght for. (Pullman, 2002: 19 20)

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Acknowledgements With thanks to Philip Gross, Anthony Nanson and the PGCE English trainees (2010/11) at the Universities of Bath, Bath Spa and the University of the West of England. Note
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See http://theoor.org.uk/performers/artistes/ to hear the poets rendition.

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Robinson, K. (2006) Changing Education Paradigms, animated lecture; available at: http://www.schooltube.com/video/2cb4889891b0c637f8f8/RSAAnimate-Changing-Education-Paradigms (accessed 18.1.11) Robinson, K. (2010) Bring on the learning revolution! Lecture; available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html (accessed 18.1.11) School Curriculum Development Committee. (1985-1988) The National Writing Project. Evens, D. and McGuinn, N. (2004) The Art of Teaching Secondary English. London: Routledge The Professional Standards for Teachers; available at: http://www.tda.gov.uk/ teacher/developing-career/professional-standards-guidance/professionalstandards.aspx (accessed 15.2.11)

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