What Has Been Gained And Lost In The Teaching Of Creative Writing In England And The USA Since The Dartmouth Conference?

Author(s):

Lorna Smith(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 06, Learning and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

09:00-10:30

Room:

W3.16

Chair:

Nicola Walshe

Contribution

A new national curriculum (sic) was recently introduced in England (DfE, 2014). The English orders are different from the previous orders (DfEE/QCA, 2007) in many ways, yet perhaps one of the most striking and controversial changes is the expurgation of the term ‘creativity’ (and any words containing the ‘create’ root). In its place is a focus on 'knowledge' and 'accuracy', the result of a former Secretary of State for Education's belief that students in England suffer from a 'knowledge deficit' (Hirsch, 2006). The renewed focus on knowledge and accuracy is now reflected in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations sat by all 15-16 year olds.

As an erstwhile English teacher and now English teacher educator working with many beginning and established English teachers, and in addition being active within our subject association and promoting the work of the National Writing Project (NWP) through running the regional Teachers as Writers group, this paper is taken from my PhD thesis, which is itself my response to having been addressed - or ‘called or summoned’ (Moules, et al: 2014: 1) - by the challenges posed to the English teaching profession from the new ‘creativity-less’ orders. The access I have to those influential within the subject body as well as to English teachers ‘on the ground’ in classrooms provides me with the opportunity to bring voices together and reflect on their perspectives with a view to commenting on the impact of the latest orders and making recommendations for future classroom practice.

In this paper, I focus in particular on the Dartmouth Conference that took place in 1966 at the University of Dartmouth, New Hampshire, USA, attended by academics and teachers from England and the United States. Together they sought to define what is meant by 'English' in secondary school/college contexts and, more specifically, how writing is taught; and the subsequent outputs - focusing on a child-centred, creative approach - were popular and influential in classrooms in both countries. However, in England, establishment reaction against this approach was one factor that led to the publication of the first National Curriculum in 1989 in a bid to control the 'climate of unchecked creativity' (Bullock, 1975:6). There have been battles around what the National Curriculum should contain ever since and, in tune with the theme of this conference, it has undergone 'constant change'. The question I seek to answer here is how do English teaching professionals report shifts in creative practice prior and subsequent to the advent of the National Curriculum and its various iterations? I seek to explore what representatives of the profession feel has been gained over the years since the Dartmouth Conference, and what has been lost, focusing for the purposes of this paper on creative writing.

I intend that the questions concluding the paper will inspire discussion on the value of creative writing in the teaching of English to secondary school/college students whose first language is English. The paper should also be of interest to those who use creative writing in teaching their own first language.

Method

My research takes a hermeneutic approach, which I argue is well-suited to a study of creativity, particularly one which focuses on the inter-relation of creativity and personal growth. Hermeneutics is a creative paradigm, one that actively involves imagination, reflecting and risk-taking through the process of interpreting and forming ideas – it is about ‘re-making’. For this paper I have interviewed 11 participants, all of whom have been involved in the field of secondary English in England throughout their professional lives. They include academics, teacher educators, secondary school Head Teachers, Heads of Department and recently-qualified teachers. The sample is theory-driven or ‘theory-based’ (Kuzel, 1992 & Patton, 1990 in Miles and Huberman, 1994: 28). Some are influential within the field, so are selected by ‘reputation’ (ibid); some attended the Dartmouth Conference reunion in 2016 in the USA. I resisted adopting a traditional structured or semi-structured interview method. If one adopts the idea that interviewing is an art, it is to embrace the idea that this involves ‘intuition, creativity, improvisation, and breaking the rules’ (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009: 86). I did not want to ask traditional questions, so much as provide prompts for conversation. I was struck by Marshall’s research method (2000) in which she asked English teachers to comment on five different scenarios which enabled her to understand their educational philosophies. I chose to base my interviews on this approach but, instead of presenting scenarios, I presented interviewees with eight quotations drawn from my reading and invited them to respond to a selection of these in any way that they felt appropriate. The quotations were carefully chosen from my hermeneutic review of the literature to offer a cross section of opinions, historical context and political stances on creativity and English teaching (including outputs from the Dartmouth Conference). They are themed around the contribution of creativity to personal development, the impact in changes to the curriculum and the role of the teacher in engendering a creative classroom, particularly one in which high quality creative writing might be produced. I am currently analysing the resulting transcripts from a hermeneutic perspective and will compare emerging views and opinions with current literature emerging from the USA.

Expected Outcomes

At the time of this submission, I am analysing the transcripts of the interviews. From data examined so far, it appears that the participants favour an approach to English teaching that embraces creative writing because of the strength of this approach in developing the whole child; they reject curricula that focus on knowledge and technical accuracy per se at the expense of creative personal growth and there is, accordingly, a perceived need to work (creatively) against the spirit of the latest national curriculum (2014) despite the necessity for teachers to prepare students effectively for the GCSE. The role of the National Writing Project in England is seen as valuable in promoting the creative cause. I will compare this perspective to current literature from the USA, again through a hermeneutic inquiry, looking for similarities and differences in attitudes to creativity and creative writing between England and the USA. I expect to find that the National Writing Project plays or has the potential to play as crucial a role in one country as another. I will reflect on similarities and differences between the current situation and that of 50 years ago.

References

- Bannerman, C (2008) Creativity and Wisdom in Craft, A, Gardner, H & Claxton, G (eds) (2008) Creativity, Wisdom and Trusteeship: Exploring the Role of Education. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press pp 133-142 - Britton, J (1975) Foreward in Dixon, J (1975, 3rd edition) Growth through English. Huddersfield: NATE - Bullock (1975) A Language for Life: Report of the Committee of Enquiry appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science. London: HMSO available online at: http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/bullock/bullock1975.html [last accessed 06.01.16] - Cox (1989) English for ages 5 to 16: Proposals of the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Secretary of State for Wales. London: Department of Education and Science and the Welsh Office - Craft, A, Gardner, H & Claxton, G (eds) (2008) Creativity, Wisdom and Trusteeship: Exploring the Role of Education. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press - DfE (2014) The national curriculum in England: Key stages 3 and 4 framework document available at:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study. - Hirsch, E (2006) The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - Holbrook, D (1968) Creativity in the English Programme in Summerfield, G (ed) (1968) Creativity in English: Papers relating to the Anglo-American seminar on the teaching of English (Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 1966): The Dartmouth Seminar Papers Champaign, Illionois: NCTE pp 1-20 - Kinsella, E (2006) Hermeneutics and Critical Hermeneutics: Exploring Possibilities within the Art of Interpretation in Forum. Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, [S.l.], v 7, n 3, May, available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/145/319 [last accessed: 04.02.16] -.Kvale, S & Brinkmann, S (2009) InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing. Los Angeles & London: Sage -.McCallum, A (2012) Creativity and Learning in Secondary English. Abingdon: Routledge - Marshall, B (2000) English Teachers – The Unofficial Guide: Researching the Philosophies of English Teachers. London: Routledge - Moules, NJ et al (2011) On Applied Hermeneutics and the Work of the World in Journal of Applied Hermeneutics, Vol 1 Editorial 1-5 - National Writing Project (USA) http://www.nwp.org/ [last accessed 22.01.17] - National Writing Project (UK) http://www.nwp.org.uk/ [last accessed 22.01.17] - Perry, DR (1974) Creativity in Writing. US Dept of Health, Education and Welfare; National Institute of Education - Summerfield, G (ed) (1968) Creativity in English: Papers relating to the Anglo-American seminar on the teaching of English (Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 1966): The Dartmouth Seminar Papers. Champaign, Illionois: NCTE

Author Information

Lorna Smith (presenting / submitting)

University of Bristol

Graduate School of Education

Bristol

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