Preparing preschoolers for creative writing

Recently I joined a health club. On my first visit to the club I was introduced to Fred, my counselor. Fred asked if I had ever belonged to a health club. I had not. He took me to the free weight room and showed me how to exercise with barbells. He showed me treadmills, stationary bicycles, and 48 different weight-lifting machines.Gerald Giordano is Associate Professor of Education at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.     

Golden times of writing: the creative compliance of writing journals

This paper examines the history, rationale, uses and abuses of writing journals in primary classrooms. We argue that writing journals form part of a pedagogy derived from an understanding of how children can be motivated to express themselves, independently of teachers. Moreover, they demonstrate the power of welcoming children's home cultures into the classroom. However, we also wish to argue that the use of writing journals is part of the teaching profession's ‘creative compliance’ that can still contribute to the marginalisation of effective educational practice. We document how, in some schools in England, writing journals have been reduced to token gestures towards creativity and independence and in effect collude with and support what is increasingly becoming a pedagogical hegemony.     

Integrating multiple perspectives on the human-nature relationship: A reply to Fletcher 2017

The concept of “connectedness with nature” is increasingly used in environmental and sustainability discourse. However, this construct has also been critiqued and proponents charged with harboring an ambivalence that paradoxically reinforces a sense of separation from “nature”. We respond to one critique by demonstrating that whilst problematizing aspects of “connectedness with nature” has merit, selective use of examples misconstrues efforts in this field, undermines common ground and conflates theoretical conceptualizations with practical implementation. In addressing problems of perception and praxis, we emphasize the primacy of direct experience in shaping ways of knowing and recommend integral ecology (based on Wilber’s integral theory) as an inclusive framework for attending to multiple perspectives on the human-nature relationship.     

Improving writing skills: Which approaches and what target skills?

This article presents a critical overview of recent trends in research on writing skills. Part one defines criteria for the studies reviewed here and is based on current cognitive writing models. The treatments examined were all designed to change writer activity by influencing the main constituent features of writing: knowledge and cognitive functions. The following two sections deal with the effects of treatments aimed at the acquisition of knowledge or expert skills. Part four focuses on the effects on writing skills of interaction between peers or immature and expert writers. The final section examines computer aids to writing. The conclusion stresses the need for carefully controlled studies drawing on well-defined theoretical frameworks.     

对高职学生开展创造性英文写作课的探索

高职学生是一特殊的学习群体，为提高学生的认知能力和实现真正意义上的素质教育，本文探索了针对高职学生的认知心理进行创造性英文写作的理论根据及具体措施。     

Dream Writing: A new creative writing technique for secondary schools?

Writer and academic Gilly Smith examines the use of a new creative writing technique for school children inspired by the Automatic Writing of the Surrealists and the Free Writing of novelists and poets. Set within the discourse of Sir Ken Robinson, her argument is that Dream Writing can free expression, raising morale and standards in creative writing in schools while enabling children to see the originality of their own imaginations on the page. Analysing the results of a year‐long trial with Year 7 students, she finds evidence of significant impact on creative writing and a helpful settling exercise for the teacher.     

Componential skills of beginning writing: An exploratory study

The present study examined the components of end of kindergarten writing, using data from 242 kindergartners. Specifically of interest was the importance of spelling, letter writing fluency, reading, and word- and syntax-level oral language skills in writing. The results from structural equation modeling revealed that oral language, spelling, and letter writing fluency were positively and uniquely related to writing skill after accounting for reading skills. Reading skill was not uniquely related to writing once oral language, spelling, and letter writing fluency were taken into account. These findings are discussed from a developmental perspective.     

The discourse of collaborative creative writing: Peer collaboration as a context for mutual inspiration

Drawing on socio-cultural theory, this paper focuses on children's classroom-based collaborative creative writing. The central aim of the reported research was to contribute to our understanding of young children's creativity, and describe ways in which peer collaboration can resource, stimulate and enhance classroom-based creative writing activities. The study drew on longitudinal observations of ongoing activities in Year 3 and Year 4 classrooms (children aged 7-9) in England. Selected pairs’ collaborative creative writing activities were observed and recorded using video and audio equipment in the literacy classroom and in the ICT suite (13 pairs, about 2-4 occasions each).The research built on the contextualised, qualitative analysis of the social and cognitive processes connected to shared creative text composition. Using an analytic tool developed specifically for creative writing tasks, we linked collaborative and discursive features to cognitive processes associated with writing (‘engagement’ and ‘reflection’). The research has identified discourse patterns and collaborative strategies which facilitate ‘sharedness’ and thus support joint creative writing activities.The paper discusses two significant aspects of the observed paired creative writing discourse. It reports the significance of emotions throughout the shared creative writing episodes, including joint reviewing. Also, it shows children's reliance on collaborative floor (Coates, 1996), with discourse building on interruptions and overlaps. We argue that such use of collaborative floor was indicative of joint focus and intense sharing, thus facilitating mutual inspiration in the content generation phases of the children's writing activities. These findings have implications for both educational research and practice, contributing to our understanding of how peer interaction can be used to resource school-based creative activities.     

Becoming creative practitioners: elementary teachers tackle artful approaches to writing instruction

The “creativity gap” is a distressing discrepancy between the ostensible value educators place on creativity and its absence in schools. How do teachers take on the attributes and skills of a creative practitioner? What struggles do they face in doing so? This case study examines the practices of six early elementary teachers who embarked on a professional development experience through which they learned arts-based strategies for prewriting activities. They purposefully practiced cultivating an environment in which student imagination would feed the generation of ideas and details in prewriting exercises. Findings indicate some teachers embraced this departure from the norm, recognizing how loosening their reigns emboldened “voice and choice” in student writing. Others experienced difficulty taking risks and developing spontaneity for accepting and responding to student ideas. Finally, teachers grappled with converging creative practice with everyday practices in the classroom.     

Primary pupils' creative writing: enacting identities in a Community of Writers

This paper focuses on a Community of Writers creative writing project where 25 primary school pupils from lower socio‐economic backgrounds took part in creative writing workshops over a 2‐week period at a higher education institution. Using practitioner enquiry and discourse analysis, this paper views identity as participation in ‘figured worlds’ and highlights the relationship between the children's creative writing outputs and their shifting identities (Holland et al., 1998 ). A case is made that children's authentic creative writing can be nurtured by a community that promotes intertextuality and ‘hybridity’ (Bakhtin, 1981 ) as well as balancing pedagogical ‘structure’ and ‘freedom’ (Davies et al., 2012 ) in order to provide textual space for writers to enact different identities. At a time when the global figuring power of performativity (Ball, 2003 ) actively restricts the ways in which teachers and children interact, this paper also presents an informed argument for the value of school–university research partnerships.     

Improving expressive writing skills of children rated for ADHD symptoms

The present study examines the expressive writing abilities of children described by their teachers as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms and of matched controls and the effects of two types of facilitation. A group of 35 ADHD children and matched controls are given the task of composing a letter either under standard instructions or with facilitation (a guide scheme), preceded by a brief training on how to use the facilitation. Results show that both groups drew benefit from the guide scheme. Despite the fact that differences between groups were maintained after the training for the case of spelling errors, the poorer performance of ADHD children vanished. It is concluded that ADHD children have poor expressive writing skills, but this can be improved through the help of a guide scheme preceded by brief training.     

Identification of skills for the problem-based tutor: Student and faculty perspectives

Student ratings of problem-based tutors at Harvard Medical School in 1987–1988 indicated that tutors were seen by first year students as most helpful in encouraging critical appraisal of information, questioning and probing the reasoning process, and balancing basic science and clinical discussions. Narrative comments about the best tutors further indicated that such tutors were most helpful in balancing student-directedness with guidance and sharing professional expertise without lecturing. A concurrent survey of faculty tutors indicated that tutors rated these same skills as important. Comparing students' ratings of helpfulness with tutors' ratings of importance, two discrepancies emerged. Tutors rated student direction as more important than students rated its helpfulness. On the other hand, tutors rated the ability to balance clinical and basic science discussion as the least important skill while students' ratings indicated that it was extremely helpful. These disparities suggest points of discussion and skill building for faculty development programming.     

Children at risk for learning disorders: multiple perspectives

This study examined the contribution of a multidimensional model of risk factors in explaining adaptive functioning among 5- to 6.5-year-old kindergartners with mild developmental delays who were considered at risk for developing learning disorders. Risk factors included (a) child characteristics, (b) maternal and familial ecological variables, and (c) the child's attachment style as perceived by the mother. The sample included 145 Israeli mother-child dyads: 70 mothers and their children at risk for developing learning disorders (51 boys, 19 girls) and 75 mothers and their typically developing children (46 boys, 29 girls) from the same general education kindergartens. Data were collected from children's self-reports, mothers' narratives, and teachers' ratings. Path analysis examined the multidimensional risk model for the two groups. The study indicated a high fit between the theoretical model and the empirical findings and showed a different pattern of relations between the model's components for the two populations studied.     

Partnerships for learning: extending knowledge and understanding of creative writing processes in the ITT year

This article explores the idea that in order to improve the ways we teach children to write creatively it is worth exploring how we, as teachers and writers, do that ourselves. It describes some of the stages of a curriculum development project undertaken in the Portsmouth and Southampton Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) English teams, begun in 2004. The project was supported by funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and was designed to foster a range of learning activities for trainee teachers in the area of teaching creative writing to pupils in schools. The project that was developed had multiple aims: subject knowledge development in trainee English teachers; pedagogic exploration amongst all teachers involved looking at how the difficult area of teaching creative writing might be better addressed. This article evaluates the aims of the project and some of the outcomes and argues for recognition of the training year as a vital area for exploring issues in teaching, beyond competence. The article draws on a variety of sources, including participant observation notes made in writing workshops, responses to a questionnaire completed by project participants and excerpts from writing collected across the project produced by teachers and pupils.