In February, the NTU PGCE Secondary English and Drama cohort visited the Nottingham Contemporary’s Hollow Earth exhibition. We have a longstanding relationship with Nottingham Contemporary and knew that colleagues there would offer students a rich experience. Inspired by Nottingham’s caves, the exhibition explores the creative possibilities of spaces beneath the surface. Peter Rumney (Learning Team Associate Artist and professional writer), led our expedition into the unknown…
Peter began our workshop with a drawing activity, before opening up a discussion about how students often struggle to start writing. This became a central theme for our own writing experiences: articulating where we all find writing challenging. It’s important to highlight here we wrote alongside the trainees during the workshops because, as lecturers, we believe that we should model creative practice and taking risks in our writing.
As well as promoting students’ writing for pleasure, the Contemporary visit also focused on developing the trainees’ perception of themselves as writers. Research into the practice of teacher writers suggests that many teachers do not enjoy writing and that practitioners often struggle to make space for creative practice in a crowded curriculum. Within this context, writing itself is an act of courage.
Planning for this year’s visit focused on the fact that that we are working within particularly challenging local contexts. Recent reports on writing suggest that pupil performance has worsened and, even more worryingly, that disadvantaged students are falling further behind. Nottingham’s position as one of the most deprived cities in the UK compounds the need to support our trainee teachers with practical pedagogical strategies for developing students’ literacy. Research suggests that students who write because they enjoy it outperform students who dislike writing and therefore writing for pleasure is a key thread on the NTU’s English PGCE journey.
Our exploration of the gallery began at the threshold of the cave, the liminal space between one thing and another. As we travelled to the depths of the exhibition, we jotted down words on a Word Wheel, noting words, sounds and textures to inspire our writing. Back in the Space, we constructed writing caves out of corrugated cardboard. These became our writing spaces.
We wrote within a number of forms and across genres throughout the day. At one point Peter challenged us to write a Myku (5 words, 7 words, 5 words) and modelled this himself. Watching a professional writer demonstrate the struggles of composition exemplified how writing is challenging for everyone.
Communicating our own vulnerabilities around writing seemed to support people’s willingness to share. During the reflection section at the end of the day, trainee’s takeaways were profound and suggested that learning went beyond the intended focus:
‘Everyone is a writer with the right tools’.
‘Feeling is a brilliant tool to use before thinking’
‘Sharing the process of how an author constructs writing is very valuable in helping children understand that writing is an imperfect process. Imperfection isn’t shameful.’
‘Everyone struggles with writing’
Our personal favourite piece of feedback simply said, ‘trust each other’. We feel that this encapsulates the empathetic engagement with the practice of writing and a writing for pleasure pedagogy.
Freshly emerged from our inmost caves, the following week’s PGCE session focused on a poetry writing workshop with Sue Dymoke. Sue shared some of her poems and the adventures behind writing them. Alongside this, she took us through a series of exercises designed get students started with the planning, drafting and editing process. She emphasised the importance of giving young people choices in the classroom and carving out thinking time.
In a recent article, Woodford et al. argue ‘anything which directly influences classroom practice should be considered as teacher professional development’. We firmly believe that encouraging teachers to think, write and to be writers will improve their classroom practice and, consequently, the chances of the pupils in their care. By openly sharing the challenges that all writers face, we can humanise our practice and connect with our learners.
We are very proud to share our trainees’ writing: Sue has hosted their anthology on her own website, you can visit here!
Sue Dymoke, Aisling Walters and Katie Willshire
Posted in memory of Sue Dymoke, 1962-2023.
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