Introducción

Whilst sharing practice with peers and professional poets was an explicit expectation of the Post Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing in the Classroom course, teachers’ sharing their creative writing practice with pupils was not. However, this became a considerable if unexpected feature of teachers’ response to developing their own writing, and in some ways forms a bridge between teachers’ creative writing practice and their teaching. Teachers’ engagement in creative writing practice in the classroom is explored in Chapter Seven in relation to the development of a pedagogical approach to support pupils’ learning. Here, participants’ engagement in creative writing activities alongside pupils is explored as a facet of emerging teacher-writer identities.

For most of the participants, engaging in creative writing practice with pupils has involved joining in writing tasks with their class, sharing their work alongside pupils, and engaging in dialogue about the writing process as a learner. This is explored in the following conversation, which took place during Seminar 5:

P3 So you’re writing with them sometimes? Any of the rest of you? [Lots of nods and murmurs of agreement]

T3 Yes, and I think that does make a difference, it changes things…I think they can see that you are a writer too, that we’re all learning about writing... T10 I do too, and I think that they can see that...it’s not just learning about

writing, it’s learning about writing by writing, not by me telling them how they are supposed to do it, the way to learn about it is to actually do it…

(Seminar 5)

The process described by teachers here – ‘learning about writing by writing, not by me telling them’ – articulates a very different identity from that of the teacher as expert writer.

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It implies a perception of the learner as a thinker, and a pedagogy that is concerned with the learners’ thoughts and understandings. This contrasts with a pedagogy that

approaches the learner’s mind as ‘passive, a receptacle waiting to be filled’ (Bruner, 1996: p.56). The process situates the teacher as a writer alongside pupils, engaged in a

complex writing practice that may involve ‘false starts, blank spots and uncertainties’ (Grainger, 2005: p.81). This teacher’s comment contrasts the two approaches:

I think it’s only by doing the writing that you can possibly understand how writing, how actually doing the writing, how that makes you feel, and we have to

acknowledge that. It’s not just a case of do this, do this, add an adjective, remember punctuation and then Bob’s your uncle. You can’t do it like that, they can’t do it like that, writing’s not just a set of hoops to jump through. (T2, Seminar 5)

Tensions in emerging teacher-writer identity are evident here: the reference to

understanding writing by ‘doing the writing’ and acknowledging ‘how that makes you feel’ recalls Sachs assertion that teacher identity is ‘a framework for teachers to construct their own ideas of “how to be”, “how to act” and “how to understand” their work and their place in society’ (cited in Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009: p.178). This disrupts the conception of teacher identity which is exposed in policy discourse, where ‘prescription and

accountability’ in literacy strategies and frameworks have advanced a ‘technicist’

approach to pedagogy (Alexander, 2004: p.11). It has been argued that this has led to a situation where ‘knowledge about teaching is, as it were, externalised [in the] the

strategies, frameworks, curricula…’ (Jones, 2006: pp.86-87).This is recognised and rejected by the participant if the extract above, in her reference to ‘do this, add an adjective…writing’s not just a set of hoops to jump through’. The participants involved in the conversation above express an alternative pedagogic possibility, where internalised knowledge about writing gained through practice influences pedagogy, and is expressed in the classroom through creative writing practice alongside pupils. The positioning of the teacher alongside the pupils reflects deep connections with teacher identity, where ‘being

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a learner has been shown to be a key aspect of teacher professional identity, and has been linked to the notion of professional commitment’ (Cohen, 2010: p.479).

Engaging in creative writing practice alongside pupils admits the possibility of teachers expressing a writing identity in the classroom. However, it is possible that such a pedagogical shift could increase teachers’ insecurity as they position themselves as learners in creative writing practice, with a consequent detrimental effect on confidence. Indeed an alternative view of this pedagogical shift may be that it has the potential to undermine ‘professional authority granted by students who affirm the teacher's expertise’ (VanderStaay et al., 2009: p.262). For the teachers involved in this case study, however, the shared exploration of the problems and complexities of creative writing strengthened their sense of equipping pupils to cope with the demands of creative writing practice:

T3 … they are really interested in the fact that I'm learning to write, that I am doing things that I enjoy, that I find difficult…

P3 Have you talked to them about it being difficult?

T8 Yeah, I think you have to, I think with writing, with creative writing, you shouldn't be going in there and saying right, I've got all the answers, I know how to do this, do x, y, and z and you'll know too...I just think that if they can see that you find it difficult too, that it's supposed to be that mix of difficult, enjoyable, frustrating, well, that is what it is...I think if you can do that with them, for me that has been a big thing, to do that with them, and they can see sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but you just keep on going.

(Seminar 5)

The articulation of a teacher-writer identity, then, involves not only a joint engagement in creative writing activities in the classroom, but an exploration of a creative writing practice that allows for individual and collaborative reflection and responses. The potential to share and explore frustrations and difficulties alongside satisfactions and achievements in creative writing practice is identified as a way of supporting pupils’ learning. The process

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of engaging in creative writing practice with pupils described here implies that to teach creative writing ‘is not just to transfer knowledge but to create the possibilities for the production or construction of knowledge’ (Freire, 1998: p.30, original emphasis). The explicit articulation of teacher-writer identity through engaging in creative writing practice may also have an impact on the development of pupil-writer identity, which is identified below as an aim of pedagogy.

So they need to explore…it’s not me ‘teaching’ it – I’m facilitating the writing. .. I told them today about the course, and I said ‘as a writer’ and I actually said that! And I just [thought]...what? Who’s that? Who are you saying you’re a writer? But you want them to think of themselves as writers…(T2, Interview 3)

The teacher-writer, then, through engaging in creative writing practice alongside pupils, is able to articulate a writing identity that supports the development of learners’ conceptual knowledge and understanding; such knowledge is ‘most useful to the learner when it is discovered through the learners’ own cognitive efforts …The teacher, in this version of pedagogy, is a guide to understanding, someone who helps you to discover on your own’ (Bruner, 1996: p.xii).

5.7 Conclusion

It has been suggested that ‘at the heart of any approach to the teaching of writing is the need to encourage pupils to compose’ (Wyse, 2009: p.288). Through the experience of the participants involved in this case study, it is further suggested that the ability of teachers in schools to provide such encouragement is strengthened through teachers’ perception of themselves as writers. The participants in this case study have negotiated a series of complex interactions between the self as teacher and the self as writer, in which the individual’s relationship with the acts and processes of creative writing are deepened.

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Emerging teacher-writer identities were articulated in teachers’ descriptions of themselves as ‘writers’ and ‘teacher-writers’ subsequent to taking part in the Post Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing in the Classroom course (5.5.2 above). Participants frequently located their writer identity as a facet of teacher identity, examining the ways in which their developing confidence as writers created a more positive ‘attitude to the delivery and introduction of creative writing tasks’ in the classroom (T7, Essay). The pedagogical implications of their own creative writing practice, and the reflection on how such practice may inform teachers’ ideas of ‘how to be’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to understand’ their work (Sachs, 2005, in Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009: p.178) are the subject of deeper exploration in Chapters Six and Seven.

The data emerging from the case study suggests that the process of becoming teacher- writers has engaged teachers in developing a relationship with their own creative writing practice, and through this relationship to explore the ways in which knowledge about creative writing is situated ‘in the act and actions of writing creatively’ (Harper, 2008b: p.161). Through generating their own poetry, participants in the case study have explored the complex relationship between the making and reception of text that is inherent in the creative writing process, and have engaged in ‘methodologies and practices that enable them to criticise themselves’ (McLoughlin, in Harper and Kroll, 2008: p.89). Such practices imply the possibility that individual experience of practice may influence broader

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Findings and Analysis 2: The influence of creative writing practice on