Lesson plans, writing, what’s the difference?

A short answer to that is very little. So, is teaching a good idea for a writer? It seems sensible.  I am paid to be a writer and to pass skills and craft on to other people. It may look like a good combination.

A career path for graduates with a degree in English and Creative Writing

I often propose to my students that they are in an ideal position to take a PGCE and teach at any level. Graduates leave us having a good knowledge and understanding of English literature. They know how to write. As a visiting writer to schools I’m often astonished at how little some teachers understand about getting students to write. Our graduates would know differently. However, there is a big BUT.

Not recommended for people whose main purpose is to write

Teaching, particularly in the early days, takes a lot of energy and in particular a lot of creative energy. There is little left for one’s own creative projects. I had been teaching in high school for almost twenty years before I found I had enough creative juices left after all the school work to write fiction. And then only in the holidays and at the weekends.  

Teaching as a creative act

This doesn’t mean that teaching is a barren, unfulfilling career.  There is so much about lesson preparation that is like writing. You have to get points across convincingly and in a way that keeps the learner engaged. You use a similar process in designing a lesson arc as you do in designing a story arc. There is a similar feeling of satisfaction when you think you have it right. You get feedback quite quickly and you sometimes learn that you hadn’t got it as right as you thought you had.  Often, though, your students do learn and thereby conform that your design was appropriate. At least here you have 25 (primary) to 250 (secondary) guaranteed “readers”.

A concrete example

I’ve just been getting ready for a class I’m giving tomorrow. I’ll be meeting twenty-three students and we’ll be working on “showing, not telling” and dialogue. I’m armed with three creative writing activities in case they’ve brought no work to share in the workshop part of the lesson. We’ll also do some close reading of some of the set texts to see how those writers show and tell and how they use dialogue. I’m going to talk about their assessments and I’m going to get them to bullet-point a reflective piece they have to provide and then talk to partners about this. I’m confident I’ve more than enough material – always better to have too much rather than too little.  I’m looking forward to the class. I have a parallel one on Wednesday – so preparation has actually been for two classes.

Constant cycle of action research

Action research consists of defining a problem, thinking of a solution, trying it out, evaluating the outcomes, and proposing a new solution based on the evaluation. We do this constantly as we both write and teach. If we regard the text to be written or the lesson to be given as “the problem” it is easy to see that both teachers and writers are engaged in this cycle continuously.  Both are reflective practitioners. Teachers and writers who take part in this cycle carry on growing.       

Creative writing in the academy

Perhaps it is slightly easier for the writer who is an academic than for the schoolteacher writer. We have less contact time, even if the time in the classroom is a little more intense. We teach for fewer weeks a year. We’re expected to research and research here can mean writing though a critically reflective element would also be expected. We juggle teaching, admin, conference visiting and writing, the latter dividing itself into creative and critical, and often also community engagement and academic enterprise. We work long weeks. Yet we perhaps have left over a little more brain space and a little more creative energy than our colleagues in primary and secondary education.

I do feel very privileged to be allowed to call part of my job what I would probably do even if I wasn’t paid and that I used to fit in at weekends and school holidays.          

Option choices

On Monday our students will be choosing their options. We’re using a new electronic system – they’ll be doing it for the first time on-line. Fingers crossed it all works well. I’m away from my desk for about three hours on Monday. The rest of the time I’ll be watching my email very closely, ready to trouble-shoot.

Higher Education has been hit by cut-backs, particularly in the humanities. Fees have had to go up to cover costs because of the lack of grants and because other channels of funding have also been cut. From a student point of view it may look as if we are offering less and charging more.

There may be some material sense in which that is true – fewer books in the library, fewer support staff, and maybe the fabric of buildings deteriorates. Yet the lecturers remain, teaching the same material – even if we’ve had to call it something different. Last year we planned a massive upheaval, to be implemented this academic year. This is something we have to do regularly every few years. As per our institution’s regulations, courses that could not guarantee thirty students had to be cut. But for the most part, we’re still going to be teaching in groups of between fifteen and twenty. For creative practice courses, received wisdom says that groups shouldn’t be larger than fifteen.  A group with twenty on the register will generally have about fifteen attending – and not always exactly the same fifteen – on a weekly basis. As we have different lecturers teaching each group, we can offer specialist sessions according to the expertise of the lecturer.

Higher Education works differently from other levels of education. Even at undergraduate level students very much learn what their lecturers research. For instance, I teach about writing prose fiction, in particular for children and young adults and also about children’s literature.  I also teach about “being a writer”. I find out more about that myself every year. So I have new information to pass on to my students.  It will overlap with some information form other institutions but some of it will be unique. There is no national curriculum at this level. Year on year, however, we’re disseminating what we’ve learnt and increasing the knowledge database.

I’m responsible for three creative programmes. The biggest looks as if it offers a lot of choice. The other two have more core modules. Yet in fact the choice is roughly the same. The core modules offer much choice within their schemes of work. The “option” modules are more linear.

I’ll be glad when Monday’s over. There’s bound to be a lot of questions. But we’re not capping any modules so everyone should get their choices – unless some modules don’t recruit enough and have to be closed. I’m hoping that won’t happen. I hope my module will run and that it recruits two groups not three. Fingers crossed.      

 

Anticipation – assignment due in at 4.00 p.m. today

I had a few emails yesterday – last minute check-ups on aspects of the assignment due in at 4.00 p.m. today. It’s a little odd, getting an assignment in during the first week of the Easter break. This came about partly because we rolled last year’s calendar. Many, student, though, have said they actually like this – it gives them some breathing space after the routine of classes. They now have the brain space to devote to the topic.

I’m expecting a 500 word synopsis of a novel they’ve planned, a 250 word self-assessment, an annotated bibliography and three pages of drafts, representing three different stages of the drafting process.

I am nervous. Will they all submit? Will I have to chase people? Will there be any technical problems?

I think I’ve taught them well. I’ve had pleasing reactions to this module in the past. I’ve added more material, including some assignments completed by former students. I’ve annotated these in depth. I’ve had some good synposes and good ideas for stories. We’ve workshopped this year’s batch a little in class, and I’ve given some students some formative feedback on earlier drafts. Even so, I remain a little nervous that they may not “get” the exercise. Or that my inbox will be full of last minute panics.

And yet I am excited. I’m hoping for some excellent writing, some exciting ideas and the feeling that some are on their way to brilliant careers as writers.

Would you believe I have butterflies in my tummy at the thought of going to that Turnitin folder later today? I pick up my new car this afternoon and that’s not half as exciting. 

Remote working dilutes the effect of snow and volcanoes

As I write it’s snowing steadily outside. It doesn’t look as if it’s sticking though all the promises are that it will. It’s the last day before the Easter break. Assignments are due in. Classes have been thinly attended this week anyway. Many students will want to travel  today, and with things as they are, they’ll probably want to do that before nightfall.

My workshop group has sent no work and it’s possible they won’t show up. I don’t relish the walk between the two campuses. I have office hours this morning. I’ve suggested to one whole group that they come in if they want to discuss their work. One student wants to see me anyway. I could cancel and offer to phone individuals who want to speak to me.

I could suggest to my workshop group that they send work electronically. They’ve actually said that they find the electronic feedback better than what they get in the classroom.

I’m undecided and have to make up my mind in the next forty minutes.

A senior member of staff said the other day that what makes us distinctive is our ability to work remotely. Well, I did deliver a class very successfully form Cyprus when I was stuck there because of the volcano in Iceland. Even though the broadband was distinctly dodgy. A student told me the other day that she didn’t come to class because the material I supplied via our Virtual Learning Environment was good enough. The Open University is, of course, excellent at distance teaching.  

I think what makes us distinctive at the institution where I work is actually the care and attention we give to students. Will that help me to make my decision?             

And maybe some of the excellent remote working systems we have set up are part of that care and attention. They may come in useful today.  

An Options Fair

Out students highlighted recently that they sometimes picked modules that they found to be very different from what they expected. We do produce booklets for them with a blurb for each module. These “booklets” however, run to twelve pages or so, so we couldn’t consider making the blurbs longer.

Of course students could actually contact the module convenor to ask more but it doesn’t always occur to them and if every single student did that for every single module they were considering we’d be working 24/7 for a few weeks on this alone.  

So, we held an options fair where we all made ourselves available to discuss the modules we are offering. I was there to talk about my Intro to Children’s Literature course and also represented a play-writing course, which involves input from regional theatres and a course that works with and is partly delivered by the BBC. The colleague who teaches that only works in Semester 1. As I coordinate three programmes I also had some general queries about patterns of choice.

I didn’t stop for the whole 90 minutes. We must have had at least two thirds of the cohort turn up and most of them were there for most of the time. Some of the things that had been niggling some of them were easily cleared up. Importantly we were able to show that though there appeared to be little choice in some levels / programmes, there was actually plenty of choice within the modules themselves.

There was a real buzz and students were queuing to talk to staff. I talked a lot. It reminded me a little of parents’ evenings when I was a High School teacher. You get dizzy from talking so much and come out thinking “yes, that’s what it’s all about.” Except there were even more positives in this case.