Eclectic Sass –
a zine produced by Book Kernel working with Caleb Parkin & students at Clevedon School
Today LKMco, Paper Nations and First Story are launching a literature review exploring creative writing in schools, which looks at how schools currently develop young people’s creative writing, and how the impact of creative writing interventions could be strengthened.
Paper Nations and First Story both received grants from Arts Council England’s Creative Writing in Schools fund. As part of this, both organisations have been working with education and youth think-tank LKMco to help us evaluate aspects of our projects and programmes. As a starting point for this, last year Eleanor Bernardes and Loic Menzies from LKMco produced a literature review; this identifies significant work and research that has already been done around six key themes that we are committed to addressing in our work in order to develop high-quality creative writing in schools:
- Sustainability
- Engagement
- Skill development
- Best practice and pedagogy for creative writing
- Networks
- Valuing creative writing
This week sees the publication of a piece by Caleb Parkin in the Summer issue of NAWE’s magazine , which marks the literature review being made widely available on the LKMco, Paper Nations and First Story websites. Caleb, who has been working with both Paper Nations and First Story, compellingly highlights why for him this literature review is a valuable reference point:
There were a few places in the Literature Review where I’ve written YES in yellow highlighter; it brought together this body of research and thinking that so bore out my experiences of working as a writer in schools. It is a document that – while foregrounding some of the challenges (funding, getting whole school buy-in, pesky poetry) – is an extremely valuable ‘helicopter-shot’ of a huge range of material and established best practice.
We very much hope that the literature review is document that can be a valuable reference point for many writers – as well as teachers, cultural organisations, policy makers and anyone interested in working to build sustainable and collaborative creative writing education projects. Download Creative Writing in Schools: Literature Review and share your thoughts with us on Twitter or Facebook.