Can ‘experiential learning’ have a positive effect on the quality of children’s
writing?
“There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became, and that object
became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years or
stretching cycles of years…”
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. 1900.
My initial interest in this area of research was fuelled by my work as a teacher in
the primary phase. Over many years of working in inner city schools, it has
become apparent to me that exposure to outdoor exploration and arts based
activities can be sporadic in the children’s lives, if present at all. Most telling was
the reaction of a class of year 3 pupils to a trip to the local theatre. Their surprise
and confusion when confronted by the actor, a grown man, playing a boy during
one performance, then on a return trip for a second performance, finding the
same actor transformed into an old Viking king.
- Miss? How can he be a king? Last time he was a boy! – VC aged 7, as she
tried to process the actor’s changed appearance from the first performance in the
Autumn term to the second performance in the Spring term.
Their subsequent and complete immersion in this imaginative experience of the
drama and their enthusiasm, once back at school, to continue making their own
stories come alive with the aid of home made puppets, led me to consider
whether exposure to these kinds of experience could increase their confidence
and as a result enrich their written work.
1
Over the course of the performance experience, the children journeyed into
another land, another time and another lived reality. They moved through the
theatre space and began to construct a new, familiar place, essentially mapping
out an “environmental route” to a “literate understanding.” (D. Malouf, 1985).
Margaret Mackey writes, in her essay entitled Reading from the Feet Up: The
Local Work of Literacy (Children’s Literature in Education (2010) 41: 325), that
“Many children learn to read just at the same time they are beginning to move
through their own world more significantly... they interpret some of their world
through the action of their own feet”
This statement struck a chord with me as I reflected on my most memorable
childhood school holiday experiences of visiting museums, far flung parks and
yearly visits to the seaside and, contrasted them with some of the activities
enjoyed by the pupils in my class when surveyed at the start of each new term, of
visits to the supermarket, playing indoors on computer consoles and playing in
the neighbour children’s gardens, I began to wonder if there could be a link
between the children’s seemingly ‘narrow’ range of lived experiences and the
often flat and uninspiring written work presented throughout the year and at
assessment time.
John Dewey, in his essay The Experiential Theory of Knowledge, in The Middle
Works 3: p114-15 (1977) states that, “an experience is a knowledge.”
The idea of using experiential learning as an educational pedagogy, presented
the basis for this small-scale action research study.
2
Beginning with the ‘core book’ model of teaching English, where all English
teaching is based around the reading of “challenging literary texts in the
classroom” (Barrs. M and Cork. V. 2012, CLPE) and has become a commonly
used method of delivering the National curriculum for English starting with the
National Literacy Strategy in 1998 and today, within the context of the new
National Curriculum with its assertion that;
“All pupils must be encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction
to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to
establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the
curriculum… Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasurehouse of wonder and joy for curious young minds.” (The National Curriculum in
England: Key stages 1 and 2 framework document September 2013 DfE: 14)
The use of a core book underpins the delivery of the full curriculum, using a topic
based approach, across all subjects except for maths, within the school that my
action research was carried out and I wondered if providing additional ‘lived’
experiences for the children, would enhance the creativity with which the children
approached their writing and if it would have a positive effect on the outcomes.
As noted by Dewey in his book Experience and Education, “young people in
traditional schools do have experiences… the trouble is not the absence of
experiences, but their defective and wrong character” (1969:27). While the
children involved in my study were having real experiences everyday; in their
classrooms, the playground, at home, My research was concerned with the
creative spaces given by these experiences and the ways that they could be
utilised to enhance the writing process and outcome.
3
The educational theorist, David A Kolb describes the process of experiential
learning as a cycle made up of 4 main parts, illustrated by the learning model
below. This model, described as “The Lewiniam Experiential Learning Model”
after the American social psychologist, Kurt Lewin, which uses action research
techniques, collects the data and uses the findings to modify the behaviours of
the participants and feed into giving new experiences within the cycle.
I decided to approach my study from a similar position, as it was important for me
to find out if it was possible to affect the quality of the writing that the children in
my English set produced. The curriculum already exposed them to a variety of
quality texts, but I was interested to explore whether facilitating specific
opportunities for the children to take part in ‘concrete’ activities and experiences
could have a positive effect.
After reflecting on my own creative writing process, I made the decision to
formalise the initial idea of researching the effects of concrete experiences and
active participation on writing quality. I was especially intrigued by the way that
the images and characterisation that I used within my writing appeared to
sharpen and exist in three dimensions when they were inspired by a direct
experience rather than an abstract idea.
4
The experience of losing myself inside the rhythm of a specific piece of music as
it was played on the sound system in a club that held particular memories for my
group of friends and me, and embodied how I felt in a snapshot of time; was the
catalyst used to write the following extract from my short story “Fadeaway”.
“She spun around and around. Her eyes were closed and as her feet moved in
perfect time with the beat, her hips moved in a different time. Still keeping the
beat, but somehow a new beat. Still her eyes were closed and she spun and
spun and spun. The colours she could see were like an ocean imagined;” (Lewis,
2015)
The way that I write is fuelled by the “Desire to share an experience which one
feels is valuable and ought not to be missed”. (Orwell, 1946: 5). I wanted to
investigate the merits of this approach when working with young writers in a
school context.
The idea of improving the quality of children’s writing came to the forefront as part
of the on going challenge to raise attainment in writing amongst the cohort. Many
of the children appeared to have a limited repertoire of creative ideas available for
them to use. They drew their characters from their heroes in cartoons, by
renaming them, and structured their storylines using the computer games they
played, as templates. There was a 2 dimensional quality to their writing which
was difficult to shift simply by adding features from an ‘up level your writing’
checklist1. The words on the page felt sterile and evidenced a lack of enjoyment.
The children approached their writing from a background that had been carefully
controlled and choreographed by their teachers within the overarching curriculum
1
See appendix 1
5
and testing regime. Content was often decided by way of a ‘checklist’ of features
(adjectives, clauses, ‘wow’ words) as described by Myra Barrs in ‘The Reader in
the Writer’ (2000) and ideas of a “democratic practice” (Harwood 2001), routed in
active and experiential learning, were not readily used to deliver lessons.
As a teacher, I was interested in developing practice that could empower the
children to write from their experiences and encourage them to enjoy the process.
Also of concern was whether there was a link between these methods and
improvements in the quality of the children’s written work.
Research context
The class was the second lowest achieving English set out of five, populated by
what was termed ‘stuck’ children (children who had made no visible progress in
the preceding assessment cycles). I took over the class mid year and felt the
collective pressure from my colleagues, to improve the data narrative. My initial
feeling was that the children were able but disinterested in writing and on some
level, uninspired to write well.
The class was large in size, 31 students with a gender split of 16 boys: 15 girls,
and was composed of children from the local area of East London/ Essex
borders, with ethnic backgrounds including Pakistan, India, Romania, and
Somalia. There was a high level of English as an additional language (EAL) in the
class2. Six children were selected as a particular focus throughout the study, with
additional data used, coming from the rest of the children in the rest of the class.
The children were encouraged to read at home daily, through the use of a reward
system, and also took part in guided reading sessions daily, in addition to the
English lessons.
2
See appendix 2
6
Ethics and access
As the children were 9 and 10 years of age, informed consent was required and
granted by the existing permission forms signed on admission to the school. The
head teacher and governors were informed of the study and agreed to it taking
place with all names to be kept anonymous.
Methodology and research methods
The data collected was qualitative in nature as it was generated through
classroom based action research. As both the class teacher and researcher, I
decided to use a qualitative approach, as my relationship with the children would,
without a doubt, have an effect on the data collected.
-
Subjectivity. There is acceptance, perhaps even celebration, of the fact
that data, and inferences from them, are always shaped by the social and
personal characteristics of the researcher. It is recognized that it is
impossible to eliminate the effect of these…(Hammersley, 2012: 13)
I made use of a small variety of research methods that I felt could provide a range
of evidence to allow me to answer my initial question adequately. These
consisted of anonymous questionnaires using a series of open-ended questions
to collect the cohort’s pre-study attitudes to writing; writing samples collected at
each stage of the research activities; field notes compiled from careful
observation of the children as they participated in the activities; and unstructured
discussions with the children, “to invite informants to talk at length about matters
that are broadly relevant to the research.” (Hammersley, 2012: 12)
This combination of research methods allowed me to make best use of my roles
of teacher and researcher by enabling me to collect evidence that would reveal
7
some of the subtle changes that emerged over the short time that this study ran.
The use of informal discussion to gather the children’s thoughts about the tasks
was in keeping with the ethical concerns of this study. The desire to avoid
disruption to the children and show respect for their right to a ‘safe space to learn’
guided my choice of methods as I was keen to avoid creating a situation where I
“may seriously disrupt the situation being studied, distracting them from their
normal concerns” (Hammersley and Traianou, 2012: 67). Therefore, by observing
the outcomes within their natural space, I was rewarded with a rich collection of
data that maintained a sense of authenticity and honesty.
The writing samples collected were examined against three of the main themes
that emerged. These were:
1. Attitudes towards writing – fear of exposure/ failure vs. willingness to engage/
write freely.
2. Engagement and enjoyment with the task/ process.
3. Creativity within the writing/ emergence of ‘voice’, evidence of ownership,
growth of vocabulary and imagination.
Action research in the classroom
A series of lessons were developed and delivered that allowed for experiential
learning ideas and their effects on children’s writing, to be observed. Each lesson
was planned to begin with an experience that would be used as the launch pad
for a piece of creative writing. Due to constraints within the school timetable the
active nature of the experiences had to be scaled down to enable them to take
place within the confines of the classroom only and so it became even more
important to approach these lessons using the ethos of a writer’s workshop
8
“where attention could be given to the whole process of writing” (Barrs and Cork,
2012: 66)– starting with the teacher modelling a possible approach to the physical
stimulus shared with the class and followed by allowing the children a space
where they felt safe to express themselves creatively in whichever written
medium they chose, without the ‘spectre’ of that their writing being judged ‘not
good enough’. The structure of the lessons was set up to follow a similar model to
that of Kolb and his Lewiniam experiential learning model, a somewhat
contrasting approach to the experience of the everyday classroom in an attempt
to create the optimum conditions to encourage learner autonomy within the
students “learners are unlikely to become autonomous without active
encouragement from their teachers.” (Little 1995: 3)
Description of the lessons - Free writing from stimulus:
Session 1. Watch a video of Kate Tempest reading Icarus (linked to Ancient
Greece).
Session 2. Watch an animation from Literacy Shed.co.uk called “Crow”
(continuing the link to the topic work and the emerging theme of flight).
Session 3. Watch the DVD of my New Zealand bungee jump (link to the topic
work and the emerging theme of flight).
Session 4. Art based activity – Create a monster through playing folded paper
game, write a description of the monster within a piece of writing.
9
Session 5. Music as stimulus – listened to music by Cinematic Orchestra,
followed by free writing word shower from which children created a Wikipedia
style entry for a chosen word.
Session 6. Free written assessment piece using BFI animation “The Baboon on
the Moon” as stimulus.
Data Analysis
The writing samples collected were analysed and the findings grouped under the
following three main themes:
1. Attitudes towards writing – fear of exposure/ failure vs. willingness to engage/
write freely
As class teacher and researcher, it was important to acknowledge that my
influence on the outcomes of each lesson was unavoidable and so, in devising
the learning experiences, I was careful to keep my active input during the
modelled section of the lesson to the bare minimum. The children were not used
to being left to work so freely and clung to the structures of our more typical
classroom dynamic – asking for a ‘Learning Aim’ (LA: I am learning to…) to be
displayed on the board, and for more of a scaffolded lesson, (a description used
by Jerome Bruner who “saw the job of the teacher… as ensuring that assistance
– carefully matched to the learner’s needs… be given…” (Smidt 2011: 23).
By stepping back from my role as class teacher and inhabiting the role of
‘workshop facilitator’ it became clear that some children felt ‘uneasy’ at this
change and the seeming lack of ‘a plan’ or the usual lesson structure.
10
- What do I have to do though Miss? (AI)
- I don’t know what to do (MZ)
This caused me to modify, slightly, the aims of the first session in order to
navigate past the expressions of horror being shown by the class.
The children were shown a You Tube video by the performance poet and writer
Kate Tempest, performing her poem “Icarus” followed by a painting showing the
mythological Icarus falling to his death after his wings were burned by the sun,
and were initially asked to,
- Write what it makes you feel, in any format/ style you would like. (CL)
Blank stares led me to modify the session by elaborating on the task and
providing an example of what I would write in response. I also had to give the
children a learning aim in order for some members of the class to begin writing,
as the lack of one appeared to frighten them and prevent them from getting
started.
My initial idea had been to seat myself amongst the class and write my own
response alongside them. This was somewhat hampered due to the increased
support needed at the start and throughout the writing time.
There was a need to constantly reassure some members of the class that it was
ok to be writing ‘anything they liked’.
- Can I write anything? Really? (SH)
The end results of this first piece showed a hesitancy to write freely which was
reflected in their length– often no more than 4/5 lines of handwritten text, and the
nature of the content being limited to a simple description of events;
- I saw Icarus flying his dad was yelling for him to come back down. (SA)
Or an attempt to recount the events from Icarus’ point of view;
11
- I flew too close to the sun and fell in the river and died. I felt really sad. I was all
alone. (AR)
In the sessions that followed, the method of providing little scaffolding for the
task, continued and my role as ‘class teacher’ was reduced and replaced with
that of ‘co writer’, where I was able to sit amongst the class and complete my own
responses to the activity on a more equal footing.
This aspect of the study came about, in response to the final question in the pre
study questionnaire. The question posed was; “Do you think I should write when
you write?”
Of the 32 anonymous surveys completed, 20 children responded with “yes”.
- Yes because the teacher can share there (sic) work with us.
- Yes so I can be in peace and quiet so she doesn’t shout that much. (!)
Those that responded with “No” gave some of the following reasons,
- No because what if someone is misbehaving then you will get in trouble.
- No because it will make me feel my writing is bad.
Cremin and Myhill (2012) making observations about a recent writing project
‘Writing is Primary’ (Goouch et al 2009), note, “young writers settle more quickly
and are focused for longer when their teachers are similarly engaged” (Goouch et
al 2009; Cremin and Baker, 2010). They go on to acknowledge “Such writing
alongside students may provide a temporary bridge between teachers and
12
children… creates a web of connections which draws writers closer together.”
(Cremin and Myhill 2012: 131)
By session 5 however, the quality of the children’s writing had become freer and
more personally expressive. Their attitudes to the open ended nature of the
writing tasks had become more positive and they appeared to be less afraid to
write honestly. The nature of this task was by far the most challenging activity and
required the children to use the inspiration generated by the piece of music to
assemble a selection of random words that they pick one word from to define in
the style of Wikipedia, without using a dictionary.
This was a more complex task for the children to understand than some of the
others, but what was surprising was that they did not express the same kind of
horror as they had done during the first session, at the unsupported request “to
write the words that the music makes you think of”(CL). They asked to hear the
words that I had written on my sheet of paper before requesting to listen to the
musical stimulus a second time. This approach to the task showed a greater level
of independence than previously observed.
They were then able to produce writing that demonstrated more of their
personalities and inner thoughts and feelings.
- Love… makes you have a crush on someone. When you leave your parents
you find your true love who you chose(sic) to love and look after and care for.
(DH)
This piece of writing was from a boy who previously would have been too
guarded to share such a revealing thought about the personal topic of ‘love’. The
safe space of the workshop, where it was clear that the work was not being used
for assessment, was not part of the regular English lessons and was not recorded
13
in the English book, allowed him to change his attitude towards writing and feel
safe enough to write in his authentic voice without fear of being judged harshly by
others.
The children had begun to demonstrate their autonomy, choosing to ask for the
“expert”, in this case the workshop facilitator, to share an example instead of
admitting defeat and allowing their frustration at the obscure nature of the task to
prevent them from engaging with it.
While the types of experiential interventions carried out in this study could not be
said to be enough to create fully autonomous learners, it does serve to illustrate
that “Essentially, autonomy is a capacity – for…decision making, and
independent action.” (Little 1995: 4). Over the course of this short study, the
children became more confident to tackle increasingly more undefined and
unfamiliar tasks that asked them to write freely, without scaffolding and the
prescriptive criteria they were previously used to. They proactively requested for
examples of other’s work to be shared in order to hear different perspectives and
so that they could ‘magpie3’ ideas in this now safe workshop space.
The change in their attitude to writing enabled them to approach the only
assessed task in the study, with a more creative mind-set than they may have
done previously. Clear examples of the children placing themselves within the
story they wrote as a response to the animation illustrates a growing confidence
to reveal in their writing, more of their inner feelings and thoughts than in previous
assessed tasks.
3
To ‘magpie’ ideas is a term I use to explain the concept of collecting good ideas from other people’s work
within the context of the workshop, where it is not deemed as cheating, like it would be in most other
contexts. As a magpie is attracted to the shiniest objects, so we, as writers are attracted to great ideas we
spot in other’s work within the workshop, and permitted to make use of them.
14
- I feel so teribule(sic) and lost, those stupid astronauts who do they think they
are making me come to this planet without my permission. (BA)
- Baboon was filled with negative emotions. Everyday his hopes went down bit by
bit. He will disappear from existence. (LG)
2. Engagement and enjoyment with the task/ process.
In 2003, the then Labour government espoused that “primary education is a
critical stage in children’s development – it shapes them for life” (DfES, 2003),
going on to state that “experiencing the joy of discovery” and “being creative in
writing” (DfES, 2003) were the foundations of a good education for all children.
Now, in 2016, although the current final aim of education remains unchanged, the
aspirational links made between creativity, enjoyment and achievement, have
been eroded by the current emphasis on acquisition of knowledge, and the
subsequent assessment and high stakes testing of that knowledge. The National
curriculum states that it provides “pupils with an introduction to the essential
knowledge that they need to be educated citizens,” (DfE, 2014: 6) and that
“Teachers should develop pupils’ reading and writing in all subjects to support
their acquisition of knowledge.” (DfE, 2014: 10).
The children involved in this action research study had been schooled under the
National Curriculum and had experienced the literacy hour and the methods of
teaching common in most maintained schools in England. The experiential
activities that were used during this research were an attempt to break away from
the more prescriptive teaching that, more commonly, went on within the school,
despite the more topic based, core book approach.
It could be seen from the analysis of the questionnaires, that the children found
writing to be hard, more often, within the context of the classroom or when it was
part of assessment.
15
The pre study questionnaire asked the question: What do you find hard about
writing?
-
When I run out of ideas in the lesson.
-
The silent work.
-
Spelling and handwriting and test(sic).
-
Remembering everything.
It was also evident from analysing the writing samples and field notes that the
quality of the writing produced appeared to improve when the children were
enjoying the activity that framed it.
Samples of writing produced after session 4: Art based activity – Create a
monster.
-
His chest is strong and fully muscled, with perfect Parkour moves no fail.
(DH)
-
…he always had one or two rats crawling around his body when you meet
him. (AI)
The children’s enjoyment of this task could be seen in their total absorption with
it. They were deep in concentration throughout, interspersed with muttering and
giggling when they shared examples with each other in a spontaneous
conversational way. This peer led, verbal feedback appears to have had a similar
effect to the wider workshop method of magpie breaks, where the children read
each other’s work and shared good points, with the children editing their own
work and improving it following the less formal intervention of their peers. The
quality of their vocabulary and use of description was enriched and the work had
the feeling of the beginnings of second draft. They were smiling to themselves
16
when they had completed the task, were volunteering to share what they had
written and there were even a few requests to ‘work like this tomorrow.’
This reaction can be contrasted with that of the assessed piece from session 6:
Free write from stimulus (The baboon on the moon).
The task occurred during the school’s assessment week and despite attempts to
downplay the situation, the children knew that the teachers would use this piece
to inform their end of year levels.
Their body language became more rigid than in previous sessions, with a
hesitancy to ‘just write’ for fear of making a mistake. The energy within the room
appeared to become stifled as the pace at which the children wrote their words
slowed and it became clear that assessment served to act as a kind of
straightjacket for the children’s creativity and enjoyment of the task.
There was little of the vibrancy of their monsters.
- One day a baboon wanted to go to spase(sic) so he went and bilded(sic) a
spase ship. (MT)
This view was supported by the conversations held with the focus children at the
end of the project.
- I felt worried that I would get mistakes in my writing. (MT)
There were some responses to this task that continued to show creative
improvement, showing more evidence of imaginative thought and a more poetic
cadence to the language chosen than was evident in earlier, pre-study samples.
- The baboon… started to play a song... As thoughtful as a Philosopher... (AI)
- Space was as black as night and the moon was dusty white… The only light
was given by the sun. It was just fire in the air. (JO)
17
3. Creativity within the writing/ emergence of ‘voice’, evidence of ownership,
growth of vocabulary and imagination.
Within the prevailing culture of the school’s English lessons, the children had
previously been encouraged to write in the style or genre being taught and to stay
within the parameters of the learning aim for that lesson. There was no real space
to allow for them to produce personal writing or easily allow their own voices the
freedom to speak. Having had first hand experience of poetry workshops where
the participants were inspired to leave their mark with the words used, I was
interested to see if the change of lesson structure and stimulus during this study,
could elicit this kind of transformation in the children’s writing.
At the time of the study, the school assessment criteria for writing included the
statement “I sometimes use interesting ideas and events to make the reader
interested enough to carry on reading” (Level 4c, levelling proforma). I used this
statement as a starting point for my analysis of the creativity within the writing
samples. I also looked for the presence of the author’s ‘voice’ within the writing, a
sense of the children revealing some part of themselves to their reader.
Evidence emerged of the children being more prepared to expose their inner
thoughts and feelings in the writing they generated, with a much improved use of
first person narrative and inhabiting the consciousness of their characters.
-
While I was falling form the sky rapidly from high up with a broken neck up
in the clouds. I was struggling to balance. (AI)
This example has begun to share with the reader, a feeling that cannot be easily
expressed from an observer’s perspective. It needed to be written from inside of
18
the feeling and by using the first person, AI was able to begin to convey the
sense of loss of control and watching one’s own demise.
Being able to place themselves more firmly within the writing they produced
became an emerging theme from many of the sessions during this study, with the
children growing in confidence to share what was in their heads and hearts and
not merely what the teacher ‘expected’ them to. A real sense that the children
had begun to “anticipate the effect their writing would have on a reader.” (Barrs
and Cook, 2012: 81) was becoming more evident as the freer the writing task
became.
In session 5 where music was used as a stimulus to write a Wikipedia style word
definition, one child wrote an especially moving piece about the word depressed;
-
When you feel locked up and lost and yor breth just can’t breth(sic) (VZ)
Knowing the child and their work previously, this startlingly honest piece of writing
gave me goose bumps, as it was the first time that I had read something that felt
authentic and was entirely believable. A real sense of the person behind the
words had begun to show itself. When this child was interviewed at the end of the
study, they explained that,
-
Music helps me open my eyes more… (VZ)
As well as more personal voices being revealed, the study revealed a greater
sense of joy with the development of richer description and imaginative
characterisation.
- Her eyes used to be the only beauty she had, it was indigo blue like the
beautiful sea… (MDC)
19
Spontaneous use of metaphor and simile was evident in most writers’ work and
with it came a sense of lyricism and flow that hadn’t been visible before the study.
Conclusions and further research
This was a short-term study with a relatively narrow set of intervention
opportunities dictated by circumstantial constraints. The conclusions made must,
therefore, be tentative in nature and serve to signpost further study and research
opportunities.
Overall the samples of work collected from the 6 sessions shows the beginnings
of a change in the quality of language use and author voice. The children
interviewed at the end of the study all expressed a greater sense of achievement
and enjoyment from their work and, field note observations of the whole class
revealed an increased sense of pride in their work during the ‘magpie’ portion of
each session and when sharing finished work with each other. The children were
beginning to show a greater appreciation for the reader’s experience, evident in
work that went that bit further to reveal something more personal or abstract.
At the start of the study the motivation was to develop practice that would
empower the children to use their experiences to fuel their writing and therefore
increase their enjoyment and engagement with the tasks and bring about an
improvement in quality. The data collected appears to show that some
improvements were evident even with such short exposure, which was
encouraging as a potential area for more in depth study.
This study began to increase the learner autonomy, allowing for ‘freer’ writing and
encouraging the children to make use of tangible, lived experiences, no matter
20
how small, serving to support the writing’s quality and leading to a greater sense
of achievement and enjoyment, allowing the children to
- “write about my dreams” (anonymous questionnaire).
Bibliography

Barrs, Myra (2000) The Reader in the Writer; CLPE

Barrs. M and Cork. V. (2012) The Reader in the Writer Research
summary, (CLPE)
21

Carlson, Julie A, Wurdinger, Scott D (2009) Teaching for Experiential
Learning: Five Approaches That Work; Rowman and Littlefield Publishers
inc.

Coe, M and Sprackland, J (2005) Our thoughts are bees: Writers Working
with Schools; Southport: Wordplay.

Cremin, T and Myhill, D (2012) Writing Voices: Creating Communities of
Writers; Routledge.

Dewey, John (1926) Experience and Education: Collier- Macmillan,
London

Dewey, John (1977).The Experiential Theory of Knowledge, in The Middle
Works 3: cited in The drama of possibility: experience as philosophy of
culture McDermott, John J. (John Joseph) (2007); Anderson, Douglas R;
Fordham University Press, 2007

DfE, September (2013). The National Curriculum in England: Key stages 1
and 2 framework document, Crown Copyright

Goouch et al (2009) Writing is Primary; Esmee Fairbairn foundation

Hammersley, Martyn (2012) What is qualitative research? ; Bloomsbury
UK

Hammersley, Martyn and Traianou, Anna (2012) Ethics in qualitative
research; Sage publications Ltd.

Kolb, David A. (1984) Experiential Learning: experience as the source of
learning and development; Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall.

Lewis, Cleo (2015) Fadeaway; unpublished (Creative writing submission,
MA)
22

Little, David (1995) Learner Autonomy 1: Definitions, issues and problems;
Authentik Language, Learning Resources Ltd.

Louv, Richard (2008). The Last Child in the Woods (introduction); Atlantic
Books

Whitman, Walt (1900) Leaves of Grass; Bartelby, New York.
Articles

Fisher, Ros (2010) Young writers’ construction of agency; Journal of Early
Childhood Literacy

Harwood, Doug (2001) The teacher's role in democratic pedagogies in UK
primary and secondary schools: a review of ideas and research; Research
Papers in Education.

Ing, R (2009) Writing is Primary: Action research on the teaching of writing
in primary schools; Esmee Fairbairn foundation.

Louv, Richard (2007) Leave no child inside; Testimony before the interior
and Environmental Subcommittee, United States House of
Representatives.

Mackey Margaret (2010) Reading from the Feet Up: The Local Work of
Literacy (Children’s Literature in Education (2010) 41: 325),

Malouf, D (1985). A first place: The Mapping of a World; Southerly: A
Review of Australian Literature, 45(1), 3-10)
Websites
http://infed.org/mobi/david-a-kolb-on-experiential-learning/ Accessed 10-12-15
23
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/training/eresources/teaching/theorie
s/kolb Accessed 10-12-15
http://learningfromexperience.com/about/ Accessed 11-12-15
http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw: Orwell, George (1946) Why I
Write; Accessed 11-12-15
Appendices
Appendix 1 – ‘Up Level’ Your Work Checklist
Appendix 2 – Table showing Percentage of EAL in the class
Appendix 1 - Up Level’ Your Work Checklist
24
Appendix 2 - Table showing Percentage of EAL in the class
Home
language
Boys
Girls
Total
Percentage
25
Urdu
Bengali
Somali
Romanian
Lithuanian
French
Total in class
7
5
2
2
6
4
2
1
1
1
13
9
4
3
1
1
31
41.9%
29%
12.9%
9.7%
3.2%
3.2%
26