Month: February 2017

By Becky Swain, Head of Learning and Participation at Arvon

This week a teacher asked me, ‘what are you learning from this research?’

It reminded me that just as the teachers and writers and students in this research project have had space to reflect on writing, consult others and respond to feedback, it has also enabled the team at Arvon to do something very similar.

The Teachers as Writers research project has been an opportunity for Arvon to work in partnership with two universities, to ask the question, ‘What kind of engagements enable writers and teachers to work together to improve student outcomes.’ Continue reading “What are we learning?”

By Ian Eyres, Senior Lecturer, The Open University

How is writing like teaching? The question came up in a Teachers as Writers research team meeting. Some of us felt quite strongly, at an intuitive level, that such a link does exist, that the two activities had something fundamental in common, but none of us could put our finger on what exactly. The discussion moved on.

Personally, as a teacher at the Open University, I experience nearly all of my teaching activity as writing. Continue reading “Writing and teaching: ‘twin crafts’?”

By Anthony Wilson, Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter

At the end of November last year I found myself announcing on my blog that I would be taking a rest from blogging for a bit. Until I typed them I had no idea that I was going to write those words. I was not following a plan. Yet as soon as I saw them on the screen in front of me, I knew it was the right thing to do. I told my readers that I was tired and needed a rest, and would be back when I felt ready, sometime in the New Year. Continue reading “On not writing”

By Professor Debra Myhill, Director of the Centre for Research in Writing, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean, The University of Exeter

One of the themes that is very present in our Teachers as Writers data is what we have called Just Write.  This refers to points in the writing process when writers let the words and ideas have space to form by writing freely without reviewing or evaluating what they have written.  In the wider world of writing and writing composition, this is often called freewriting, but ‘just write’ reflects the words used by professional writers, teachers and students to describe this process, and for us, it captures something important about the Arvon experience. Continue reading “Just Write”