Craigroyston Voices

A vision . . .

Desmond Spiers, Librarian of Craigroyston Community High School, City of Edinburgh, has a vision. He wants a permanent writer in residence for the school. Three years ago, he began his journey towards that vision. He observed lots of writers at work with children, but when he and his students saw Keith Gray, an author of teenage fiction, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Desmond knew that he had at last found exactly the right person for Craigroyston.

. . . and a strategic plan

The search was over, but then a year of discussions, fund raising and strategic planning began, a year that would culminate in Keith joining the school in two successive sessions. These visits are part of Desmond's long-term development plan to impact on achievement in literacy across the school, a plan fully supported by senior management at Craigroyston.

Warming up

In June 2006, Desmond organised a short four week programme with Keith Gray. The group selected was the then S3A English group. Keith and the students explored what is required to be a writer and the editing and the publishing processes, before the students each wrote a number of short stories. These were then performed at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre. The students all enjoyed working with Keith, many realised that they were capable writers, and months later they are still talking about the work they did with Keith.
Due to the success of this short introduction to working with a writer it was decided to explore the possibility of a longer residency.
A longer residency - November to May
The context
Desmond Spiers, School Librarian gives the context in which the project was set:
The school has been taking students to the Edinburgh Book Festival and to other author events for many years.
Authors have visited the school, e.g. Linda Newbery & Nicola Morgan.
Both of the above activities have only ever been occasional events, usually with no follow up.
Reading is not the most popular pastime in Craigroyston.
Some of our students do not have good adult role models.
Our students have problems with reading for meaning.
Writing ability for both creative pieces and factual answers is poor.
Finally, but not least is the lack of confidence our students have in their own abilities.

The rationale

Desmond Spiers, School Librarian, explains that they wanted a residency with Keith Gray in order to:

Expose our students to a ‘real' author, and ....
Show that they can have a connection to a professional writer.
Encourage the reading habit - show that it is fun.
Explore the writer's craft.
Inspire and enthuse.
Reinforce teaching methods-toolboxes.
Instil confidence.
Increase attainment - not just in English but across all curriculum areas.
Increase confidence in public performance to their peers and staff.

Keith Gray wanted to go ahead with the project for the following reasons:

The challenge of working with a group of students over an extended period - normally I visit a school for a day and talk to a number
of classes.
The challenge of being a ‘teacher' and enthusing about writing and the Writer's Craft.
Exposing my writing to the teenagers critical perspective, especially my new novel - a work in progress.
Trying out some of my language and word activities - given me some ideas for others.
Building up relationships with the students, and showing that as a professional writer - I was once at school like them and in the same position of ‘hating' writing.
The pleasure of seeing how their poems and stories developed over the period of the residency.

And teacher Eric Freund felt it would provide a lot of valuable opportunities too:

The pleasure of seeing how their poems and stories developed over the period of the residency.
New ideas-students AND teacher benefit from the writer's fresh perspective.
Reinforcement-having an "expert" in language arts saying many of the things the teacher says, but in a different way.
Real-world value for what is merely seen as "school-work".
Confidence building-an author who listens to and appreciates their comments and views.
Construction of language and "real-world use" of language conventions (meaning aided by use of punctuation, etc.).
A new audience.
Schooling is about practice for the adult world; but this residency gave a renewed sense of purpose to the pupils work in school - especially the experience of publishing their work and having it valued as something other than a simple exercise.

The programme

A detailed but flexible programme emerged over the weeks, in a strongly evolving partnership between Keith and the school, a programme that was responsive to the needs of pupils, teacher and writer. Keith looked at openings, developing a plot, developing characters, including the use of accent and dialect, and explored approaches to editing and improving text. Teacher Eric Freund worked with the children between sessions to help them to consolidate the skills and ideas that Keith had introduced.
If you would like to know more about how Keith can work with schools, you can contact him via e-mail: keith@creeper1.freeserve.co.uk

Pupils' work

Before . . . (August 2006)

Fight by Andrew
I was walking down the street and somebody hit me from behind and I turned round and somebody with a mask on with a bat was hitting me I spear him hit him with his bat and walked away from him but he got up and threw a stone at me I seen it and hit the stone with the bat and the stone hit him in the head and he was knocked out and I walked away.

Teacher's comment
This piece by Andrew came out of a writing exercise from the beginning of the year in which I asked the students to write for 10 minutes about a time they had experienced a "surprise." Many students wrote descriptively about a birthday party or gift they had not expected. Andrew wrote about being attacked. In his original draft he wrote a single run-on sentence which is difficult to understand, and which was far short of the amount of writing which I expected given the time. The original piece, which was typical for him, would be given a foundation level mark approaching a 5.

And after . . . (April 2007)

HOMERUN by Andrew
I was walking down the street on a cold winter's night minding my own business.
When a random guy hit me from behind.
He had a baseball bat.
I rugby challenged him.
I walked away.
He got up behind me and picked up a stone.
Threw it at me, I saw it coming and hit the stone with the bat.
And the stone hit him in the head.
I thought he was knocked out.
But he stood up.
I threw the bat.
And.
Smash.
He fell to the ground
Gushing with
Blood.
Homerun!

Teacher's comment
The recent piece was created when I asked the students to choose any writing from their jotter to turn into a poem or descriptive prose for assessment. Andrew revised it a number of times, and I asked him to read it aloud to me - and I posed questions to him: What were you doing? "Minding my own business!" I also asked him to think about varying sentence length to create tension. This final draft is a clear general level 3, perhaps approaching a credit level.

Reflections from teacher and pupils

Teacher Eric Freund reflects
Through the combined process of intensive class work and the WiR workshops there is a clear improvement in student writing achievement. As the students of 3B entered the standard grade at the beginning of the year they did so with 11-14 national assessments in E (5 students) and D (12 students) for writing. At the end of the WiR program in May 2007 all who participated (with the exception of 2 students who have fallen behind in class work due to excessive absenteeism) have achieved a credit level for the SQA Portfolio in Writing (Expressive). It is expected that the skills in writing (creatively) will transfer to other writing tasks for the portfolio. It is hoped that this will translate as an equivalent number of overall credit achievers (5 students) in English and at least General Level 3 in English for the rest. This number of Credit level students from a second top class has not been seen at Craigroyston in some years, and Credit level achievers from even the top class is not a given here.
It is also clear that many students from this school cluster consistently underachieve when it comes to assessment. Some of this may be due to a lack of self-confidence and "not-bothered" attitude, and this has been impacted in a positive way for this group, and could hopefully contribute to a "tipping-point" event for other students from the same year group.
Finally, there have been many successes which lie outside of the prescribed curriculum, with reference to social progress between an immigrant student and the camaraderie of the class itself.
The experience of working so closely with a writer was invaluable for me. Besides offering a shot of creativity to my teaching, I found working with Keith re-invigorating in terms of how I work with the pupils. The extended period of time in which we had to work allowed me to once again teach and explore in depth a genre of writing which is sometimes seen as being of secondary importance to the core requirements of discursive and functional writing for the exams. I was able to spend a majority of class time in guilt-free exploration of creative writing and found that rather than hindering the student's development in other genres, it has transferred a new sense of importance to writing across genre and subject.

The pupils reflect
We had fun.

Keith was a cool guy.

He wasn't like we expected an author to be.

Writing fiction and poetry was better than we thought it would be.

Keith wanted to hear our opinions, we are going to get a mention in his new book, which is ‘pure amazing.'

Keith made us realise that our own language is important/valuable.

We played word/language games.

We realised that we know more than we thought we did (metaphor, simile, adjectives etc).

Keith helped us understand better what Mr Freund was teaching us.

Outcomes

The project team identified the benefits of the residency:

The enjoyment the students showed.
Realisation of their own skills.
Writing improved.
Grammar and punctuation improved.
That their opinions count-Keith will be incorporating their suggestions in the final proof of his new book. The student's input will be publicly acknowledged within the book.
Increased confidence.
Public speaking - we had a presentation to the rest of S3 and staff (The few who declined to perform admitted afterwards that they could and should have taken part).
More able to relate class work and importance of English - reading and writing - to whole school and the real world outside school.
Raised attainment.

The future

The Craigroyston team has plenty of ideas about how to take this work forward to create a sustainable "writer in residence" approach that would impact on pupils at every stage of their time in the school, and across the curriculum, too:
We would like to have a permanent Writer in Residence-they could be a poet, journalist, non-fiction writer or children's fiction author.
Commence work with S1- start them off on the right foot, catch any problems early on.
Be able to work with each starting S1 and follow them throughout their school career-writer would work with them on a smaller scale in S2, S3 & S4.
Foster a long-term relationship between the writer and school over a period of years.
All staff have been consulted, and they are keen to see the writer's role expand out of the English Department. Here are some of their suggestions for future work:
Geography - writing descriptions of settings - urban/rural. Students lack basic vocabulary;
Maths - help them read for meaning. Get an author who likes maths!
ODE - writer to go out with students and then help them write creative pieces about the experience, or factual guide to place visited;
Modern Studies - look at newspapers & headlines. Difference between tabloid and broadsheet;
Learning Support - develop confidence in expanding language
Early Years - author to inspire parents about the importance of books in child's development;
Guidance - careers talk;
HE - students have problems writing factual descriptions of food preparation, as well as more creative pieces, for example about how food makes them feel.

"Pure amazing": The LiL perspective

"Pure amazing" is one pupil's comment about being acknowledged in Keith's new book, and it encapsulates the sense of enthusiasm this project generated at Craigroyston. Pupils and teachers journeyed with Keith into new territory to great effect, and developed greater confidence and understanding about writing. Keith's residency in itself was highly successful, but perhaps the real success of this project is the way in which it has been carefully built in to a wider programme aimed at raising attainment in literacy across the curriculum, giving the work of the writer real status and demonstrating a management commitment to sustaining this approach.
The project foundations were securely laid by librarian Desmond Spiers, based on research into suitable writers and knowledge of pupil needs. Communications with senior management were very effective and support duly forthcoming, ensuring the work was embedded in the wider plans of the school. Time scales were realistic, and allowed for thorough planning as well as time for teachers to build on the writer's work between sessions, ensuring new skills and concepts were explored and consolidated. Review and reflection were a natural part of the process, resulting in sessions developing in line with the needs of pupils, staff and writer alike.
The impact was monitored through meetings, discussions with pupils and sampling of work, and a noticeable increase in self-esteem and sense of identity were recorded, as well as pupils making progress in terms of quality of writing and oral work. Boys responded particularly well, wanting to extend and improve their work, completing homework and showing increased respect. Pupils who did not previously consider themselves as writers are continuing to write