It was the dreary tapping that always had me dispirited. There they were, rows of students, laptops open ‘doing’ writing. I’d like to say sound was the primary sense - tap tap tap - but really it was the absence of sound that dominated. Students, in rows, staring at screens, hunched over laptops. Stuck. Uninspired.
And then the due-date panic. All this stress from writing for assessment. That’s not how writing should be. It’s certainly not why, or how, writers write.
I remember a comment made to me by an ERO inspector when I was HOD English: ‘What are you trying to do here? Teach writing, or writers? It’s worth thinking about, because they’re not the same thing.’
How wise he was.
The key to unlocking this difference is to help students to flex and stretch their imagination. I don’t mean dream up a wondrous story when I say this. No, I mean imagination as a posture that they bring as they engage with the process of writing. In other words, seeing imagination as a disposition.
Guy Claxton, Becky Carlzon and I have selected and unpacked what we are calling the Magnificent Seven dispositions - ones we think all kids should have the opportunity to stretch as they learn at school. Imagination is one of them.
We can help students stretch Imagination by helping them wonder and think fantastically. But another way is through helping them visualise themselves as capable of being something else beyond themselves. Guy often talks about helping students go deep in their learning by creating learning contexts that allow them to think like [a scientist, historian, writer …]. If you’re familiar with his River of Learning metaphor, this is the stuff that sits below the surface. A question I have found helps teachers think about what that might look like in a practical sense is, If this was real, what would be happening?
Students writing poems — If this was real, what would be happening? Well, shouldn’t there be walks with small notebooks that gradually fill up with snippets of detail and random scribbles; time spent piecing together lines and pulling them apart; sharing of rough drafts and feedback. And fake moustaches that can be worn and other iconic, poetic wardrobe items that can be donned (back turtleneck, anyone?).
Students wanting to put together a school newsletter — If this was real, what would be happening? Well, who’s the editor? Who’s out on the beat? Where do they meet? How does the week support the process of developing articles? What can they wear?
Students writing research reports — If this was real, what would be happening? These are mostly collaborative endeavours out there in the real world, with multiple people synthesising information and pulling it together into a coherent piece.
In other words, help students get in the role. In the disposition cards we have developed to support teachers who want to take a dispositional approach, role-play is one of the strategies we have identified as being useful in helping learners to stretch Imagination.
Of course, play naturally answers the If this was real, what would be happening? question. A well chosen provocation invites learners into a new world and a few simple additions to the environment help them act with purpose in response to it. Adding in that playful dimension at the start of your lesson can be a simple way to grow Imagination.
But why would be want to do this? Especially with older kids, whose learning becomes much more ‘serious’.
When we invite Imagination into the room, we also invite each learner’s unique personality. For Imagination opens up space for wildness, for risk, for dreams, for laughter, for exploration, for connection. And so, Imagination is not just about creativity and the arts. It is a posture we can take when we engage with the world. Saying, Today, I am going to write poetry, and when I do it I am going to imagine I’m a poet, leads us to a completely different cognitive and emotional place that impacts significantly how we go about writing poems. We are writing as if we are a poet. Or, as Guy says, we are thinking like a poet.
I’ve written about this before — the power of the as if worlds. It’s a line of philosophical thought that goes back centuries. Confucius, for example, wrote about its power from the perspective of ancestor worship.
We want to help learners stretch Imagination because it helps them find themselves and how they can connect to the world. This is learning that really matters, and it can happen through writing if we create the conditions that allow learners to move cognitively and emotionally beyond writing.