NATE is delighted to support the launch of Beyond the Essay: Creative-Critical Teaching, a major new international project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council
Over the next three years, we will be working with Thomas Karshan at University of East Anglia and Kate Bomford at the Institute of Education on Beyond the Essay, an ambitious initiative, which aims to rejuvenate the study of literature in schools and universities by researching, facilitating, and championing creative-critical teaching practices. These include writing in style, recreative writing, writing-in-role, adaptation, and many others.
The project will work across schools and universities to rethink the place of creative-critical practice in literary study. The team will trace the teaching of literature from the ancient world to the present, exploring how practices such as imitation, paraphrase, translation, and composition shaped both literature itself and the ways it has been understood. The project will produce the first history of the teaching of literature from antiquity to the present focused on the relationship between what we now call creative and critical teaching.
Working with teachers and students, the team will then develop approaches to teaching literature in schools and universities that draw on these traditions, exploring the inclusive potential of creative-critical techniques and the ways they can raise engagement and attainment. This work will include classroom-based research across schools and universities, alongside the development of open-access teaching resources and a guide to creative-critical teaching. Collaborating closely with exam boards, the project will test the assumption that the essay is the only objective mode of assessment and develop new approaches for creative-critical writing.
Thomas and Kate are looking for teachers and schools who would like to take part in the project by hosting visits, and if capacity allows, by being part of the classroom research strand. Please register your interest by signing up.
NATE is proud to be working alongside the project’s partners, including the English Association, University English and the English and Media Centre — as well as awarding bodies OCR, Pearson, AQA, and WJEC/Eduqas — to reimagine teaching and assessment from KS3 through to MA level, and to influence national policy. This work builds on NATE’s long-standing commitment to innovative and creative approaches to English teaching, stretching back to the 1960s.
The project team is currently inviting applications for a full-time, three-year Senior Research Associate position based at University of East Anglia.