The idea of literacy development as the responsibility of all teachers, one of the core features of the curriculum reform in Scotland, is a challenging one for many secondary English and non-English specialists alike. While the perception of the English department as a service industry for the rest of the school, ensuring that young people are proficient in reading, writing, grammar and spelling, is almost a thing of the past, for some English teachers the thought of other subject specialists ‘teaching’ language skills is a threat to their own professionalism and perhaps even a dereliction of duty. At the same time, while many non-English specialists had happily embraced their role in the development of literacy long before the birth of Curriculum for Excellence, many others are reluctant to accept the responsibility, believing it to be somebody else’s job.

The language of the science outcomes demands sophisticated literacy skills

Arguably, the tensions described above were an inevitable consequence of the decision to maintain, more or less, the curriculum areas which existed before the review and, broadly speaking, the same departmental structures, to the extent that not even the nomenclature was up for debate – how relevant for example is the title ‘Home Economics’  for an area of study which is actually more relevant than ever in terms of healthy eating and wellbeing, but has a title which is not only years but decades out of date? Likewise Religious and Moral Education, which certainly needs to drop the ‘R’ word, and probably the ‘M’ word as well if it is to be taken seriously, since surely it is in fact Philosophy if it is being done properly.                

The same  is true to a great extent of English and English teaching. As someone who was proud to describe himself as an English teacher for many years, I was never entirely clear about my role, and I’m not sure that anyone else was either, the title itself suggesting …well, everything under the sun really. Was I teaching literature, or language, or media studies, or grammar, or spelling, or handwriting, or theatre?  The answer of course was all of them, and more or less in the order of priority which suited me and not the learners. It was great fun but somehow lacking in focus.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to rectify this confusion has been missed this time around, or perhaps was seen as a step too far; so instead we have two separate frameworks, Literacy and English as well as Literacy across Learning, which leads anyone outside of the educational establishment, and even some of those inside it, to the conclusion that there are literacy skills taught by English teachers and another, possibly less important, kind of literacy which is the responsibility of everyone else. (In actual fact the additional responsibility English teachers have is for the the study of literature, which is a separate matter).

This continued separation of roles is an artificial construct, and is not helpful. However, when you look at the language of the outcomes for all curriculum areas, the responsibilities seem clear enough. If I am a science teacher, for example, and a third level outcome for a learner in science says “I can produce a reasoned argument on the likelihood of life existing elsewhere in the universe” that would suggest to me that I have a responsibility not only to provide opportunities for that to happen, nor even simply to assess the extent to which the learner is able to do it, but to teach the skills required to produce a reasoned argument (which might include research skills; the ability to distinguish between fact and opinion; notetaking; summary; editing; presentation skills; dealing with feedback and many others). If I feel unable to do that at the moment, there is a definite and specific training need, and it is one which should be addressed as a matter of urgency. Unless, of course, your understanding of the responsibilities is different from mine.

The merging of digital technologies and traditional storytelling took another leap forward recently when Japan’s Mobile Arts Lab announced the PhoneBook, which works by inserting the Apple iPhone into the pages of a story book, allowing the child reader to interact with the changing background, or to change the background of the story by tilting the book. The creators of the book claim that most iPhone apps are targeted at adults, while this is an opportunity for parents to connect with their children through the age-old art of storytelling with a modern technological twist. The combination of print and visual media is yet again forcing us to re-think our familiar and  once discrete worlds of books, pictures, films and music, as well as blurring the edges between the processes of reading, watching and creating. What strikes me when watching the film clip is that while the book would seem to lend itself to rich discussion and the beginnings of a growing vocabulary so vital for literacy development in the early years, it’s the quality of the dialogue between the parent and the child which will determine that – the technology, as always, only provides a richer context.

“I know only one thing about the technologies that await us in the future. We will find ways to tell stories with them.” - Jason Ohlar.

On Friday I had the pleasure to return to the beautiful isle of Islay to lead  a staff development day on Literacy with the staff of Islay High School and its associated primary schools. Like most of the profession in Scotland at the moment they are beginning to realise the significant implications of the  Curriculum for Excellence reforms, and are wrestling with some of the central issues, such as the notion of literacy development as the responsibility of all, and what that might look like in practical terms.

I hope I was able to demonstrate that the development of literacy is quite explicit in all of the curriculum frameworks, so in a sense there is no escaping that responsibility, no matter what sector you work in or what subject you teach, but the challenges for primary and secondary teachers are quite different, something which I will return to in another blog post. In the meantime, however, if people are to embrace that responsibility, the whole school community, including parents, must first come to a common understanding of what it is to be literate in 2010, what it might mean to be literate in 2020 and beyond, and to develop a common language around it. Here is an outline of my initial presentation to the staff - I would welcome your thoughts on it:

• The definition of  ’literacy’ in Curriculum for Excellence is “the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language which society values and finds useful.” 
• The Literacy framework recognises that the meaning of ‘text’ has to include the huge range of texts with which we engage on a daily basis, and that we should use a range of texts to reflect  this in our learning and teaching.
• We live in a society where the image is becoming the dominant means of communication, and where once we used pictures to illustrate our written texts, increasingly we are using written text to illustrate the pictures.
• Most of us engage with moving image texts more than any other form of text in any given day, so the development of literacy skills in young people should recognise that fact.
• What links all of these texts is that they are all a form of narrative, so when we develop literacy skills in young people what we are developing is the set of skills which will enable them to engage critically with the range of narratives which are in the world, and to be able to construct their own effective narratives.
• As teachers we also learn, and teach, through narratives, and the quality of the narrative will determine the effectiveness of the learning. To put it simply, there is a range of ways to tell a story, and we should use all the tools at our disposal to make it as good a story as possible, whether the story is a fictional one, or the story of Ohm’s Law, or the story of the First World War.

I would like to thank the staff on Islay for engaging so willingly and positively with some tough questions and activities, including subjecting themselves to a spelling test! You are in a very good place, literally and metaphorically,to show the rest of us how collaborative working is the only way we can make progress, how new technologies make it easier for us to share both ideas and information, and how the the new vision of the curriculum is much more dependent on the quality of the relationships in a community and not about mechanical processes. Slainte!

To see all the photographs from the event click here.

I had a really enjoyable morning in Perth yesterday when I linked up with an old friend and colleague Tom Renwick of MathsOnTrack to present a joint seminar on Literacy and Numeracy in Curriculum for Excellence. It was a bit of an experiment for both of us, as we had a notion that the skills and strategies required to develop numeracy and literacy were not so very different, but we had prepared separately, so in the event anything was possible.

Fortunately the delegates, who ranged from primary teachers and headteachers to secondary English, maths and science specialists were happy to throw themselves enthusiastically into the discussion and to help us debate the issues. Whether it was guessing the weight of a golfball or trying to work out how many golf courses there are in the USA, it was agreed that the quality of the thinking was very much dependent on the quality of the language being brought to bear. Likewise, in devising strategies to improve reading, the idea of looking for patterns in a text had resonances in looking for patterns in number. 

We examined in detail the language of the learning outcomes for numeracy and mathematics, and concluded that they are as much about literacy as they are about number, and at the end of the morning, when we asked the question, “Does it make sense to discuss literacy and numeracy together?” the answer appeared to be a resounding YES. Thanks to all those who turned out on a cold damp morning. Hope you have taken something away with you to benefit yourselves and your schools.

Proof yet again this week from the USA –  if more proof were needed – of the flawed logic of equating improvements in test scores with improvements in literacy, or indeed of believing that literacy can be improved by legislation.  According to a CNN report, one of the net effects of George W Bush’s flagship education act, No Child Left Behind,  is actually a lowering rather than a raising of standards. The act states that every child must be proficient in reading and maths by 2014, and schools which fall short of that target are subject to financial penalties. What would you do in that situation, faced with cuts in what is already a meagre budget, especially if your school was in one of the more deprived areas of the country? Exactly. In almost a third of states, the test score required for “proficiency” was lowered to the point where almost every student was able to pass, and since states are responsible for setting and assessing their own tests, this was not difficult to achieve. The end result was that in one state the score required for proficiency was 70% of that required in a neighbouring state.

Source: New York Public Library: 1920s

What I find quite depressing about this story is not just the scramble to improve test scores, the desperation of governments and politicians to be seen to be improving standards, or the schools’ attempts to massage the figures and hang on to their budgets, but the fact that the most immediate concern of the CNN reporter, assuming to speak on behalf of parents if not the nation, is to find a way of making the test scores more reliable, robust and “standardised”, rather than engaging in a genuine debate about what it actually means to be proficient in reading, why it is necessary, and how it might be achieved for all young people.

It couldn’t happen here, could it?

Related Articles

Read the full CNN report by Randy Kaye here

Read Jaye Richards on Future Models of Assessment here

Reflecting on a very enjoyable seminar in sunny – yes literally – Edinburgh on Saturday. There was an excellent turnout for a Saturday morning, proving yet again that if teachers feel that they have an opportunity to learn something new or hear a different slant on learning and teaching they will seek it out, even if it means giving up some of their leisure time. There was a real buzz in the room, and it wasn’t entirely down to the air conditioning system, as delegates wrestled with the reading strategies and were asked to re-think the whole notion of literacy, reading and texts in a society where electronic media are becoming the norm, rather than the exception. To paraphrase David Warlick, this isn’t about using or embedding technology, it’s about re-defining literacy.

The morning was made all the more enjoyable for me by the presence of my good friends Mike Coulter of Digital Agency, who came along to take some photos, and Dave Terron, an English teacher at Elgin Academy, who spoke about his work in school with Inanimate Alice ,Samorost and Machinarium, as well as providing an excellent starter sheet for participants. Thanks to both of them for their contributions. Thanks also to Mike for the Flickr slideshow. You can see more of his photo sets by clicking here. You can see more of my photo sets by clcking on any of the photographs under My Photos in the other column.

Just putting the finishing touches to my Reading Strategies presentation for the seminar in Edinburgh tomorrow. I am so looking forward to it – I haven’t been this excited since…well, since I had an email from WordPress the other day to tell me my last blogpost had been promoted to their home page. I must admit I couldn’t help feeling a bit good about that, since they have about a quarter of a million blogs to choose from and the same number of posts every day.
Anyway, enough of that. The reading strategies seminar will be a look at the importance of narrative, why we tell stories, why people have the (wrong) impression that boys don’t read, and whether there are certain key reading strategies which can be applied in all contexts. I think you know my answer to that, but you’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out. I’ll post a full version of the presentation in due course, and I’ll ask delegates to comment here on what they think of the seminar. In the meantime here’s a quick summary of the topics I’m hoping to cover in the course of the morning. Look forward to meeting you if you’re going to be there.

I’ve been working on a seminar for teachers called “Snow White and the Seven Reading Strategies”, which is an exploration of the processes we automatically engage in as sophisticated readers, but which are not always made explicit to developing readers. It’s my contention that if they were, and if they were rehearsed often enough, they would provide young readers with an understanding of why reading is so important and how it relates to their development in the world. Central to this view is the notion that “reading” applies to all forms of text – written, audio, visual or digital – and that in order to understand how we read, we need first to come to an understanding of why we read, and why we tell stories. Which, as it happens, is the sub-title of Christopher Booker’s amazing study of books and reading, The Seven Basic Plots.

It is a hugely ambitious task, and some would argue that it fails in its ultimate goal, which is to convince us that every successful story ever told or written or filmed can be categorised under one of only seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster; Rags to Riches; The Quest; Voyage and Return; Comedy; Tragedy and Rebirth. However, whether you end up agreeing with Booker or not, it is a fascinating 700-page journey through the history of story-telling.

If you want to know what the key elements of each of the plots are, but don’t particularly want to read the book, here is a summary:

 One -  Overcoming the Monster

“The realm of storytelling contains nothing stranger or more spectacular than this terrifying, life-threatening, seemingly all-powerful monster whom the hero must confront in a fight to the death.”

 Genres: War, Hollywood Western, Thriller, Science Fiction

 Plot Structure:

• Anticipation stage (newspaper report etc)
• Dream stage (still a remote threat)
• Frustration stage (enormity of task)
• Nightmare stage (all seems doomed)
• Miraculous Escape (and death of the monster)

Examples: Greek myths (Perseus/Medusa, Theseus and the Minotaur etc); Frankenstein; Dracula; The Magnificent Seven; Jurassic Park; Jaws; The Three Musketeers; The Bond stories; Star Wars; War of the Worlds; Quatermass and the Pit; The Towering Inferno; Fairy Tales inc Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk.

 Two – Rags to Riches

 “Again and again in the storytelling of the world we come across a certain image which seems to hold a peculiar fascination for us. We see an ordinary, insignificant person, dismissed by everyone as of little account, who suddenly steps to the centre of the stage, revealed to be someone quite exceptional.”

Common features:

• we meet the hero or heroine when they are still very young – the story is about “growing up”
• they are at the bottom of the heap – often the youngest child
• they are usually overshadowed by a “dark figure” or dominant character (wicked stepmother, jealous rival etc) who fails to see the true qualities of the main character because of their own egocentricity

 Plot Structure:-

The story tends to fall into two distinct stages, separated by a central crisis, where in Part One there is an initial rise in the hero’s fortunes, showing a glimpse of what might be possible, when a crisis occurs which seems to snatch away all hope of a happy ending, before, in Part Two, the hero is unwittingly prepared for their final reversal of fortune, emergence into the light and glorious state of completeness.

Familiar Stages of Plot:

•  Initial wretchedness and the “call”
•  Out into the world – initial success
•  The central crisis
•  Independence and final ordeal
•  Final union, completion and fulfilment

Examples: The Ugly Duckling; My Fair Lady; Dick Whittington, Superman; David Copperfield; Cinderella; The Gold Rush; Jane Eyre.

 Three – The Quest

“No type of story is more instantly recognizable to us than a Quest. Far away, we learn, there is some priceless goal, worth any effort to achieve: a treasure; a promised land; something of infinite value. From the moment the hero learns of this prize, the need to set out on a long, hazardous journey to reach it becomes the most important thing to him in the world.”

 Common Features:

Unlike other kinds of stories, the hero is usually accompanied by one or more friends who may be -

• a large number of anonymous helpers ( or army)
• an alter-ego or close friend (Hamlet/Horatio)
• a foil or opposite of the hero
• a group whose various characteristics complement each other and add up to “the whole”

In addition to all the negative figures the hero and his companions meet on the journey, they also meet (and are helped by) others, usually in the form of “an old man” and “a young woman”.

NB. One of the most surprising things about the Quest plot is that the journey only makes up half the story. The entire second half of The Odyssey for example describes what follows when Odysseus arrives incognito back on his island to find his kingdom in near total disarray.

 Plot Structure:

• The Call – the hero receives a sign that he must make a long and difficult journey to save a community/country/planet etc
• The Journey – the hero and his companions set out across hostile terrain and face a series of life-threatening ordeals (these usually fall into one of four categories – monsters, temptations, the “deadly opposites” or journey to the underworld)
• Arrival and Frustration – the hero arrives within sight of his goal but a new set of obstacles presents itself
• The Final Ordeals – the hero has to undergo a final series of tests (often 3) to prove he is worthy of the prize
• The Goal – after a last “thrilling escape from death” the treasure, or the princess, or the goal is won

 As with’ Overcoming the Monster’ and’ Rags to Riches’, the hero of ‘The Quest’ begins with a sense of constriction, experiences a sense of enlargement as he moves out into the world, faces a final, more serious sense of constriction in the final ordeal, before becoming liberated and overthrowing the dark forces and reaching a state of light or fulfilment.

Examples: Homer’s Odyssey; Pilgrim’s Progress; Treasure Island; Lord of the Rings; Raiders of the Lost Ark; Watership Down; Around the World in Eighty Days

Four – Voyage and Return

 “The essence of the Voyage and Return story is that its hero or heroine (or the central group of characters) travel out of their familiar, everyday, “normal” surroundings into another world completely cut off from the first, where everything seems disconcertingly abnormal. At first the strangeness of this new world, with its freaks and marvels, may seem diverting, even exhilarating, if also highly perplexing. But gradually a shadow intrudes. The hero or heroine feels increasingly threatened, even trapped, until eventually (usually by way of a “thrilling escape”) they are released from the abnormal world and can return to the safety of the familiar world where they began.”

 Common Features:

Voyage and Return stories tend to fall into two categories; stories which describe a journey to a distant land beyond the known world, and those which describe a journey to a magical or imaginary world closer to home (often children’s stories).

NB. A variation of the above is the “social Voyage and Return” where the journey takes the hero or heroine into a different social milieu (eg Waugh’s Decline and Fall or Brideshead Revisited; Greene’s The Third Man; L P Hartley’s The Go-Between).

 Plot Structure:

• Anticipation stage – the “fall” into other world (through sleepiness, boredom, recklessness etc)
• Initial Fascination or Dream stage – hero is initially curious
• Frustration stage – mood of adventure changes to one of frustration, difficulty and oppression
• Nightmare stage – serious threat to hero’s survival
• Thrilling Escape and Return – how have they learned from the experience?

Examples: Alice in Wonderland; Goldilocks and the Three Bears; The Time Machine; Gone with the Wind; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner; The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; The Wizard of Oz; Lord of the Flies; Robinson Crusoe; Journey to the Centre of the Earth; Gulliver’s Travels.

Five – Comedy

“Comedy is a very special kind of story. It isn’t simply any kind of story which is funny. Some very funny stories have quite different kinds of plots….but what it is that shapes the plot of Comedy, that provides the common bond between say, a Marx Brothers film and a play by Shakespeare, an American musical and a novel by Jane Austen, a Mozart opera and a story by P G Wodehouse, requires a little unraveling…”

“What we are looking at when confronted by a fully developed Comedy is not unlike a jigsaw puzzle. By the time a jigsaw is complete, it seems obvious that there is only one way it could have ended up, with each piece in its proper place and fitting perfectly together with all the others. In Comedy, the key to bringing this to light is the process of ‘recognition’…”

 “The essence of Comedy is always that some redeeming truth has to be brought out of the shadows into the light.”

 Plot Structure:

• We see a world where people have passed under a shadow of confusion, uncertainty and frustration, and are shut off from one another
• The confusion gets worse until the pressure of darkness is at its most acute
• Finally, with the coming to light of things not previously recognised, perceptions are dramatically changed. The shadows are dispelled, the situation is miraculously transformed and the little world is brought together in a state of joyful union.

Examples: Shakespeare’s Comedies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Twelfth Night; The Merchant of Venice etc); The Marriage of Figero; Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; War and Peace; The Importance of Being Earnest; Marx Brothers; Some Like it Hot; Four Weddings and a Funeral.

 Six – Tragedy

“Sooner or later, in any attempt to explore the deeper patterns which shape story-telling, we are brought up against one central, overwhelming fact. This is the way in which, through all the millions of stories thrown up by the human imagination, just two endings have far outweighed all others. Either it ends with a man and a woman united in love. Or it ends in a death.”

 Plot Structure:

• Anticipation stage – the hero is in some way incomplete or infulfilled
• Dream stage – for a while things seem to go improbably well
• Frustration stage – almost imperceptibly things start to go wrong
• Nightmare stage – things are slipping seriously out of the hero’s control. He has a mounting sense of threat and despair
• Destruction and Death Wish stage – the hero is destroyed, either by forces he has aroused against him or by some final act of violence

Examples: Greek myth of Icarus; Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde; Lolita; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Bonnie and Clyde; Shakespeare’s Tragedies (Romeo and Juliet; Macbeth; King Lear etc)

Seven – Rebirth

 “A hero or heroine falls under a dark spell, which eventually traps them in some wintry state, akin to a living death: physical or spiritual imprisonment, sleep, sickness or some other form of enchantment. For a long time they languish in this frozen condition. Then a miraculous act of redemption takes place, focused on a particular figure who helps to liberate the hero or heroine from imprisonment. From the depths of darkness they are brought up into glorious light.”

 Plot Structure:

• A young hero or heroine falls under the shadow of the dark power
• For a while everything seems to go reasonably well; the threat may even seem to have receded
• Eventually it returns again in full force, until the hero or heroine is seen imprisoned in the state of living death
• This continues for a long time, when it seems that the dark power has completely triumphed
• Finally comes the miraculous redemption either, where the imprisoned figure is a heroine, by the hero, or where it is the hero, by a young woman or a child

 The power of the Rebirth story is in the contrast between the condition of the hero or heroine in their frozen or imprisoned state and the moment when the liberation begins.

 Common/Contrasting Imagery

Coldness/Warmth      Hardness/Softness          Despair/Hope

Immobility/Movement      Constriction/Liberation

Sleep/Awakening     Darkness/Light      Sickness/ Health    Decay/Growth

Isolation/Conjoining      Torment/ Happiness      Lack of love/Love

Examples: Sleeping Beauty; Snow White; The Frog Prince; Beauty and the Beast; The Snow Queen; A Christmas Carol; Crime and Punishment; The Secret Garden

So there you have it. Can you think of any stories which don’t come in to one or more of these categories? Incidentally, the reason we tell stories is covered in the second half of the book and is a whole new blog post. I’m sure I’ll get round to it.

A few weeks ago I wrote about an online adventure game called Samorost, and its potential as a stimulus for creative writing, storytelling, problem-solving and the development of talking and listening skills. After months of speculation and anticipation Amanita,the makers of Samorost, have just released Machinarium, an even more mind-boggling adventure narrative with a science fiction theme. The basic premise of the game is that a little robot figure has been unjustly dumped on a scrap heap behind the city, and the player has to rebuild him before helping him return to the town, where he must prevent the criminal Black Cap Brotherhood from blowing up the residence of the town ruler. And following the true plot structure of the Quest he must also rescue his robot girlfriend, of course.
Like Samorost, the game is played by pointing and clicking the mouse at certain objects in sequence to progress to the next level. The player must help the robot to solve a series of puzzles while discovering the reasons for his plight and the urgency of his return. Again, the graphics are stunning in their detail, colour and texture, and, unusually for a computer game, the soundtrack is more than just a background annoyance (in fact it is a work of art in its own right and available as a separate download). The game is more complex than Samorost, and although there is no spoken dialogue, it has been enhanced by pop-up thought balloons, an inventory of items which the player has to collect, and, thoughtfully, a clue to help you on each level if you are really stuck, but even here you have to work your way through a mini-arcade game to unlock the secret. Prepare to be enthralled.

Watch a short trailer here (note that the visual quality does not compare to the actual game).

You’ve read the book, you may have seen the film. Now read/watch the “vook”. The digitisation of books began with the advent of e-readers like Kindle and Sony, which can hold dozens of books in one hand-held device, but which largely reproduced the format of a traditional, print-based book with occasional illustrations. All of that is about to change, however, as publishers increasingly look to attract new readers with the “vook”, which is effectively a combination or “mash-up” of text, video and web-based media for a more interactive experience. Responses to the new format have so far been very mixed, reminiscent of the old book versus film debates, with advocates of the book arguing that it is always preferable to create your own images than to have someone else create them for you. The advantages of the mult-modal format may be more obvious for non-fiction texts, such as cookery or fitness books,but does it really work for fiction, or in an educational context?

To read more about vooks and the debates surrounding them click on this link to the full article in The New York Times.

One group of people who are thoroughly convinced that multimedia texts are the way ahead are the creators of Inanimate Alice, a digi-novel in ten episodes, each one of them a self-contained chapter in the life of Alice and her digital friend Brad. The narrative takes Alice as an eight-year-old who lives with her parents in remote Northern China, and brings her through various global adventures to the point where, in her twenties, she is an animator with the biggest games company in the world. Increasing in difficulty and interactivity as the reader progresses, it is claimed that the story appeals to a wide range of readers, and it comes with an impressive educational support pack, free to teachers. Click on the image for more details, and please let them, and me, know what you think.