Developing gifts and talents in English (part one).

Thomas, Peter

It's happening again--fuelled by coalitionist endorsement of deep-rooted substitutes for thinking--political tails are wagging the educational dog. The 'Free' school' is the latest extrusion from the educational posterior, trumpeting fundamentalist platitudes of faith, good manners and nice uniforms. Not, I think, a case of developing post-renaissance humane potential. As usual, the froth is packaged with the buzz-words of 'freedom', 'choice', and 'parents'. And, of course, Raising Educational Standards.

I'm not going to waste print on railing against this contemptible tosh or the assertive squeaks and splutterings of the gruesome Gove-puppet whose every appearance makes the brain shudder and the flesh wince. Rather, I want to make a plea for what is becoming a neglected priority for teachers working with real youngsters in real schools on Planet Reality. And I do want to use some appropriated words: I want to re-affirm educational freedom from Red-Top ignorance and teachers' choice of something other than Tory totems. In no way does this mean abandoning concern that parents should expect the best for their children, and it certainly embraces educational standards in terms of thought, feeling, understanding, personal satisfaction and social awareness--the things that matter more in English than the simple quantifiables of identifying a connective or spelling 'business'.

I want to steer thinking back to the craft of teaching and learning in English. In particular, I want to address what we do for our more able youngsters because it develops our ability to make all youngsters more able. In recent years, concern for top-end performance has been an aspect of the Gifted and Talented agenda, and I'm aware that the G&T tag may not have suited the educational or social priorities of all teachers. However, it has stimulated thinking and practice about challenge and progression for the ablest, and, by trickle-down, those not already able.

My take on this has been to use the funding and focus of G&T to develop strategies and resources beyond provision for an already multi-favoured elite. My aim has been to establish a teaching repertoire to develop Gifts and Talents in all. Practically, this means that teachers who can (spontaneously or by cunning preparation) demonstrate and display ('model' in the established jargon) skills at the highest level for their students become better able also to demonstrate and display the rungs below in the ladder--enabling them to guide students up the rungs of a developing skill hierarchy. It also means devising activities that allow all to work at the top of their ability and above, wherever they start in the range of assessment.

Unfortunately, several things have combined to demote provision for the special needs of the most able in the nation's educational priorities. The erosion of local authority funding and responsibility has put a stop to adviser-initiated, authority-wide events bringing students together from different schools. These events, apart from their stimulus to learning, developed self-image and ambition by creating a new peer group in which it was OK to be bright and want to do something with brightness. Additionally, the obsession with turning D-predicted youngsters into Cs to satisfy targets in league tables has become an (understandably) disproportionate major feature of daily life. It has produced artificial minimum C performance lasting for the assessment period and no longer. When Warwick University decided it would not bid to continue the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, the brief for developing research, provision and support for G&T went to CfBT. Since then, the profile of G&T work has been less evident, and CfBT's contract ran out in March 2010.

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In the absence of strong external representation of top-end curriculum development, we need to revitalise this part of the educational agenda and find motivation and support wherever it lies. Fortunately, it can be found with little looking. The new GCSE English, English language and English Literature specifications provide the easiest source of definition/description of what we can aim to develop in our students.

From this starting point, teachers can address the lack of confidence noted by OFSTED in this area and the apparent gap between enrichment on the one hand and examination success on the other:

'Across the country some teachers lack the confidence and competence to give able pupils the education they need... Consistently high-quality provision for gifted and talented pupils in secondary schools remains the exception rather than the rule.'

More specifically, the report observed that these energetic efforts led to no substantial improvement in performance--as measured by results:

'Enrichment activities have raised aspirations and involvement . but they have not yet had a marked effect on improving standards.' (2003/4 Report of HMCI)

The various mark schemes of the new specs provide some general guidance to areas of skill and graduated attainment within those skill areas. Each grade band specifies the bulleted skills-set and the key terms to identify the level of attainment within that set. For example, AQA Reading has three bulleted skills in each band: a) interpretation; b) language, structure, detail; c) contexts. Each of these skills is then qualified with a five-point hierarchy of attainment: 1 limited; 2 some; 3 clear/consistent; 4 confident/ assured; 5 sophisticated/perceptive.

These defined skills and levels of attainment help teachers and students to adjust their focus and raise their standard.

Teachers may find useful some additional over-arching concept of performance which includes the skills in a broader domain beyond technical aspects of reading and writing. The whole personal repertoire is relevant in English, including the lumpier bits of anecdote, prejudice, preference and cussed JustMe-ness.

White Hat

The neutral
one--facts,
figures,
numbers

Red Hat

The emotional
one--feelings,
hunches,
instincts,
personal views

Black Hat

The
judgemental
one--the
judge, critical,
looks for
negatives

Yellow Hat

The little ray
of sunshine
--looks for
positives,
benefits &
always sees
the good

Green Hat

The creative
one--creative
thinking, new
possibilities &
ideas

Blue Hat

The cool one
--cool, calm,
collected,
overview,
control of
steps, the
organizer

In other words, English as a subject and English assessment values a complex mix of conceptual, perceptual, attitudinal, emotional, aesthetic, moral, responses to reading and in writing. For a long time now--about 55 years--the usual source of over-riding competences has been Bloom's Taxonomy, which establishes a hierarchy of:

* Evaluation

* Synthesis

* Analysis

* Application

* Understanding

* Remembering

This taxonomy has served well enough over the years to guide teachers into task differentiation and questioning strategies, but it is worth saying that Bloom was a cognitive psychologist, not an English teacher. He was not practically interested in the whole individual who plays such a major role in our classroom life, sometimes delightfully and sometimes frustratingly. The taxonomy does help to profile many of our brightest youngsters but it is important that our brightest youngsters are also developed in ways other than the cognitive. Intellectually gifted people who are socially and emotionally less developed are no asset as citizens or Prime Ministers. Bloom's taxonomy is inadequate for two reasons: one, it is a vertical hierarchy and two, it is a cognitive hierarchy. It's not well-framed to include all the emotional and social aspects of reading and writing and talking that make up everyday English classroom experience. Better suited is the horizontal range of faculties expressed in the rather more humane and democratic taxonomy of de Bono's coloured Thinking Hats (see above).

Figure 1

I was at the Explorers' Club yesterday and I met a strange chap, a
traveller from Egypt or some antique land--been out on an
expedition.got a bit lost I think. Anyway, it was this chap who
said he'd come across this ruin of a great statue. Two vast and
trunkless legs was what he noticed first. Hewn from stone, of
course. These legs still stand in the desert and near them, on the
sand, or rather half sunk in the sand, a shattered head--or
'visage', I think he called it--lies. He was most taken with this
statue's face, whose frown and wrinkled lip made quite an
impression on him. And he described the expression as a sneer of
cold command--reckoned he could tell that its sculptor understood
the chap he was representing all right! 'Well those passions read'
was how he put it. Most of the surrounding edifice had gone but the
parts which yet survive are clear enough. This ruler's imprint was,
how did he put it, 'stamped on these lifeless things', particularly
'The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed!' And then he
noticed that on the pedestal there was an inscription. These words
appear to say: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my
works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Well, so much for that because
nothing beside the statue remains to be seen. Round the decay of
the legs and head of that colossal statue--just a wreck now--the
desert is boundless, and pretty bare I dare say. 'The lone and
level sands stretch far away,' is how he put it. A bit poetic for
an explorer I'd say, but there you go.

What helps the ablest and others in a mixed-ability classroom (i.e. nearly all classrooms) is skilful choice of activities which enable all to participate but which include possibilities of challenging high performance across a range of human attributes, not just band descriptors.

For example, using Shakespeare's 'Seven Ages of Man' speech by Jaques in As You Like It, students can devise their own seven ages based on clothes, music, food or sport. Or they could take issues with his representation of any stage in the role of the child, teenager or elderly person depicted. Or they could do graphic representations of his seven ages. The point is that there is scope here for agreement, disagreement, embellishment, improvisation, adaptation and engagement with a text in ways that favour a range of responses, and not merely cognitive responses. What students can get out of this is virtually unlimited: thinking, feeling and writing that can be confidential, reflective and autobiographical; ironic or satirical and observation; comical, tragical, philosophical (though probably not pastoral); or factual. It's an activity that prompts breadth as well as depth, and can be equally effective in graphic, prosaic or poetic modes. At all ages. And with all abilities. Here are a couple of other practical activities which have enough to engage most levels of ability, and plenty to extend and challenge the most able. I will be describing more activities in the next (February) issue of Classroom.

Figure 2

It was a beautiful morning.
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The city, St. Paul's, with the river
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
and a multitude of little boats
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
Made a most beautiful sight as we crossed
Westminster Bridge
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The houses were not overhung by their cloud
of smoke
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
Of one of nature's own grand spectacles
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
And they were spread out endlessly
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Yet the sun shone so brightly
With such a fierce light
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
That there was something like the purity

Shared authorship

Bury a poem as prose in an invented prose context. Get students to find the buried poem and explain why they think the extracted bits are poetry, not prose. See Figure 1 for my favourite example, courtesy of Trevor Millum, in which Shelley's 'Ozymandias' is buried in an anecdote. There is another one I've borrowed from Trevor Millum--and one of the best things I know to justify scissors and Pritt sticks. (Teachers who wince at this will already have decided to card and laminate.) The two texts are: the poem produced by William Wordsworth and a journal entry by his sister Dorothy, describing their reactions to the morning sights from Westminster Bridge in July 1802.

Figure 3

Dorothy Wordsworth, in her journal on July 31, 1802, described the
scene seen by her and her brother thus:

'It was a beautiful morning. The city, St. Paul's, with the river,
and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we
crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their
cloud of smoke, and they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun
shone so brightly, with such a fierce light; that there was
something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles.'

William Wordsworth's poem:

   Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
   Earth hath not anything to show more fair:
   Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
   A sight so touching in its majesty:
   This City now doth, like a garment, wear
   The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
   Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
   Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
   All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

   Never did sun more beautifully steep
   In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
   Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
   The river glideth at his own sweet will:
   Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
   And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Give students the large-font mingled texts (Figure 2) and get them to reconstruct the two separate pieces. This will engage them in teasing out the cues and clues of rhythm, rhyme, line length as well as vocabulary, syntax and sentiment. What they get into is what makes verse, well. verse. Is it just rhyme? Just syllables? Is one better than the other? Is the verse one rhyming couplets or not? (Many teachers who have done this with me have produced a plausible rhyming couplet version of Westminster Bridge.) The original versions are here in Figure 3. It's a good activity to get everyone testing out possibilities--the cognitive part of this a matter of guessing, speculating, theorising, analysing, synthesising if you like, but other verbs come to mind, such as playing, creating, interacting, justifying, preferring and enjoying.

What I'm arguing for is a bit of idealistic and pragmatic 'have your cake and eat it'; to open up thinking, feeling and languaging for the ablest and the rest in a way that has a material result in GCSE grades.

Peter Thomas

A Principal Moderator for AQA GCSE English Literature Author of The Complete Shakespearience, NATE 2010