Abstract

What I hoped to demonstrate was that the IWT Writing and Thinking pedagogy has a place at the table with the hands-on, Level 2 vocational courses as a part of core skills delivery, in a way that engages with the lesson content in a meaning-making and generative way. Could writing and thinking be a constructive and valued part of the core-skills delivery, as a part of outdoors-based vocational Level 2 courses, at an innovative, start-up institution with climate change at its very heart?

This study reflects on a year-long project that set out to ascertain the efficacy of applying writing and thinking in a setting where ‘learning by doing’ was at the very centre of two courses, Regenerative Horticulture alongside Coppicing and Greenwood Trades. Core skills sessions—a mandatory part of student entitlement on both courses—provided the opportunity for my experimentation to take place at the start of each week on a Monday morning.

A range of writing and thinking strategies were engaged with over three terms. Private free writing, dialectical notebooks, loop, focused free and reflective writing all provided opportunities to engage with core skill content in a way that helped to facilitate meta-cognitive spaces, more than the students perhaps realised. At different points in the study, writing and thinking strategies showed they were able to connect, like, the values and ethos at the heart of BMC and the experienced and lived world of the students. It helped to explore possibilities, to pose questions and encourage empathy across climate-focused topics that by their very nature, were challenging and pressing.

What I found was that writing and thinking is able to dovetail into the manifold approaches to teaching and learning that are evolving at BMC, in a way that helps to further nurture curiosity, build collaboration and engage deeper thinking. Writing and thinking could be successfully used as a part of a tool kit, one that serves to bridge, connecting ideas and reflections between a wide range of topics and foci. This would help in establishing and developing a meaningful, complementary practice to that already evolving at the college.

Given beneficial conditions and pitch appropriate delivery, writing and thinking can work beautifully at this level.