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This month I went to Cambridge to talk to Professor Jack Zipes about my PhD in storytelling and socialization. Here is a podcast about my visit. it begins with an introduction of my work followed by a summary from Professor Zipes of his unusual career path including how he believes storytelling can benefit young people : Click for Podcast After outlining the summer school widening participation project me and Paul Whitehouse ran at Warwick University this year and our hopes to form a permanent programme in schools Professor Zipes invited me to go to Minneapolis and observe the Neighbourhood Bridges Program that he co- founded Peter Brosius, artistic director of the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis in 1997. The Neighbourhood Bridges literacy program runs from September to May each year. There are about 15 to 20 sessions per every week in different schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul in the USA. For more information please follow this link: Neighbourhood Bridges ...

‘life should be until you die’ Stated Felicity (Parfitt 2013a line. 87).   [Photo by Null Value at Flickr.com]   From an initial analysis of my focus groups young people seem to be aware of conformist and nonconformist elements in the stories— such as the compulsion to accept social “norms” and values—along with other potentially influential narratives such as media, film, television, video games, books, the internet, and education . I found it interesting that in the all-girls school Group One related the content of the stories to crime and how to treat other people. In week one whilst talking about the story MacCodram (MacIntyre 2012) the group’s conversation revolved around crime before they even reached my focus group question about conformist and nonconformist elements that they recognised in the story (lines. 82-91),             Mary   I know this is getting off the subject a bit but if you m...

Young People’s Educational Identities in Challenging Times The title of my presentation was Climbing the Beanstalk: Self-worth and Education. It was a challenge for me to think about my research in a different light. That is, how it could be related to young people’s educational identities. I largely let the students’ words speak for themselves to demonstrate that one of the themes that seemed to emerge was that a large part of their identity at school. In particular the students had an awareness of the current economic crisis and its consequences for their future. They felt under pressure to achieve academically. While some students felt supported to meet educational goals, and were therefore more confident in their futures, others did not feel supported and tended to think negatively based on the experiences of their families. As a result these young people felt powerless and frustrated, with low self-worth despite their potential. The keynote speaker was Dr Sara Delamont....

The transformations summer school hosted by Warwick University, Milburn House, and planned by Paul Whitehouse and myself took place July 2013. This was a free, two-day non-residential drama and storytelling event supported by the widening participation team in the English Department, with an additional £1000 funding from PREP (Postgraduate Researcher Enterprise Programme) raised by myself. Twenty-four pupils attended from the following schools: Tile Hill Wood School (Coventry) George Elliot School (Nuneton) Stoke Park (Coventry) Myton School (Warwick) President Kennedy School (Coventry) Bluecoat C of E School (Coventry) Slough Grammar School (Slough) We’ve had some great parent feedback about the two day event which was designed to support current year nine and ten school pupils with interests in English Literature, Drama or Theatre to consider a future in Higher Education (HE). ‘Thank you to you and the whole team for putting on such a great course. The performances ...

On the 16 th June I went to a discussion about writing emotion with Katherine Angel as part of Warwick Book Festival. Katherine gave a reading that was beautiful and frank in terms of female sexuality. The book is fragmented in structure, the resulting narrative like poetry, true, unsettling, revealing…   Listening to her reading it felt like many threads of the way I had been feeling were being woven together. How to feel one’s sexuality and be a feminist, or at least a woman who believes in equality even if I can’t relate to the word ‘feminist’, regarded as extreme… as if one dislikes men. At least in my experiences it is so when walking streets outside of the academic community. For it seems to be a woman who wants equality and being a sexual being have conflicts. Katherine’s work drew out some of these conflicts. ‘stitched into myself’ was a phrase that resonated, expressing to me the difficulty women have explaining sexuality to men and one another. I have been pon...

  This morning I went to a screening of new ITV drama Love and Marriage followed by a Q&A with writer Stewart Harcourt. Stewart voiced the same advice Professor Douglas Dunn gave me ten years ago at St Andrews—persistence. The ones that turn writing into career are the ones that don’t give up and make it through the hard times. He also talked about connecting on a personal level in one’s work, because what may seem mundane and ordinary to you might be the thing that sells it to somebody else. Stewart Harcourt’s credits include Hearts and Bones, Treasure Island for Sky, Miss Marple, Jericho, and Peak Practice. There’s a lot going on in the first episode of Love and Marriage when all I really wanted to know about was the central character’s story at the start. However by the end I loved the rich characterisation, casting was superb, and the way in which characters talked to the camera a great touch. This event was part of Coventry literary festival.

One of my contacts forwarded me this link today, a fully funded AHRC PhD position at York on my subject, storytelling and adolescence! My first reaction was complete disappointment that someone is going to be fully funded when I am working my arse off juggling part time work with my PhD. But the difference is that my PhD is my concept, I’ve done the reading, pulled together different areas and a mix of ideas from sociology to psychoanalysis and English literature. In a way this is a good thing because it speaks volumes about the relevance of my work and that there is funding out there for it.

A busy April and May and all my data collection is done, except for a few final interviews after the half term. I am currently transcribing the 15 hour’s worth of recordings: five weeks of focus groups in three different Warwickshire schools, balanced with paid work and job searching. Hence why this blog is very short!

My PhD had changed alot since the very beginning when I had what seems like a really vague idea now about storytelling and mental health. I then became interested in how stories teach people about their culture, including emotional language and understanding. I have clarified my thesis statement to: The civilisation of emotion: does traditional storytelling or do stories have an effect on how young people identify and understand the language of emotion? So in my thesis I am going to explore Arlie Hochschild’s concept of how society uses feeling in relation to young people and traditional storytelling. I intend to use Hochschild’s ideas to form a link between Jack Zipes’ application of Elias and civilitie and Bruno Bettelheim’s discussions on the possible meaning and understanding of fairy stories. While Zipes debates the behavioural influences of fairy tale literature on civilization Bettelheim’s focus was on children’s psychological maturity (which is important to well-being ...

This month I have been arranging to go into three schools to start collecting data from focus groups. I have three student storytellers on board for three schools. And I will be conducting the research in the summer term (April – May). Paul Whitehouse (English PhD student) and I have also finalised details of our summer school programme for widening participation and are applying for funding. This will include 40 students from local schools over two days. The theme is transformations as it give the students a chance to rewrite and subvert fairy tales and put together a performance of their ideas for the final day. The two days will include storytelling, performance storytelling and writing workshops, A campus tour and hopefully a bit of shadow puppet making as well.

This month I met with Jonathan Davidson, Chief Executive for Writing West Midlands . I had no idea the range of stuff they were doing it is really great to see people investing their time in supporting creativity in the area. I was especially interested in the creative writing and arts education programme they do for children and young people. I met with Jonathan to spread the word about a summer programme I am putting together with Paul Whitehouse (English). A one to two day event for adolescents which will be on the theme of Transformations and involve storytelling performances, interactive storytelling performances, discussions about folk tales and then the students will be aided in creating their own storytelling performances. We hope to host this on Warwick University campus to encourage widening participation. Things are looking harder to get funds to support my PhD research. I am currently supporting my research with part time work. I looking for a storyteller or story...

An interdisciplinary discussion of the different way people go about doing collaborative theatre work. Talkers on the panel included Omar Elerian, Associate Director of the Bush Theatre, West London, Michael Bywater , and playwright James Wilson . Inua Ellams , who wrote 13 Fairy Negro Tales , started off the evening by performing one of his fabulous poems. The discussion was about finding form, a works shape, in order to tell stories in the theatre. As one person shared with the group, this can be a fine act, ‘Covered in honey wearing moustaches singing the blues, but it all made sense at the time.’ And surprisingly to the audience too! Sounds brilliant, wish I’d seen it. Sometimes in modern theatre the ideas that you are working with can be very fragmented especially in collaborations when people have different point of view. Theatre is an organic discourse with the audience. The work, Omar Elerian said, isn’t truly finished until the final curtain falls. Different a...