Hearts, Minds and ‘My Hands’: Narrating the Literary Sociability of a Creative Writing Lesson

Abstract

This essay explores an English lesson I taught to a Year 9 class in which students drew upon and narrativised personal experiences. I describe and examine the literary sociability of the lesson, by which I mean the social and cultural exchanges that give shape to students’ reading and writing. In doing so, I demonstrate the need for policymakers to treat school English as a social practice and to make students’ experiences central to the curriculum.