Literacy through Narrative and Creative Writing

Focusing on the main research question: ‘Can an immersive craft-focused creative-writing project lead to improved attitudes to writing and improved writing skills?’ the research team targeted one of the national priorities identified by Steiner Education Australia (SEA) for research in the area of high school. Noting as well, the broader Australia-wide call for improved literacy (Walker & Gobby, 2017) and the interest Steiner educators and researchers place on First Nations inclusion (Boland, 2015; Burnett, 2015), the research project built upon the two-tiered agenda of a small pilot literacy project run in 2014 and 2015 at the Noosa Pengari Steiner High School in Queensland with non-Indigenous students and Australian First Nations facilitators (SEA Newsletter, 2016, p.12). As in the earlier project, in this research study the research team intended to address both the issue of literacy and engagement in high school students and that of indigenous inclusivity (Rudolph & Brown, 2017). The project therefore engaged in ‘deep literacy’ by firstly, addressing the gap in cultural understanding of Indigenous knowledge and history often experienced by non-Indigenous students through a narrative and illustrative creative writing project, and secondly through engaging all students in a progressive series of creative writing exercises culminating in a narrative piece. Research findings indicate an overall improvement in attitudes to writing and improved writing capabilities as well as an increase in understanding of the creative writing process and its value.