“The creature writhes and snarls and tells me what I need”: a critical investigation using action research on the teaching of graphic media to support Year 8 English students’ skill at, and engagement with, creative writing.
Francis Schofield
(PGCE English, 2023-2024)
email: francisschofield25@gmail.com
Abstract
Despite its modern day cultural, scholarly and literary appreciation, graphic media is not currently assessed in its own right under the UK Key Stage 4 curriculum. This research project, however, intended to analyse whether the use of graphic media could effectively enhance pupils’ creative writing skills, as an area of English that is currently assessed at Key Stage 4. It used action research with a mixed attainment year 8 class of 30 pupils, where data was collected through in-class assessments, observations, surveys and group interviews; allowing for an effective mix of statistical, reflective and comparative data analysis. The findings of this data suggest that using graphic media effectively enabled pupils’ pre-existing visual literacy, greatly enhancing the quality of pupils’ word based creative writing. They also discovered an improved level of in-class engagement with a large variety of pupils. This project ultimately seeks to encourage teachers and practitioners to increase testing and inclusion of graphic media within the UK English curriculum, both as standalone literary media as well as to supplement other areas of the curriculum.
© Francis Schofield, 2025
The full paper is available for download as a pdf file: 205-233_Schofield