Reading and Discussing Teaching practices for creative practitioners
Books invite us to imagine” bell hooks (2010)
Reading
Reading is an act of resistance and self-empowerment that is unsurprisingly privileged by the activist-writers such as Ursula K Le Guin and bell hooks[1] who inform my understanding of what it is to learn and to teach.
Engaging with assigned reading in the context of this course exposes some of the same insecurities described in the previous post around returning to the classroom, and exploring new reading material requires courage in the same way landing in the classroom does.
My neurodiversity means certain tasks–for me reading–can be energetically challenging[2] and can take a long time. For all that reading can be challenging, it is my experience that the challenge is worthwhile in all the ways described by Le Guin[3] and hooks, so finding ways to make reading possible for the greatest number of students must be a priority.
The manner in which texts were introduced provided valuable assurance. The following helped with accessibility:
- Organisation of reading materials on Moodle
- Guidance in emails
- Affirmation from tutors that it is normal to find reading challenging
- Prompts to select an alternative if the assigned text wasn’t accessible or appealing
- Variety of lengths, styles, and topics
These are all methods I have gone on to adopt in providing materials and instructions to my students. Furthermore, I’ve built on these methods to improve accessibility[4]:
- Providing images of book covers giving a visual reference
- Including audio or video links where possible
- Ensuring scans were good quality
- Staggering the introduction of supplementary or contextualising information
The bit of agency that came with being able to choose a text was liberating, and I moved from my assigned text to Orr & Shreeve’s “Teaching practices for creative practitioners” (2017) which is more aligned with my interests and practice.
The text
I identified with many of the approaches that Orr and Shreeve (2017) refer to: their discussion around ‘The Studio’ (Orr and Shreeve, 2017, pp. 90-91) and ‘The ‘real-life’ problematic’ (Orr and Shreeve, 2017, pp. 99-103) particularly resonated. Considering the spaces in which learning takes place is something I put a lot of emphasis on in planning a brief and designing the curriculum. Whilst some sessions (briefings and lectures) involve elements of transmission (frontal-teaching), most sessions I plan are weighted towards student-centred activities, fostering peer-led feedback, and building student’s inter- and independence[5], and many involve other environments such as galleries, museums, archives, and other sites[6] that present students with contexts they’re likely to encounter once they’ve graduated.
Orr & Shreeve describe the complexity of modelling ‘professional’ activities through the spaces of practice in a higher education context, identifying “knowledge is mutable, contested, and definitely sticky in its cultural settings” (Orr and Shreeve, 2017, p. 100). Their work provides me with a helpful opening to explore this stickiness as I work towards a public presentation with year 2 students at the end of this academic year.
Reflecting on our readings in a workshop setting, as I do with my students, provided opportunities for community building and to gain insight through peers’ perspectives. I was conscious that not all participants engaged equally, so another reflective exercise apart from discussion, such as time to journal individually, could be valuable.
Images of texts provided to students
References
hooks, b. (2010) ‘The Joy of Reading’ in Teaching Critical Thinking, London: Routledge, pp.127-133
Kennedy, C (2024) Supporting Neurodiverse Students: Inclusive Practices for Retention and Success, London College of Communication, 16th December
Le Guin, U K. ‘The Operating Instructions’, in Thomas More, Utopia (London: Verso 2016), pp. 211–216.
Orr, S and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum, London: Routledge
Rosenberg, M. B. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life (3rd ed.). PuddleDancer Press
Exhibitions
Gathering Ground (2025), [Exhibition]. Tate Modern, London. 29th January 2025 – 4th January 2026
Podcasts
The Blindboy. ‘How I navigate my mental health using Turkish arse lozenges’. The Blindboy Podcast, 4th December 2024
Websites
Rhizome (2016). Net Art Anthology. Available at: https://anthology.rhizome.org (Accessed 24th February 2025)
UbuWeb (1996) Available at: https://www.ubu.com (Accessed 24th February 2025)
[1] In the chapter “The Joy of Reading” in Teaching Critical Thinking (2010), bell hooks reminds us of the importance of supporting literacy: “Reading allows every citizen of this nation and the world to assume civic responsibility. We cannot be proper stewards of our environment, caring for self and the world, without the ability to read.” (hooks, 2010, p. 132)
[2] In an episode of The Blindboy Podcast from December 2024, the host describes how energy is expended disproportionately on certain tasks for neurodivergent people. He calls it neurodivergent burnout, saying: “I experience burnout as what’s called a loss of executive functioning skills. I don’t like that fucking word or that phrase, it doesn’t sound human. When I say executive functioning skills, I can hear people switching off. It sounds like something that happens to a vending machine, not a human being. I become confused and ditsy.”
[3] Ursula K Le Guin describes the primacy of reading regardless of the medium or manner, in a talk she gave in 2000 called ‘The Operating Instructions’, saying “The technology is not what matters. Words are what matter. The sharing of words. The activation of imagination through the reading of words. The reason literacy is important is that literature is the operating instructions. The best manual we have.” (Le Guin, 2000)
[4] In doing so I’ve drawn on a presentation by Carys Kennedy at a Talking Teaching training session held at London College of Communication on 16th December 2024 in working towards an “inclusive learning environment: an environment that considers and addresses the needs of all students” (Kennedy, 2024) and the UAL guidance for inclusive teaching and learning to improve access to resources.
[5] As discussed in the previous blog, Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg, 2015) methodologies are embedded in the curriculum in various ways that encourage students to develop autonomy through collaborative and interdependent activities. Exercises such as “as I hear you say that” encourage compassionate dialogical practices, whilst check-ins support community building that acknowledges students are people with lives not only in the classroom setting. Agreements and aspirations which I discuss in Case Study 1, provide a forum to discuss the values we want to bring to the learning environment.
[6] In the year two unit I’m running I’ve arranged trips to Tate Modern to see the Gathering Ground exhibition featuring Abbas Zahedi’s installation ahead of his workshop in term 3. Students visit the art space and independent bookshop, Forma, ahead of a talk from one of their curators, Antonia Shaw, and a public presentation of student work at Forma at the end of the unit. I conducted an online tour of digital art archives Rhizome and UbuWeb as part of a lecture on Net Art and archival research.