‘Thoroughly comprehensive and pretty valuable’, ‘interesting rather than immediately useful’, ‘productive and entertaining’ were some of the ways in which the Warwick University students described their experience of The Canterbury Tales Study Day which took place at the beginning of their Spring Term. The event was one of the first to take place under the auspices of the CAPITAL Centre, bringing together resources provided by the Royal Shakespeare Company with the teaching and learning process at Warwick University. The study day coincided with the Stratford run of the RSC touring production of The Canterbury Tales, adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by three directors, with Gregory Doran at the helm. The play, very unusually, included all of Chaucer’s tales and was staged in two full evening performances.
Although primarily envisaged as a means of enhancing the learning process of second-year English Literature students taking a 30-credit Chaucer module, the study day was deliberately conceived in such a way that it could provide multiple entry points for a combination of students. The fact that the project involved a contemporary writer/adaptor made it relevant to a group of second-year Creative Writing students. We also capitalised on the popular appeal of the production by involving a group of first-year students on a compulsory Medieval to Renaissance Literature module which included Chaucer.
The day had a three-part structure. The first contextual session involved a series of 20-minute introductions from Dr Sue Niebrzydowski, lecturer in Medieval Literature at Warwick, the writer Mike Poulton and assistant director Donnacadh O’Briain. After lunch the students divided into two groups, having previously signed up for a practical session of their choice. Mike Poulton and a group of actors worked with their student group on adaptation techniques – which included reading and commenting on samples of students’ work; while Donnacadh O’Briain and myself worked with the second group on textual interpretation, utilising rehearsal techniques in the students’ reading of a chosen tale. Interestingly the students’ choices of a practical session were not necessarily predictable – some of the Creative Writing students chose to attend the director’s session and vice versa. Notably however, Sue Niebrzydowski also chose to participate in the session dealing with practical approaches to text alongside some of her own students. The final session of the day was a simple Q&A session involving members of the creative team as well as the actors Mike Hadfield who played Chaucer, Paula Dionisotti (the Prioress) and Nick Barber (the Young Squire). The various perspectives on both the original text and the current production facilitated a lively discussion.
While interdisciplinarity carries its own appeal as an idea – offering opportunities for cross-fertilisation, broadening of horizons and diversification of the existing learning models – in practice, it repeatedly proves to be problematic. Possible advantages can often easily be seen as disadvantages too. While a lot of the students on this occasion expressed appreciation and enthusiasm at being given an opportunity to ‘learn from the RSC professionals’, one respondent highlighted the benefit of having had an academic perspective on the text while another complained of the ‘one-sided’ nature of the event (referring to the evident RSC bias to the day as a whole). Additionally, a second year English Literature student thought the day would have been more useful to a drama student while a creative writing student found he benefited from the day ‘more as an academic than as a writer’. Some complained the day was too structured, others wished they had been made to go and see the play beforehand.
First years tended to have had the most open-minded, enthusiastic and appreciative responses to the day’s content and structure. The tutor for the Chaucer module, Dr Niebrzydowski, wrote that she found the event ‘very useful’, outlining five very precise seminar tasks and issues she was able to structure into the course as a result of her students’ attendance of the theatre trips and the study day. She also mentioned the possibility of ‘building in of a performance related question into the assessment that can be adapted in future years to take into account the BBC Chaucer Tales and the animated version’.
As far as our own learning outcomes are concerned, this event has highlighted the following: unless they are in their first year and inherently open to a variety of teaching approaches, students need to see a direct correlation between the educational event they are attending and their own course objectives and existing learning styles and requirements. In order to have the desired educational impact, any additional educational event should be built into the course structure and linked to the assessment strategies. The role and input of the course leader in the conception of such an educational event is paramount.
It is worth noting that the attitudes of students in HE are changing radically – at a £3,000 pounds a go, they can no longer be expected to champion the idea of experimentation and innovation in the process of teaching and learning – they have been made customers and they want their goods in an immaculate condition.
At HE level, one of the primary purposes of the learning process has traditionally been to hone the students’ critical skills and encourage and nurture freedom and originality of thought. While the core purpose of the CAPITAL Centre is to break down boundaries between critical theory and creative practice, this event highlighted for us that our enterprise will work only if it is made to be directly ‘useful’ to the students themselves, and that, for the time being, our most important mission is to enable academic staff to create and deliver interesting and valuable work.
