TRANSCRIPT OF TAPED INTERVIEW
with
DAVID MORLEY
Key:
TK
TK
Tim KELLY
DM
David MORLEY
What do you think the purpose of a seminar is, and how does this differ
from the purpose of a lecture or a tutorial?
DM A seminar with anything we are doing with the writing programme here,
rather differs from seminars that you might receive in other courses. For
instance they are probably a lot more interactive and also in the writing
programme seminars the chief thing you are going to be doing is learning
how to write and practising writing. They differ very much from the
lectures that we might give in that a lecture is where we would give you
information, and ask you to think about it afterwards. Within a seminar
we want you to give us information about your writing and your attitudes
as a writer, and then to think aloud and on the spot in the seminar.
TK
O.K. What sort of preparation would you expect by students prior to a
seminar?
DM The best preparation a student can do for one of our house seminars is to
go away and read a great deal of contemporary writers. And also to read
writing by their fellow students. And also by their tutors too. That’s the
kind of preparation that you would need anyway if you were deciding to
engage with a career as a writer, and it’s something that I do to myself
every day. This morning, as a preparation for the seminars I will deliver I
got up at 6 o’clock and I started reading Bretts????? from 6 to 8 o’clock
in bed. Then I get up and I go about my business. It’s a good mental
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preparation - it’s even an emotional preparation for what you are going to
be doing in a writing programme seminar. They are dynamic; they are
interactive; they are about writing, and also I think that one of the key
things about their seminars is that you - the student - gets treated as a
writer, from the first day to the last day. So that your mental attitude and
your emotional attitude towards the whole thing is - it’s professional and
it’s personal too.
TK
Typical seminar format, from your department!
DM Well, yes, you could look at it like that!
(Both laugh).
TK
Well, yes, I see, I rather think that rather covers it.
DM Yes, I think we’ve covered some of that.
TK
It’s distinctive.
DM Yeah, well, no. I’ll talk about that.
TK
O.K.
DM Not all writing programmes seminars are all - obviously all the same. If
you’re doing a course like, say, The Practice of Fiction, that’s going to
differ rather widely from the Practice of Poetry. The Practice of Poetry is
my particular baby, and the way that I would do that and a particular
seminar there. Indeed I would engage with you as, not an Undergraduate,
but as a Postgraduate student and as a real person, as a writer. I would
ask you to go away from that seminar thinking about, and carrying out
original research projects throughout the year.
If you do original research - and we talk about those things within the
seminar - how you go about that research, then you must read the syllabus
in order to get to that particular point where you can start making it new
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yourself. In the same way, if I am teaching you how to write poetry and
how to live - a vocation, if you like - as a poet, you again need to practice
and assimilate all the materials that are available to you already, that have
been done by other writers in this country and elsewhere, before you can
make it new yourself. So the seminars are really, if you like, typical of
both doing research, as a writer, and research as a scholar, and making
sure there is a balance between that idea of great writing and great
reading.
TK
O.K. And what contribution do you expect of students during the
seminars?
DM At first students can be rather intimidated by being treated as adults, and
as professional writers. They bring with them into a seminar room what
they take out of it. And if they bring into a room, if you like, fear,
insecurity and uncertainty, it’s my job to try to help them get rid of that
during the seminar, so that they leave the room without that. And when
they come into the seminar next time round, they have confidence, they
want to interact with the other members of the group, - and they want to
impress as well. One of the things that I do, which I know Richard Dyer
does too, is I give every student in the room 2 corks. Now obviously
there’s an internal joke in that because that means that the students
understand how much wine I drink! - but also I put a bin into the middle
of the room and by the end of the seminar, each of those students has to
have thrown each of their corks into that bin. But they can only do that if
they contribute actively.
TK
O.K. So now I’m a very shy student, O.K.? You know, very insecure
about my appalling poetry and, you know, the thing that terrifies me most
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of all is the idea of actually reading it to other people. I mean, what
advice can you give to me?
DM Reading out loud in a seminar is - and the fear that that might bring - is
something that I have a great deal of sympathy with. One of the things I
always explain to all my students in the first week or any course is that
from the age of 7 their apparently confident tutor - me - who they see
sprinting around, looking after poetry readings, or lecturing, or doing
seminars - their apparently confident tutor - is in fact the possessor of the
world’s greatest stammer, and talking in public, talking like this, causes
me a certain amount of fear. But, over the years, through practice, I have
been able to mask that particular stammer, and that particular fear. But
when I was at school - or when I was at university - if I were called upon
by the tutor or the teacher to read out in class, I used to feign illness to get
out of that situation. Now, unfortunately, no teacher or tutor actually
spotted that I was feigning that thing to get out of my fear. But, because I
went through that, I think I can quite easily spot when a student has some
fear of reading out, is insecure about their own writing, because insecurity
about your own writing at any stage of being a writer is terrifically
important, otherwise you become complacent. And, if they don’t want to
read out, they don’t have to read out. But I do ask them to come to my
office hours. I do take them aside, and I explain to them my own
dilemma when it comes to presenting my own work, and that usually
gives them some feeling of shared insecurity. They then read out
privately to myself, and gradually they start reading out in class too,
gaining more confidence probably than I will ever have.
TK
O.K. Thank you very much for that. Now, what do students take out of
seminars?
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DM It’s the learning outcome.
TK
The learning outcome! (Both laugh.) What do you hope them to gain by
attending a seminar essentially?
DM Oh, O.K. In every seminar that I teach I make sure the students know
before they sign up for any of my courses that I will teach them only using
the perameters used for a first class degree; an incredible engagement
with the course; great intellectual insight; some energy and felicity of
their style; original contribution to knowledge; and panache too. If they
know that I am going to be teaching them using only those first class
perameters, I am hoping then that what they’ll end up getting is a great
deal of enjoyment, and challenge within those seminars, and also the
concrete product at the end of the seminar of possibly gaining a first class
mark for that particular magio. Now if you teach with those perameters, it
seems to yield those kind of results. I have just finished my marking for
this year, and one of the things that my students have got out of The
Practice of Poetry - 28 students took the course - is that 87% of them
gained First for that magio, and the rest of them gained high 2.1s. So,
they take concrete results out of that teaching practice, but they get as
much out of that as they put in themselves. If they can’t engage with
those kind of principles of the First Class degree or the high 2.1, then they
need to be thinking about other seminars. But drop-out rate is nonexistent, and in fact most people seem to want to join the seminars than to
leave them. I think students get a certain amount of challenge out of
seminars. I think seminars are inherently - or should be - heuristic - they
should bring about learning. I don’t think that the tutor should in fact - if
you like - lead the seminars. I think the students need to lead the
seminars and almost teach the tutor as well. One of the things that I get
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out of seminars is that I ask my students to set me assignments and
exercises too. During the seminars I will be setting them may be a dozen
different assignments, to do with poetry or fiction, or to do with research.
And I ask them to give - after some practice - me the challenges as well.
To dream up the hardest poetic forms they could possibly think of, and
challenge me to come back to the seminar next week with a new poem
that I have written according to those particular sets of rules.
Now that may seem a bit artificial. But I have now published a number of
poems which have been drawn out of that process, and so have my
students, and it’s very hard for any publisher to actually recognise that
these poems have been drawn out of what may seem, at first sight, to be
artificial exercises. I don’t think there’s anything artificial about that
kind of exercise. I think writers have been doing that for hundreds of
years.
TK
O.K. So I take it from that then, that you do assess seminar performance,
from what you’ve been saying earlier?
DM Yes.
TK
Is that formally assessed then?
DM No. Seminar performance is not formally assessed. I think it might be a
good idea to start introducing those ideas into assessment at some point in
the future though. It’s an interesting idea of testing, isn’t it? Because
most of the work takes place in seminars. The students - the seminars
and the lectures are the preparation for the exam. And yet the exam can
account for 67% of the final mark. It takes three hours. The students are
trained in those seminars. They know how to behave under pressure, but
all that work that they’ve done to do the exam isn’t assessed. It’s
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enjoyed. They go around and it probably creates great memories for the
future - and certainly if you look back to - if I look back to my time at
university, I don’t remember sitting my final exams. I do remember my
seminars, and I do remember my personal tutorials with my tutors.
TK
O.K. Is there any kind of informal assessment in a sense? I mean is the
seminar the place where the tutor makes judgements about students and so
on?
DM I don’t think tutors are there to make judgements about the students
themselves - certainly to make judgements about their work. And every
seminar that I give, I do set every student a piece of work - or a piece of
reading. And I do expect them to come back the following week - or two
weeks later with a finished piece of work and with some discussion about
the reading that they have done. In a sense that’s a test that I do set them.
But that’s part of the process of learning, also. But when they hand in
pieces of writing, or research, I do assess them. Not formally. I do give
them advice on how to improve it - where it’s going right; where it’s
going wrong. And that’s the test where - the seminar is working - it’s
where those early tests are made upon a student’s intelligence and
engagement.
TK
O.K. I think one last question. Is there any advice you can give to an
international student? I mean this - I know you’ve already given some
advice about people who are shy about reading out, and writing - but, you
know, can you give any advice to international students who may find
speaking in English is contributing to discussions difficult - or indeed a
student who is very shy perhaps? - or not - or feels they are not very
articulate?
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DM I should say straightaway that there were a number of courses that we run
which are very attractive to international students. We run a huge core
course in the Computing Science Departments about the practice of
writing. Many students on that course are international students. The
BA Honours degree, English Literature in Creative Writing attracts 650
applications from around the globe for its 20 places every year. Of those
people on those 20 places at least 5 or 6 are international students, for
whom English is not their first language. I should say straight away that
those international students are the best students on that course - this year
and last year. They achieve the highest grades. They are certainly more
engaged with the course than some of the home students. They are
incredibly rewarding people to work with. They tend to take the
strategies and techniques of teaching very seriously. They tend to enjoy
them, and understand them more - more quickly. They are more
responsive. They tend to be better writers. Why do you think this is so?
Well, one of the reasons I think it’s so is because I actually don’t demand
that those students actually write original fiction or poetry - in English.
They can write it in their mother tongue, should they so wish. And they
can then translate it, or have it translated into English. When they are
writing in English, if they are finding the process problematical, the
writing programme provides 2 posts in writing for writers whose job it is
to help international students and home students with their written
English - who will take them through, word by word, paragraph by
paragraph, essay by essay, poem by poem, to yield the best result for
them. One to one. Every week should that student so choose. So - the
back-up is there for those students, but the students who have difficulties
with English. The back-up is there too I think with the shyer students, and
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also, I should say that the international students again, are actually the
best of the lot.
TK
O.K. Just two very quick ones, which perhaps I’ll issue together. How
does a student really shine in a seminar? And what perhaps is the
cardinal sin for a student in a seminar?
DM Are do they really shine in a seminar? (Both laugh) You don’t need me
to answer that!
TK
Is there a cardinal sin then?
DM Oh the cardinal sin - we have data and evidence from experience that year
after year, I have many many files and in our own heads, that the students
who don’t do well upon our courses - those students, say, who gets the
Firsts and the 2.2.s - are united by the following:
(a) They don’t attend seminars, or are absent without particularly good
reason.
(b) They don’t come to office hours and talk to us, or they don’t talk to us
in seminars. And
(c) They don’t attend the many writers’ events that we put on here at the
university.
Now, we say to the students every year - “If you attend seminars, engage
with us, we’ll engage with you. If you attend office hours, if you go to
our events, you’ll do well on these courses.” There’s always 2 or 3 who
never quite believe that. The cardinal sin is probably trying to trick your
way around the process that we’ve got here of attaining a university
degree. You can’t attain a university degree by missing seminars, by
unexplained absences, or by trying to lie or kid your tutor that somehow
you were ill with this, or ill with that - or the rest. I’ve had questionnaire
response forms coming back to me - not many I admit, to say that the
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reason that a student couldn’t attend a seminar was because their seminar
was at 9.30 in the morning. And the reason probably was that the student
was asleep. I’ve actually had a questionnaire statement that said, “What
was the chief problem with this course for you?” and said, “It was too
early and I was asleep.” Now - what am I supposed to think about that?
Is it my job to go out of the campus - down the road and knock them up as
though they were minors? They need to come to seminars. They need to
turn up. It’s a great privilege. Education is a privilege and it’s a right.
They - it’s a right that you shouldn’t abuse and it’s a privilege that you
shouldn’t try and miss out on - because somehow your social life has
somehow taken off.
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