February Newsletter
An invitation to a Micromastering Creative Writing Course and a deep dive into 'internal barriers' to learning with an in depth description of a new model with which to view these barriers
Micro-master creative writing through looking at World Building – a three day Course
From Scotland's Booktown and home of the World Famous Wigtown Book Festival...
THE WIGTOWN SCHOOL OF WRITING
Join our April 11-14 2025 Creative Writing Course- building a compelling world with
Jessica Fox: award winning screenwriter and feature film director of Stella and bestsellling author of Three things you need to know about Rockets.
Robert Twigger- multi award winning author of 15 books translated into 16 Languages
Shaun Bythell- bestselling author Diary of a Bookseller- translated into 37 languages.
Creative Writing means building a world for the reader to lose themselves in...
The Course:
11th to 14th April 2025
We can get too obsessed with word building and not think enough about world building. Every book- whether fiction or non-fiction- must create a world for the reader to lose themselves in. On this course you’ll learn just how to do this along with all the other creative writing skills that top writers Jessica Fox, Robert Twigger,and Shaun Bythell can impart.
The course is 3 days, starting on the Friday evening with an option to stay a further morning on Monday to talk over further questions with the tutors if you wish.
As well as various teaching sessions each day (which you can opt in or out of) this is your chance to have one on one Q and A with successful published authors, plus group Q and A around the fire. Meet and talk books for three days, ramble along the sea shore, refresh your batteries in a place of calm and exquisite landscape.
Learn to create a world- in the Glorious Scottish Booktown of Wigtown. You deserve it because you owe yourself the chance to get the best help you can for your writing...
The cost of the course is £350. This includes lunch and dinner each day, copious amount of superb coffee or tea if you prefer, wine, and a free whiskey tasting. It does not include accomodation though we can supply the names and help with booking if required of many excellent places to stay at all price levels from cheap and cheerful to luxurious. EMAIL us for more information or to reserve a place (limited to 10 places only): wigtownwriting@gmail.com
THE PROGRAMME
Friday 5pm: cup of tea and introducing ourselves
Friday Night supper gathering
Saturday 9am - optional walk and yoga session.
Saturday 10 until 12- Robert and Jessica talk world building
Saturday 2 until 4- Unlock your natural creative side in your writing
Saturday 4.30 until 6 Shaun Bythell joins us for a session on writing, agents and publishing.
Saturday Night: whiskey tasting round the fireplace (or wine/water if you prefer)
Sunday 9am optional walk and yoga session
Sunday 10 until 12- Don't build characters, build relationships
Sunday 2 until 4- How to make a story work everytime
Sunday 4.30 until 6- inner secrets of a convincing world
Monday 9.30 until 11- final q and a session with Shaun, Jessica and Robert.
At some point we will also head down to the sea to make the most of the wonderful location of Wigtown- Scotland's booktown and home to the world famous Wigtown Book Festival.
Your famous Tutors:
Jessica Fox created a world in her award winning film Stella. Find out more here.
Shaun Bythell created a world – for real- in his bookshop, and then he recreated it on the page in his bestselling series of memoirs. Find out more here.
Robert Twigger created a world in his novel Dr Ragab’s Universal Language. He also writes literary travel books which requires creating a recognisable world for travel readers. Find out more here.
We will cover in detail:
1. What is a world in book terms?
2. What are the raw ingredients?
3. What are the secret ingredients?
4. Characters, relationships and world building
5. Creating a film world
6. Recreating a travel world
7. Memoir and world building
Email: wigtownwriting@gmail.com
Internal Barriers to Learning
An assertion of Robert’s that a lot of our problems in life boil down to problems with learning bears contemplation. Experience suggests there is considerable mileage in it and, it definitely seems worth exploring what causes problems with learning for oneself.
Internal barriers to learning are the emotions, thoughts, concepts or models and beliefs that we have about learning and whilst learning that can impede the process.
A good point to start is with a survey of one the models about learning that is still commonly used. The intention here is not to ‘do a hatchet job’ on a particular model – they mostly have some truthfulness in them, but to point out the limitations and offer some different models that might ‘make up the difference.’ It is worth noting that both learners and those involved in teaching have models about learning which can be limited to various extents and that these models do influence our emotions and thoughts about the process. When teaching professionals are mistaken, they create inappropriate and less than optimal curricula. When learners’ models are misaligned, they can create their own affective barriers. Adult learners often have taken on board the models used by the education system.
The first model about learning that is still has considerable traction with educators would be Bloom’s ‘cognitive domain’ taxonomy. A copy of the 2001 revised edition for the cognitive domain is shown in the link below.
It has some utility – if nothing else it can ensure a balance of all the aspects in a curriculum. But the way that it is viewed can create limits to our ability to learn.
An initial problem is, whilst there is some system to the categories, they don’t match the interconnected processes of cognition. Problems can also develop when educators take these categories and try and design learning that matches them.
For example, people sometimes take from it that knowledge is inferior and that there is a rigid hierarchy of value rather than having an underpinning and critical skill function.
Also, some assume learning must follow a rigid sequence from bottom to top. Of course, there is phase and relevance to learning certain things in all subjects, but it is not a linear process all the time.
Another aspect of the use of the taxonomy is that the similar taxonomies that Bloom also developed for affective and psychomotor fields are hardly ever referenced at all. Whether this was one of the causes of the heavy bias in modern Western education for the cognitive or a symptom of it remains moot, but interest in these two fields has only more recently emerged.
There are similar difficulties with models about ‘teaching activity hierarchies’ and ‘learning style which we may refer to as we progress.
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Rather than concentrate on one universal, context independent model of learning of choice, we probably need a wider range of models that we can apply more contextually. A model I would suggest you may like to consider and test, is quite simple yet does not lend itself to a simple chart. I think it could be better at showing and allowing the dynamic interplay between all the aspects of our minds in learning such as - attention, social functioning and motivation which can create barriers. So, bear with me.
I would suggest that we look at the qualities of five contexts for learning that lead towards greater expertise –
Exploration, Practice, Application, Exploitation and Assessment of Proficiency.
The contexts can be seen as distinct in some respects yet very closely linked in the sense that there may seem some overlap and one can flip between them readily an. There is some linearity there from left to right in the first four, in that the aim of learning is to change behaviour and be able to apply and exploit one’s learning. Yet whilst engaging with new learning, you can start in any of the contexts and are likely to be moving between them in something of a spiral manner.
Exploration
Exploring encompasses flexible, changeable activities with optionality. It is how we naturally learn as young children and can continue to do so as we grow older. It is often seen as play (or tinkering) rather than working and to do so the ‘benefit’ or exploiting aspect must be suspended to some extent.
It needs environmental opportunities such as a minimal equipment and variety (often described as richness) and low barriers (preferably permissionless) to using that environment. There is a cost to Exploration, it requires a degree of surplus resources, including time. As adults we need to create some slack or redundancy in our life and learning if we want to reclaim Exploration.
It can be limited or expansive (those who promote this context tend to downplay the more limited aspect.) Limited for example, when play is more repetitive, expansive when people hunt for, and set their own questions or problems and test their hypothesis. By testing and experimenting you are creating your own experiences. There is freedom to explore the edge of possibilities and of one’s ability. More expansive when considering different possibilities and yet something different between doing the expected thing and being completely random. It is not just finding the best practice from a success and optimising from that.
When more expansive there is an inherent element of risk, some of the things being tried won’t work. Exploring is more open, numinous and alive. When operating in this mode mistakes are often seen as engaging with approximation. One is looking at success and failure at the same time.
It is important to stress that exploring can be accomplished; on your own, with other novices or learners and with people with more expertise. The amount of time spent in these different groups can be varied there are no set rules that will work for everybody.
As described above, people vary in their ability to explore fruitfully and there can be room for some guidance in the exploratory context. When exploring with someone with more expertise, learning can be accomplished by observation, imitation and direct instruction just as in any of the first 4 contexts. We tend to think of direct instruction taking place only in formal settings with a teacher demonstrating or lecturing, often for long periods of time. Yet, exploration can be lightly, sometimes imperceptibly guided (for example by subtle questions such ‘I wonder what would happen if…’)
The knowledge, skills and understanding of Bloom’s can all be accessed to some extent through exploration.
Practice
This is the context of process where one is aiming to refine and get the new knowledge and skills of Bloom’s taxonomy into one’s long-term memory for automatic access. The focus is often on specific ‘bottleneck’ skills practiced in isolation (that can, for example, help one surmount rub-pat barriers as described in of micromastery.) During Practice, one’s awareness is more spotlight like for much of the time.
A lot is known about this context and yet in formal education there can be muddled thinking about it. For instance, the default has been often to start the process of learning with practice of somewhat contextless (and hence often meaningless) knowledge and skills. There have also often been two opposite situations where learners have been left to practice too long or not long enough! (The one thing Bloom did get right was that everyone can learn, some people take longer to learn different skills.) Equally people can trap themselves into too much concern for specific types of knowledge.
In Practice, the focus is on structured incremental steps (in this respect, it has been described as a ‘kind’ learning environment where feedback can more easily be accurate and immediate) and measured improvement. A lot of repetition can be needed. But as addressed in Micromastery, this need not be inherently boring and can be gamified.
Short time in this context, but varied, frequent and spaced, along with active recall is the heuristic for this context. Also often forgotten is that incidental practice is occurring in the next context – application, as well as the previous - Exploration.
Application
Where one is applying acquired knowledge and skills to real life situations or often in formal education, simulations of real-life situations.
Similar to practice in that it is more goal directed and different from Exploration in that often it is committing to a more limited range of options as one optimises towards the goal. Application is often a type of extended practice (on a task) that goes beyond merely recalling knowledge or showing skills in isolation. It is making bigger understanding from the small knowledge and skills that work by learning to, or creating the linking of them, with ‘plumbing’ that allows the bigger understanding to work too. Often, it requires applying the knowledge and skills to, what are for the learner new and ‘unseen’ scenarios or problems - it involves what is described as ‘transfer’. Whilst the focus is on successful completion of the task the ethos of this context of learning should be ‘having a go.’
Application to a range of scenarios helps the learner build up understanding. In football, applying would be playing a friendly game against another team.[1] This context can be designed to start to become a little bit more ‘wicked’ in that information is hidden and the rules or patterns must be recognised by the learner.)
Application can also benefit itself from ‘practice’ and also from guidance during the process. There can be an element of playfulness and Exploration built into understanding and application - things outside the rules and different situations and so on. One link between the two is that sometimes in Exploration people set their own application problems. Another is that application can be through creating games and simulations, solving made up problems for some things and can be ‘real’ enough for some people. In effect, you can make application ‘exploration like.’
Being able to apply, can be a big motivation and source of engagement for learning.
Exploitation
Exploitation is like Application in many respects, and you could modify the model and group the two together.
Where it can differ is that the focus is only on real needs that must to be performed to a specific quality as the outcome is going to be used in real life and there will be consequences if it does not perform adequately.
We are entering the more adult world where one has reached a certain level of mastery and one’s work may be paid for. How the quality of your work affects others becomes a serious consideration. Quality often involves accuracy, integrity, care and so on. The self-reliance and agency that comes with this can make one useful to other people and less passive and dependent.
The quality often must be balanced with a degree of efficiency and when working for others there may be less opportunity to satisfy curiosity and, also one becomes less tolerant of risk. Exploitation can give us a good enough solution that supports immediate action but with less scope for learning new information.
However, it is this context that ‘pays’ for time to re-enter the other contexts if we so desire – after all, one can be exploiting one’s learning and still learning in the other contexts.
Assessment
Assessment is somewhat different to the other contexts (it threads through the others) and we’ll describe its features in a subsequent newsletter when we look at how that context relates to specifically linked barriers.
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Applying the model to learning barriers relies on being very clear about which of the 5 contexts one is learning context one is in or wants to put oneself in. (If you are learning by yourself, developing small rituals as you move from one context to another could also be helpful.)
As adults, we have the opportunity and some capacity to consciously move between these contexts when we see the need. Then becoming aware of what the appropriate environment/conditions, activities, dispositions and information flow are optimal for the goals of each context. Reducing friction rather than ‘more effort’. Also, it assumes that it is realistic to consider the described barriers as risks rather than completely deterministic and that they can be modulated to some extent. Additionally, that we have our own innate and protective resources as well as social and environmental ones to help attune these barriers.
Where appropriate, the model will be used as we work our way through subsequent affective barriers to learning and to suggest ways of reducing those barriers. It is one way of looking at learning and has the uses and limitations inherent in being a model. It can be accepted, rejected or more usefully tested. One test it ‘passes’, is that it aligns well with the process of micromastery. Micromastery leans heavily with the first 3 contexts. Indeed, one of its aims is to keep the exploring disposition open to a wider range of learning. The first learning barrier that we will use the model on is -
1 Level of challenge, Confidence/Motivation and Assessing one’s success at tasks and progress
If we define confidence as a general self-belief about one’s overall ability to function in different contexts and self-efficacy as having capacity to achieve specific goals, we can begin to see the link between the two. There is not an obviously linear connection for everybody, people who struggle with one or some activities can have a high general self-confidence but a specific low self-efficacy. Both have a role in maintaining motivation to keep learning.
It has long been recognised that successful completion of tasks builds self-efficacy. Motivation/agency and competence are mutually supporting. People with motivation to learn and agency to use that learning know they can do it. As noted, much of formal learning has started off with teaching facts and practising skills in the Practice context. This can be good for building up initial success and the accompanying self-efficacy that comes with it as the level of challenge is often carefully designed to be achievable. Where a barrier can develop in the Practice context is the learning can become disconnected from life and sometimes lacking in variety.
This can be sidestepped by the gamifying described in micromastery which includes moving between the other contexts more frequently – a bit of Applying and Exploration for variety. With awareness and by trial and error you may well be able to find the starting points that motivate you best and the amount of time to spend in each of the 3 contexts and how you move between them.
Formal education then usually moves on to application which can be equally carefully constructed up to a point with simple and ‘kind problems.’[2] The motivation to apply and even exploit comes first for most people, and as adults we can start with them or get to them sooner. (Some formal education settings are now starting with applications first now.) However, if starting with application, someone learning needs to be aware that the skills come next and must be picked up in parallel. Which is fine and works and takes up a little more energy and mental capacity. It is how the apprenticeship model works. Application also can need some guidance and support, as does the expansive exploration of new unbounded problems and investigations. Some people need nudges in where to start. This guidance can come from supportive peers and from people with more experience.
All this also sits well with micromastery. A micromastery is chosen as it has some utility, some payoff, encourages plenty of practice through gamification and possibilities for exploration.
If there is the desire to head towards the degree of mastery implicit in the exploitation context and in developing polymathy or range, both practice of skills and application need a certain amount of challenge. This is often described as deliberate practice. Without it, there can be the situation where learners are engaged but not learning new things or simply going over content they are familiar with. Learning needs to be desirably difficult and involve cognitive and bodily effort, remembering and generating if you are heading for a degree of mastery. (It is also worth remembering that you don’t have to be good at everything and you can engage in activities purely for the pleasure! You just need to be clear about your aims.)
A good teacher or coach has a good sense of noting and modulating these factors and can sometimes develop a student’s competency more quickly than they would themselves. There is still a trade-off here however, between building self-confidence and learning to cope with mistakes and ‘failures’ that can occur from the desirable difficulty.
Finding positive ways of managing unsuccessful experiences – mistakes and failures must be artful. Initial ‘failure’ at the outset is a big ‘turn-off’ for many people yet being under challenged and over supported for too long can have similar effects. As adults, we have control over the degree of pace and challenge, and this in itself, can be helpful for some.
The question one needs to ask oneself is whether you can, by yourself find a spot between stretching and breaking that allows you to optimise your learning with the time you have?
After some initial success and efficacy and general confidence building there is an increasing consensus that some early ‘failure’ is critical for successful learning. (For instance, in physical activities, faulty initial habits can be difficult to unlearn so are best corrected as early as possible. But there is a big caveat here – after getting or generating an incorrect performance, one needs to have the opportunity to get it right soon afterwards. We will look at these aspects in more detail when we survey the assessment context in the subsequent newsletter.
The model also suggests making it clear to those involved that mistakes are completely acceptable in the exploring, practising and applying contexts.
In other words that these are safe spaces to ‘fail’ in. There is often lip service paid to this idea in formal education and learners can get confused by the mixed messaging. We can have engrained attitudes from this which may need some persistent reframing to shift. Some suggestions that might help in this -
You can gamify accepting errors in these contexts by actively encouraging them, even celebrating them! For example, there is a Sloyd Experience school in the USA that offers a working with hands experience for children that has a celebratory wall of failures.
My sons tell me that exercising to the point of failure is deliberate in the gyms they go to, to ‘work out’ in. There may be similar activities where failure is the goal in the areas of learning that interest you.
Most of us are more tolerant to failure when we are playing. The language used to describe mistakes or failure in playing can be helpful in changing mindsets in Practising and Applying. Seeing things as ‘somewhat true’ or as ‘engaging in approximations’ and ‘finding surprises in your behaviour’ increase the likelihood of learning. Finding surprises and strange experiences can be essential for some aspects of learning.
The understanding that failure is often limited to the individual and with little real cost in these contexts is also helpful towards this. Whilst playing games or working through simulations, even ‘catastrophic’ failure has very limited consequences and is often motivating to starting again. A good analogy to use with yourself or students is that of the world of computer games. People choose games that interest them, so even though they can be very difficult, they are motivated to play. They can fail catastrophically (they die) yet the game allows them to ‘respawn’ and usually start at the level they were at. This is not so much different from what is, in reality, happening in these 3 contexts. Another analogy that you might find useful if you are more of a systems thinker than a gamer, is that failure is simply information that allows for error correction.
You also need to make clear that the result of your or your students’ application can be acceptable in the context of learning in these 3 contexts. An analogy would be that of us adults using the things that our children make for us, even though they can be somewhat imperfect. This is the way to learning the difference between good enough and being discouraged by misplaced notions of the perfect. This last point is also a reminder that although we can take learning seriously, that doesn’t mean that it must be heavy and humourless!
This seems a good place to stop and take stock. In a subsequent newsletter we can look at how assessment, including self-assessment links with the difficulties caused by challenge and confidence as well as a group of other internal barriers.
[1]To continue the analogy, practice would be practising shooting or dribbling skills and learning the rules. Exploration could be trying something new in either practice or the game. Exploitation would be playing in a league.
[2] A barrier can be reached with this approach in that the learners don’t often know how to transfer their skills and knowledge to new and unseen and more ‘wicked’ situations. We will consider ways of overcoming this barrier in the next newsletter.