A curriculum of change: Bloomsbury's Lit in Colour project

A core theme in the conference programme for the 2023 Music & Drama Education Expo in London is the diversification of the curriculum, as qualifications across the arts seek to redress the long historic imbalance in representation of cultures in studied set works.

Sessions in the music programme include keynotes on decolonising instrumental teaching and the anti-racist music studio; while in the drama programme delegates will discover storytelling from Ghana and the Caribbean. They’ll also hear from drama educators at the heart of a campaign to increase students’ access to texts by writers of colour and from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Lit in Colour

On Day 1 of the show, at 10.15am, we’ll hear from Hannah Khalil, writer in residence at Shakespeare’s Globe, where her new play Hakawatis, currently in performance, explores the importance of storytelling and representation on stage in a reimagining of the ancient tales of 1001 Nights.

Khalil was one of the advisors for Penguin Books UK and The Runnymede Trust’s Lit in Colour campaign, working in partnership with Bloomsbury’s Methuen Drama imprint to support schools in diversifying the teaching of English. Launched in 2020, the Lit in Colour programme aims to introduce new plays to the English Literature and Drama curriculums, offering students access to more diverse, representative and inclusive work. Alongside Khalil, Bloomsbury worked with mezze eade and Pooja Ghai as advisors on this campaign, which has included a research project to better understand the challenges and barriers that English Literature teachers face with introducing new play texts into the classroom.

While English Literature is the main target for curriculum diversification, there is, of course, an expected knock-on effect on Drama, and indeed many teachers of English are also their school’s Drama specialist, so it is hoped that outcomes which support one group of educators and their students will equally service the other group.

The Lit in Colour Research: A Spotlight on Plays and Drama was conducted in collaboration with the National Theatre and Open Drama UK, culminating in a report released this past Autumn term.

Online surveys and interviews were conducted with teachers, while Bloomsbury, the NT and Open Drama UK hosted a roundtable discussion involving key stakeholders. These included a range of publishers, awarding bodies, theatre organisations, practitioners, authors and playwrights, who came together to discuss how the drama and theatre community could support schools with the teaching of diverse drama texts.

Research findings

The key findings now released are as follows:

• 90 per cent of drama texts taught at GCSE and 96 per cent at A Level English Literature are written by white playwrights.
• 0 per cent of students answered an exam question on a play by a Global Majority writer in England in 2019.
• In England in 2019 assessments, 79 per cent of GCSE English Literature candidates answered an exam question on a drama text, with 349,337 students (65 per cent) answering on An Inspector Calls.
• There are currently just two drama set texts by Global Majority writers available at A Level English Literature.
• With the right support and resources in place, 84 per cent of respondents said they would be likely to choose a new drama text for GCSE English Literature.
• We asked teachers about the support they need when teaching Drama set texts: the top three resources listed were recordings of performances (67 per cent), model student answers to exam questions (65 per cent) and resources on social/cultural context (57 per cent).
• 66 per cent of survey respondents said they would like more support to teach texts that tackle issues relating to race or ethnicity.

Survey participants

Kristi Simpson is a teacher from Droitwich Spa High School who contributed to the research. ‘Our department had been discussing the desire to better diversify the texts that we were reading with the students,’ she explains, ‘Since the new GCSEs were introduced, with more limited focus on writers from other cultures, we had observed a declining interest in the set texts, both from students and as a staff.

‘I grew up in the USA in a very small town with very little diversity. My exposure to the world outside this very rural region was through the texts and extracts that we read in school and the voices and narratives in the books I spent my babysitting money on. As a teacher now in the UK, I know how important it is for students to not only be introduced to characters with traits they recognise in themselves but to be exposed to cultures, ethnicities and religions beyond their own.

‘It is evident every day that we teachers need to be more confident and open to discussing race, ethnicities, histories and diversity. Literature is a natural tool for opening up these discussions and for empowering teachers and students alike with topics that can be sensitive or difficult.’

Reflecting the student body

Zoe Tromans, assistant head at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls, participated in the research. ‘I’m lucky to work in a school in a Birmingham suburb whose student body reflects the rich diversity of the city’s population,’ she says. ‘The fact that many students may not have studied a female writer or a writer of colour by the time they finish GCSE is not acceptable. It does a disservice to students if they don’t see themselves reflected in literature, as it implicitly suggests that literature is “not for them”.

‘We have a moral imperative to show that literature is for everyone. As a writer it is an opportunity to have your voice heard; as a reader it has the capacity to enrich your life long after you have left school. By shining a light upon the richness and diversity of writing in English, we can hopefully kindle or revitalise love for the subject amongst the greatest number of students.’

Real change on the horizon

The Lit in Colour report is a positive step on an essential path, and real change is coming. Bloomsbury has announced that efforts are being made by all five major awarding bodies in England and Wales to diversify the set texts within both GCSE and A Level specifications for English and Drama. By 2025, English Literature students in England and Wales will have the option to choose from 10 new modern play texts by writers of colour at GCSE and A Level.

© COURTESY MDEE

A workshop leader from the Music & Drama Education Expo 2021

Winsome Pinnock’s 1987 play Leave Taking has already been added to the set-text list on three UK exam boards’ English Literature GCSE syllabuses. In support of this, Nick Hern Books is publishing a Study Guide to address teachers’ specific requests for supporting resources such as model answers and material on social and cultural context.

Available in time for teaching in the Autumn term of 2023, the Study Guide’s writers will be running a special session at the Expo on Day 2, introducing delegates to this epic tale of three women by one of the best Black British playwrights of all time. At 10.15am in The Space, there will be an on-the-feet opportunity to engage with the diverse voices in this new set text.

Meanwhile, a second Study Guide is also in production: Chinonyerem Odimba’s play Princess & The Hustler has also been added to AQA’s set text list for first teaching from Autumn Term 2023, with a book to support students and their teachers set to be published in the summer.

Odimba is understandably delighted that her play is to be made available for teaching to so many young people across the UK. ‘It means the world to me that this play is being studied,’ she says. ‘Growing up in North London with a passion for literature that I went on to study for years, I never imagined that I would be able to share my work with young people who, like me, might find it impossible to see themselves and the lives of their parents and grandparents in the pages of a book. This has to be the start of the change for us to make more books available to young readers and students.’

You can view set texts, recommended plays, author Q&As and teacher resources online at bloomsbury.com/LitinColour

Nick Hern Books’ Study Guides can be pre-ordered, and the play texts for Leave Taking and Princess & The Hustler bought from nickhernbooks.co.uk