Rewriting Wor(l)ds is a programme of research dedicated to investigating how creative, play-based interaction with poetry can enhance young people's aesthetic experience and understanding, promote long-term literacy engagement, and improve the daily lives. Our work will be used to inform educational programmes, guide policy recommendations, and create tech-supported interventions – including a mobile reading/writing app called ReWriter – all with the aim of shining new light on the importance of poetry engagement for enhancing the literacy practices and wellbeing of young people across the UK and around the world.
The project's approach centres around three key themes:
The research is funded by UK Research & Innovation's Future Leaders Fellowship (Round 9) and is based in the University of Edinburgh's College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS) and the School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures.
Find out more about the project, research outputs, our team and partners, and upcoming events and media by scrolling down or clicking on the links below.
The project team comprises a diverse range of experts, from academic researchers, industry and third-sector specialists, to experts through lived experience. Leading the project are a team of University of Edinburgh researchers from literature and literary studies, education and literacy, psychology and neuroscience. Meanwhile, all phases of the project will be guided by a group of young person readers, writers, and researchers from across the UK and informed by parents/guardian and education practitioner advisors. In addition, our literary, literacy, library, literary festival, and tech organisation partners, will provide crucial, practical insights and help connect our research to the communities where it can do the most good.
Keep an eye on this space as more team members will be joining soon.
Dr Patrick Errington
Project Lead
Patrick is a Lecturer and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, where his research brings together poetic and creative theory, literacy and education research, and cognitive psychology and neuroscience to explore other-than-critical forms of literary engagement and their potential experiential and psychological benefits. He is Co-Director of the Literacy Lab and an affiliate researcher at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). He is also an internationally recognised poet and literary translator, with recent work having won the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize from Trinity College Dublin, the Bronwen Wallace Award from the Writers' Trust of Canada, and the Callan Gordon Award from the Scottish Book Trust.
Prof. Sarah McGeown
Research co-Lead
Sarah is Professor of Literacy (Psychology & Education) and Co-Director of the Literacy Lab. She is based within Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. Sarah’s research focuses on supporting children and young people’s literacy experiences and outcomes, and enriching lives through literacy. She works regularly with children, young people, teachers, and literacy, library and education organisations to inform and conduct her research.
Prof. Dan Mirman
Research co-Lead
Dan is Professor of Brain and Language in the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. He received his PhD in Psychology in 2005 from Carnegie Mellon University and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. He worked as an Institute Scientist at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute (2009-2013), Assistant Professor at Drexel University (2013-2016), and Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (2016-2019), before joining the University of Edinburgh in 2019. His research examines the brain systems that support language processing, with a particular focus on naturalistic language such as understanding narratives (e.g., books and movies), functional communication in post-stroke aphasia, and aesthetic pleasure from reading poetic language.
Check back soon for workshops, talks,
and other public appearances
We're looking for 2 researchers, one specialising in psychology and one in literacy to join our team!
The team at the UoE's Literacy Lab has released a position paper on the future of books and reading.
UK Research & Innovation announces this year's list of 77 Future Leaders Fellowship Awardees.
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