Children's literature and young people's engagement with heritage and the historic built environment

遗产地的管理者面临着持续的挑战，即如何最好地让儿童和年轻人参与他们负责展示和保护的建筑物和景观。这是一项至关重要的任务。只有让年轻人对这些遗产感兴趣，才能保障这些遗址的未来，实现这一目标的一个战略是利用文学和讲故事让儿童了解过去和具体的遗产遗址。事实上，这是一个与儿童文学本身一样古老的策略。托马斯·博尔曼（Thomas Boreman）的《巨人史》（Gigantik Histories，1740- 1743）通常被称为最早的儿童读物，该书旨在激发读者的想象力，讲述了“市政厅的奇闻轶事”、“[伦敦]塔中埋藏着什么宝藏”以及圣保罗和威斯敏斯特修道院的建筑辉煌。从那时起，作家和插画家们就一直在努力创作书籍，以巩固儿童与其历史环境之间的联系：例如，吉卜林的《冰球》故事（1906- 1910），到杰奎琳·威尔逊的《海蒂羽毛》（2010，灵感来自她在弃儿博物馆的研究）。儿童小说有时甚至直接涉及保护问题，比如佩内洛普·莱弗利（Penelope Lively）1971年的小说《低语骑士》（The Whispering Knights）。这部奇幻小说以新石器时代的Rollright Stones为背景，部分讲述了高速公路的入侵。这是本项目第一阶段将研究的内容--迄今为止，文学作品是如何被用来吸引儿童与遗产地接触的。除了书籍本身，主要的来源将是项目合作伙伴的档案：英国遗产，历史皇家宫殿和七个故事：儿童图书中心。特别是后者拥有丰富的印刷和手稿材料，来自作者，插图画家，出版商，教师和儿童，这将阐明这些书籍的生产者希望如何使用它们。英国遗产和历史皇家宫殿的档案，以及七个故事，将揭示很多关于文学实际上是如何被用于遗产教育的，以及有什么结果。来自其他学科的参与者将结合这些研究结果，介绍关于青年与遗产互动以及遗产教育的理论和应用研究。项目的第二阶段关注如何将这些研究结果用于指导当前和未来的政策和实践。项目伙伴已经在其教育方案中使用文学作品。但这种活动现在正处于十字路口。数字技术使年轻人能够以许多新的方式接触写作。他们在智能手机、iPad或电脑上阅读的可能性与在书本上阅读的可能性一样大，而且可能在网站上阅读，也可能在家里和学校阅读。最重要的是，新技术使阅读体验更具互动性：例如，通过GPS技术触发特定的阅读体验，或者通过嵌入式链接引导故事到不同类型的信息和活动。该项目的研讨会旨在探讨如何在遗产教育中最佳地利用创造性文献。为了实现这一目标，该项目将汇集一批合作伙伴，其中一些来自遗产部门，另一些来自不同的学科。参加研讨会的学者将来自儿童文学研究，遗产研究，发展研究和创意写作。该项目还将得到纽卡斯尔大学文化实验室（一个创意艺术和互动技术中心）以及专门研究数字媒体的私营部门顾问的投入。该项目的主要目的是在这些学术和商业合作伙伴之间以及与七个故事、英国遗产和历史悠久的皇家宫殿之间进行知识交流。希望这些新建立的联系将产生进一步的合作。

Those who manage heritage sites face the continuing challenge of how best to engage children and young people with the buildings and landscapes they have been charged to present and protect. It is a vital task. The future of these sites can be safeguarded only by interesting the young in their heritage.One strategy for achieving this end has been to use literature and storytelling to engage children with the past and with specific heritage sites. Indeed, it is a strategy as old as children's literature itself. Thomas Boreman's 'Gigantick Histories' (1740-43), often called the first children's books, were designed to stimulate their readers' imagination with accounts of 'Curiosities in the Guildhall', 'What treasures in the Tow'r [of London] are laid' and the architectural splendours of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. Ever since, authors and illustrators have sought to produce books that cement the bonds between children and their historical environments: Kipling's 'Puck' stories (1906-10) for example, through to Jacqueline Wilson's 'Hetty Feather' (2010, inspired by her fellowship at the Foundling Museum). Children's fiction has sometimes even directly addressed preservation issues, as in Penelope Lively's 'The Whispering Knights' (1971), a fantasy set around the neolithic Rollright Stones and dealing in part with the incursion of a motorway.This - how literature has hitherto been used to engage children with heritage sites - is what the first phase of this project will investigate. The chief source, besides the books themselves, will be the archives of the project partners: English Heritage, Historic Royal Palaces, and Seven Stories: the Centre for the Children's Book. The latter in particular holds a wealth of printed and manuscript material from authors, illustrators, publishers, teachers, and children, which will illuminate how the producers of these books hoped they would be used. The archives of English Heritage and Historic Royal Palaces, as well as Seven Stories, will reveal much about how literature actually has been used in heritage education, and with what results. Contributors from other academic disciplines will contextualise these findings, by presenting both theoretical and applied research on young people's interactions with heritage, and on heritage education.The second phase of the project is concerned with how these research findings can be used to inform current and future policy and practice. The project partners already use literature in their educational programmes. But this kind of activity now stands at a crossroads. Digital technologies allow young people to access writing in many new ways. They are as likely to read on smartphones, iPads or computers as in books, and might read while at the sites as well as at home and in school. Above all, new technologies allow reading experiences to be much more interactive: with specific reading experiences triggered by GPS technology for example, or with stories leading via embedded links to different kinds of information and activities. The project's workshops have been conceived to consider exactly how creative literature can now optimally be used in heritage education.To achieve this, the project will bring together a group of partners, some from the heritage sector and others from a range of disparate academic disciplines. Academics participants in the workshops will come from children's literature studies, heritage studies, development studies, and creative writing. The project will also have the input of Newcastle University's Culture Lab, a centre for the creative arts and interactive technology, as well as from consultants from the private sector who specialise in digital media. The exchange of knowledge between these academic and commercial partners, and with Seven Stories, English Heritage and Historic Royal Palaces, is the principal purpose of the project. Further collaborations will, it is to be hoped, spring from these newly forged links.