Improving Workplace Learning by Teaching Literature

This book investigates
the integration of literary writing into work based or business writing. It proposes ways of how to help people with
considerable work experience use literature to engage with the problems they
face in their work. Many people like to
read for pleasure, but their skills in reading could always be improved. This
book makes an original contribution to the fields of education, work based
learning and business by encouraging students to explore history, memoir,
fiction, and non-fiction to model their own writing and widen their knowledge
beyond the work place and their customary reading. Inside are onsite
experiments with fiction and non-fiction prose that show how people in the
workplace respond and grow from contact with significant literature and culture
that relates broadly to their work. As a Coaching Master's
student observes:

"I have notbeen a
prolific reader. It has been a weakness and a gap. I have probably read more in the last year
[during the project course] than I have read in the past twenty years. So that
says something. My ability to attend to what in a book has weight or relevance
has markedly improved. In the past I banked largely on my opinions because not
being a prolific reader, I had to. It can be incredibly empowering to see that
there are so many assets outside of my own mind. When something comes up now, I tend to weigh
it. I am more specific about how I use words."