The impact of daydreaming on creative exploration and personal connection with English literary texts

The concept of daydreaming has recently been praised as a necessary tool to access imagination and creative thought. English literature is a subject that requires analytical skills and writing mechanics, but it also necessitates creative thinking to be able to explore, understand and empathise with the narratives and themes that are discussed. Such creative thinking is sometimes difficult to foster, particularly in an exam-based culture where time is short and ploughing through content is prioritised. This study aims to see how daydreaming— a term used to highlight the sometimes unpredictable and surprising nature of thought—could aid students in deepening their exploration of a literary text and forming personal connections—with the hope that a love and enjoyment of literature develops as a result.

The study concludes that unfacilitated daydreaming could benefit students by allowing them to form reflective, personal connections between the literary texts and wider philosophical ideas and experiences. Facilitated daydreaming was found to offer students a space to hone their arguments and ideas which resulted in more detailed, definitive language; this led to the creation of higher-level thesis statements with a focus on authorial intention. It also produced further links between the literary text and more intentional historical context, cultural context and allusions. Wider implications of the study are that learning and progress extend beyond the classroom, and that time and space for personal connections and philosophical contemplation are recognised and encouraged. This challenges the reductive concepts of teaching and learning that seem to dominate contemporary discourses of education.