It is impossible to read and not get smarter. It is literally the one thing that is in your power to improve your life.
Here you will find my book reviews, sometimes intermittent!
Guest Post – An English Literature Workshop with Myself, Age 14
Today's post is an Oxbridge student's reflection on what she would say to her 14-year-old self. It captures the earnest position of the profound thinker in British culture. Read more of Shreya Manna's wonderful writing at https://paradiseprose.com/ MISS MANNA: [forced...
Podcast Libraries – Educating Yourself beyond a Curriculum
Teaching students for fifteen years has allowed me to recognise some of the deficiencies of my early education. One choice every teenager needs to make in school is whether to follow a vocational or academic route. It is an impossible choice. I would define the...
Thoughts about the Purpose of IB: Reprioritising Reader-Response in Literature
English teaching's essential purpose in our politicised times is to make students culturally critical. I feel that this particularly suits the IB's international element, and the need to perhaps reframe 'international' mindedness as 'intercultural' mindedness (and not...
The Vegetarian Book Review: Planting Desire and Rooting Order?
The Vegetarian is a dark book that has sat with me for a few weeks now. Conventionally about the descent of a Korean woman into self-harm and mental illness via her change to a vegetarian lifestyle, it defies easy definition. Instead, I think it seeks to challenge...
In Cold Blood – Playing With Genre
In True Blood is another dark read, distinctly American and impressively literary. It is a text that manipulates genre, attempting to fuse a journalistic style with a free indirect discourse when presenting the perceptions of criminals. At its heart we meet our worst...
TedX Presentation on Confidence: No Difference between Real and Fake Confidence?
A student that I taught at the beginning of my international career spoke profoundly well at a recent TedX event. I was very impressed. She named dropped my Socrates creed that there is no difference between fake confidence and real confidence, at least as it presents...
Book Review: Wonder by RJ Palacio – Collisions of Kindness
This is a young adult story about kindness and identity. Its story can instigate useful conversations in schools and homes about how we treat others, and therefore how we want to be treated. I found some of its presentations of school-life problematic, though. The...
Differences between a learner and a doer
Over the past five years or so I have been increasingly struck by the need to judge learning by the thinking taking place, not just by the tasks taking place. Too many discussions about lesson planning in my past focused on the tasks to be done. Of course, students...
Content vs Specification: Thoughts about KS5 Planning
This year I have taken on the running of our KS5 literature specification. It has been an interesting experience, calling into question my philosophy of what makes a worthwhile curriculum. One conversation that was had with outgoing staff was of the prioritisation...
Building a Sixth Form Curriculum: Literature
This summer I was promoted to Head of KS5 Literature, leading a team of six people. I enjoyed the support of some very experienced teachers, including a principal examiner and ex-Head of an elite Asian school. We needed to switch from an AS course to a linear approach...
