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Reading for School
To Whom Do the Words Belong? Examining the opening of Chapter 9 of Treasure Island through principles of free indirect discourse.
Prerogative or perjorative? Examining the opening of Chapter 9 of Treasure Island through principles of free indirect discourse.
Writing Composition in the British NC: can we learn something from this American focus?
The examinations in the British NC focus heavily on word and sentence level analysis. Analysing the connotations of individual word choices, for example, is a dominant focus on most of the current English language exam, and not to mention being useful (perhaps even...
How to improve your literary analysis KS3-KS5
This selection of types of analysis was originally termed Top Ten out of Ten? Try Terrence T Templeton of Tadcastle Technlogical's Ten Tangible Techniques. It is a range of generic strategies for literary analysis from KS3-KS5 that I have developed over the past five...
Teaching Comparative Contextual Analysis in Literature: Spark Presentation January 2017
This is a short presentation I delivered at a Spark event (TeachMeet) organised by the wonderful Rachael Edgar. Essentially it proposes the teaching of context and comparative audience response at the same time. Inspired from the practice of Peter Flynn.
How is Sheila Birling presented?
Sheila Birling can be seen by the 2017 audience as a millennial: put-upon, subordinate, but ultimately defiant. Initially presented as a demure if childish character, she grows in voice and confidence throughout the play until she challenges the Birlings, and what...
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The Credibility of Teachers: Why Classroom Experience Matters in a World of Life-Coaches
Not all teachers stay in classroom; moving into leadership and or consultancy is a path for many. Fewer teachers consult and still teach, like me. The demands of marking, planning and managing the inner-lives of growing people leaves less time to consult. This...
The Purpose of Keeping a Blog: Reflections on 15 Years of Blogging
As someone who has curated blog for over fifteen years, without a shred of advertising to keep it going, I have reflected on the purpose of keeping my blog and why I continue to write. I wanted to share my thoughts on the significance of keeping a blog in 2023 and...
The Privilege of Teaching Internationally: Exploring the Pros and Cons
I signed up to the ‘UK Teaching’ subreddit recently to read a self-selecting group focus on the negatives of teaching. As part of my recent reflection about working as a classroom teacher (rather than a non-classroom administrator), I reminded myself of how many...
Perception, Dunning-Krueger and Education
I think this is a really interesting metaphor to make teachers think about the idea of 'education, noticing and knowing'. The less educated notice the bird as black: therefore it is black. They think everyone else must see the bird as black too, otherwise they are...
Guiding a literary commentary with a thematic or conceptual focus
My classroom has a strong presentation element with students seeing and responding to the presentations of others. First I will give a brief summary of what the presentation consists of, and then I will show how a thematic or conceptual focus can be useful. Firstly...
An Entire Literature Curriculum: A Book
If only I had a resource of a whole curriculum I can just pick up! Often I hear that sentiment, especially from people with full lives and varied ambitions. This holiday I curated the resources I have acquired over the years of teaching. Literally 100s of...
‘We do it already’ – Teaching Metaphor
Teaching metaphor is fundamental to understanding your language, your perception and our culture. We do not understand abstractions - such as loyalty, love and endeavour - as clearly or as easily as we might think we do, despite how easily we might express these words...
Let the students struggle: Mindful of the Concepts we Choose
Can we be mindful about where we let the students struggle? It is mindless to let the students struggle themselves with everything. My experience of a distance MA is that you are given a reading list, 2-3 exemplars, and everything is up to you. You struggle with the...
Purpose of Denotation
In a world increasingly suspicious of authority, relativity in meaning is king. We feel what things mean: spikes in emotion take our perception by the hand in our daily journey of making sense of things. Denotation reflects perceptions of what must...
Originality For Students
With the need to seek new interpretations of art and life, and the increasing (and righteous?) suspicion of authority, we prize originality. I certainly did as a teenager, and until quite recently. Now, I buy more into the model that art and literature should aim to...