Thoughts about teaching, literature, and teaching literature
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about cold reads: how they work, how they maybe don't work, whether they're a good thing, bad thing, or whether they deserve their increasing popularity. I'm not sure how much this post will offer as I suspect, or certainly at the outset, my answer to all of the above... Continue Reading →
Compare how poets present attitudes towards a broken relationship in Neutral Tones and one other poem When considering how Hardy presents a broken relationship in Neutral Tones one also immediately think of Sheers' Winter Swans. Both poems depict the deep pain that a broken relationship can cause, reflecting on the difficulties and emotional trauma this... Continue Reading →
The Question In ‘At Sea’ how does the poet present ideas about loss? [24 marks] In both ‘At Sea and ‘The Sands of Dee’ the speakers describe ideas about the power of the sea. What are the similarities and/or differences between the ways the poets present these ideas? [8 marks] The Response Thematically speaking,... Continue Reading →
Several years before becoming a secondary school teacher, I taught at university whilst completing a PhD and did a lot of private tutoring on the side. I didn’t have many resources but I did have one that I would use with all of my university classes and tutees: a single side of A4 with three... Continue Reading →
How does the poet present the speaker’s feelings about home? (24) Island Man Morning And the Island man wakes up To the sound of blue surf In his head The steady breaking and wombing Wild seabirds And fisherman pulling out to sea The sun surfacing defiantly From the east Of his small emerald island He... Continue Reading →
If you enjoy this blog post, then you'll love my new book Experiencing English Literature. With dedicated chapters on teaching novels, plays and poetry as well as teaching generative writing, sentence-stems and essay structure, it is filled with actionable strategies ready for the classroom. You can order it right now HERE ! Starting with the... Continue Reading →
Ok: first of all an admission. The title of this post, with its impossibly bold claim to distil teaching poetry into a series of neatly packaged steps, is somewhat overzealous. In a manner somewhat, and unfavourably, all too familiar to the last year, I fear it will overpromise and underdeliver. However, what it will do,... Continue Reading →
I’ve been playing Super Mario Bros 3D on the Nintendo Switch recently with my four year old. This is a game where you can have multiple players so he and I can be playing together as two separate characters on the same screen. Whilst he plays it really well, there are some levels that are... Continue Reading →
The title of this post is taken from Robert Hass’ superb A Little Book of Form: An Exploration Into The Formal Imagination of Poetry. It is, without doubt, the best book on poetic form I have ever read and within it is this fascinating definition: [Form is] the way the poem embodies the energy of... Continue Reading →
I’ve been very fortunate this term to run an optional and additional enrichment course based around Bob Eaglestone’s excellent Doing English. The aim of this short course has been to expose Y10 students to some of the most interesting debates within literary studies that they otherwise wouldn’t really encounter until A Level or perhaps even... Continue Reading →
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