For many years our school has had a wonderful summer event: ‘Voices of Poetry’, with pupils and staff reading out poems in many languages. It works. It’s often magical. My colleague Ronan has put it together this year as a virtual audio event, and here are 40 minutes of pleasure for you.
Read MoreBernardine Evaristo’s 2013 novel Mr Loverman is hugely enjoyable, just like her Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other.
Read MoreJames Shapiro’s latest book, Shakespeare in a Divided America, is brilliant reading. Shapiro skilfully shows how Shakespeare has been ‘present’ in so many of the most important moments in American life.
Read MoreDorian Lynskey’s The Ministry of Truth: a biography of George Orwell’s 1984 is a superb introduction to the novel, and a vital read for English teachers.
Read MoreThis is the text of a talk I gave on Thursday 23rd March 2017 as part of an event to mark the life and works of William Trevor. In the second part of the event, the author Joseph O’Connor read Trevor’s great story ‘Another Christmas’ and answered questions from the audience about Trevor’s work.
Read MoreBernardine Evaristo’s Booker-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other is wonderful: such a tonic for ‘our time.’ While I found the previous Booker winner, Milkman by Anna Burns, an extraordinary achievement in sustaining a voice (dense, intense, disturbing), Evaristo’s book is just so hugely enjoyable.
Read MoreClosing the Reading Gap is a sibling to Alex Quigley’s previous book, Closing the Vocabulary Gap, and joins it in being one of the most accessible, interesting and helpful books on education in recent years.
Read MoreThe unexpected news this afternoon of Eavan Boland’s passing felt just like hearing of Seamus Heaney’s death : a sharp, dismayed ‘Ah no. No.’ Losing great writers leaves us bereft, even if we didn’t know them personally. The words of a great poet with a long career like Boland or Heaney seep into us over decades. They become part of what we are.
Read MoreHere’s a Quizlet set for those preparing Wordsworth for the Leaving Certificate. Even if you’re not learning these quotations, they should prompt thoughts about key ideas in the poems. The reverse ‘answer’ side includes brief comments on significance. The main thing: use the quotations for thinking purposes.
Read Moreit is particularly welcome that at this time one of the sharpest minds in education, Daisy Christodoulou, should turn her attention to the relationship between teaching and technology. Here are some thoughts on her third book, Teachers vs Tech? the case for an ed tech revolution.
Read MoreDuring these uncertain and anxious times for pupils, here is a summary of some resources for Leaving Certificate English candidates that may be helpful when working at home. Regular updates coming.
Read MoreQuotations are the core of an answer on Hamlet. If you are preparing to answer on the play in an exam, it’s essential you can refer in detail to the text. Think of what should replace 'blank' in each case, then click to see the answer. Now write down (or, better still, discuss with a friend): how could this quotation be used? how is it helpful/interesting? how does it connect with others? Use this exercise not just to retrieve, but to think.
Read MoreThoughts on Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, and Robert Macfarlane’s Twitter Book Club #CoVirusReading
Read MoreHere are some exercises on quotations in Hamlet. They are designed for pair-work 10-minute sessions in class, but work perfectly well for individuals. You need to know the play well, so these are for revision at a late stage. The purpose is to make your mind work hard.
Read MoreThe first soliloquy in Hamlet is poised just before the protagonist’s life changes: we hear the words of a man eaten up with bitterness, frustration and anger. When you’re studying this play, it’s important that you have a detailed knowledge of this and the subsequent soliloquies – they’re hard evidence of what is inside the head of this most complex character.
Read MoreSeveral researchED events around the world have sadly now fallen by the wayside (or at least have been postponed). We are still 6 months away from the second rED Dublin. Who knows what the situation will be in what right now seems an aeon away. In any case, we are going to go ahead and release tickets as planned on Tuesday 24th March at 7.30pm.
Read MoreThe first poem in Roger Robinson’s book is ‘The Missing’, dedicated to ‘the victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster’, and the last poem is ‘A Portable Paradise’ itself. In between hell and paradise there are poems of tremendous thematic and formal variety. It is a book I’ll keep returning to.
Read MoreSpring is the third in Ali Smith’s seasons quartet. It will be interesting to see what these books, written out of the heat of immediate events in British culture, will look like in 20 years' time. Without that perspective, all we can say for the moment is that they are unique responses to the world today: complex, agile, rangy, funny, surprising and intellectually dazzling.
Read MoreOne of the deepest pleasures in life: being a child snuggled up to a parent, listening to a story. And also being a parent holding your child, telling that story (such as, for instance, Sam McBratney’s gentle series Guess How Much I Love You ). It is simply The ineffable magic in the mingling of a voice, a narrative, loving attention, and physical closeness.
Read MoreReader, Come Home: the reading brain in a digital world (2018) is an elegant and insightful analysis of how deep reading is under threat, and of how this particular form of attention is being eroded by the digital universe in which we now live. For an English teacher, the book is essential reading. For me, it is one of the most important books of our recent years.
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