Minds Made for Stories
Thomas Newkirk is one of the best writers on education today. His book Minds Made for Stories examines the ways non-fiction texts have narratives at their cores, and how these can be used to teach them.
Read MoreOpen Water
Caleb Azumah Nelson’s first novel, Open Water, is a lyrical story set in contemporary London, charting the tentative journey towards love of two young people. It is a novel about intimacy, dancing, music, and racism.
Read MoreTechnology for Teaching: a personal history
From the Banda to the blackboard to the overhead projector. As a gadget and technology fan, I’ve seen a few generations of technology in the classroom.
Read MoreThinking about 'King Lear'
Here are some exercises on quotations in King Lear. They are designed for pair-work 10-minute sessions in class, but work perfectly well for individuals.
Read MoreBeing Betjeman(n) by Jonathan Smith
Jonathan Smith’s enormously enjoyable Being Betjeman(n) is an unclassifiable and highly personal book about the poet, but also about mental health, teaching, parenting and friendship.
Read MoreTeaching in the Online Classroom
Teaching in the Online Classroom: surviving and thriving in the new normal by Doug Lemov and the Teach Like a Champion Team offers lots of guidance and reassurance for teachers right now in the ‘remote space’.
Read More'The Kids' by Hannah Lowe
Hannah Lowe’s Costa award-winning sequence of sonnets The Kids is a triumph.
Read MoreLeaving Certificate English resources
During 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 MoreSeamus Heaney's 'Mossbawn: (1) Sunlight
This podcast examines Seamus Heaney's poem 'Sunlight', one of the dedicatory poems called 'Mossbawn', which open his 1975 collection North.
Read MoreBooks of the Year, 2020
An annual personal choice of books of the year.
Read MoreRadical Attention
Julia Bell’s pocket-sized essay, Radical Attention examines the ways our attention has become a commodity and how an industry has developed out of our distractions.
Read MoreBooks of the Year lists, 2020
A compilation of the best Books of the Year lists in the media.
Read MoreDiversity in Schools
Bennie Kara’s new book Diversity in Schools: a little guide for teachers is small in format, big in ambition. It is just what schools and individual teachers need right now to navigate these issues.
Read MoreINOTE, November 28th 2020
Here are the slides from my two presentations at the (virtual) conference of the Irish National Teachers of English on November 28th.
Read MoreHow to Think Like Shakespeare
The tagline for this site is Thinking, Writing, Reading, Teaching, and you may have spotted that Shakespeare features regularly. So it’s exciting to come across a book which combines all five elements.
Read MoreINOTE 2020
Details of the first virtual conference for teachers of English in Ireland, on November 28th.
Read MoreA Ghost in the Throat
Doireann Ní Ghríofa's remarkable first prose work, as befits a poet, is itself a weaving, as it braids to and fro in its consideration of female bodies, erasures and absences, texts and textures, rooms, ghosts.
Read MoreClaire Keegan on 'Foster'
Claire Keegan’s novella Foster is one of the outstanding pieces of writing by an Irish author in recent years (and a fine option for class study). Some years ago she came to my school, read from the work, and was asked questions by the pupils.
Read MoreEmma Smith on 'Othello'
Emma Smith’s This is Shakespeare is one of the best books of recent times to examine the plays (20 of them). This post looks at her chapter on Othello.
Read MoreMotivated Teaching
Peps Mccrea's book Memorable Teaching in his High Impact Teaching series was excellent, and so is his latest, Motivated Teaching. These are books which are both modest and ambitious: the former because they are short, tight, controlled, and the latter because they also deal with big ideas about learning, absorbing, compressing and then expressing them very clearly.
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