Jill Carter: Just a Moment

The new Literature exams often ask students to analyse an extract and then to refer to texts as a whole. OCR uses the term ‘moments’: for example, ‘Explore at least two moments from… to support your ideas.’ I like this idea of selecting moments. My interpretation of this is that it designed to develop interpretation […]

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Studying Shakespeare

‘Boldness be my friend’ Cymbeline Recently I was asked to undertake some work with students who were studying Shakespeare for a Literature essay. I asked for a copy of their key scenes and was handed a wad of photocopies. This  took me straight back to my early teaching career in the 1990s. I’m all for […]

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19th century non-fiction at KS3

Our Year 10 classes are now embarking on the new GCSE English Language and Literature syllabi. As we can never know what the government will do to English next, we cannot possibly know what kind of shelf life the current new specifications will have but we might have five years if we’re lucky (I feel […]

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Stand and Deliver

The traditional whiteboard (or even blackboard) used to take centre stage in the classroom. It has been pushed to one side (where most pupils can’t see), reduced in size or eliminated altogether. The other day I had a conversation with a talented young teacher who declared that she was going to request a traditional whiteboard […]

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