Tag: Analytical writing

Flipping Batman

A reflection on a sequence of lessons, from the teacher’s and from the learner’s perspectives.

By James Durran and Joe Minden.

From September 2021, Joe will be teaching English at Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Brighton. This blog is built around a piece of writing which he wrote in 2003, when he was a pupil in James’s Year 8 media class, at Parkside Community College, in Cambridge. James has written about this piece before, with Andrew Burn, in their book Media Literacy in Schools (2007); but what we want to do here is give an account of some of the teaching which lies behind it, and to reflect on that from two perspectives – that of the teacher and that of the learner looking back.

Continue reading “Flipping Batman” →
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Developing critical readers: preparing students for GCSE English Language reading papers

Thoughts on how students are taught to write critically about texts in exams

This post was originally an article for NATE‘s Teaching English (Issue 12, Autumn 2016.) It has been edited slightly.

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Preparing for the new English GCSEs has compelled English departments to put their Key Stage 4 curriculum through yet another revision. For many, this has been taken as an opportunity to be creative with the curriculum, to devise fresh practice and to sharpen classroom teaching of knowledge and skills. However, the combination of a short time frame and a highly pressurised environment has pushed some departments towards an anxious, somewhat mechanistic approach to the specifications, with teachers focusing narrowly on the hoops through which students will have to jump. Continue reading “Developing critical readers: preparing students for GCSE English Language reading papers” →

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