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We teach students to search poetry for meaning, as though every poem contains a hidden answer waiting to be uncovered. But what if that assumption is wrong? In War Photographer, Carol Ann Duffy presents us with a figure caught between professionalism and guilt, compassion and detachment, witness and participant. Yet the closer we examine the…
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What if every story is really the same story? A recent lesson began with a challenge to a common assumption in English teaching: that students learn Literature by studying individual texts. Instead, students were introduced to the idea of literary genealogy—the concept that all stories belong to the same enduring tradition and share a common…
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You might be a critic if… requires some love of reading for sure, but literary study is not book club to spend time in the warm glow of a narrative. A critic is ‘reading’, ‘experiencing’ and ‘reacting’ differently to a mere reader-for-pleasure.
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Schools are increasingly recognising that emotional regulation is not merely a pastoral concern but a prerequisite for meaningful disciplinary engagement. In English, where students must navigate complex texts, abstract ideas, and interpretive uncertainty, emotional stability is foundational. This framework introduces the concept of Emotional Touchstones: personal, meaningful physical objects that provide students with cues of…
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The England–Mexico 1am kick‑off has triggered a national debate: late nights, attendance fines, cultural capital, and ministerial statements. But beneath the headlines lies a structural truth: our curriculum is so fragile that a single missed lesson can damage progress. That’s not a parenting problem — it’s a design problem.
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Perspectives in stories matter. Typically, the perspective that we follow is the ‘protagonist’ – and typically we align the protagonist with the function of the hero. Few stories subvert this but by deconstructing and rebuilding Macbeth, we might get a very different view of what role each character fulfills.
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As schools prepare for potential closures during extreme weather, English departments must reconsider their reliance on teacher‑led slide decks and instead adopt facilitative learning devices that enable genuine independence.
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Contemporary English classrooms often risk collapsing the discipline into the act of reading a set text. When the novel becomes the central experience rather than the material through which disciplinary thinking is developed, opportunities for explicit language instruction diminish. This article argues that English must be understood not as the passive consumption of literary works,…
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Literature lesson 101 now contains a simple video introduction to the learning objectives. It marks the first video empowered lesson, and could be something that continues to be developed across the virtual department. https://disciplineofenglish.co.uk/welcome-to-discipline-of-english/discipline-of-literature/literature-1xx-factual-knowledge/literature-lesson-101/
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At DisciplineofEnglish.co.uk, we’re making the actual knowledge of English explicit: closed, defined, teachable, and measurable. That means every learning objective becomes a buildable workbook, a markable task, and a teachable concept — not a vague gesture toward an exam.
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