Opinion
Here I comment on a wide range of issues from education to politics, the arts and more. I welcome lively and opinionated debate, so please leave your comments.
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Towards boundary crossing: primary and secondary school teachers teaching creative writing and its redrafting
This academic article, written by Professor Tom Dobson and I, explores the research we did looking at primary and secondary school teachers attitudes towards creative writing and redrafting. This is a rare piece of research which compares primary and secondary school teachers’ approaches to teaching creative writing. It shows that primary school teachers can be formulaic in the way they teach creative writing, using product approaches. However, in secondary schools the picture is different: teachers, particularly those, who are writers themselves, give students more agency in redrafting and shaping their writing. This indicates how professional development should involve primary and secondary school teachers in dialogue with one another to cross boundaries of practice.
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The British Library, research and creative writing
Creative writing can be used to help people engage with the British Library and its collection. MA students led members of the public through the Library, inviting creative responses to its archive and exhibitions.
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What can the opera ‘Carmen’ teach us about domestic violence?
A blog written for my publishers, Blue Door Press, which explores how and why the opera ‘Carmen’ can be seen as a critique of violence and masculinity.
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Four reasons there is a Connected Curriculum at Goldsmiths
Why bring all the students at a university together to learn critical thinking and research skills?
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Racing Ahead in Iran
On Saturday my stepmother and her sister, Shaheen, invited us to dinner. They cooked us Iranian food: amazing rice dishes and soup with saffron and pasta, yoghurt and cucumber sauce, fried aberguine. It was delicious. My stepmother is Iranian, as is Shaheen, who is visiting for a few months. Shaheen had invited around the son […]
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Panic!
Yesterday I saw Chicken Little with my five-year-old. I had been expecting to hate it but I actually laughed out loud at the beginning of the film. In it, Chicken Little — just like Chicken Licken — panicks when he thinks a piece of the sky has fallen on his head, waking up the whole […]
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New Website
This is the day that I launch my website!
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Terrorists attack
Finally, they have come. They have attacked. At the latest count, there are nearly forty dead. It is a traumatic time. I am in school when it happens. I see it come over the phone in the form of a text message from the Guardian. Explosions near Aldgate. Other people at work have heard differently. […]
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Terrorists attack
Finally, they have come. They have attacked. At the latest count, there are nearly forty dead. It is a traumatic time. I am in school when it happens. I see it come over the phone in the form of a text message from the Guardian. Explosions near Aldgate. Other people at work have heard differently. […]