This essay explores an English lesson I taught to a Year 9 class in which students drew upon and narrativised personal experiences. I describe and examine the literary sociability of the lesson, by which I mean the social and cultural exchanges that give shape to students' reading and writing. In doing so, I demonstrate the need for policymakers…

This essay explores the creativity and learning that can take place when students are given the opportunity to go beyond the GCSE set poems and create their own poetry anthologies. I argue that in the process of creating a poetry anthology, students are encouraged to engage on a deeper and more personal level with poetry. I suggest that when…

I explore a series of incidents in my English classroom, which occurred while I was preparing my students for their high-stakes GCSE English Language exam ('Paper 2: Writers' viewpoints and perspectives'). I thereby attempt to confront some of my own failings and biases with regard to non-fiction and the teaching of persuasive writing in…

This essay explores what the development of writing might look like and how it might take shape in a secondary English classroom. The study problematises current definitions of progress. In direct opposition to standards-driven models, I propose an alternative way of thinking about the development of writers through a series of narrative accounts…

This article considers questions surrounding the teaching of writing "from different cultures and traditions", in the context of debates over multiculturalism in Britain today, and contends that English teachers have a vital role to play in the survival and flourishing of multicultural British society. In view of the self-consciously…

Revision is recognised as a key and complex element of the writing process. Despite this, research shows that students find it difficult effectively to revise their own writing due to a lack of metacognitive awareness and understanding of the processes they undertake when writing. The first part of this inquiry studies nine students' understanding…