In light of recent concerns in the United States and the United Kingdom regarding the rote and restrictive nature of English literature instruction, this article offers an approach to teaching literature rooted not in knowledge, as literary pedagogy is often conceptualised, but instead in understanding. Reading for understanding extends beyond…

This essay explores the teaching and learning of Black British literature in UK secondary schools with reference to texts that now appear on GCSE English Literature specifications. It seeks to reveal some of the issues that may arise when teaching texts that deal with race and racism while emphasising the role of racial literacy in facilitating…

In this paper, we report data from the first national survey of secondary Shakespeare teaching in the UK, conducted online in 2017-18 with a sample of 211 teachers distributed throughout Wales, England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. In this article, we outline the pedagogical practices which are dominant. Specifically, we examine the group of…

Library digitization has made more than 100,000 nineteenth-century English-language books available to the public. Do the books that have been digitized reflect the population of published books? An affirmative answer would allow book and literary historians to use holdings of major digital libraries as proxies for the population of published…

This article draws upon Roland Barthes' theory of "myth" to unpack how "student progress" is conceptualised and measured in the curriculum and assessment of GCSE English in secondary schools in England. Using case studies of three Year 11 students, I critique aspects of the government's Progress 8 accountability measure, their…

The aim of this research was to determine the standard that was effectively applied to General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSE) and A levels in June 2020 by the decision to accept the maximum of the centre-assessed grade and the calculated grade. The data for this analysis came from the results tables for GCSEs and A levels in 2019 and…

While "Rebecca" is not currently a set text for A-Level English Literature, this paper argues that the novel's multi-faceted richness would justify its inclusion in any list of recommended texts. Divided into four interconnected parts, the paper offers, firstly, some approaches to the reading and teaching of fiction, generally. The…

Qualitative practitioner research undertaken by teachers in schools is a vital means of developing pedagogy and practice, one that is under-valued in today's educational climate. This essay explores representations of students in qualitative studies, which, I argue, necessarily transform student participants into 'characters' within the…

This study explored the transition to university as experienced by first-year students of English studies. The first year has been identified by existing research as a critical time for new students in terms of their persistence and success on their degree programme. However, there is a need for further research in the current UK higher education…

This essay considers the assumption that the study of English involves engaging students' imaginations to explore a range of interpretations and hypothesise about meaning. It goes on to explore the reading positions of two students in a Year 10 class, who were studying "A Christmas Carol" at GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary…

We propose a decolonial pedagogy in the teaching of English Literature at the undergraduate level in postcolonial Pakistan. We argue that the English literary texts that are taught in conjunction with different supplementary materials retain a West-centric tilt that requires disbanding. Therefore, we administered carefully designed worksheets.…

This paper has two complementary objectives. After providing some theoretical perspectives on fiction generally, and on the teaching of fiction more specifically, it firstly evaluates, from a literary-critical perspective, a reasonably representative selection of the portrayal of teachers and teaching in some twentieth-century Anglo-Irish fiction…

This article discusses the use of assessment by teachers to replace external marking. It shows how professional participation and moderation can provide reliability in summative assessment, even in public examinations for older students. It draws on historical experiences of assessment for A-level English literature.

As a professor of eighteenth-century British Literature I am often tasked (like my colleagues in other areas) with constructing a period based syllabus that "represents" this portion of literary history. Every semester, without fail, I am befuddled by the word "represents." How, exactly, do I want to "represent" the…

This paper is prompted by the author's experience as a researcher of English literary education in three different geographies over the past three years: Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Affect theory, as discussed in this paper, concerns atmospheres, surfaces, bodies, emotions, moods, vicinities and capacities. Drawing on affect theory,…