This paper is predicated on an argument for presenting the Irish short story as a statutory recommendation within the A Level English syllabus in Northern Ireland (and also, perhaps, in syllabi set by Examination Boards in other parts of the United Kingdom). Employing a carefully considered literary-critical perspective, the paper offers a…

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, which investigates the teaching of poetry at Key Stage Four in Northern Ireland, argues that poetry has a radical, and even subversive, role to play in an increasingly examination-driven educational culture. By focusing partly on the views of a number of poets and critics, the article evaluates the, at times, contested nature of…