Thursday 8 April 2010

Teaching Blake and pushed for time?


Happy holidays!

I hope the current Easter holidays are providing a great break for you (and not just ‘time for illness’)! Wonderful weather would be a real bonus, but this year it seems too much to hope for…

Time to assess

Within the Easter holidays there is always that scary point as an A Level English teacher when you review the work you have covered so far and realise just how much there is still to fit in. This past term has doubtless had its fair share of staff illness and school closure, which may have thrown your carefully structured lesson plan off course.

So now an element of (controlled) panic may start to assail you. Perhaps a text still isn’t properly covered - and then there are all the revision sessions to fit it, particularly on those texts which you weren’t confident the class really ‘got’ first time around.

Ready made and reliable

Whether you are getting your students ready for AS levels or A2s, you don’t want anxiety to rob you of the remaining days of your holiday. Yes, time is now of the essence, but there are some easy shortcuts you can use.

The recently launched Crossref-it.info guide on Songs of Innocence and Experience is full of information you can send your students to for research. It has the usual interactive timeline, contextual info and clear textual analyses.

Even better, it is now accompanied by a variety of teachers’ worksheets. Devised by the English HOD of a successful state school, each provides three to five lessons’ worth of different approaches to the poems, so that you can make them accessible for the weakest to the brightest of your students.

Check them out on Crossref-it.info then you have got one less thing to worry about…

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