Every year, parents have an opinion on the books on their kids’ reading lists – whether they think the books are stale, unchallenging or confronting. How are books and reading taught?
Walden Pond was Thoreau’s sometimes chilly muse.
Lane Turner for The Boston Globe/via Getty Images
Music is featured in most of Jane Austen’s novels and recent research is teaching us more about her personal love of music. What can it tell us about the world of Jane Austen?
A Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces member hugs a resident leaving his hometown following Russian artillery shelling in Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 9, 2022.
AP Photo/Oleksandr Ratushniak
Last year saw the first cohort of English literature students who were born in or beyond 2000 – the so-called digital generation. I wanted to know whether the classics still affected their lives.
Teachers often assign older books.
vovidzha/Shutterstock.com
Montaigne anticipated much of modern thought, and was profoundly shaped by the classics. His Essays, so personal yet so urbane, continue to challenge and charm readers.
Icelandic sagas are under-appreciated in the world of European literature.
Oscar Wergeland [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Family feuds, love affairs, empire writing back to the motherland - the medieval Icelandic saga have it all. Though less known than other classics of European literature they richly deserve a place among the best.
Berlin recently agreed to curb the number of migrants it welcomed after a backlash against Angela Merkel’s suspension of EU rules limiting numbers. It followed previous scenes of crowds welcoming new arrivals…
The curriculum review called for more “Western literature”. Given the curriculum is mostly Western literature already, perhaps we can take that to mean “more Bible”.
Flickr/Ruth_W
The National Curriculum Review was released this week, with the reviewers calling for a greater focus on “Western” literature in the English classroom. As former high school and primary English teachers…