Abstract or Description For many English teachers, teaching Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) is daunting. The stakes have always been high: if your pupils are not good spellers, struggle to punctuate correctly and have a tendency to use non-standard forms in their writing, then invariably they won’t achieve highly, particularly in exams.Since the beginning of […]

Abstract or Description PurposeThis paper focuses upon the affordances of and issues surrounding the teaching of George Orwell’s novel 1984 (1949) as a set text for GCSE English and English Literature in an examination-obsessed and heavily surveilled school system. It considers this by focusing on the classroom practice of a beginning teacher tackling the teaching […]

Abstract or Description An article for NAWE’s peer-reviewed magazine Writing in Education about how mindfulness can be used by creative writers to develop their practice and pedagogy. Reference details: Gilbert, Francis. 2019. Mindfulness and Creative Writing. Writing in Education(77), ISSN 1361-8539 [Article] TextFGilbert_NAWE_magazine_Jan_2019 (2).pdf – Accepted VersionAvailable under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial.Download (149kB) | Preview Official URL: https://www.nawe.co.uk/writing-in-education.html You can […]

Note in 2024: This article contains some interesting ideas about educating English teachers in relation to Teaching Standards set since 2012 for teachers to be measured against. However, these standards could well change and are less emphasized now than they used to be. Gilbert, Francis. 2019. The Teachers’ Standards and English Teaching. Teaching English(19), pp. 33-36. […]

This article examines the author’s interactions with the teaching strategy known as Reciprocal Teaching, sometimes also called Reciprocal Reading, which involves students learning to read collaboratively in small groups. Reciprocal Teaching typically involves students teaching each other by following a rubric of activities that are aimed at primarily improving their comprehension skills. In brief, students […]

This article explores how I became ‘aesthetically literate’ in my life; how I used other artistic work to educate and heal myself. It argues that ‘aesthetic literacy’ is just as important, if not more important, than other forms of literacy because of its therapeutic dimensions.

Is English a mindful subject? How can mindfulness help English teachers teach their subject? This article explores these issues, arguing that mindful awareness of the present moment can assist teachers, and help learners appreciate the qualities of literature.

An explanation of a creative writing and reading project the author carried out with students at Deptford Green school, which involved putting the principles of Reciprocal Teaching into practice. Reference: Gilbert, Francis. 2017. Dreaming of a Better World. Teaching English, [Article] TextDreaming of a Better World FGilbert NATE Magazine June 2017.docx – Accepted VersionAvailable under License Creative Commons […]

This is a very useful article for anyone who is thinking of teaching creative writing. It shows that there are certain pedagogical strategies, such as encouraging freewriting, using prompts and fostering flow which can significantly help learners to write creatively. The article is designed to be dipped in and out of, and be used for reference.

This article aims to examine the benefits of teachers using their own autobiographical writing in the classroom. It explores the blurring of truth and fiction in autobiographical writing and argues that teachers can help students if they provide students with the cloak of fiction when writing about their own lives. Furthermore, it puts forward the […]

My article, published in Changing English, argues that the concept of ‘aesthetic learning’ can be helpful for English teachers on two levels. First, it can be a useful identity for English teachers and students to adopt, based upon my own experiences as a secondary English teacher, creative writer and PhD student. Second, I argue that […]

Blue Door Press is delighted to announce that the audiobook version of Who Do You Love (BDP 2017) is now available for sale on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. It was quite a journey working with the voice artist and actor Christopher James on the novel during this lockdown period. He and I talked quite intensely […]

As I’ve pointed out in previous blogs, the process of listening to the audiobook of Who Do You Love has been enriching for me, making me return to the text some years after writing it. Christopher James  reads the book more slowly than me, taking his time, giving the narrator’s voice a melancholic, deadpan quality. […]

I’m writing this blog post on the summer solstice, 20th June 2020, which is an important date in my novel Who Do You Love. In fact, I like to think the events on the summer solstice June 1988 in a Sussex wood, devastated by the hurricane of October 1987, are pivotal in the novel. They […]

By turns comic, tragic and romantic, Who Do You Love is a stirring novel which explores the big issues of passion, death and grief; a fast-paced contemporary love story but also moving exploration of what it means to be alive today.

Yesterday I spoke at the Guardian Education Centre for a conference on Reading for Pleasure in the secondary classroom. The Guardian’s literary editor, Claire Armistead, kicked off the day by explaining that we need our young people to enjoy reading and to read whole texts which are not part of the curriculum; she pointed out […]

I’ve been working hard at helping Key Stage 3 students in Deptford Green school, a London comprehensive, to develop their reading skills. To that end, I have written a book, The Time Devil, which is set partly in Deptford Green and partly in the National Maritime Museum, whom we are also working with.  I have […]

I had a very enjoyable day at Goldsmiths on the summer solstice to celebrate National Writing Day. The summer solstice is: “the time at which the sun is at its northernmost point in the sky(southernmost point in the South hemisphere), appearing at noon at its highest altitude above the horizon.” It is midsummer; the heart of this glorious season, a time when Vikings used to resolve legal disputes, when the sun would align with the Wyoming’s Bighorn medicine wheel and magnificent Aztec architecture, […]

The page-turning story which is rooted in historical facts. Pachinko is nearly 500 pages long but you can’t stop turning the pages once you start reading it. From the start, you’re immersed in the family saga of Sunja, the loved daughter of Hoonie, who was born with a “cleft palate and a twisted foot”, and […]

To my mind, Creative Writing (CW) currently languishes like a frightened animal in one of the curriculum’s darker alleyways, shivering and rather worried about its prospects. Having been an English teacher for twenty-five years in various comprehensives and now a Lecturer in PGCE English at Goldsmiths, which involves visiting many schools, I have both taught […]