An English Meet, 2022

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On Thursday 5th May we had the first-ever ‘English Meet’ at St Columba’s College (previously planned for 2020). Seven practising English teachers from around Dublin gave short presentations on ideas from their own teaching to an audience in Whispering House. It was lovely to be back in person again, after so many Zoom meetings. It was enormously stimulating and helpful. Below, the slides from the evening via Google Slides, and you can also download them in PDF form. Further down, brief summaries of what the speakers addressed.

  • Selena Wilkes kicked off, sharing her experiences of encouraging engagement in poetry, including weaker students. She wants them to see at a deeper level, to make connections between poems, to look at the poet as a whole rather than just individual works. She pushes them to go well beyond ‘I like this poem because…’

  • Michael Browne gave an account of how he has learned to structure his Leaving Certificate course teaching, such as four cycles of addressing Othello (as a single text), improving the quality of the students’ experience over the years.

  • Trevor Connolly returned to the importance and effectiveness of formative feedback, which was prompted by the experience of remote learning during the schools’ closure. Digital work helps re-drafting, and there are great benefits in terms of teacher workload.

  • Jean Morley looked at how ‘genre’ expectations are problematic in terms of authentic expression, particularly in Paper 1 compositions: the language genres and the PCLM division are artificial and restrictive. This is all the more obvious at a time when students’ expression in the real world is not bounded by such parameters.

  • Holly McIndoe gave an introduction to Whole Class Feedback, and how effective it can be for some kinds of writing. We are all susceptible to TBU comments (true but useless, like use more detail). See below for links from her slides.

  • Edmond Behan got everyone moving, with a process he has found very helpful for his own students (particular when they start in September) and also student teachers. This involves leaving the room (see below!), writing down observations, returning, taking on a character perspective (3 year-old, entrepreneur, rebellious teenager) and linking the two. Attendees bravely shared their writing…

  • Finally, I gave a short introduction to a simple but powerful revision technique based on quotation retrieval grids from plays by Shakespeare (see below for the links to downloads). In class, pairs look at an individual quotation and discuss the questions below them, reaching back into their schema of knowledge about the play. It is low-stress and generative.

Links and resources from the presentations:

Holly McIndoe

Quotation Retrieval Grids (downloadable):

Outside Whispering House