Cheltenham Literature Festival 2010

This month saw the annual Literature Festival return to Cheltenham - always an exciting time of the year for the English team! The list of events for the week was as huge as ever and the variety of topics under discussion was wide and interesting with something for everyone. Here are some of our personal highlights...

Becky S:

I went to hear Philip Pullman talking about his new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which is a retelling of the life of Jesus. I love the way in which he manages to be really quite controversial and anti-authoritarian in his work, but always in a thoughtful (and thought-provoking) way rather than an antagonistic or hostile one. He reflected this approach in person too, and it was fascinating to hear him speak.

In complete contrast, I also went to hear local-boy-made-good Simon Pegg talking about his autobiography, Nerd Do Well. Celebrity autobiographies are not my usual choice of reading matter, but I’m a bit of a fan so I made an exception in this case. He was very funny, as expected, but also talked quite seriously at times about the events and people that have influenced him in his career and his life, ranging from Star Wars to school teachers!

Becky L:

I went to see guest director Owen Sheers chair a lively group of poetry readings about places that affect us called Poet's Tour of Britain - linked to the TV series on the same theme that he presented recently. It was great to hear poems about certain places read in the local accents - it really helps to bring the language to life I think. A poem about desolate Leuchars train station near St. Andrews struck a chord with me as I used to live in Scotland and have memories of standing there in the bitter wind, willing the train to hurry up!

I also saw one of my current favourite authors, Scarlett Thomas, speaking about the history and art of storytelling. Some interesting points were raised about the power of narrative and its influence over us. The panel also discussed the nature of lying in fiction and whether we like to feel comforted or kept on our toes by a story and its narrator. I'm a fan of twisting plots myself so this was a really entertaining debate to watch.

Emma: Diary of a Festival Volunteer

I was thrilled to be a volunteer at the festival, and I took immense, geeky pride in wearing the Festival t-shirt and the ‘Staff’ pass (which I’ll treasure…)! The days were long, beginning with 8.30am briefing meetings where the volunteers were assigned to venues for the day and informed of programme changes or issues to be aware of, and ending after the last event of the day, which often meant getting home around 11pm. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the Centaur on my first day, which meant I got to work on big events like Armstrong & Miller and Derren Brown, and the fascinating Times Debate. The work consisted of stage management - making sure the right number of tables/chairs/glasses of water were ready, looking after the speakers before and after the event, managing book signing queues, and, the most fun, being the roving mic in the audience for q&a sessions. I also worked at the Garden Theatre, the Inkpot tent, and the Everyman, so I got a really rounded experience of the different venues, and I enjoyed being able to help festival-goers enjoy their experience by generally being helpful and public-facing. The days were very up and down – one minute it’s all hands on deck, the next it’s quiet as events take place, but I was lucky enough to view 26 events over the four days I worked, many of which I wouldn’t have chosen but which I really enjoyed. The two stand-out ones for me were the Cheltenham Booker Prize, where a panel of judges discussed which 1960 book would have won the Booker prize (To Kill a Mockingbird won), and another where guest director China Mieville challenged Man Booker to include science fiction in their judging.

I worked with some amazing people and there’s a great atmosphere among the Festival staff. I was absolutely blown away by the smoothness of the operation – but then thinking about it the proof is in the pudding as I always enjoy the Festival as a punter and think how fantastic it is – it takes a mammoth amount of organising and boy have they got it down to a tee.

Stand out memories will be the feeling I got whenever I had to go into the Writer’s Room where the speakers relax before/after their events and glimpsing many people I admire greatly. And, whilst managing a (very long) book signing queue for the children’s author Robert Muchamore, one young man bashfully told the author that he was his hero, another stated boldly that he was writing the sequel to the latest book, and yet another precociously asked when the latest book would be out on the Kindle! And they say kids don’t read any more…

Did you go to the festival? Let us know what you most enjoyed!

National Poetry Day competition

Today is National Poetry Day! Are you doing anything fun in your classroom to celebrate? If so, we'd love to know! In the spirit of all things poetic, we are running a competition for students to submit their best poems on the subject of autumn. This could be a poem about nature at this time of year, a scary poem about Halloween or an exciting poem about Bonfire Night - anything they like! Students can submit their poems by the 12th November via email to englishteam@nelsonthornes.com or via post to English Team, Nelson Thornes, Delta Place, 27 Bath Road, Cheltenham GL53 7TH. They must make sure that they include their school name and their email address. We will pick our 3 favourite poems to publish on the blog. Our favourite poem will win a £25 iTunes voucher, with two runners-up winning a £15 iTunes voucher each. Best of luck! See our Facebook page for terms and conditions.

See the National Poetry Day website for ideas on how to get creative with poetry in the classroom.

Grammar goblins

One of the most pleasurable things about my job is that I get to have stimulating debates with my colleagues about English-related topics. Often provoked by the morning paper or last night’s Radio 4 programme, these discussions give us a more rounded knowledge of our market and feed into the work we do preparing new resources for schools.

The debate this morning centred around an article on the BBC Radio 4 website, Schools urged to get strict on grammar, about the columnist Simon Heffer and his campaign for grammatical correctness (read it here).

We’ve been here before. Lynne Truss, anyone? I am very much in the David Crystal camp of pragmatists on this issue. (You can find a link to his excellent language blog to the right of this page, as well as to a blog site written by Dan Clayton, one of our language specialist authors, whose blog on Heffer made me chuckle. ) Language gives us the ability to communicate, and as long as we can communicate effectively and appropriately in any given situation, I don’t think zero tolerance in favour of archaic and often arbitrary rules is necessary. Don’t get me wrong - I know that rules are required in order to understand the nuts and bolts of how to communicate – for example, a misplaced apostrophe can alter the meaning of a sentence. Ah, how we love our red pens in those cases. But where's the line? Take the example of the grammatically incorrect sentence given in the Simon Heffer article:

The Prime Minister has warned that spending cuts are necessary.

According to Heffer, the verb ‘to warn’ requires an object, ie someone to warn:

The Prime Minister has warned the House of Commons that spending cuts are necessary.

Does this really matter? Is the crux of the sentence about spending cuts, or is it more important for us to know that the House of Commons has been given this news? Perhaps this is the argument for getting things grammatically correct, but then surely the writer/speaker could have written it as The House of Commons has been warned that spending cuts are necessary if that was their intended message. Then again, is it crucial to know that it was the Prime Minister himself sending this warning? The critical factor here is not whether you know the rule that ‘to warn’ requires an object, but to understand what the recipient of your message will take from that message, and whether that is the point you are trying to make or not. I guess the question is whether being taught the rule enables you to do this more effectively.

Perhaps it depends more on the kind of learner you are. I wasn’t taught grammar at school. In fact, the first time I came across classifications like ‘adjective’ and ‘verb’ was at university, where my journalism lecturer was in a permanent state of horror at our grammatical ineptitude. But (hmm - isn’t there some sort of rule against using a coordinating conjunction to start a sentence?) I have always been a voracious reader, as have my parents, and perhaps I learned to communicate effectively that way. My lack of education in this area certainly hasn’t prevented me from having a career in publishing. But (oops, I did it again) what if you’re not a big reader? Where do you learn how to structure sentences effectively? I’ve repeated the word ‘effectively’ several times because that, to me, is the point to all of this. Language is a tool kit which facilitates communication (should I have said ‘tool kit that’? Does it matter? Did you understand the point I’m making regardless?) and maybe some people need to be given the tools more prescriptively than others during their education.

Heffer also makes the point in this article about what he calls ‘verbicide’. Get over it, I say. Language is, and always has been, a vacillating entity, evolving to meet the needs of the user. Does it really matter that the strict definition of ‘viable’ is ‘capable of living’ and should therefore only apply to living organisms? Do I understand what my boss is trying to tell me when he says my latest proposal isn’t viable? Of course I do – he means it isn’t feasible – but by using viable, he’s giving me the message that my idea will never have life, not just that we can’t do it for some practical reason. So, in a way, viable is the right choice of word, but he’s just extended the reach of its meaning.

These days we are increasingly in contact with people all over the world, and naturally colloquialisms and dialects are converging and merging whilst rules are being bent, shaped and outright ignored. Does that make us wrong? I don't think so. It makes language creative and exciting. And as long as your message is appropriate for its purpose and is clearly understood by the recipient, does it really matter whether you split an infinitive or use an Americanism along the way?

We are, as ever, interested to hear your points of view on this so please feel free to comment on this post or email us at englishteam@nelsonthornes.com. I'm sure I've made lots of grammatical errors you can pick me up on...!

Emma

NEWSFLASH: Revision Survey

Do you know anyone who's just taken their exams (either GCSE, AS or A2), across any subjects, not just English?

We're conducting a survey about revision - pass on the following link for them to complete the survey and they'll be entered into a draw to win some vouchers!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/examrevision

Or: Click here to take survey

Thankyou!

The Academies Bill

This week the government’s flagship Academies Bill was passed, just in time for the summer holidays. The new legislation means that schools applying for and securing academy status will be able to break free from local authority control. It also enables parents to set up their own schools. The aim is to create a more flexible educational system, within which teachers can fully exercise their professional judgement and influence key decisions as, according to the government’s view, they are the best placed people to do so.

Schools minister Nick Gibb argues that the bill will grant schools greater autonomy and provide teachers with more opportunities to raise standards. He has claimed that the bill is not intended as an assault on comprehensive education and that the admissions code will not be scrapped.

The bill has been criticised by some, however. Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, called it ‘flawed and rushed’ and has expressed concern that the changes it allows will lead to a two-tier educational system rife with unequal funding and standards. Some campaign groups fear that academies will no longer be required to teach English according to the national curriculum. The removal of QCDA has raised a lot of questions regarding the regulation and delivery of curriculum content as education secretary Michael Gove has yet to announce if an alternative body will replace it. If there is no overall moderating body, what effect will this have on English teaching? Could a lack of scrutiny allow for more creativity in the classroom or will standards suffer as a result of less rigour?

The new legislation will introduce the biggest shake-up to the structure of English schools since the 1960s. Will the changes be welcomed by teachers and parents? Do non-academy schools run the risk of losing out financially? Or will this bill bring about a refreshing shift in the way English schools are run?

Becky L

To be modern or not to be modern?

Where do you stand on modern interpretations of Shakespeare? Do you welcome reinventions of the plays or are you sceptical of them? The BBC recently aired When Romeo Met Juliet which followed a group of students in Coventry as they prepared to perform Romeo and Juliet under the guidance of professional actors Adrian Lester and Lolita Chakrabarti and artistic director of the National Youth Theatre, Paul Roseby. They chose to set the plot in the 1980s with characters dressed in braces and Doc Martins dancing to The Specials. I thought it was great and it got me thinking about the various interpretations I have seen of Shakespeare’s plays over the years.

When I was at university in Scotland, I saw a production of Macbeth and I was amazed by how much it gripped me. I have always loved the dark and brooding pulse that runs throughout the play since studying it at GCSE – it’s electrifying to watch at the best of times – but something about this production really stood out. Macbeth was depicted as a modern crook, gangster-like in his demeanour, ruthlessly dispatching anyone who stood in his way to the top. The Scottish accents really added to the visceral feel; Macbeth reminded me of a sort of Shakespearean Begbie from Trainspotting – so alarming unpredictable I was on a knife edge, even though I knew what was going to happen. I remember the audience audibly gasping at the scene in which Macbeth’s henchmen kill Macduff’s family. It was so horribly violent and yet so dramatically effective and satisfying; I was glad when Macbeth got what was coming to him. I can see what Aristotle meant by catharsis now.

On the other hand, I once had the misfortune of witnessing a post-apocalyptic A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A truly bizarre experience, I left the theatre feeling betrayed by the company. How could they possibly have taken such lovely and ethereal characters and placed them in a burnt-out war zone? To me, it just didn’t fit. It felt too contrived and ruined what I think is one of Shakespeare’s most enchanting and atmospheric plays, which can be captivatingly delightful if done right. I think A Midsummer Night’s Dream should be allowed to warmly embrace you and charm you into its secluded world for a few hours before releasing you, dazed and amused, back into reality. The dispiriting setting of a land savaged by nuclear war, alas dear Puck, did offend me.

At the NATE conference, Pete Postlethwaite claimed that we should embrace modern interpretations as long as the plot isn’t shoehorned into a fanciful and incoherent concept. I agree with him. Re-imagining the plays, whilst creative, will only work if the modern slant can engage us and add something to our understanding of the play. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet did wonders for students everywhere and I’m sure it will continue to be shown in classrooms for years to come.

So what’s the strangest Shakespeare production you’ve seen? Twelfth Night where all the characters are rock stars? Richard III set in Nazi Germany? And, more importantly, did it work or were you left feeling bemused? Do modern interpretations help students of the plays to connect with the language or hinder their appreciation? Let us know!

Becky L

Our stand at NATE!

Hello! Hope any of you NATE delegates enjoyed the weekend of seminars and workshops. Becky L and I attended from the Publishing team, along with colleagues from Marketing and Sales. It was good to have the chance to see some of our authors again - Lindsay, Trevor, Tom, Dan, Judith and Heather - and we met lots of other great people! We also were very lucky to catch Pete Postlethwaite's engaging talk about his career, teaching and Shakespeare, which included a spontaneous performance of a snippet from Macbeth using an unwitting OCR spokesman as an impromptu extra!
Emma & Becky