The new English Lit GCSE

Much of the content of the new GCSE will depend upon how exam boards react to the new official guidance. However, this is what the new guidance actually says the GCSE requires:

 at least one play by Shakespeare
 at least one 19th century novel
 a selection of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry
 fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards.

The Shakespeare requirement is in the existing GCSE and represents no change.

The 19th century novel is not required to be 'British' and names no authors - so all this business about Gove demanding Dickens and Austen is just froth.

The poetry requirement is unlikely materially to affect the balance in composition of poetry anthologies, between 'heritage poetry' (as it is painfully known) and 'contemporary poetry'.

The 20th century drama/prose is required to be 'British Isles' - this could include anything from Scotland and Ireland as well.

It is obviously constructed to exclude mid-20th century American prose. As 90% of pupils study Mice and Men, a novel Gove is known to dislike, it is obvious that Gove is altering requirements to exclude it. But this is no 'narrower' or 'broader' than the present GCSE.

Some other thoughts

I neither endorse nor oppose these changes. I'll work with what I'm required to work with. However, some of the reaction has been quite astonishing.

Labour: 'Michael Gove is putting his own ideological interests ahead of the interests of our children.'

As though Labour were not also motivated by ideology: this is a common trick to depict one's opponents as irrational and oneself as sober and reasonable. Almost every position one could adopt in relation to Education depends upon one's world view, and just as these changes are undoubtedly rooted in ideology, so too are the reasons put forward in opposition.

Labour: 'His vision is backward-looking and preventing the rich, broad and balanced curriculum we need in our schools if our children are to succeed in the future economy.'

This argument derives from economic imperatives, which are not obviously pertinent when it comes to GCSE literature. It has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of different works of literature. It is also unclear why the present situation of three American authors from the mid 20th century is 'forward-looking' or 'broader' than the new requirements which stretch over 200 years and still permit the study of (older) American literature.

As a matter of interest, a book may still exist even if no longer be included on a GCSE syllabus. Schools are still going to be in possession of those books, and will still need something to teach in Year 9. As the new KS3 curriculum requires schools teach 'seminal world literature' it seems likely that these books will still be taught.

This piece from the Guardian is a case study in frenzy, the substance of which is not worthy of engagement. However, the headline is interesting:

To Kill a Mockinbird and Mice and Men axed as Gove orders more Brit Lit

I wonder why To Kill a Mockingbird is receiving equal weight in the reportage? Hardly anyone studies it anymore. Ninety percent of pupils study Steinbeck's novel, not Harper Lee's.

Shakespeare at Key Stage 3: Problems with 'The Tempest'

The story so far...

'I have suffered with those that I saw suffer.'

This term I helped teach The Tempest to Y9. It is a popular choice at this level, largely because it used to be the core text for the now defunct SATs which means English departments have plenty of copies left over. I suspect (though I have not heard anyone say explicitly) that many teachers reckon the subject matter - magic and exile on a strange island - is the kind of thing the pupils could engage with. My other suspicion is that it is a suitable option because it is weightier than a comedy, lighter than a tragedy and, crucially, because it requires no prior knowledge and stands alone, unlike the history plays.

The problems with The Tempest

All of these things are fair enough. However, I could not help but feel that there was something missing. It is possible this be because I have never truly loved The Tempest myself. Certainly it is charming entertainment with lovely moments but it tends toward the realm of ephemera, which I think is visible in the debt it owes to the ephemeral genre of the masque, popular at the time in James' court but forgotten ever after. It just succeeds in pulling back from such an abyss in its handling of the thorny question of colonisation and legitimate authority, but these concepts are difficult and abstract for the literal-minded thirteen-year-old growing up in a stable democracy.

It is also oddly un-poetic. I confess I am overtly treading on the subjective here, and aesthetics are difficult to turn into more than matters of personal taste. However, there is a practical measure to my objection. The first is that aesthetics - sheer beauty - can have a mesmeric effect on the pupils. Such moments as Caliban's speech - one of two poetic high points - had the pupils captivated either when I recited it myself, or when I called upon trusty old Gielgud to do it for me. Moreover, those plays in which Shakespeare more carefully observes the rigours of meter are thereby more fertile plains for teaching iambic pentameter (plus other styles), which besides anything else is something pupils need to know for the poetry and Shakespeare components of the GCSE.

On genre

'Those are pearls that were his eyes.'

Finally, on the matter of genre, there is quite a practical problem with The Tempest: it is a 'romance', not in the Mills & Boon or Hugh Grant sense of the word, but in the ancient (and still current) genre into which we place medieval knights, James Bond and Eliot's The Wasteland. I have not the time (you are not likely to have the patience) to get into details save one feature: romance is characterised by a sequence of minor episodes, each with a minor climax, threaded together by the constant motion of the meandering story. Just think of 007, how many fights and car chases he engages in along the way, how many flights he takes to new and exciting places, how many women he meets as he goes, how many villains...and now compare that with a handful of separate parties scattered across an island, each bumbling along until the final scene. Think of the tempest itself, or Caliban swapping Prospero for Stephano, or Anthonio and Sebastian attempting to murder Alonso, or the two youngsters falling in love, or the masque, or Ariel's banquet, et cetera. Charming entertainment, indeed, and in different guises romance would work wonderfully at Y9, but illuminating the plot for the children is problematic here.

So what?

So I have some issues with using The Tempest in Y9. So what? And I know why I have those issues. Who cares? For surely this is an idle discussion. The department bookshelves have plenty of copies of this play, not so many copies of the others and small prospect of funding for any expansion on unproven, less well known plays, which means I had better buckle down and just work on doing the best I can with The Tempest next year and the year after, et cetera. Right?

Well, maybe wrong. The new KS3 curriculum goes live in September of this year. It stipulates the teaching of not one but two Shakespeare plays. Some departments may already have plenty of copies of something else but which may not be entirely suitable for the 11-13 age bracket, whilst others may not have another play ready to use at all. As a result, it is meet that one reflect upon the strengths and weaknesses of the current core text in deciding where to go with a potential second. Suddenly, the 'so what?' has become a 'now what?'

And I think I have an answer, which I shall share with you another day...

The Sunday Post – Biblical Floods, 'Dumbing Down', A Country Jaunt

Reading the Weather

It always amuses me when people claim they can interpret themorality of the weather, but I know it should not amuse me because it is not funny. There is a type of person who thinks they be able to commune with the Almighty in a way the rest of us cannot, reading the signs around us for clues about His will and finding out that – what luck! – the Almighty agreed with them all along! But this is no mere ‘evidence bias’ to which we are accustomed in politics or the media. The UKIP councilor who blamed gays for the fact that we have Winter this year evidently believes he be privy to some knowledge or wisdom that is denied to the rest of us, and which enables him to read clouds. That is rather tragic.

Reading the Media

Not long ago, someone said to me that they thought the reason the media has a problem with teachers is that teachers teach pupils to distrust the media. I dismissed the idea at the time but now I begin to wonder.

All week I have been sifting through material taken from newspapers’ online editions and demonstrating to pupils how vacuous, tendentious and artless is the bulk of media copy. Vacuity and tendentiousness are already well covered in the GCSE so there is little additional work for me to do on that front. However, the question of art matters to me very deeply. A large proportion of media copy is written in appalling style and frequently resorts to cliché and hyperbole, possibly because facts require drama before they can be sold, possibly because hacks need to fill the column inches if they want to get paid. However, besides the morbid pleasure I gain from deconstructing journalese for my pupils, it rouses a genuine anger in me: how often do unlettered hacks attack teachers for ‘dumbing down’?

I tend to be suspicious of the more apocalyptic warnings that literacy is terminally ill. However, it is always appropriate to be vigilant about standards so I take the issue seriously. Rarely (for obvious reasons) does the media turn its focus back upon itself and ask the question: what kind of writing do we think is most readily available and easily accessible to young people these days? It is common enough to complain because children are reading Twilight and not David Copperfield (which is ipso facto the fault of teachers), and it is certainly true that unchallenging literature will do less for a child’s literacy than literature that is challenging. However, do we really believe they read more Twilight than the free content on the web? Novels cost time and money. Comment is Free, Right Minds and Indy Voices cost no money, little time and even less effort to consume (or, to use journalese a moment, it’s ‘dumb’). The greatest exposure to letters that my pupils get is to the same media that has the face to preach to the rest of us about standards.

A Country Jaunt

The weather was good today so I took Fleance* for a spin in the country. I went to see the Cerne Abbas Giant:

There he is, in all his glory:

Nearby was a delightful village called Minterne Magna.

Andrew Marr recently wrote in the Spectator that London was being ‘hollowed out’ by exponential price and rent rises and the accumulation of property by foreign speculators. Sebastian Faulks made a similar point in the same magazine, describing the desecration of Notting Hill, with new developments vanquishing the old neighbourhood, paid for with new money. I cannot help but think that if London price out its own, including its nurses, merchants, artists, and young people, there’s an entire England that awaits them, which they could even afford.

*Fleance is the name I give my car.

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Feelings on a Sunday

It appears my new profession is not teaching, as I had thought, but rather I am going into mechanics, for just like my car I am to be subjected to an MOT.

I cannot tell if this be good or bad policy. A friend of mine who has been teaching a while reckons it might work but until I get some years' experience I shan't be in a position to judge. Any pronouncements I make would be made in audacity, not knowledge.

It worries me that the debate(s) which determine policy – in Parliament and in the media – are conducted in worser ignorance and blacker darkness, yet the advocates have no doubts. Nurses, teachers, doctors (who also now have MOTs), servicemen and women – mark how people may become a battleground. And in this particular field, Hunt is a combatant as much as Gove, and though he be new to the fight, yet he will cause as much collateral ere long. 

Perhaps this is part of the price we pay for democracy?

*

We make them play a charade, then we moan they play charades with us. Rather like the bizarre mating rituals in nature, where birds flick their tails in their mates' faces, one wonders why they can't just get down to it. Politicians have to make claims about themselves which we in turn are supposed not to believe. Primarily, they have to disclaim self-interest. They must constantly assure us that it is for our benefit they seek power for themselves. Naturally we scoff, but would you honestly cast your ballot for the candidate who says 'vote for me, for I seek power, status and influence'?

In other fields, few of us would pretend we had not thought of ourselves in what we do, although some individuals may find it helpful for their self-image if they affect piety and martyrdom. I freely admit one of my motives for going into teaching is to secure my future, pace Tristram Hunt (and others generally) who insist we must all be propelled by passion. (I wonder if The X-Factor have got to Hunt, too?) In making such an admission, those of my motives which are selfless are made more plausible. I may not be accused for admitting I am ambitious for those whom I serve as well as for myself, but woe to him who makes such a confession to a voter (and it is still normally a 'him' in politics).

We are of course very lucky that out of a vast field of competitors and wannabes, the decision on who gets the power is ours. And it is one of the perks of being governed by a professionalised political class that we may grumble about them even as we put them there. But a friend of mine once used an IT term to explain to me how, from such a vast pool as the American electorate, they may dredge up men of such low calibre to choose for the White House: garbage in, garbage out. For is it not true that this charade we make make them play, this dance we make them do, is no more than to demand of them that they lie to us? Is not the man who says 'vote for me that I may become powerful' more honest than he who says 'I am only thinking of you when I ask for your vote'? Yet we will always choose the he that is dishonest, only to wonder why we have such a Parliament of fouls. 

*

I have touched on passion. I doubt I shall ever write a cover letter again that makes no mention of how passionate I am about the matter in hand. It's another charade, of course, another mating ritual. The question which always comes up in a job interview is 'why do you want this job?' and the real answer is normally 'because I have bills to pay.' I suppose an election is basically just a big job interview, for briefly we all of us have to perpetrate the same kind of lie: no one admits they want to work for pay. The correct answer is that you are passionate about pouring pints.

If Hunt include passion in his MOT, then I am in trouble. I am too old fashioned to speak hysteria. I might have to take lessons from the drama teacher in how to choke on my tears of passion during my assessment. Perhaps such a performance would satisfy the next Labour government that I am fit to teach?

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