This is just a very quick heads-up. I’m just about to send off four reviews to Teach Secondary magazine. I will post the reviews here once they’ve been published there (that’s the deal), but here are one-liners to whet your appetite.
Read Morereviews
Compare and contrast #4

In this article, I republish a review of mine that was first published in Teach Secondary magazine. Next, there follows the article I actually sent in. The differences are only minor, but I thought you might find it interesting to examine the differences, and consider what difference they make, if any, to your experience and understanding of the review.
Read MoreCompare and contrast #3

In this article, I republish a review of mine that was first published in Teach Secondary magazine. Next, there follows the article I actually sent in. The differences are only minor, but I thought you might find it interesting to examine the differences, and consider what difference they make, if any, to your experience and understanding of the review.
Read MoreCompare and contrast #2

Taking the reader from the Middle Ages to more or less the present day, Gray shows how the kind of places we do our shopping in, and what we buy, have changed over the centuries.
Read MoreReview: The Bright Side: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World

I wrote this review wearing my school teacher hat. However, it struck me that optimism is something all writers need a great deal of!
Read MoreReview: Small Habits Create Big Change

I wrote the review wearing my school teacher hat. However, it struck me that the “small habits” approach to writing is something useful to consider.
Read MoreShould writing tutors embrace "produictive failure"?
My review of this for Teach Secondary magazine has just come out. Here is the published version, followed by the copy I submitted, which is slightly longer because it has a little more detail. I wrote the review wearing my school teacher hat. However, it struck me that the “productive failure” approach to teaching is something I’ve done, to some extent, in my creative writing classes.
Read MoreIs Artificial Intelligence actually any good?

I’ve reviewed this book for Teach Secondary magazine. Although my review is written from the standpoint of the question, “how useful is AI in schools?”, I do thiink it has relevance here because many writers, and writers’ organisations, are also scrutinising AI.
Read Morebooks, by Terry Freedman
Nonfiction notebook: 6 types of book review
I love books, and I love reviewing them. However, I’ve decided that a one-size fits all approach to reviewing books (or anything else, come to that), just won’t do. So I’ve categorised my reviews into 6 types.
Read MoreReview: The Newsmongers -- two reviews in one!

was intrigued to discover that a popular news magazine of the sixties had been anticipated by Defoe.
Read MoreReview: The Shortest History of Music

The Music Programme of Study requires students to have an understanding of the music that they perform and to which they listen, and its history, and an appreciation of different musical styles.
Read MoreReview: How to think like a poet (two reviews in one!)

In all, twenty three poets are considered, and they constitute a wide variety: alongside the usual ones like Milton and Chaucer, we find Sappho and Basho. Each chapter is a mixture of biography and quotations.
Read MoreQuick looks: The Oxford Book of Caribbean Stories
One of the things I think can add to one’s enjoyment and also improve one’s writing is to read stories from other cultures.
Read MoreMy reviews published in Teach Secondary magazine in 2024

This pdf contains the reviews of mine that were published in Teach Secondary magazine in 2024.
Read MoreCompare and contrast: Literary Journeys: Mapping Fictional Travels across the World of Literature
Here are two versions of the same review: the one I submitted to Teach Secondary magazine, and the edited one they published.
Read MoreCompare and contrast: Review of How to Teach Literature – and Still Love Reading

Here are two versions of the same review: the one I submitted to Teach Secondary magazine, and the edited one they published.
Read MoreCompare and contrast: Picture Perfect

As indicated by the title, the first thing to know about this anthology is that it comprises both poetry and prose, rather than one or the other. Many of the pieces are quite unusual...
Read MoreCompare and contrast: Nuts and bolts

It's rather disconcerting when one considers that buildings like The Shard are essentially held together by nuts, bolts and washers.
Read MoreCompare and contrast: Love Triangle

Like, I suspect, many people, I have never knowingly come across an isosceles triangle in my life, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. However...
Read MoreReview: Waterhouse on newspaper style

This book may be thirty years old, but its advice is still pertinent. If you want to have a blitz or crackdown against, or shake-up of, bad writing (all examples of 'tabloidese'), then this is the book for you.
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