English Major Specialism

I had my first taste of English as my major specialism this week and I loved it!

When I first had to choose my major specialism, before I started my course at Edge Hill, I was so unsure about which to pick from a choice of English, Maths, Science and Modern Foreign Languages. In school I was always an all-rounder, because I did quite well in most subjects and could always find some enjoyment within them all. I asked others for advice on my choice and eventually I settled on English, as I love reading, find the subject fascinating and wanted to learn more about the subject and how best to teach it. From my first two sessions this week I can tell I have made the right choice for me.

We focused on poetry, something that has not really been covered in the Core English module in year one of my study, and specifically we looked at The Highwayman poem, which is a great text for upper KS2. It was discussed if we thought we would have any issues with teaching this poem, such as the length of the poem and the content. In particular an issue might be the traditional English vocabulary, as this could be difficult for the children to understand, causing them to disengage from the poem from the start. However, it was suggested that you would break down the language with your class, even possibly create a dictionary of words as a resource to aid the children's understanding. This point was discussed further, considering children who have English as an additional language (EAL) - the language in the poem could be a problem for any child, so by breaking it down and talking about the language in the poem, using props to create first-hand experiences, all the children would benefit and be on the same level of understanding.

Alongside poetry, the sessions looked heavily at process drama and then developed towards some writing.

We engaged with multiple drama activities, such as: freeze-frames, thought tracking, zone of relevance, hot seating and conscience alley. I thought all of these drama activities were a great way of making a historic poem come to life, providing opportunities to deepen our knowledge of the poem, as we began to think behind the lines and consider how characters felt and why they made certain decisions, even thinking about what else could have happened. Also, we considered how best to approach drama in the classroom, to ensure all pupils could engage and feel comfortable, as drama can sometimes be quite intimidating. It was discussed about the importance of Teacher in Role to model the activity and encourage pupils, creating safe roles and making drama an inclusive group activity, rather than having all the focus on individuals, who may not want the attention directly on them.

In the second session we progressed towards writing, which began as modelled writing by the tutor, then turned into a shared writing piece and eventually we started to write our own poetry, using The Highwayman as inspiration. This was done with a carousel of activities, this is when multiple activities are taking place around the classroom and through the lesson you spend some time completing each activity. In this case, each activity looked at a different form of poetry: Cut up Poems, Conversation Poems, Limericks, Free Verse and Haiku Poems. This definitely gave me some teaching ideas for the future, such as breaking up larger poems and giving each group of children one particular section to use to form a Haiku. Then all of the Haiku poems can be combined to make a new poem that summarises the original.

We watched this particular video in the session, which gave me further ideas about a creative approach to the poem and how it could be taught in a cross-curricular way, such as children producing a soundscape, wanted posters, newspaper reports, letters or creating their own artwork from the amazing imagery in the poem and then using technology to produce something similar to this:

I am really looking forward to the sessions next week before finishing my first year, as so far the introduction to English as a major specialism has been very enjoyable and informative. Next year my major specialism module will begin fully and I am already excited!