Shooting the Breeze – Dahl Versus Tolkien

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Roald Dahl wrote entertaining stories that have a timeless appeal. And I can quite see why teachers continue to wheel them out to their English classes; a conversation with a secondary school librarian recently confirmed their enduring popularity with students.

I suppose it was seeing the trailers for the new ‘Hobbit’ movie that got me thinking really about the fiction diet that we offer as English professionals. You see, The Hobbit was the first class reader that I was introduced to as a Year 7 student ( First Year in old money). Reading The Hobbit required some stamina. At the risk of offending die-hard Dahl fans, I’m really not convinced that his work provides anything like the challenge that Tolkien presents.

Both Tolkien and Dahl were writers blessed with extraordinary imaginations. And both could tell a tale. But in terms of the scale of the narrative canvas, the finely wrought syntax and the richness of vocabulary, I’d say Tolkien wins hands down.

What do you think?

Shooting The Breeze – I Am Writing To Express My Concern.

So there was Michael Gove on BBC Breakfast News this morning. I’d forgotten what he looked like and I seriously doubt if any of the students unfairly cheated of a pass grade in this summer’s GCSE English examination actually care what he looks like. In the words of one Deputy Headteacher I’ve just spoken with, they’ve “gone to the wind” – they’ve left school and dispersed and the school is unable to facilitate any plans for them to take the much vaunted offer of an Ofqual re-sit in November. A meaningless gesture – utterly meaningless.

The schools themselves are galvanised and angry. They want to stick one on the Government and the minister and officials responsible.

A Head of English acknowledged that data was not her strong suit but did say that she knows her students and how their performance could be tracked and analysed. Like Heads of English and their teaching teams up and down the country, she was sure about the likely performance of her students. To listen to the official line, though, they’d have you believe that she and her colleagues were little better than the punter placing an annual bet on the Grand National after a cursory look at form in the papers.

What this Head of English and her Headteacher are good at, however, is post-results analysis and the construction of strongly worded letters to exam boards and the like. I’ve read the letter and they’re pulling no punches. Like I said, they’re angry and know a serious injustice when they see one.

They’ve highlighted key concerns and posed serious questions for the examination board to address. They bring their letter to a close with a line that goes like this; “It is extremely disheartening for a student who has worked extremely hard to achieve a specific grade only to be told that a marks adjustment has deprived them of the grade that they actually achieved.”

I hope they and their students – wherever they are – get the honest answers they deserve.