The Use of English
The journal for teachers of English in secondary and further education.
Members can read this publication online.
Meet one of our Fellows, Professor Bryan Cheyette, and learn more about the Fellowship scheme and our new Fellows Award “My academic career began inauspiciously. I failed the 11 plus and ended up, after much soul-searching from my parents, at the best secondary modern school in Leicester (as it was a one-time comprehensive). But it…
The journal for teachers of English in secondary and further education.
Members can read this publication online.
University Architecture, Strategic Planning, and QR: part 1 of Speaking for English Studies in UK Higher Education (event recording)
In March of this year, as I walked around the suddenly empty streets in my new hometown, I started seeing rainbows appearing in windows, some with cotton wool for clouds, some with sequins for raindrops. These rainbows, all entirely unique, appeared to speak on behalf of the children who had made them. “Look at us, listen to us”, they said through the glass. “Our schools and playgrounds may be closed, but we are still wishing to be together, and we are all experiencing this time in our own, different, and equally vivid, ways.” How to hear those voices more clearly? How to respond to them?
After the events of the past few months, it seems entirely appropriate that this edition of Issues should focus on the effect of COVID-19 on the discipline of English, both in schools and in universities, and reflect on what is happening and how we are responding while we are, as Ben Davis so aptly puts it, ‘in the midst of things’. This issue catches contributors’ experiences of the initial phase of the pandemic: our abrupt and discombobulating transition to life online.