Organises grid of issues at /issues-in-english/
The English Association wanted to devote space in our organisation to create a social platform for young people to share their own responses to these pandemic times, and we handed over one of our publications – Issues in English – to a group of learners in FE Colleges from across England to do this.
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.
The Empathy Effect: Teaching Literature about the World Wars and the Shoah.
Academics in the Classroom: English Outreach, edited by Catherine Redford
English Association Fellows Reflect on Brexit
Teaching Dickens in the Primary School, edited by Eve Bearne
Supporting English Studies? Reflections on the Changing Academic Library, by Tom Lockwood, Oliver Pickering and James Fitzmaurice, edited by Oliver Pickering
Talking About Travel Writing, A Conversation Between Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs