'Teaching English' magazine, Spring 2013

The Spring issue of Teaching English magazine, edited by Kevin McDermott, is now out and is, as always, well worth reading. It includes winning poems from the 2012 poetry competition, and two helpful lists with reading suggestions - for first and second year pupils, and descriptions of the texts on the 2015 Leaving Certificate course.

Read it below via Issuu (click for a closer view, again for the closest, and use the arrows for navigation).

Write a Poem special edition

Open publication - Free publishing - More education

This year the 'Teaching English' Write a Poem competition reaches its tenth anniversary. It's a fine idea which has often featured our own pupils, and the English Support Service led by Kevin McDermott has published a special edition of the winners over those years. Read it above via Issuu (click once for a larger view, again for a close-up).

'Teaching English' magazine, Winter 2011

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The Winter 2011 edition of Teaching English magazine, from the English Support Service, is out, and can be seen above via Issuu (click for a closer view, again for the closest, and use the arrows to scroll).

This edition includes the winners from the annual poetry competition run by the magazine, a piece by JMG of this Department written on the eve of the rescheduled English Literature paper in the Leaving Certificate in 2009, a brief view of the texts prescribed for the 2013 Leaving Certificate (we are doing Translations, How Many Miles to Babylon and The Great Gatsby), and a piece from the English Teachers' Association of New South Wales in Australia on 'The Relationship between English and Literacy Education.'

Teaching English magazine, Autumn 2010

Open publication - Free publishing - More poetry

The latest edition of the fine magazine Teaching English, from the English Support Service, has just been published, and you can read it above via Issuu (click and scroll for close-up views). This one includes our own Olivia Plunket (page 4, complete with fine reproduction of Caravaggio's 'Judith and Holofernes'), third in the national poetry competition, as well as Michael Kemp's Highly Commended 'I Am' (page 6), and all the other excellent winning poems.

There's also a brief overview of the 2010 Leaving Cert examination texts (pp 12-21), and it's particularly welcome to have Kevin McDermott's opening address from the May INOTE conference in Kilkenny reprinted (pp 22-26), 'The Hero's Journey: reflections on teaching English.' This is followed by Kevin's report on the Abbey Theatre workshop on Macbeth.

The cover is Gabriel Metsu's Woman Reading a Letter (visit the current exhibition at the National Gallery in Dublin).

'Teaching English' poetry ceremony

Today in the Laois Education Centre Olivia Plunket receives her joint third prize in the annual senior national poetry competition run by the SLSS for Teaching English magazine. Michael Kemp was also Highly Commended for his poem 'I am'. Olivia wrote her poem in response to the stunning 1599 painting 'Judith and Holofernes' by Caravaggio (click here for a large image):-


'Judith and Holofernes' by Olivia Plunket

Draping curtains as red as blood
The maid will encourage Judith
As she enters the realm of reality.

Holofernes’s hand clenching
The blood-stained sheets
Upon which his body lies.

His shoulder arching forward,
His muscles pulsing.
Outside the frame his legs are thrashing,
As he tries to fight his fate,
Screaming to his saviour in the heavens.

'Teaching English' Competition 2010

Many congratulations to Olivia Plunket, who has come joint third in the annual senior national poetry competition run by the SLSS for Teaching English magazine, and to Michael Kemp, who was Highly Commended. Both will attend the awards ceremony in Portlaoise in September. Below are their poems. Olivia's was a response to the TY Images in Poetry module, and Michael's a part of a group exercise response to a creative writing prompt.

Olivia wrote her poem in response to the stunning 1599 painting 'Judith and Holofernes' by Caravaggio (click here for a large image):-


'Judith and Holofernes' by Olivia Plunket

Draping curtains as red as blood
The maid will encourage Judith
As she enters the realm of reality.

Holofernes’s hand clenching
The blood-stained sheets
Upon which his body lies.

His shoulder arching forward,
His muscles pulsing.
Outside the frame his legs are thrashing,
As he tries to fight his fate,
Screaming to his saviour in the heavens.


'I Am', by Michael Kemp

I am from the vapour of the shirt
I am from the puff puff puff like a calabash
I am from the very thin, burning rim
I am from under the cold tap
I am from the pain that wouldn't go away.

From the door with no knob
From the unused tree house
From tiny cushions home to severe amounts of moss, damp and spiders
From the trampoline covered in the faded petals of a blossom tree.

From the traditional Lamb
From the no lamb on Sunday
From the lying toad
From the escape of a mental home
From my Dad's office
From the standing hare that looked like a dog.

From the union of blood, success and tragedy
All these things I loved dearly,
so odd and on their own.
Home is where the heart is; but first you have to find home.

English Teachers Talking

A bonus to the recent Spring 2010 edition of 'Teaching English' magazine (read it here online via Issuu): the English Support Service has added audio tracks by 11 English teachers on their experience of a First Year project for reading and writing.

Teaching English magazine, Spring 2010

The spring 2010 issue of the English Support Service's excellent 'Teaching English' magazine has just been published, and can be read online via Issuu above. It's a special edition dedicated to 'Approaches to Learning and Teaching in the First Year Classroom', giving us time to think about planning courses starting in September. Scroll through via the arrows, click on a page to open it up, and a second time to see it in close-up.

Among the articles are:-

• Larry Cotter and Frances Cotter leading with what works and doesn't for first years,
• a comprehensive fiction reading list for first and second years,
• Catherine Sullivan and Una Smith from Virginia College, Cavan on their SLSS-supported project (including poetry, drama and film), and also Niamh Martin and Martin O'Neill from Kilkenny analysing their own year's teaching,
  
• Alicia McGivern from the Irish Film Institute : 'Ten Film Choices for First Year and Junior Cycle' (mostly recent ones, including Osama and Bend it Like Beckham),
• Frances Cotter and Joan Colbert from Kilkenny on debating skills and 'the reading factor'
• '14 ideas for working on a class novel',
• '11 ideas for teaching first year English'.
  

Our Issuu Shelf

We're fans of the great website Issuu, which displays publications in fabulous 'flippable' form, and have posted about 20 so far, including our own magazines, such as The Submarine and Second Bell, as well as the excellent Teaching English. Below, they're embedded on Issuu's new Shelf feature, as well as in the sidebar to the right (which will be updated when we post more). Scroll through the mags via the arrows, and click on one to open it up, and again to see it in close-in.

'Teaching English' magazine, Autumn 2009

The autumn edition of the English Support Service's always interesting Teaching English

magazine is just out, and can be read above via Issuu (click and click again for larger views, and to scroll through the mag).

It includes two poems by our pupils from last year's poetry competition, who were Highly Commended (the awards ceremony was some weeks ago - see Ms Smith's report here). Oliver Glenn-Craigie's 'Teapot' is on page 9 in the Junior section, and Thomas Emmet's 'The Old Guitarist' on page 6 in the Senior section.

There are also articles on:

• The texts prescribed for the Leaving Certificate in 2011, including the three we have chosen - The Kite Runner, Dancing at Lughnasa and How Many Miles to Babylon?


• 'Approaches to Learning and Teaching in the First Year English Classroom' by Catherine O'Sullivan and Una Smith of Virginia College, Cavan.


• Brian Hanney with some interesting thoughts on the visual elements in Paper One of the Leaving Cert exams.


• The first part of a series of reports on narrative writing, 'Making Visible the Judgments used in Assessing Students' Writing' by Kevin McDermott, followed by examples of short stories.

And the winners are...

Ms Smith writes:-

The highly recommended publication Teaching English magazine holds an annual poetry competition which this year received in excess of 3,000 entries. We were delighted that two Columbans’ poems were selected: Oliver Glenn-Craigie was commended in the junior category for his poem 'Teapot', about his father’s much-used teapot, and Thomas Emmet was commended in the senior category for his poem 'The Old Guitarist', inspired by Picasso’s painting of the same name. Last Wednesday Oliver and Thomas were honoured at a prize ceremony and poetry day held in Portlaoise.

During the morning, Joe Woods, poet and director of Poetry Ireland, took the young writers for a session in which they tried different techniques and took useful advice on composing poetry. In the meantime the accompanying teachers had a valuable discussion about the teaching and writing of poetry in schools. Maureen Curran, an English teacher in Loreto Milford, Co. Donegal, led by sharing her experiences of nurturing poetry in her school through a group project known as Poetry Factory. There is an excellent feature in the summer edition of the magazine about their work (see below via Issuu - click for larger view, and click again for close view).

When the workshops were finished the parents, pupils, teachers and organisers gathered for the prize-giving ceremony; each of the young writers was presented with an engraved plate (Oliver is pictured above) and a laminated A3 print-out of their poem. There was an overall winner for each category and we were treated to a recital of the two winning poems by their respective authors. These assured and touching poems (along with the nineteen other winners’ poems) can be read in the autumn edition of the magazine which will be published online shortly.

A tasty lunch was provided which we enjoyed with Oliver’s mum and dad, and then it was Dublin-bound to make it back to the College just in time for his hockey game. Thanks are due to Kevin McDermott and his team from the English Support Service for such an enjoyable day; it was a pleasure to celebrate the fruits of the pupils’ work. We look forward to another year of poetry and creativity here in St Columba’s, and are galvanised by the fact that so many other schools, from Kerry to Donegal, share our enthusiasm for the art.

Open publication - Free publishing - More literature

'Write a Poem' competition

Congratulations to two pupils who have been Highly Commended in the Teaching English magazine 'Write a Poem' competition this year. Both poems have already been posted here: Thomas Emmet's 'The Old Guitarist', based on Picasso's painting (and which he read at the Voices of Poetry evening on Sunday) was commended in the senior cycle competition, and Oliver Glenn-Craigie's 'Tea Pot' was commended in the junior section. Thomas and Oliver have been invited to the awards ceremony in Portlaoise in September.

'Teaching English', Summer 2009

The latest edition of the excellent Teaching English magazine, from the English Support Service, is now out and can be read via Issuu below. The Summer 2009 edition is mostly prompted by the February 2009 conference in Loughrea on 'The Art of Teaching English' which we reported on at the time.

If you're looking for our own presentation (printed on page 28 of the magazine), please click here and you can click through to the various services (the page is updated when we come across something new).

There's lots of meaty interesting material in the issue, including:-

• The text of Mary Gilbride's opening address to the conference,
• Editor Kevin McDermott on ten years of the 'new' Leaving Cert course,
  
• Lots of suggestions by Maureen Curran on encouraging children to write poetry,
• Frank Bredin on debating,
• Paul Murray on 'Introducing Shakespeare',
• and Jim McDonagh and Jeff Wilkinson from Sheffield Hallam University on 'Grammar Grief'.

Click on the magazine for a larger view, and scroll through the pages. Click again on a page for a full view:-

Open publication - Free publishing - More literature

Teaching English magazine

The latest edition of 'Teaching English' magazine from the English Support Service is out now, and can be seen below via Issuu (click on the magazine for larger view and scroll through the pages).

It features winners from their recent poetry competition; a guide to the 2010 Leaving Cert comparative texts (including a section on one of our choices, The Story of Lucy Gault (by Old Columban William Trevor); ideas for teaching first years; fiction choices for junior pupils (such as Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate, and Sharon Creech's Replay); 14 ideas for working on a class novel; and an interview with teacher John Clarke from Clonkeen College in Dublin about his album-project with TY pupils. See below for the full magazine. For previous posts on earlier editions, click on the TE Mag label at the bottom of this post.

Get your own - Open publication

Teaching English, Spring 2008

The latest edition of the excellent Teaching English magazine edited by Kevin McDermott (we featured this time last year) from the SLSS English Support Service is just out, and is dedicated to the memory of the late John Devitt, Head of English at the Mater Dei Institute of Education. It includes a tribute by Larry Cotter (a former student of John), an article on him by Breda O'Brien, a poem by his friend Seamus Heaney ('Quitting Time', from District and Circle), an interview with and article by Jude Collins, and another interview with teacher Frances Rock from Dundalk. The cover features Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Netherlandish Proverbs (1559, above).

Below, the magazine displayed by Issuu. Scroll through the pages, click on a page for larger view, and you can click again for fullscreen reading.

Teaching English magazine

The Autumn 2007 edition of Teaching English (we featured in the spring edition) is now out from the English Support Service, and is again an attractively produced publication with lots of interesting features (the cover is Henry Raeburn's 'Portrait of the Reverend Robert Walker Skating'). Click below on the pages for a larger view, and again to zoom.

Among the features are :

• Winners from the Write a Poem competition for schools,
• An interview by Kevin McDermott with poet Julie O'Callaghan,
• A guide to the 2009 Leaving Certificate comparative books, including new texts by John Banville (Kepler), Julian Barnes (Arthur & George), Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Eleni Gage (North of Ithaka), Martin McDonagh (The Lonesome West), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus) and Asne Seierstad (The Bookseller of Kabul),
• An interview with Athboy Community School teacher Tony Magner on teaching the comparative module,
• and several articles on film - Alicia McGivern of the IFI, Sean Conlon on teaching film and Vinny Murphy on the Moving Image project.
  

'Teaching English' magazine

Hello to visitors who have been directed here by the Spring 2007 edition of Teaching English, published by the Second Level Support Service. The magazine features our Department, with an interview with department head John Fanagan by editor Kevin McDermott, a piece on this blog called 'Putting the English Department on the World Wide Web', and our Junior Certificate reading list. See the magazine below by clicking on the pages (and then again to zoom).

There are also interesting articles about Breege O'Brien of Scoil Damhnait in Achill ('In praise of the school library'), by Anton Floyd of Ashton in Cork on 'Creative writing in the English classroom' (he quotes the marvellous 'Japan' by Billy Collins, and the cover shows David Hockney's 'Mt Fuji and Flowers, 1972'), and a response by Kevin McDermott to 'Looking at English', the Department's report on English teaching (see here). He calls for 'vision and passion' in English teaching, and hopes that 'future publications will include the voices of teachers in all their individuality and uniqueness.'