Tuition in Practice
Real lessons, real essays, and real teaching decisions.
A look behind the curtain at how students develop interpretations, test ideas, and learn to support their thinking with evidence in their sessions with me. Less about what to think; more about how to think well.
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From The Archives: 08.07.19
1 Henry IV has almost everything you could ask from a play – including warcrimes. Back in 2019, I put the dreadful news under the analytic news under the microscope.
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Finding Things Shouldn’t Be Homework
The less time students spend hunting down resources and session notes, the more time they can spend thinking about the subject.
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When Students Do The Marking
When students do the marking … they become much better at judging their own work – and how to improve it.
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It’s Your Piece, Not Mine.
This student’s piece argued something that many people might disagree with. My job wasn’t to tell him what to think.
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Pie Charts? In English?
When students get the right feedback, presented in ways they can understand, they can turn their ideas in marks.
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First belief. Then results
You don’t need to be struggling academically for anxiety to strike.
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Ideas, then Opinions, then Proof
Too many students rely on memorising quotations, then hope that a fully-formed argument will arrive in their mind on exam day.
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From the Archives: 08.06.18
When you write with a smile on your face, examiners can usually tell.
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Using Critical Quotations
Students are often encouraged to gather critical quotations, but are not always shown how to use them. Here’s how I tackled it with one student.