Introduction
The Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for English supports the teaching of English Literature, English Language and Creative Writing across UK Higher Education. The Subject Centre web site provides access to a wide range of learning and teaching resources, including reports on key issues in the discipline, guides to teaching practice, information about topics such as employability and diversity, project reports and opportunities for networking. The site also includes an extensive archive of case studies written by lecturers describing innovations in teaching and learning and an interactive database of seminar tips, Teaching Topics and Texts. The Subject Centre also produces a regular magazine, Wordplay. There are dedicated website areas on Creative Writing and on English Language. The student experience area of the website contains a rich set of resources providing access to a range of student opinion about the experience of studying the English group of subjects.
The teaching of English is dynamic and ever-changing. The 2007 Renewals Conference identified technology as one axis of change. Others are ongoing interaction with adjacent subjects – drama, philosophy, history, media studies - and the changing relations between teachers and students. Digital technologies are influencing both of these, for example due to the widespread availability of open educational resources. Humbox is the community repository for OERs in English and other humanities subjects.
Search for Design Studio assets specifically relevant to English here.
Curriculum design in English
Key aspects of the curriculum in subjects allied to English include the following.
Parameters for degrees in English Literature and English Language have been set by the English Benchmark statement, revised in 2007. An unofficial benchmark statement for Creative Writing has been devised by NAWE (the National Association of Writers in Education) and has been widely used by lecturers devising new Creative Writing programmes and modules. An unofficial benchmark statement for English Language, providing more detail on linguistic topics than the official English benchark statement, is currently being drawn up by a committee of leading English Language academics and will soon be available on the Subject Centre website.
The importance of inclusive teaching is highlighted in the Subject Centre's report on the experience of disabled students. This report includes tips on accommodating student diversity in programme and module planning that should benefit all students, whether or not they have accessibility issues.
The importance of small group teaching to English subject areas is also highlighted in a recent report on Small Group Teaching, which can be downloaded from the reports area of the web site. This includes a detailed checklist for planning sessions so that students get the most from them. Ideas about choice of assessment, a key aspect of any programme or module design, are in the Subject Centre's assessment web area.
Challenges thrown up by the transition from school to university are central to the planning of first-year curricula. The Subject Centre has produced a series of reports on this topic, which analyse the issues for students in stepping up from A level study and other transition problems. Employability and graduate skills are an increasingly key consideration in the planning of English modules, and the Subject Centre has funded a number of Employability projects. Key issues are discussed on the Subject Centre's employability pages. More detail on employability skills and English can be found in two recent reports, on the employability of English Language and Linguistics graduates (in association with the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies) and on work-based learning across the English disciplines.
An increasing number of English lecturers are building in ESD ('Education for Sustainable Development') elements into their modules, a development supported by the Subject Centre's ESD resources and case studies.
Curriculum delivery and support in English
Technologies widely used to support learning and teaching in English include:
- discussion forums to support workshops, seminars, collaborative analysis of texts - either free-standing or as a function of a virtual learning environment
- text annotation tools to support critical analysis of texts including in peer- and teacher-supported contexts
- digital resources such as the wide range of online texts in English literature, as recommended by the Intute Virtual Training Suite tutorial for English.
For a snapshot of the variety of delivery methods currently used by lecturers in English Literature, English Language and Creative Writing, browse the Subject Centre's archive of lecturer-written case studies and the database of seminar plans and teaching tips, Teaching Topics and Texts.
English lecturers schedule many different types of activities in seminars. Detailed instructions for a selection of innovative approaches to seminar design are available via the Subject Centre's web-based resources for seminar teaching and report, a good practice guide for small group teaching. Small-scale in-seminar writing activities can be a powerful way of focusing student work in seminars; they can also, revised and collected in portfolios, serve as a very effective mode of assessment. An English case study in the use of Learning Journals - first person writing about their learning experience - shows how students can be helped to negotiate the tricky gap between their own experiences and the complexities of the subject-matter of their degree.
The growth of Creative Writing has meant that Creative Writing is now used increasingly in English modules both as a mode of assessment and as an in-seminar activity. Work at the borders of the creative and the critical can be enjoyable and liberating as well as intellectually challenging. It often coexists with other types of creative engagement such as video-game design and posters. Many lecturers take advantage of the wide range of online texts now available online, both free and in major subscription-only databases such as EEBO and ECCO. Students far from major libraries are now able to research texts previously only known to scholars. Many modules now involve student project work on databases; far less common, however, is detailed engagement with electronic text in seminars.
Lectures and seminars work best when they are complemented by well-designed between-seminar activities, the focus of chapter 4 of the Good practice guide for small group teaching which is available from the reports section of the Subject Centre web site. E-learning plays an important part here. The Subject Centre's report on the use of discussion fora showcases a variety of exciting ideas and contains detailed advice on the setting up and running of online work.
Some English lecturers extend the range of their students' skills (and experiences) by building community engagement, including work with schools, into their teaching design: links are provided on the Subject Centre's web pages on community engagement. Detailed advice for working with schools also appears in the schools 'seed' guide.
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