I often speak to parents* who are concerned that their children don’t read, or don’t read enough. They ask me, ‘Can you persuade him/her to read?’ I do try to…
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Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) was a politician, satirist and poet who was friends with John Milton. He is described as a metaphysical poet. This is a term given to a number…
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is now one of America’s most read poets, but during her lifetime she was largely unknown and only a handful of her poems were published in newspapers….
John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet, writer and civil servant whose epic poem, Paradise Lost, can be counted among the greatest poems in the English language. Milton was a…
If you know any part of one poem in English, it’s quite likely that you know, ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud…’ which is the beginning of William Wordsworth‘s…
Did you know that today, 1st September, is World Letter Writing Day? When was the last time you wrote a letter? I know, I can’t remember, either! The last time…
What might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present. T.S.Eliot – Burnt Norton Ten years ago, for the whole of 2012, I made a…
I home educated my son from the age of 13 until he went to college at 19. It’s a tough challenge, but sometimes you have to do what you know…
Have you heard of iambic pentameter? Students often tell me they know it’s important but they are not quite sure what it is. In this post, I aim to clear…
There are six adverbs we can learn quite easily that help to make Shakespeare’s language a lot simpler. They are all about direction. Why is this important? Well, the words…
Language can be precise, specific and to the point, or it can me imprecise, vague and even confusing. There are times when we want to be precise but there are…
In the past three Exploring English posts we have looked at modal verbs. Today we explore the final main category: Modal verbs of ability. Here, ability covers both the sense…