Making Meaning in English: Exploring the Role of Knowledge in the English Curriculum

What is English as a school subject for? What does knowledge look like in English and what should be taught? Making Meaning in English examines the broader purpose and reasons for teaching English and explores what knowledge looks like in a subject concerned with judgement, interpretation and value. 
David Didau argues that the content of English is best explored through distinct disciplinary lenses – metaphor, story, argument, pattern, grammar and context – and considers the knowledge that needs to be explicitly taught so students can recognise, transfer, build and extend their knowledge of English. He discusses the principles and tools we can use to make decisions about what to teach and offers a curriculum framework that draws these strands together to allow students to make sense of the knowledge they encounter. 
If students are going to enjoy English as a subject and do well in it, they not only need to be knowledgeable, but understand how to use their knowledge to create meaning. This insightful text offers a practical way for teachers to construct a curriculum in which the mastery of English can be planned, taught and assessed.

Reference

Didau, David

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Routledge

Bringing the English Curriculum to Life: A Field Guide for Making Meaning in English

This book builds on David Didau's groundbreaking book Making Meaning in English by showing how the principles of the original book can be applied in schools and classrooms. It offers a fully resourced English curriculum packed with teaching suggestions and examples of high-quality practice.

Words, Language & Grammar

Bringing the English Curriculum to Life builds on David Didau's groundbreaking book Making Meaning in English by showing how the principles of the original book can be applied in schools and classrooms. Drawing together experiences of designing, teaching, supporting and assessing English across the schools within Ormiston Academies Trust, this book demonstrates what an ambitious, coherently sequenced, broad and balanced English curriculum with successful adaption for students with SEND can look like in practice. Designed around the explicit teaching of the powerful conceptual knowledge students need to master the discipline, the book offers a fully resourced English curriculum packed with teaching suggestions and examples of high-quality practice. Covering intent, implementation, assessment, and outlining in detail what is included in each module for KS3 and 4, the curriculum can be adopted in its entirety, but is also flexible enough for departments to take modules and slot them into their own curriculum. Providing an inspiring model for teaching English that enables all students to succeed, this is an essential resource for all English teachers and school leaders responsible for curriculum development.

Designed to help bring the best out of English departments during that all-important inspection visit. Packed full of ideas, strategies and simple yet effective innovations, it is an essential tool and not just for the inspection! With topics including assessment for learning, progress, the learning environment and planning outstanding lessons, this is the book for every English teacher’s desk. The techniques and strategies that you will read in this book will help teachers of English reflect on what really matters when they teach the subject.” David Carter, Executive Principal, Cabot Learning Federation Provides a range of ideas and approaches that aren’t just outstanding against some Ofsted ticklist, but genuinely outstanding.” Geoff Barton, Headteacher, King Edward VI School This book is an encouraging reminder that, with hard work, effort and an understanding of the fundamental pedagogies of our classrooms, we too can achieve perfection in our lessons.” Lisa-Jane Ashes, (AST), Author and Creator of Reflections of a Learning Geek If you are a teacher - not just an English teacher you need to read this book.” Dave Rees, Principal of Erne Integrated College There’s a wealth of experience within these pages, but also love, joy, and compassion from a classroom practitioner on whom we should all model ourselves.” Kenny Pieper, English teacher in a Scottish Secondary School I’d recommend this book heartily to every teacher (NOT just English teachers) and encourage them to try out the tips within. They work I know I’ve tried many myself to great effect!” David Doherty, Assistant Principal &amp; Teacher of English, Cowes Enterprise College David Didau has been teaching since 2000, has lead a successful English faculty and has just taken up a new post as Director of English and Literacy. He blogs about learning at learningspy.co.uk and writes irregularly for the Guardian Teacher Network.

The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson (The Perfect Series)

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Independent Thinking Press

Forewords by Professor Robert Bjork and Emeritus Professor Dylan Wiliam. If you feel a bit cross at the presumption of some oik daring to suggest everything you know about education might be wrong, please take it with a pinch of salt. It s just a title. Of course, you probably think a great many things that aren t wrong. The aim of this book is to help you murder your darlings . David will question your most deeply held assumptions about teaching and learning, expose them to the fiery eye of reason and see if they can still walk in a straight line after the experience. It seems reasonable to suggest that only if a theory or approach can withstand the fiercest scrutiny should it be encouraged in classrooms. David makes no apologies for this; why wouldn t you be sceptical of what you re told and what you think you know? As educated professionals, we ought to strive to assemble a more accurate, informed or at least considered understanding of the world around us. Here, David shares with you some tools to help you question your assumptions and assist you in picking through what you believe. He will stew findings from the shiny white laboratories of cognitive psychology, stir in a generous dash of classroom research and serve up a side order of experience and observation. Whether you spit it out or lap it up matters not. If you come out the other end having vigorously and violently disagreed with him, you ll at least have had to think hard about what you believe. The book draws on research from the field of cognitive science to expertly analyse some of the unexamined meta-beliefs in education. In Part 1; Why we re wrong , David dismantles what we think we know; examining cognitive traps and biases, assumptions, gut feelings and the problem of evidence. Part 2 delves deeper Through the threshold looking at progress, liminality and threshold concepts, the science of learning, and the difference between novices and experts. In Part 3, David asks us the question What could we do differently? and offers some considered insights into spacing and interleaving, the testing effect, the generation effect, reducing feedback and why difficult is desirable. While Part 4 challenges us to consider What else might we be getting wrong? ; cogitating formative assessment, lesson observation, grit and growth, differentiation, praise, motivation and creativity.

What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong? (Paperback edition)

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Crown House Pub Ltd

What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong?

What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong

Much of what we do in classrooms is intuitive, steered by what 'feels right', but all too often intuition proves a poor, sometimes treacherous guide. Although what we know about the workings of the human brain is still pitifully little, the science of psychology can and has revealed certain surprising findings that teachers would do well to heed. Over the past few decades, psychological research has made real strides into understanding how we learn, but it's only in the last few years that education has become aware of these insights. Part of the problem is a tendency amongst teachers to resist being told 'what works' if it conflicts with intuition. Whilst we cannot and should not relinquish our professional judgement in the face of outlandish claims, we should at least be aware of what scientists have discovered about learning, thinking, motivation, behaviour and assessment over the past few decades. This though is far easier said than done. Every year thousands of research papers are published, some of which contradict each other. How can busy teachers know which research is worth investing time in reading and understanding? Here, David Didau and Nick Rose attempt to lay out the evidence and theoretical perspectives on what we believe are the most important and useful psychological principles of which teacher ought to be aware. That is not to say this book contains everything you might ever need to know - there is no way it could - it is merely a primer. We hope that you are inspired to read and explore some of the sources for yourself and see what other principles can find a home in your classroom. Some of what we present may be surprising, some dubious, but some in danger of being dismissed as 'blindingly obvious'. Before embracing or dismissing any of these principles we urge you to interrogate the evidence and think carefully about the advice we offer. While nothing works everywhere and everything might work somewhere, this is a guide to what we consider the best bets from the realm of psychology.

What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Psychology

Rose, Nick

John Catt Educational

Uncertainty is a fact of life. You can never know enough to make perfect decisions.Understanding this helps us balance an awareness of our tendency towardsoverconfidence with an acceptance of our own fallibility. The book discussestwo opposed models of school improvement: the deficit model (which assumesproblems are someone's fault) and the surplus model (which assumes problemsare unintended systemic flaws). By aligning ourselves to a surplus model we cancreate a system of Intelligent Accountability.The principles that make this possible are trust, accountability and fairness. Whilewe thrive when trusted, unless someone cares about - and is holding us to account- for what we do, we're unlikely to be our best. Some teachers deserve moretrust and require less scrutiny than others, but in order to satisfy the demands ofequality we end up treating all teachers as equally untrustworthy. The more wetrust teachers, the more autonomy they should be given. To pursue a system of fairinequality we must accept that autonomy must be earned.

Intelligent Accountability: Creating the conditions for teachers to thrive

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Didau, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Didau, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Didau, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Making Meaning in English: Exploring the Role of Knowledge in the English Curriculum

Making Meaning in English: Exploring the Role of Knowledge in the English Curriculum

Bringing the English Curriculum to Life: A Field Guide for Making Meaning in English

Bringing the English Curriculum to Life: A Field Guide for Making Meaning in English

The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson (The Perfect Series)

What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong? (Paperback edition)

What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong?

What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Psychology

Intelligent Accountability: Creating the conditions for teachers to thrive