I am a highly approachable Independent Expert Private English/English Literature Tutor located in Greater Manchester with over twenty years teaching and tutoring experience from Secondary to Postgraduate Degree level.
Here’s a PEEL paragraph exploring how Romeo ‘s character is presented in the first scene: Romeo’s state of mind before he encounters Juliet, is revealingly explored in his declaration… Read More »GCSE Romeo and Juliet: PEEL paragraph example from Act 1 Sc1. English Literature GCSE.
The new GCSE AQA English Literature syllabus is very exciting, yet challenging too. In a world dominated by smartphones, I wonder how many students will find the prospect of a five hundred… Read More »GCSE AQA English Literature: Suspense and Uncertainty in Great Expectations ( English Tuition Bolton Manchester)
I am currently enjoying an excellent Creative Writing Course (Online) with Stephen Carver and the UnThank School of Norwich. It is inspiring and very well constructed. Excellent support from Stephen Carver… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Characters who have inspired, amazed or irritated me!
Last week at Phoenix Writers, we had a session on endings. I realised after I wrote this piece, that it would serve rather better as an opening, though I am… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester: Openings
This was a fun prompt on the Curtis Brown course(very enjoyable). The prompt read: ‘It spilled everywhere, just everywhere.” Once you start writing, you find it just… Read More »English Tuition Manchester Bolton: Creative Writing Prompts- ‘It spilled everywhere…’
Running with an idea and allowing your writing to flow gives you freedom. It stops the editor in your head censoring your writing straight away. We all… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Creative Writing-Run with an idea! FLOW!
This has been the summer of Preston Child. A friend recommended the novels because of their co-authorship and because he knew I would love Preston Child’s hero. The FBI protagonist… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Reading Summer of Thrillers-New and Old!
Dr Fabienne Ralphson declined a cup of tea and asked for silence. God, she loathed teachers. Look at them all assembled here this morning; she could smell their disappointment, their… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester Tuition GCSE: Contagion!
I attempted this exercise on Curtis Brown’s excellent ‘ Start your Novel course’ and it does reveal how much the point of view of any narrative, substantially affects the outcome! … Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Point of View in Narrative-An Exercise.
Mansfield’s mind is beautifully captured here! I love the way she could so naturally catch an idea and chase it , allowing expansion and playfulness, but never losing the reader’s… Read More »Creative Writing Tuition Bolton Manchester: Katherine Mansfield and Snakes!
Several weeks ago, Martin Thomasson ran an excellent writing session for Phoenix writers, exploring cooperative writing. This proved a lively and most productive session, and we enjoyed Martin’ s talk… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Phoenix Writer’s Horwich ‘Pluto’…
I’m fascinated by the idea of camouflage. We all develop our own versions of camouflage, whether in terms of behaviour, language or belief systems. Keats revised the original myth of… Read More »Keats’ Lamia: English Tuition Bolton Manchester GCSE/GCE English Literature Tuition
wonder I did not put this before – I shall go on tomorrow- it is so fine now I must take a bit of a walk – Saturday – With… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester: Keats on the ‘fire’ of his Lamia!
This works so well. Use the first three pictures as inspiration for your first paragraph in any persuasive writing or speech. Then follow each picture in order so you convince… Read More »How to Persuade in 7 Steps! GCSE English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury
(Here’s a wandering, wondering mind! I love the lucidity of Woolf’s best writing and here, in a sentence of 181 words, she thoroughly imagines the ‘foreign… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Virginia Woolf’s perfect sentence of 181 words? ‘On being ill.’
We all feel ‘stuck’ sometimes with our writing and the most common problem I hear as an English tutor in Bolton is: ‘I don’t know where to start.” Hemingway’s… Read More »Creative Writing: Hemingway’s Best Advice? ONE TRUE SENTENCE!
Do you realise your thoughts carry their own temperature? Your soul leaks a heat waiting to be read. I make it my business to test your temperature. Your true self can be… Read More »Creative writing Bolton Manchester: Lamia and heat of others!
For a long long time Frankie felt shy. Shyness ruled her world like a shadowy grim faced dictator. She felt trapped behind some grey prison wall; occasionally glimpsing through the odd tiny chink, a world… Read More »Creative writing Bolton: Frankie and the Holy Grail of Confidence.
”Moving a guy as big as Keever wasn’t easy. It was like trying to wrestle a king-size mattress off a waterbed. So they buried him close to the house. Which… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Lee Child’s Model Opening to ‘Make Me’.
Saki unnervingly captures the eager boastfulness of a proud parent below. Indeed the energy devoted to parent-pride seems practically pathological, yet curiously familiar too. However Saki at his best, is… Read More »Creative Writing Tuition Bolton Manchester: Saki’s Clovis on Parental Responsibilities- Artful Irony!
MW) I read this on enotes (by a teacher) about Sredni Vashtar: ‘‘This short, macabre story is chilling in its portrayal of the fiendish young boy.” And it occurred… Read More »Saki’s ‘The Schartz Metterklume Method’ Analysis and discussion Part One : What is the secret of his appeal?
The story begins with a man gazing at an empty house towards the end of the war. He seems solitary and reflective: evidently returning there out of some kind of… Read More »English Tuition Bolton- ”Ivy Gripped the Steps” By Elizabeth Bowen: Analysis of lonely parasitic need?
( I started this last summer drinking coffee and watching an ambitious spider. I know in the back of my head lurks Mansfield’s brilliant, yet miserable late story‘ The Fly’. This… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester GCSE English tuition : ”Cobwebs”.
Writing spontaneously and with originality came easily to Ray Bradbury– because he employed a very natural technique that never failed to generate stories. He collided or juxtaposed ideas from his… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester: A prompt courtesy of Saki and Ray Bradbury!
English Tuition can boost confidence and grades. However the most simple and effective way to improve your English is to READ! Reading helps your concentration, generates ideas and boosts… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Bury Manchester : What shall I read? ( Part One) Peter Pan In Scarlet- ”Neverland is Leaking!”
EnglishTuition boosts your grades and your confidence. Schools, Colleges and Universities are often crowded places to learn.You may feel that your English studies are suffering due to lack of confidence,… Read More »English Tutor/Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: Expert English Tuition Boosts Grades and Confidence!
While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam… Read More »English Tutor/Tuition Bolton Manchester: Austen’s Pride and Prejudice- Chapter 34 How NOT to propose marriage!
I’ve just finished reading Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Highsmith’s famous tale of two travellers who discuss the possibility of murdering each other’s “problems” in entirely isolated incidents that… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train -Analysis of a Faustian trip!
Free writing loosens the pen and disinhibits our censoring mind. 500 words at a gallop give our imagination the opportunity to wander ‘away’- rather like Kezia in Mansfield’s brilliant New Zealand short… Read More »Creative Writing Tuition Bolton Manchester: The Whispers of Nefertiti Part Two.
