Dracula’s Castle: Jonathan Harker’s First Impressions. ( English Year 7/8) I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Dracula’s Castle First Impressions. ( Year 7)
I have suspended all face to face tuition for the time being. Social distancing is essential in these troubled times. This helps to protect my family and yours. If any… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Coronavirus Pandemic (14 March 2020)
I enjoyed writing this in response to a title and a student’s outline. I’m also taking the FutureLearn class on screenplay which is excellent and free. I would thoroughly recommend… Read More »Creative Writing Year 6/7/8: ‘Stories happen because someone wants something and has trouble getting it.’ ( David Mamet)
GCSE English Revision Tips for Exams! (Last minute BOOSTS!) Here are a few tips for your English revision and those forthcoming examinations. When you are asked to ANALYSE any text… Read More »GCSE English Tuition Bolton Manchester( TIPS!)
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way:… Read More »GCSE Macbeth Act 1 Sc 5: Lady Macbeth’s Ambition- Analysis ( English Tuition Bolton).
On going down in the morning, I found my auntmusing so profoundly over the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, thatthe contents of the urn had overflowed the… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Why reading David Copperfield helps us to read(and write) ourselves.
Suspense: How do you analyse suspense in an extract? (GCSE English) Here are a few questions that produce stimulating answers to any question about suspense or tension. Remember suspense is… Read More »Suspense: How do you analyse suspense in an extract? (GCSE English Language and Literature -Private English Tuition Bolton Manchester)
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’…
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!”
Jane Austen memorably summed up her creative challenge in her characterization of Emma Woodhouse.” I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”Austen… Read More »“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like” Emma by Jane Austen: Endearing Fallibility?
My son had two two hour sessions with Janet before his Cambridge Pre-U exam (similar to A Level) for his English Literature Prose paper. These were, for practical purposes, done… Read More »Cambridge Pre-U English Tuition Testimonial : Mrs L London.
I first read Oliver Sacks in 1986 when The Man who mistook his wife for a Hat was published by Picador. I was utterly absorbed by his stories of human… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Oliver Sacks- The Man who mistook his wife for a hat.
Last week I posted a an extract from a short story by Ray Bradbury where he used a second person narrator. The effect of this narrative view point is very… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Phoenix Writers: Second Person Narrative Shifts!
Later she heard her children playing in the garden. Lottie’s stolid, compact little voice cried: “Ke—zia. Isa—bel.” She was always getting lost or losing people only to find them again,… Read More »Katherine Mansfield’s Prelude: Analysis -Kezia’s rebellion from conventionality.
The Stone HareThink of it waiting three hundred million years, not a hare hiding in the last stand of wheat, but a premonition of stone, a moonlit reef where corals reach for the… Read More »Gillian Clarke’s The Stone Hare: GCSE Unseen Poem Analysis-English Tuition Bolton Manchester
Walking inspires your writing because it liberates our heads from our daily ‘mind forg’d manacles’ as Blake would say! We get into ‘flow’ and words and ideas become loosened up… Read More »Creative Writing English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: Walking to Inspire Writing-Peel Tower Ramsbottom!
The house was three miles from the station, but before the dusty hired fly had rattled along for five minutes the children began to put their heads out of the… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton: E Nesbit Five Children and it- Bolton School Entrance Examination!
My previous blog post shows how useful it is to model your openings on the successful openings of other published writers and this second illustration utilizes a ‘model’ from Pulman’s The Tin… Read More »Creative Writing English Tuition Bolton: Philip Pullman as a model!
This ‘memoir’ by Dylan Thomas has one of the most evocative openings I have ever read. It transports us truly away into the land of story and childhood when 2… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Dylan Thomas and Christmas!
Unreliable Narrators: What Larks Pip! ‘Never trust the artist. Trust the tale.'(DHLawrence) Narrators can be slippery creatures. Here are just a few reasons why the narraor may be unreliable: 1)… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: Unreliable Narrators Galore!
( This is partially inspired by Edith Wharton’s Ghost Stories, Stoker’s Dracula and Oxfam’s Mystery/Crime tales. It is still a work-in-progress and reminds me of the importance and difficulty of PLOT !… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: ‘Ignite’ a strange tale in progress!
The other day I noticed something very positive happened to the energy and ‘spirit’ of a session, when a phrase used by a student was repeated first by ‘them’ and then… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Confidence- Encouraging you to trust and ‘bask’ in your voice and words.
IT WAS on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, collected the instruments of life around… Read More »English Tutor Bolton Manchester: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Chapter Five Analysis
GCSE and GCE English Examinations are over and I am rewarding myself on a daily basis with the wittiest short story writer EVER! As I have said in another post,… Read More »Saki’s wit: A short analysis of the pleasures of reading Saki! (English Tutor Manchester Bolton)
Private tuition is a practice older than the school system itself; in ancient times only the children from wealthiest families were given access to any form of education, usually… Read More »English Tutoring Bolton and Manchester: The Value of Tutoring by Jenny Bennion.
