Sunday, January 04, 2009

Dreaded set texts

Emails from children studying her work for GCSE have prompted Susan Hill to write an article for Standpoint Magazine about English teaching in schools. Those who followed Hill's blog will be familiar with these emails: desperate, often resentful, and revealing teenagers at a loss with the task of reading and writing about a full novel.

Actually, I don't think it's just novels. My story 'Compass and Torch' (one of the stories in Balancing) is to be included in a school textbook, and it's not just Hill's experience but the comments from school students on East of the Web (where the story was first published) which make me think that becoming a set text will not necessarily be the story's best fate...!

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