Our monthly round-up of the articles, books and podcasts we’re loving
‘A wonder book for word-lovers’ is how Jeanette Winterson describes Sarah Ogilvie’s The Dictionary People, recently released in paperback. Telling the story of the extraordinary collection of people who contributed to the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928 – including Karl Marx, astronomers, naturists, rain collectors and three murderers – it is a lively, highly entertaining account of how the ‘Wikipedia of the 19th century’ was crowdsourced into existence. In true dictionary style, the chapters are arranged alphabetically (A for Archaeologist to Z for Zealots) but don’t skip the introduction which is extraordinarily enlightening too.
Words, or rather the lack of them, were at the heart of Caitlin Moran’s column in the Saturday Times on 19 October. As she described the pain of empty nest syndrome, felt by her and millions of other middle-aged parents across the world as their offspring leave for university, she shared a new concern: that young people are too shy to leave their rooms, let alone to make new friends. She wisely counselled that they needed easy strategies for starting conversations, and proffered two innovative solutions involving a brick and a large supply of Pot Noodles. No substitute for an education in oracy of course, but a welcome take on a growing concern.
Someone who knows all about the importance of oracy skills is former English teacher Alex Quigley, now Head of Content and Engagement at the national educational charity, the Education Endowment Foundation, UK. We enjoyed his recent piece in TES on ‘Why we need to teach our students to argue properly’. In it, he quotes new research that shows that carefully crafted disagreements can make young children better learners by reducing their overconfidence and getting them to think more carefully, as well as sharing three strategies for embedding constructive disagreement into lessons.
Political podcasts are big news. How to Win an Election; The Rest is Politics; The News Agents… many of them have been mentioned on these pages. Now it’s the turn of Everything is News which differs by cleverly skewering the very podcasts it purports to emulate. Written by Helen Price it stars Helen as BBC world affairs editor Julia ‘a bit of a psychopath’ Markham, and Michael Clarke as recently unseated Tory politician Tom Dudley-Brown. Their answer to a listener question about how to maintain friendships across the political divide? ‘Ideally, don’t talk about it,’ says Tom. ‘And if your friend insists on talking about it – just shut it out. I for example like to sing a song in my head.’
We’re huge fans of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe – it’s where the grand final of our Performing Shakespeare competition is held – and so we’re looking forward to the production of All’s Well that Ends Well which opens there this month. A little-known story of obsession, class and subterfuge, its sense of suspense is sure to be heightened by its setting in this, London’s only candlelit theatre. Book your tickets here.
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