2,407 search results
Teaching reading: what are our long term goals?
Education & Development

Teaching reading: what are our long term goals?

...fiction creator, this represents cause for considerable concern. The Dahl dominated choices of these teachers (and of those responding to the National Literacy Trust 2015 survey) suggests there is an urgent need to widen professional repertoires. Such subject knowledge is not an optional extra; it is vital if teachers are to make targeted recommendations to readers, read...
View article Teaching reading: what are our long term goals?
Article 10 mins
Back to the Future: Is time travel possible?
Science, Maths & Technology

Back to the Future: Is time travel possible?

...world or, if they do – like Marty McFly when he ensures his parents really did get together in 1955 – people just make sure things happen in the past the way they were meant to! This article came Back to the Future from 2013 when it was originally written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who - discover more perspectives on science fiction and time travel....
View article Back to the Future: Is time travel possible?
Article 5 mins
Halloween: What’s the devil got to do with it?
History & The Arts

Halloween: What’s the devil got to do with it?

...fiction like Tolkien’s books has made elves seem noble and enigmatic. Terry Pratchett draws on an older tradition in which elves might be enchanting and terrific but that was because they “weave enchantment” and “beget terror”. When he says “no one ever said they’re nice” he exaggerates a bit as some elves were thought to be helpful. But Anglo-Saxon and...
View article Halloween: What’s the devil got to do with it?
Article 10 mins
Magical Modernity in a Muggle World? Witchcraft, Spirituality and Everyday Enchantment
Health, Sports & Psychology

Magical Modernity in a Muggle World? Witchcraft, Spirituality and Everyday Enchantment

...fiction in our disenchanted muggle world. Yet as Harry discovered when he escaped his own peculiar iron cage, magic had always been around him. And although it may not come with giants, Polyjuice potion and invisibility cloaks, our world is not too dissimilar. With Britain’s pagan roots, magic has never been too far away if - as Hagrid tells Harry - ‘you know where to...
View article Magical Modernity in a Muggle World? Witchcraft, Spirituality and Everyday Enchantment
Article 10 mins
Hat makers, Greek gods and the great poisoners
Science, Maths & Technology

Hat makers, Greek gods and the great poisoners

...fiction, the crime writers Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie and Nigel Williams (in The Wimbledon Poisoner) all wrote about the use of thallium in foul play. [Liquid mercury drops on a pit black background.] Drops of liquid mercury It is worth pausing to consider what is meant by toxicity with regard to a compound. The German physician Paracelsus explored the relationship...
View article Hat makers, Greek gods and the great poisoners
Article 10 mins
Why is aggressive female sexuality pathologised on-screen?
Health, Sports & Psychology

Why is aggressive female sexuality pathologised on-screen?

...fictional existence as it seems steadfastly focused on aligning her unstable mental health with a rogue sexuality. Wondemaghen names two films that depict positive mental health cases — A Beautiful Mind (2001) and The Soloist (2009) — but doesn’t dwell on the fact that these films are both about extremely talented men. One is a genius mathematician and the other a...
View article Why is aggressive female sexuality pathologised on-screen?
Article 5 mins
Who is Donald Trump?
Society, Politics & Law

Who is Donald Trump?

...fictional characters but as flesh and blood”. The idea that someone like this really could be elected to lead a major democracy was once the province of satire. But as I and my colleagues found in our research, many young people in the UK reportedly see people such as Alan Sugar and Simon Cowell as credible political leaders. They were seen as tough and decisive,...
View article Who is Donald Trump?
Article 5 mins
Selling Empire: Epilogue – the slow death of heroism?
History & The Arts

Selling Empire: Epilogue – the slow death of heroism?

...fictional boy or girl. But the old assumptions of British leadership, and settler kinship, were still there. Over time, these annuals’ names changed to reflect the acceleration of decolonisation. The Empire Youth Annual became the Empire and Commonwealth Annual in 1953, the Commonwealth Annual from 1958, and then seems to have ceased publication in 1964. By the latter...
View article Selling Empire: Epilogue – the slow death of heroism?
Article 5 mins