How can I work out what Romantic poetry means? Help!

Getting to Grips with Romantic Poetry: What are Wordsworth and Coleridge saying and how can we work it out? I had a lovely email from a clearly hard-working and enthusiastic A’ level student in the UK who is studying Romantic … Read More

How do I write an essay on Macbeth as Hero?

How do we approach essay questions when we feel stuck? Trying to launch into writing an essay from a blank page or screen is always going to be difficult because you have no foundation or building blocks to start with. … Read More

Exam Myths

Bullet Points If I run out of time it’s ok – I can just write lots of bullet points and the examiner will take out the bits that are relevant and give me good marks. If you have had a … Read More

What is ‘Textual Analysis’ or ‘Close Reading’?

So your lecturer has asked you for a ‘close analysis’ of a piece of text. You have no idea what that means. What do you do? Panic. Not good – panic breeds paralysis and you no doubt have a deadline. … Read More

Student Problems: ‘I can’t cope with big books!’

“I’m hitting a text wall – I read a page over and over and the words just swim in front of me – nothing goes in.” Sounds like you’re having to mark too many exam scripts 🙂 . I’m tempted … Read More