atomic essays We're all going to die: on depression I do not write this thinking that I will never be depressed again. I might be. It might be worse. Much, much worse. I might kill myself.
atomic essays Atomic Essay #30 – lines composed at a dining table in Liverpool There was something quite inevitable about the nature of this post; it was always likely to reflective. That’s what we do after processes, and I’ve now nearly done mine. I set out to write 30 atomic essays in 30 days, and today is day 30. It is done.
atomic essays Atomic Essay #29 – bursting the banks Listening to On Form‘s episode on the sonnet, I was stopped by the idea that poetic form, far from being restrictive as some received wisdom might have it, allows for deeper exploration of feeling and idea than free verse poems might.
atomic essays Atomic essay #28 – meditations on fatherhood My daughter was tiny, and her skin was dark purple. She lay squirming, her mouth open soundlessly, her eyes standing out. She could not breathe.
atomic essays Atomic essay #26 – I am going to eat you When Michel de Montaigne described the cannibal Tupinambá of Brazil, he thought it odd that 16th century Europeans would consider them ‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’.
atomic essays Atomic Essay #27 – my important opinions I haven't always been a very good listener.Somewhere along the line I've had the notion that if there's something happening that I need to have an opinion on it and join the conversation.
atomic essays Atomic Essay #25 – there are no rules and everything is made up Having been active on Twitter for a few months, I’ve noticed that there are lots of truths. People are very, very fond of their truths.
atomic essays Atomic essay #24 – easy I have a tendency to overcomplicate things. In a job like teaching, there’s often so much going on that it’s easy to stall. The job is fertile ground for procrastination. When things are complicated, it’s hard to start and easy to avoid them.
atomic essays Atomic essay 23 – how I do research: part 6 (final thoughts) What’s the point of this system? At the heart of it – and to the heart of it we must return, or it’s all just moves – are a few simple goals.
atomic essays Atomic essay #22 – how I do research: part 5 (anatomy of an evergreen) There are no hard and fast rules for this. I have rules of thumb, but I don’t always obey them.
atomic essays Atomic essay #21 – how I do research: part 4 (what is an Evergreen Note?) Once I’ve got enough Literature Notes, I’m going to start to see connections. For me, creativity is in large part about making connections between things that are already there.
atomic essays Atomic essay #20 – how I do research: part three (Literature Notes) The highlights for a given text will now become a Literature Note (LN). An LN is simply my notes about what was worth remembering about a text, especially in light of my current lines of enquiry, notes, and questions.
atomic essays Atomic essay #19 – how I do research: part two (reading and highlighting) Once I've prepared my pre-reading list and lines of enquiry, I can start reading.
atomic essays Atomic essay #18 – how I read for research: part one (pre-reading) I've spent a lot my life being disorganised and forgetful.
atomic essays Atomic essay #15 – I hate Michael Jordan Whenever someone wants to convince students that they should be resilient and have a Growth Mindset (TM), Michael Jordan is there to assure them that even the greats fail, and that failure is a vital step on the road to success.
atomic essays Atomic essay #17 - some questions before reading about feedback I'm currently embarking on a big burst of reading to prepare for one of my Chartered College of Teaching Exams, on the topic of within-lesson feedback.
atomic essays Atomic essay #16 – 6 ideas for teaching narrative writing I love teaching narrative writing. There are some approaches I keep going back to that I feel work really well. This post presents and outlines six of them. They aren't a sequence; they're just things I do to help students practise aspects of writing craft.
atomic essays Atomic Essay #14 – ‘the passionate transitory’ I thought that this would be an easy post to write. Kavanagh's 'The Hospital' is one of my favourite poems; it should have been an easy task to write an analysis of it.
atomic essays Atomic essay #13 - I crossed the Irish Sea and found my poetry I'd never had a problem with analysing poetry when I had to; perhaps this explains a lot of my previous antipathy towards it.
atomic essays Atomic essay #11 - Stealing like an artist Recently, I read Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist, which discusses in simple terms ideas to inspire creative work.
atomic essays Atomic essay #10 - re-writing my deficit narrative A few days ago, in a discussion about something else, I used the terms 'culture-poor' and 'language-poor' to describe students I've taught before.
atomic essays Atomic essay #7: he's using his teacher voice! I was a quiet child. No-one believes this, but it's true.
