Mark Tickner:

English Literature ought to be used to encourage reading for pleasure and reading a varied range of genres... I suspect it doesn't.

A parent mentioned at a home education meeting that English literature is a subject that you either love or hate. English literature is one of the most popular A Levels, which is indicative that a lot a children enjoy the subject at GCSE, but for children who didn't enjoy English literature at GCSE, then after being hammered with all the Shakespeare et al then they will probably never want to read fiction for pleasure again.

Lisa Miles:

I did Pure English Literature at A level and I can confidently say that yes it has enriched my life. ? I absolutely loved studying Shakespeare and love watching his plays be they in a theatre or on TV.   See 45 Everyday Phrases Coined by Shakespeare to understand his influence on the English language. 

I consider Shakespeare's plays to be sophisticated in style and probably too complex for a sizeable fraction of secondary school students to properly appreciate and comprehend to be in a compulsory GCSE subject. There are many students who are struggling with English language at GCSE and most don't have a hope in hell of ever managing to understand Shakespeare to the level required to achieve a respectable grade in English literature. Therefore I think that Shakespeare is a subject for an optional GCSE or after school club.

Roy Bowdler:
I would therefore strongly recommend the study of “storytelling” as a something valuable for engineers looking towards leadership. As a purely personal feeling, I also think that it is easy to slip “over the line” into intellectual pretentiousness through the use of language intended to impress rather than inform, but that is in the eye of the beholder.  Examples might include references to classics, Latin etc, which are primarily the realm of those privately educated or specialised academic language.

Stories are one thing but the classics of literature are another. There are times when I think that any work of fiction that cannot be understood by a 12 year old of average intellectual ability is specialised material. I'm from a faction of society who prefers cartoons and video games to literary classics. One of my favourite cartoons is the Mysterious Cities of Gold which has a very strong storyline behind it.

Mark Tickner:

English Literature ought to be used to encourage reading for pleasure and reading a varied range of genres... I suspect it doesn't.

A parent mentioned at a home education meeting that English literature is a subject that you either love or hate. English literature is one of the most popular A Levels, which is indicative that a lot a children enjoy the subject at GCSE, but for children who didn't enjoy English literature at GCSE, then after being hammered with all the Shakespeare et al then they will probably never want to read fiction for pleasure again.

Lisa Miles:

I did Pure English Literature at A level and I can confidently say that yes it has enriched my life. ? I absolutely loved studying Shakespeare and love watching his plays be they in a theatre or on TV.   See 45 Everyday Phrases Coined by Shakespeare to understand his influence on the English language. 

I consider Shakespeare's plays to be sophisticated in style and probably too complex for a sizeable fraction of secondary school students to properly appreciate and comprehend to be in a compulsory GCSE subject. There are many students who are struggling with English language at GCSE and most don't have a hope in hell of ever managing to understand Shakespeare to the level required to achieve a respectable grade in English literature. Therefore I think that Shakespeare is a subject for an optional GCSE or after school club.

Roy Bowdler:
I would therefore strongly recommend the study of “storytelling” as a something valuable for engineers looking towards leadership. As a purely personal feeling, I also think that it is easy to slip “over the line” into intellectual pretentiousness through the use of language intended to impress rather than inform, but that is in the eye of the beholder.  Examples might include references to classics, Latin etc, which are primarily the realm of those privately educated or specialised academic language.

Stories are one thing but the classics of literature are another. There are times when I think that any work of fiction that cannot be understood by a 12 year old of average intellectual ability is specialised material. I'm from a faction of society who prefers cartoons and video games to literary classics. One of my favourite cartoons is the Mysterious Cities of Gold which has a very strong storyline behind it.