The Year of Reading and the School of English
Nottingham City Council has declared 2011 the Year of Reading and The University of Nottingham and the School of English are proud partners in this venture.
As well as continuing to expand our work as part of the Schools Literacy Support Project and the ‘Get Into Reading’ scheme, there will be events taking place in relation to the ‘Accessing the Medieval’ project, our new Creative Writing programmes, and exciting new partnership work with the Lakeside Theatre.
Please come and join us at some of the events and activities that will be advertised on this page throughout the year.
Professor Julie Sanders
Head of School
Get into Reading
The School of English will be taking part in a Get into Reading project in the Bilborough area of Nottingham to support literacy in the community.
An undergraduate student will also be working on a Get into Reading project based dissertation.
Schools Literacy Support Project
The School of English supports a Schools Literacy Support Project and gives current undergraduate students the opportunity to volunteer in Nottingham schools to improve the literacy levels of local children who are not achieving the minimum national standards.
Student volunteers are achieving fantastic results through their encouragement and enthusiastic support for this scheme and volunteer to work in local schools as:
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Academic mentors
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Assessment coaches
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Classroom Assistants
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Extra-curricular/club organisers
This scheme has run for many years and enables students to engage with their local communities as well as develop their own skills and experiences. During the year of reading, the School of English will be working with the University's Centre for Career Development, to introduce an Advantage Award for students who wish their volunteering work to be recognised and accredited by the University.
Mayfest event for members of our community
Saturday, 7 May 2011
12.30 to 5.00 pm
Come to the University Park Campus to find out about the work we do with local communities in the School of English: running sessions on Nottingham writers including D.H. Lawrence, working with school age children to ensure that reading is a fun and engaging activity, or collaborating with the Lakeside Arts Centre on drama projects. Younger visitors can take part in short sessions exploring life and literature in the Viking Age and; they can even try some creative writing.
Mayfest 2011 - We hope to see you there.
Student projects to support outreach
The School is keen to extend opportunities to our final year undergraduate students to pursue project-based dissertations on specific topics relating to language and literacy and to drama and performance in 2011-12.
These topics build on the School’s engagement with local theatres and literacy projects and aim to encourage students to think about applied research in an English Studies context from fresh angles of approach.
Students will spend the first semester (October to January) completing the practical and observational work for the dissertation and the second semester (February to June) dedicated to the writing up and evaluation of their work with their nominated supervisor.
In 2011-12 the six topic areas available for study are:
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Creativity in Action: Analysing the process and performance of the 2011 Christmas Show for children: Red Riding Hood by Mike Kenny
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Creativity in Action: Analysing the process and performance of a new play in a regional context
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Reading between the lines: evaluating the School of English Literacy Support Project
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Reading aloud for wellbeing: Designing and implementing literary materials for reading groups
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Making Theatre with Children: Case Studies of the work of Nottingham Playhouse Roundabout
Creativity
There are many activities on campus if you are interested in the theatre, drama and performance. The School of English regularly organises a range of events for students and the local community and welcomes writers, directors and producers to the School for film screenings and poetry events.
Academic staff take part in local events, including Dr Jim Moran who regularly runs a books feature about regional writers on BBC Radio Nottingham's afternoon show, usually on the first Wednesday of each month at shortly after 2pm, to introduce listeners to some favourite novels, poems and
Find out more about the Mapping the Moment interactive map and research database that academic staff in the Schools of English and Geography (Dr Joanna Robinson and Dr Gary Priestnall) have developed to find out about how the spectators of performance in mid-nineteenth-century Nottingham moved on their way to the theatre, lecture rooms, or the town’s famous Goose Fair.
Do visit the student run theatre at The University of Nottingham.
The New Theatre has been running since 1969 and is the only completely student-run theatre in the country. Current students stage up to 15 shows a semester and provide a platform for generations of talented performers, directors, make-up artists, lighting technicians etc.
DH Lawrence
Why not find out more about Nottingham’s most famous literary figure during 2011?
The School of English contributes heavily to the annual, month-long D H Lawrence Festival in Eastwood, Nottingham, which is organised each September by D H Lawrence Heritage. The Festival includes plenty of fun activities for families and children as well as reading groups and academic papers, all intended to increase awareness of D H Lawrence and the historical significance of the region’s rich mining heritage.
During the 2010 Festival, the School of English also ran a session on Lawrence at Eastwood Comprehensive School, which inspired pupils to perform scenes from – and inspired by – Lawrence’s novels and plays at the Gala Closing Night.
The School also edits the annual Journal of D H Lawrence Studies on behalf of the D H Lawrence Society in Eastwood. The Society meets on the second Wednesday of each month, at 7.15pm, in Eastwood Public Library to hear papers on Lawrence and local history. Non-members are welcome to attend.
The School of English is pleased to welcome Billy Ivory, an Honorary Lecturer in the School of English, and BBC producer Mark Pybus, to talk about their new BBC adaptation of 'Women in Love' at a question and answer session on 17 March 2011.
Accessing the Medieval
Accessing the Medieval is a research series organised by the Institute for Medieval Research and the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections exploring the relationship between popular perceptions of the Middle Ages and academic research in the discipline.
Accessing the Medieval workshops are an opportunity to explore in more detail technical aspects of ‘writing medieval’, such as how to create convincing dialogue, how to decide how much context to include, how to evoke different belief systems, and how to convert academic papers into absorbing narratives. Each writer explore these and similar issues with a group of about 20 participants, through a variety of activities, including directed writing, discussion and reading.
Although there are limited places on the workshops, they are open to all (min age. 16) and full information is available on the programme of events for Accessing the Medieval