The end result of the leaked Ofsted inspection guide for English is going to be thousands of GCSE essays that attempt to spot polyptoton in the wild and then have literally nothing to say about its usage. Because, at KS4, there is pretty much nothing to say about polypbloodytoton
Every exam board - who have spent the last two years telling us to stop teaching pointless Greek rhetorical terms - weeping, rending garments at this guidance.
It's a curriculum vision that fetishises magpied Classics knowledge delivered as trivia. 'Knowledge of Classical... theories, such as those of Aristotle.' And 'knowledge of devices used in Renaissance literature and knowledge of techniques of oratory from Classical civilisations'
Farcical. Truly. Anyway - here's the whole thing: dropbox.com/scl/fo/8k8wu55…
The construction of the canon here is too much for me to engage with on one morning twitter thread. But sweet Jesus. That's my placeholder.
Important note: Ofsted has a new secondary English lead. @greeborunner, I know you cannot reply about any of this, but godspeed you in burning this all with cleansing fire
@TabitaSurge Or, written in shorter, easier to understand words, “know your place, pleb, and don’t challenge the canon.”
@TabitaSurge Not sure what this thread is about, but honestly this is my placeholder in life right now.
@TabitaSurge I agree! So we are to teach texts of the Canon to people living in the 21st Century with relevance to only the time they were written in? Does that not contradict the point of literature?