The Work of the Course: validity and reliability in assessing English Literature

© 2017 National Association for the Teaching of English This article reflects on the values and practices of a revolutionary UK A level (senior secondary) course that achieved a high degree of validity and reliability in assessing the study of English literature. John Hodgson and Bill Greenwell were involved in its teaching and assessment from an early stage, and Greenwell's comments on an early draft of the article have been incorporated. The practice of literary response enshrined in the course was based on a striking application of “personal response” to literature, gave students opportunities to show capability in studying and writing a range of literary styles and genres, and engaged teachers regionally and nationally in a developed professional community of practice. It remains a touchstone of quality as well as of innovation in English curriculum and assessment

Education ?. the university. A sketch for an "Un rl i sh Sch o o 1.

LEIDSSTELSELOPLADEN-RUG0

David Pocock's contributions and the legacy of Leavis

David Pocock (1928-2007) co-founded this journal with Louis Dumont, and it is easy to assume that they were intellectually more 'like-minded' than we believe was really the case. In the first part of this appreciation, we offer some biographical and intellectual context for Pocock's career. In the second, we identify the principal ways in which his sociological project did converge with Dumont's and the respects in which it seems fundamentally different. Both were deeply influenced by Evans-Pritchard; but much of their difference is explained, we suggest, by Pocock's prior loyalty to the teachings of the literary critic, F.R. Leavis. For good or ill, Pocock's more reflexive preoccupations and his concern with the moral complexity of social life chime better with, and indeed anticipate, subsequent theoretical trends in the discipline