1. First today, another excellent blog post from Alexandra Mihai, this one on Problem Based Learning https://educationalist.substack.com/p/problem-based-learning-pbl-let-students with the usual high-quality reading list at the end of the post.

2. Here’s this year’s longlist for the International Booker Prize, with writers from twelve different countries : https://thebookerprizes.com/international-booker/2021 Booker have for some years now given equal billing to the translator, which is only proper.

By way of provocation, here’s a piece by Tim Parks, himself both translator and novelist, on the new notion of “resistant”, “visible” translation which requires the translator a) to leave their mark on – correct, even – the text they translate rather than hide behind it, self-effacingly, and b) share gender, age and ethnicity with the writer they’re translating (to overstate the case just a little): https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/03/31/the-visible-translator/ Not all of the Booker translators would qualify according to the rules of ‘visible translation’, it would seem.

Home-made PDF crib sheet with a little more info on the longlisted authors attached below.

3. I’m a big fan of the novelist and poet Owen Sheers – as I think I may have said before! Here’s an online landscape writing lesson from Owen that you might like to either try yourself or with your more advanced students https://www.hayfestival.com/wales/beacons-project/owen-sheers (You can safely dismiss the school student registration screen that appears when you first access the page.) PDF of both Owen’s article, Poetry and place: some personal reflections and his lesson plan attached below.

4. Here’s five of the very simplest of words – pretty, tall, silly, naughty and sad – that have travelled a long way from their original meaning in Old English over the years: https://theconversation.com/five-words-that-dont-mean-what-you-think-they-do-158102

5. And, finally, a little Bach from the Cambridge Music Festival, performed by the Dunedin Consort: https://youtu.be/29exxgiX2Sk It starts with a good introduction from the conductor, John Butt, but you can skip to 15’ 27” in if you’re in a hurry. Possibly available for only one more day ….