On 8 November 2025 I wore my metaphorical student hat and went to one of the Arts and Humanities day school. There were a number of these happening across the UK; last year I went to the one hosted at Milton Keynes. This year, I went to the one that took place in the London School of Economics.
What follows is a quick blog summary of the event, which might be of interest to other fellow arts and humanities students. There were a number of strands to the day: art history, creative writing, English literature, history, classical studies, religious studies and music. I firmly stuck to the English lit strand.
English Literature Study Skills
The first session was facilitated by Peter Lawson. Peter highlighted key documents and resources to look to: the assessment guide, module guide, and the English Literature toolkit (which can be useful when preparing for the writing of TMAs). He took us through some of the key learning outcomes from the English Literature programme, highlighting the top level categories of knowledge and understanding, cognitive skills, key skills, and practical and/or professional skills.
Some key (and necessarily obvious) points that relate to the writing of assignments include: time, reading the question, reading the guidance notes, stick to the word count, reference correctly, and submit by the deadline.
Tips for planning an essay include, begin by taking notes (on set text and critical sources), plan before writing, and ‘always provide a logical argument and evidence to support your position’. An important point is that it is okay to disagree with critical sources. I’ve tried to get critics to ‘talk with each other’, whilst putting myself in the middle of the conversation, but I’m not quite there in being able to do this.
Other tips included: it is important to have a clear introductory paragraph, and consider applying PEAL, where each paragraph makes a point, shares evidence, does some analysis and evaluation, and then provides a linking sentence to the next paragraph. Do explain why you have chosen a particular quote. This relates to a point that a tutor shared with me, which was ‘don’t end a paragraph with a quote; explain why you have chosen it, rather than letting it stand on its own’.
There was a comment about the close reading assignments which begin every module. You might approach it thematically, or a line by line basis. Which makes me wonder about how good the assignment I have just recently submitted!
Write Now: Getting started on TMA writing
The next session was all about what to expect from a ‘write now workshop’. The session also shared some strategies and approaches to help with starting to write your TMA by applying a technique known as structured freewriting.
There was a short discussion about barriers; what gets in the way of our writing, and what strategies do we apply to overcome those barriers? Some tips that were shared included: plan your study time and writing, break down tasks, ‘ditch perfectionism’ which means ‘give yourself permission to write a rubbish bit of writing’, break the process down into different stages by separating out the process of writing and the process of evaluating.
Another point was: find a study buddy; someone who might be studying on a similar module who lives close to where you live (which can be difficult to achieve, especially since so much is done online).
You and your library team
This session was a recorded lecture that was shown in one of the LSE lecture theatres. It took us through a range of different resources that are available in the OU library, such as the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), both of which I have used in earlier literature assignments. A useful tip with the ODNB is that you can broaden your search for a particular name or author, to see who else might be associated with them.
Using Dickens as a case study, we were guided through a short sequence of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources may include the Bridgeman Image Collection, or Early English Books online (EBO). Secondary sources, namely, journal catalogues are available by going to the Selected Resources for your Study part of the library.
To conclude, the sessions offered by the library were highlighted which you can find by going to the ‘training and events’ heading. A notable example was the ‘using library search for your assessment’.
Five things to know about English Literature
In this fifty minute session, facilitated by Tim Hammond and Liz Ford, we were collectively politely provoked into answering five questions:
- What is literature and what does it do?
- What does literature look like?
- What does literature sound like?
- Can other disciplines help us to understand/enjoy literature?
- Is literature good for you?
Although I had been to a similar session before (where I had won an OU pencil in 2023, a prize for being arrogant, for presuming to be able to define ‘literature’ in a sentence) this session was a lot of fun. Each question yielded a lot of discussion. I didn’t offer any pithy definitions and didn’t win any pencils, which might reflect a change or refinement in my thinking over after five years of study.
The future of reading
Earlier this year, I got chatting with a former English teacher (who had left the profession to take up stand-up comedy). He said something interesting, which was ‘the kids are not reading anymore’, which I found quite worrying. I had this conversation in the forefront of my mind during Shafquat Towheed’s presentation, which creatively explored ‘the future of reading’.
Two important quotes I made were ‘humans shape the way we interact with technology’ and ‘we will only use technologies if they remain useful to us’. We were given a reassuring reflection, that ‘the contemporary paperback is not dying’. A reason for this is that ‘books are persistently usable’ in the sense that what they contain can persist for a very long time. It was suggested that books can survive societal ‘extinction events’ and political upheaval.
Another quote I noted down was ‘the future of human centred reading is about us, not about technology’. The implication is that reading technologies come and go, but there will always be reading. I’m not sure whether I caught this word for word, but the following really resonated with me, the idea that books do ‘the heavy lifting that tell you who you are’, since ‘reading is about your own personal discovery’. Reading gives us immediate benefits. It allows us to have increased empathy, reduce anxiety, develop our sense of self, reduce isolation, increase our educational level of attainment, and others; I didn’t catch all of the points that Shaf shared. I learnt a new term that was related to all this: bibliotherapy. I also noted down the points that we read for emotional satisfaction, for pleasure, and for self-worth.
I’ve been working with technology, computers, my entire professional life. A book is the ultimate technology. I’ve seen different computing technologies come and go. The point was made that books are not going to go anywhere.
Reflections
When you’re studying at a distance face-to-face events are a ‘shot in the arm’ in terms of motivation. Students (like me) can pick up loads of useful hints and tips. Although a lot of the content was familiar, now that I’m coming to the end of my degree, the repetition and reinforcement was helpful. It also offers helpful reassurance too. It was also really nice to speak with other students, which is one of the benefits that is harder to quantify. I had some nice chats with a fellow student who is the admin of the module Facebook group, of which I’m a member. We face similar challenges of fitting study around life.
I really enjoyed Shaf’s presentation on the future of reading; it offered reassurance. I also picked up a few new practical pointers from the library session.
After the event, I did ask myself the question: why doesn’t the STEM faculty run events like these? It turns out that they do. Apparently, the Mathematics and Statistics school runs one for students, across all levels. I’ve also heard that Life, Health and Chemical Sciences runs one too. What about computing? I’ll ask some questions. Leave it with me.
Past events
I've been to a few of these events. Now that I'm on my final module, I've realised that this might have been the last one. It depends, of course, on whether I'll get through my final module. I'll do the best I can.
Here are blog summaries of the previous events I've been to:
Acknowledgements
Due acknowledgements are extended to all facilitators and everyone involved in the delivery of this day school. Thanks are also extended to the LSE team, who helped me to find my way to the right room.