Here is the News

Here are some links to what I hope teachers and students will think is a great little resource.

It’s a poem by Tom Leonard. I first heard it several years ago. Since then, its had the bad luck to be adopted for GCSE - and the reason why that’s bad is explained pretty clearly in the links. It’s good for a writer’s work to have a bigger audience - unless that is, the work is distorted or misinterpreted. But that’s a risk in all communication I guess.

Anyway here are the links:

www.tomleonard.co.uk/main-publications/intimate-voices/notes-on-the-six-oclock-news.html

www.tomleonard.co.uk/main-publications/intimate-voices/the-six-oclock-news.html

One of the links will take you to a recording, so if you aren’t confident that you can imagine, or even imitate a Scottish accent, have no worries.

I think that the poem should be useful for - well, obviously mass media. But also education, and culture and identity. And remember, as Leonard explains, the poem is not about ‘Scottishness’ in particular; it’s much more, he says, about class. Students may have come across it before at GCSE - but its worth a try and with luck, if it is a re-introduction for some students, the new context can help give it back some of its shine.

Enjoy it.