English Literacy Inspired by the Vision of NL Clay
Clay Lane is inspired by textbooks used in English schools and homes from the 1920s to the 1960s. The Copy Book is an anthology of short passages from all ages of literature in English, including novels, plays, poetry, biography and political debate. Think and Speak is a collection of brain-teasers of the kind given to pupils in secondary schools of the time.
“The course should train pupils to observe, learn more of the world they live in, think clearly, use the imagination and to speak clearly.”
NL Clay, Think and Speak (1929)
Featured Post
From The Indian Mutiny
The fate of the Revolt was settled by the Indians themselves. The Sikhs and the Gurkhas supported the British. The Nizam in the south, and Scindia in the north, and many other Indian States, also lined up with the British. Even apart from these defections, the Revolt had the seeds of failure in it. It was fighting for a lost cause, the feudal order; it had no good leadership; it was badly organized, and there were mutual squabbles all the time.
Featured Exercise
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
The words in this puzzle are taken randomly from a list of 927 common words. You can change e.g. cat → cats, go → went, quick → quickly.
1 Hear. Many. Term.
2 Among. Four. Guy.
3 Face. Mention. Throughout.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
