I’m Costas, a third-year History and Spanish student at the University of Oxford. During my time in secondary school and sixth form, I participated in various writing competitions, and I was able to win two of them (the national ISMLA Original Writing Competition and...
Writing Articles
Mastering Writing Competitions: Insider Tips from a Two-Time Winner
I’m Costas, a third-year History and Spanish student at the University of Oxford. During my time in secondary school and sixth form, I participated in various writing competitions, and I was able to win two of them (the national ISMLA...
A Day in the Life of an Oxford Scholastica Tutor
Hello! I’m Alyssa, one of the Creative Writing tutors at the Oxford Scholastica Academy. In addition to my wonderful role at Oxford Scholastica, I’m an editor and a DPhil (PhD) student of Literary Translation at the University of Oxford (which is separate from Oxford...
Benefits of a Creative Writing Programme at the Oxford Scholastica Academy
Creative writing can be a valuable skill to practise for personal development, but it can also help you progress academically. It’s an opportunity to delve into your imagination, challenge your creative potential, and explore your thoughts and feelings. Creative...
100 Best Books of All Time for High School Students
By reading widely and often, we’re able to glimpse perspectives across time and place that we might otherwise never have access to. There’s possibly no greater way to learn about the world around us than by nestling amongst the pages of a great novel! With that in...
What’s the Difference Between Poetry and Prose?
Poetry and prose are both forms of written expression, but they differ in structure, style and purpose. Fundamentally, prose is writing in its organic form, based upon spoken language. It’s a form of expression found in novels, newspapers and essays. Poetry, on the...
Why Is Shakespeare Still Important?
William Shakespeare is (arguably) the most recognisable name in English literature. And even if you haven’t heard of him, you’ll know about some of his plays, like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. Even beyond that, if you’ve ever seen an actor chatting to a skull, or...
15 Best UK Universities for English
The evolution of chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has made it increasingly difficult for us to distinguish between the human-written word and the artificially-generated word. As impressive as these developments are, it’s perhaps more important than ever to study the...
15 Classic Books Everyone Should Read
There’s a lot of debate as to what makes certain books ‘classics’ – is it longevity, popularity, literary merit or all of the above? Are all the books we view as ‘classic’ deserving of that title? Should some lesser-known books be considered ‘classics’ instead? There...
How to Write the Perfect Essay
If you decide to study English at university, it’s going to involve a lot of essay writing. It’s a challenging skill to master because it requires both creativity and logical planning, but if you ensure you do the following whenever you write an essay, you should be...
2023’s Best Creative Writing Prompts for Middle School Students
From the ancient epic poems of Homer to the haunting short stories of Shirley Jackson, via Russian greats like Leo Tolstoy, and the formal experiments of Virginia Woolf, creative writing has been a crucial part of society for millennia. Whether through novels, poems...
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