Great Regulars: I decided to train as a doctor because medicine

seemed to combine all the humanities and sciences. But I felt I wasn't very good, so I switched to English at Oxford. Later, I worked for the BBC until they told me it would be better to go freelance. It wasn't until 1984 that I discovered I'd been effectively blacklisted, though I'd never made any secret of the fact that I was a Marxist with a small 'm'.

from Michael Rosen: The Telegraph: Inside Michael Rosen's world: Marxism, loss and school apple crumble.

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I should have guessed that if Michael Gove was going to reply to one of my Guardian Letters from a Curious Parent, he wouldn't engage with what I actually wrote. Expert though he is in linguistics, he seems to find it difficult attending to detail. He claims that I criticised the new grammar test because there is "no such thing as correct grammar". No, I criticised it because a) it was brought in without any evidence that it would help children write better, b) that Year 6 is too early to tackle grammar in any useful way, c) the kind of grammar being tested was resulting in it being taught out of context of real speaking, writing and reading, d) questions about grammar are not simply a matter of "right and wrong".

from Michael Rosen: The Guardian: Michael Gove and 'correct grammar': let me explain this slowly

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