At Sound of Pen, we provide lessons to support your English studies. Whether you’re working towards GCSE exams or A-Levels, you’ll find resources tailored to your needs. If you LOVE music, you’ll LOVE the activities and exercises we’ve created. They’ve been specifically designed because we want you to make progress in all areas of your English studies – and because we want you to have fun at the same time!

It doesn’t matter whether you love Taylor Swift or Coldplay, Kim Petras or Bring Me The Horizon, Billie Eilish or Enter Shikari – we’re obsessed with it all. And we’re not just here to teach you to pass English exams – although we WILL do that – we’re here to help you pass life! Our favourite artists don’t just help us become more well-rounded writers – they deliver important messages that help us become more well-rounded people.

The ideas and issues that make living in 2020 such a rollercoaster ride are the same ideas and issues at the heart of each one of our lessons. Yes, you’re here to learn what a metaphor is or how to create your own amazing metaphors or to how to interpret Shakespeare’s metaphors! But at Sound of Pen, we also want to make sure you have the chance to really consider the world around you.

We know you want to find your place in that world. And we know too how important good English results are if you want to keep moving forward. We’ll ensure you become more confident with all the core skills, and then help you to harness the kind of originality, flair and sophistication examiners want to see in grade 9 and A grade work. Ultimately, we’ll show you how – by exploring the music of Halsey, YUNGBLUD, Creeper and other artists – you can be successful in the classroom and beyond.

Here’s JC summarising the Sound of Pen project for Lucas from Holding Absence and YONAKA’s Theresa Jarvis:

So, tell me one more time… what is Sound of Pen ABOUT?

1) It’’s about community. Because in a universe where space in the real world is at a premium and space in the virtual world is ever-expanding, it can seem like either everything is too squashed up OR it’s too spread out. Sound of Pen is a place just for us. On the planet known as Sound of Pen, we are close enough to talk but far enough apart to breathe. In a world that sometimes feels like it’s constantly see-sawing, Sound of Pen offers balance.

2) It’s about learning. We all want to pass our English exams and there are a zillion Sound of Pen lessons that will help you finetune all the skills you’ll need to excel in your GCSEs or A-Levels. There are tasks to support your analysis of ’Romeo & Juliet’, activities to help you articulate exactly what you want to say about ANYTHING, and instructions that will aid your pre-1900 poetry studies. And LOADS more. Most of the materials have been designed with the AQA exams in mind, but actually they should prove relevant whatever course you’re doing.

3) It’s about music. We LOVE Taylor Swift, YUNGBLUD, Bring Me The Horizon, Against The Current and Our Hollow, Our Home. We LOVE k-pop, alt-pop and chart pop. We LOVE emo, arena rock and post-hardcore. Every lesson revolves around a favourite song or artist. We study Kim Petras in order to learn how to use quotations and we explore the musical genius of Enter Shikari so that we can become better persuasive writers. And it really is as fun as it sounds.

4) It’s about YOU. Every time you talk about a song you love, you share something important about yourself. And in each lyric that means something to you, there is the kernel of a personal message worth sharing with all of the people around you. Listening to music is fun, but it’s also more than that. When we fall in love with a song, often it’s because it tells us something about ourselves or the time we’re living in. We appreciate our favourite songs because they help us put the puzzle pieces of our life together.

5) It’s about the threads that tie us to the past. We talk about music with PASSION and we dive into the ideas at the heart of that music with commitment, because we understand how important that music is and how relevant those ideas are. At Sound of Pen, we investigate the messages being delivered by our favourite artists so that we can then more easily recognise those same messages in the texts we’re studying at school. All of a sudden, we can write about Shakespeare or Atwood with the same energy that we always inject into our conversations about HIM or Ava Max.

We’ll be regularly adding new content. Do let us know which artists you’d like us to feature next, and make sure to send us your work. We would love to celebrate your awesomeness by publishing your best pieces.