Professor Morag Styles

BSC PGCE

College position:

Professor of Children's Poetry

Professor Morag Styles
Professor Morag Styles

Morag Styles did the PGCE Course at Homerton College in 1970 and taught at the College between 1974 and 2014. She was Primary Language Co-ordinator for some years, latterly dividing her time between research, teaching, supervision of doctoral students and co-ordinating the masters’ route, Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature at Cambridge Faculty of Education. She has compiled many poetry anthologies for children.

She organised two exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam Museum (1995 and 2000) and one at the British Museum (2009) as well as numerous international conferences, including Poetry and Childhood, British Library (2009) and The Power of Caribbean Poetry: Word and Sound (2012), Homerton College, which was linked to her last major role, leading a Caribbean Poetry Project in collaboration with The University of the West Indies.

Morag Styles is a founder member of the Philippa Pearce Steering Committee which has organized an annual lecture at Homerton College by a distinguished children’s author since 2008. She still takes an active interest in the Homerton Cambridge Centre for the Research and Teaching of Children’s Literature. She is well known for organizing memorable Burns Night extravaganzas!

Morag Styles is on the board of the Poetry Archive and chairs the annual UKLA Academic Book Award. She is currently writing a childhood memoir based in Scotland and India. In her free time, she is learning Contemporary Dance, Tai Chi and Italian, as well as enjoying singing in a choir, travelling, theatre, music, art, cinema, reading and her garden.

Research Interests

Poetry for children including its history

The history of reading

Visual literacy

Teaching And Professional Interests

Children's literature in general

Children as readers and writers

Poetry

Picturebooks

Shakespeare for children

Links to online publications, articles or other work

Salisbury, M. and  Styles, M. (2020) Children’s Picturebooks: the art of visual storytelling, London: Laurence King. 2nd edition in press.

Arizpe, E. and Styles, M. (2016) Children Reading Pictures:Interpreting Visual Texts London, Routledge. 2nd edition.

Bryan, B. and Styles, M.  (eds.) (2013)Teaching Caribbean Poetry, London: Routledge.

Styles, M., Joy, L. & Whitley, D. (eds.) (2010) Poetry and Childhood, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham.

Styles, M. and Arizpe, E. (eds.) (2009) Acts of Reading: Teachers, Texts and Childhood, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham.

Arizpe, E. and Styles, M. (2006) Reading Lessons from the Eighteenth Century: Mothers, Children and Texts, Lichfield, Pied Piper Press.

Styles, M. and Bearne, E. (eds.) (2003) Art, Narrative and Childhood, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books (pp.157).

Watson, V. (ed.) (2001) The International Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English , Cambridge, CUP - Styles, M. (Poetry Editor).

Styles, M. (1998) From The Garden to the Street: Three Hundred Years of Poetry for Children, London, Cassell (pp. 304).

Department

Education

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