Students will sit an entirely new English Leaving Cert exam in 2001 and the Association of Teacher of English is hosting a number of lectures on some of the prescribed texts. There are eight poets and 37 "texts" including writers from Africa, Canada, Australia, translated works and film from which to choose.

Dr Margaret Kelleher will compare Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre with Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe at the Writers' Centre, Parnell Square, Dublin, on Saturday, December 5th, at 2 p.m.