My position is that the age of Johnson and Sterne is a tremendously under-used resource, which teachers are blockheads to ignore - to use an 18th-century epiphet.

The herd instinct, linked to the wheel of schoolacademic fashion, has squeezed 18th century prose writers such as Addison, Steele, Defoe and Johnson from the collective literary canon for schools. This position is even more perverse and hard to account for, given the presence of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen and a multitude of ethnic English writers whose historical and cultural setting is as distant as the banished and maligned 18th century. It seems patronising of us to limit the literary diet of our pupils on such grounds.

The start of an A-level English course is an ideal opportunity to give pupils a taste of the period, by getting them to dip into short extracts. This can be integrated into the transitional period which most departments now operate given the gulf between the demands of GCSE and A-level, especially for those pupils who have not taken GCSE literature.

The simplest approach is often the best: I have scattered texts and extracts over the floor and let students select, dip and browse. Discussions about format, language, content and purpose, with comparisons being made about sentence length, the arbitrary use of capital letters and so on can then proceed from the pupils’ own experience and awareness.

Most examination boards allow an element of text selection within their coursework components. The 18th century is richly endowed with the two narrative forms of biographical writings and the lost art of the essay. Selections from Johnson’s Lives of the English Poets, especially his tribute to Sir Richard Savage, provides an ideal platform for an exploration of what constitutes biography. Boswell’s life of Johnson himself has a surprisingly candid style. My experience is that students do find the initial exposure demanding, but they rapidly adjust to the higher levels of concentration required. The essay, as exemplified by Addison and Steele in their contributions to the Tatler and Spectator, remains the pinnacle of journalistic feature writing. The directness, fluency and cogency of their style gives them a modern feel and their wit transcends the wall of time.

The breadth of subjects covered has a surprisingly modern ring, and the style is less affected than later 19th-century offerings. Here are a few titles to whet the appetite: On Ladies Dress, The Irony of Fashion, The Art of Conversation. This material is short and succinct enough to form the basis for argumentative or non-fictional writing.

Much of the essay form can be used at key stage 4, especially where audience, purpose and awareness of tone play a role. What could be more “relevant” than setting Steele’s piece on “The Lottery” or his polemic on “Flogging” - which contains surprisingly modern sentiments on corporal punishment. “The sense of shame and honour is enough to keep the world itself in order without corporal punishment, much more to train the minds of uncorrupted and innocent children. ”

Far from being a dead and outmoded period, it is clear that nuggets of real worth can be gleaned from its authors. I have successfully used Dr Johnson’s Dictionary as a launch pad for a module on knowledge about language, exploring language change and the role of lexicography, with pupils making their own humorous definitions. Pupils can also examine 18th-century printed matter, particularly copies of local newspapers which can link with typography, analysis of text and so on. There are useful spin-offs for media and communication studies.

Pupils’ exposure to 18th-century writers can only benefit them; both in their development as writers and readers. Perhaps Dr Johnson’s recommendation that “whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison”, could equally be applied to the period as a whole.

Tim Clifford teaches at Oldfield Girls’ Comprehensive School, Bath.