English Literature

A level Booklet

Summer 2019

Where will English take you?

AQA A Level English Literature Course Overview

Paper 1: Love through the Ages

Section A: Shakespeare:

One passage-based question with linked essay (25 marks)

Section B: Unseen poetry:

Compulsory essay question on two unseen poems (25 marks)

Section C: Comparing texts: (study a prose text and a bank of poems in AQA Anthology)

One essay question linking two texts (25 marks)

3 hour Exam Open Book Total 75 marks

Paper 2a Texts in Shared Context

Section A: Set texts.

One essay question on set text (25 marks)

Section B: Contextual linking

One compulsory question on an unseen extract. (25 marks)

One essay question linking two texts (25 marks)

2 hours 30 minutes exam Open Book Total 75 marks

Non Examined Assessment (NEA)

Comparative critical study of two texts - at least one of which must have been written pre-1900

One extended essay (2500 words) and a bibliography Assessed (50 marks)

Assessment Objectives

AO1 Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression. (28%)

AO2 Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts. (24%)

AO3 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. (24%)

AO4 Explore connections across literary texts. (12%)

AO5 Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations. (12%)

Set Texts

Paper 1

Shakespeare text

Pre 1900 prose

Bank of poetry – AQA Anthology

Paper 2a

Regeneration by Pat Barker

Up the Line to Death ed. Brian Gardner

My Boy Jack by David Haig

All set texts are bought by the school and can be paid for via Parent Pay in the autumn term

English and Media Centre

Why study English? 18 Good Reasons for Doing an English Degree

If you're looking for ways to encourage your students to study English at degree level, or to

understand the value of the subject at all levels, then here are 18 good reasons to get them

started.

Given the troubling dip in recruitment both for A Level and for HE in the Humanities in general and

for English in particular, we want to share these reasons for studying English with you. They

provide the kind of rationale for the subject that you might want to offer to students, not just at

degree Level but before that too, to provide up-to-date arguments for the subject and what it has

to offer.

Here they are. Feel free to add ones of your own!

It’s about creativity – not just in the texts you read but how you respond, think and change in

relation to them. What does it mean to you?

Read a rich range of wonderful novels, poems, plays and texts that can’t easily be categorised!

(plus works of history, philosophy, theory and more...).

We’re shaped by language, so studying its use and significance is both important and exciting.

English isn't always English - texts in English come from across the globe and bear witness to the

diverse cultures that produced them.

English doesn't always start out in the UK: texts in translation help us to read across national

borders and to think about communication between cultures.

The medium is the message - whether it's a medieval manuscript, a hand-printed book, or an e-

reader. Literature has always shaped and responded to technological change.

Be taught by enthusiastic + committed experts who are reading, thinking, researching + writing

too!

Literature is a part of our living cultural ecosystem: it’s still growing, developing and changing.

Employers LOVE English graduates: research shows companies value communication,

collaboration, critical thinking, independence, adaptability. English teaches these. So become an

effective researcher, great communicator and active, lifelong learner.

The discipline of English is about dissensus as well as consensus. The disagreements are as

fascinating and intellectually engaging as the agreements!

What you read for pleasure is also part of what you study – it will fuel you as a reader and as a

person for the rest of your life.

Join the greatest, longest conversation of humanity.

It’s sociable! English degrees rely on talking, arguing and communicating with others.

Assessed in all kinds of different ways: creative work, reviews, presentations, coursework,

discussions, essays, portfolios (traditional exams are rarely used in many degree courses.)

There are many different strands and combinations to choose from – English Literature, English

Language, Creative Writing, Linguistics, Cultural studies, Liberal Arts, Comparative Literature +

English is a great combined or joint honours subject too!

Often labelled as a ‘Humanities’ subject, some English degrees cross boundaries e.g. corpus

analysis in stylistics.

Other subjects may study ‘what’ you are: English is about ‘who’ you are.

Learning from the past, in the present, for the future (a phrase coined by Professor Katy Shaw ).

INTRODUCTION INTO A LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATURE

Summer Tasks: Paper 1

Find two reviews of Othello (1995) – film version starring Kenneth Branagh and Laurence

Fishburne.

Summarise each film critic’s response below:

1. Publication……………………………..Name of film critic………………………………

2. Publication……………………………..Name of film critic………………………………

Follow this link to the British Library

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gender-roles-in-the-19th-century

Read from the collection follow link to look at the changing perception of women’s roles in

literature

British Library contextual notes

Paper 2a Summer Tasks:

Answer the following questions in full sentences

1. When was World War 1?

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

2. Who were the opposing sides?

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

3. What were the causes of World War 1 which escalated with the assassination of Arch

Duke Ferdinand?

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

4. Follow this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4fNje3xwlM

What do you think was to the soldiers marching to war in 1914?

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

5. Who are two famous WW1 poets? Research each poet and make notes about their

significance as a poet.

Poet’s name: Poet’s name:

Wider Reading

Bryson Bill, Shakespeare: the World as a Stage Harper 2016

Brittain, Vera, Testament of Youth Virago 1933

Das, Santanu, Reframing First World War poetry https://www.bl.uk/world-

war-one/articles/reframing-first-world-war-poetry

Graves, Robert, Goodbye to all that. Penguin Classics 1929

Richards, Antony, How First World War poetry painted a truer picture

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/inside-first-world-war/part-

seven/10667204/first-world-war-poetry-sassoon.html

Ryan, Kiernan, Racism, misogyny and ‘motiveless malignity’ in Othello

https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/racism-misogyny-and-motiveless-malignity-in-

othello

Shepherd, M, To a modern audience, Othello is simply another story of domestic abuse

http://theconversation.com/to-a-modern-audience-othello-is-simply-another-story-of-

domestic-abuse-63646

Shuttleworth, Sally, Jane Eyre and the 19th-century woman

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/jane-eyre-and-the-19th-century-

woman

Siegel, Lee, How Iago Explains the World

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/weekinreview/11siegel.html

Equipment List

Set texts (details to follow)

Three Folders: Paper 1; Paper 2; NEA

A pad of line whole punched paper (To be brought to every lesson)

Post it notes

Highlighting pens

Plastic Wallets

Black pens

Pencils

Ruler

Sophisticated Expression

Use of critical literary vocabulary

Technically fluent writing

Arguments relevant to the task

Argument / debate is coherently structured and sustained

Question fully interrogated

Excellent knowledge of the text

The structure (organisational features) of the text which aid and enhance

meaning

For drama texts – the use of dialogue, language, dramatic action, exits and

entrances, soliloquies, flashbacks and other relevant devices

How the form of the text (poetry, drama, prose) is used to shape meaning by

the author

Use of structural, linguistic and other devices to shape meaning

Engaged with dramatic, moral, religious, social, psychological and

philosophical contexts

Demonstrating understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts

Understanding of when texts are written and how they have been received

Context of the text

Context of the Genre

Evaluated as part of the argument

Embedded into the essay

Connection between those contexts and the historicist literary concept studied

Connections through the wider genre

Connections through character

Connections through setting

Thematic links

Connections of context

Connections across literary texts arising out of historicist study

Interpretation

Critical readings / responses (Feminist / Marxist etc.)

Views explored in depth – considered and possibly critiqued

Embedded quotes / textual illustration

How alternative interpretations can arise

Wider readings - could be linked to the author or the genre

AQA English Literature A EXAMINATION

AO

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Checks if you know how to write successfully

Checks if you know how writers write successfully – authorial methods

Checks if you know how context affects both the text and the reception and reading of the text

Checks if you can link texts and ideas through the genre

Checks if you know how different readers arrive at their own interpretation of the novel

Reading

List A Level English Literature

Jane Austen Persuasion

Pride and Prejudice

Emma

Sense and Sensibility

Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre

Villette

The Proffessor

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Shirley

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

Kate Chopin The Awakening

At Fault

Desiree’s Baby

The Storm

A Pair of Silk Stockings

Jonathan Coe Rotters’ Club

House of Sleep

What a Carve Up!

The Closed Circle

George Eliot The Mill on the Floss

Middlemarch

Silas Marner

Daniel Deronda

Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Jude the Obscure

Far From the Madding Crowd

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The Son’s Veto

The Withered Arm

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Tender is the Night

Flappers and Philosophers

A Diamond as Big as the Ritz

E.M. Forster A Room with a View

Howard’s End

A Passage to India

He Longest Journey

L.P. Hartley The Go-Between

The Hireling

Eustace and Hilda

Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca

Jamaica Inn

The Birds

Ian Mc Ewan Atonement

Saturday

On Chesil Beach

The Child in Time