English Literature

Your first piece of coursework is a 1000 word close analysis or re-creative piece. The re-creative piece involves writing an extra part of a play, emulating the style of the playwright. Your second piece of coursework is a 2000 word essay, comparing prose and poetry. Some text combinations we study are: Langston Hughes’ poetry and Jazz by Toni Morrison, Wilfred Owen’s poetry and Regeneration by Pat Barker and E. E. Cummings’ poetry and the short stories of Annie Proulx. There are also other combinations.

 

Your 2 coursework pieces combined are worth 20% of the course. The exams are worth 80% of the course.

In the first year, you will study the following set exam texts: William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. You will also study your first coursework text, Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem.You will also study a Gothic Unseen module, which is skills based and assesses your knowledge of the Gothic genre and your close analysis skills.

 

In the second year, you will study and compare the following set exam texts: Chaucer’sThe Merchant’s Tale and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. You will also write your second piece of coursework and this will be based on texts of your teacher’s choice.

You will take part in a variety of activities and tasks during English literature lessons. There will be plenty of whole class, small group and paired discussions and debates. You will be expected to contribute your ideas to whole class discussions and your teacher will ask you questions about what you think. There will be lots of close analysis of texts, studying of the historical and social contexts of your texts and consideration of different interpretations of your texts. We will consider critical responses and different productions of your texts, watching clips and films of the ways directors and actors have brought your texts to life.

 

We will do short writing tasks in lessons to get you prepared for writing at speed and in timed conditions in an exam. There will be a mixture of teacher assessment, peer assessment and self-assessment to help you build confidence with the success criteria and to build your knowledge of how to write effectively at A level. We will also look at model answers and give you plenty of examples to follow in your work. There will also be lots of opportunities to be creative, including making infographics, videos and drama pieces in groups.