English Literature

  • Board: AQA
  • Specification: B
Modules
  1. AS Aspects of Narrative - You will study two novels, one of which will be a post-1990 text and two collections of poetry written between 1800 – 1945. You will be studying Enduring Love by Ian mcewan, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge and the poetry of John Keats
  2. Dramatic Genre - You will study a Shakespearean and a modern tragedy.
  3. A2 Texts and Genres - You will study three or four texts from the Pastoral genre. The final examination which is worth 30% of the total A Level is a closed book paper in which you will answer two questions on three texts.
  4. Further and Independent Reading - You will read and study three texts, including an anthology of critical material and approaches, and you will produce a coursework portfolio of two pieces: a comparative study of an aspect of two texts and an application of an aspect of the pre-released critical anthology to a literary text.
Method of Assessment

AS 1 exam (30%) and 1 coursework portfolio (20%)

A2 1 exam (30%) and 1 coursework portfolio (20%)

Further information

The English AS and A2 courses are designed to offer you a broad and exciting experience of English Literature from the Renaissance to the modern day. you will be studying drama, poetry and prose texts and whilst there is a lot of reading required for this course, anyone with a love of books and reading will find this easily manageable.

The A Level course consists of coursework and examination preparation but the ability to work in class as well as independently is important. Many of the skills which you will learn are useful in other subjects too.

Essay writing is a major part of the course and you will be taught how to write essays and structure your argument, as well as learning to appreciate and evaluate the opinions and views of others. Learning to write and speak logically and developing the confidence to express yourself will be of clear benefit to whatever career or university course you choose in the future, but English is so much more than that!

As Barbara Tuchman, an American writer once said, “Books are the carriers of civilisation. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” Come and let us prove this to you!