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English Literature allows you to study a range of texts from different literary and cultural genres enhanced by the study of critical theory in the non-examined assessment.
This means you gain a solid understanding of how texts can be connected and how they can be interpreted in multiple ways. You will then be not only equipped with the knowledge and skills needed for both exams and non-exam assessment but also experience a rich, challenging and coherent approach that provides an excellent basis for studying at university.
You will be studying the ways that authors shape meaning in their texts within the genres of tragedy and political and social protest writing. It also involves thinking about a wide range of relevant contexts, some of them to do with the production of the text at the time of its writing, some (where possible) to do with how the text has been received over time and, most of all in this specification, contexts to do with how the text can be interpreted by readers now. This means that we can open up texts in an exciting and insightful way – looking at the ways in which interpretation is not fixed and that multiple meanings are possible.
5 GCSEs at grade 4 or above to include a grade 5 for GCSE English Language and / or English Literature.
The two-year course will enhance your ability to both appreciate and analyse a wide variety of literature and develop the skills needed to be able to write critically and creatively about plays, novels and poems.
Literary Genres: Tragedy – You will study three texts: Othello by William Shakespeare, Tess of the dUrbervilles by Thomas Hardy, and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
Texts and Genres: The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, Harvest by Jim Crace and Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake.
Theory and Independence: AQA Critical Anthology covering a range of critical perspectives used to produce two nonexamined assessments (coursework), one on poetry and one on prose.
Teaching takes on a range of methods including reading texts, small and whole group discussion, watching films and live performances, trips to local universities for lectures and seminars, completing workbooks, essay writing, workshops and independent investigations and application of skills. We also offer the opportunity to expand your study into other areas of English through Extra English Enrichment classes.
By exam at the end of the course and submission of a portfolio of coursework.
Most texts are provided but you may want to buy study guides to accompany your reading. You will need to buy one prose text for your independent study. Trips may incur some costs.
Many students proceed to English degree courses, with career choices including journalism, teaching, public relations, law and the media, and other areas where confidence and competence in communication are valuable skills.
