english literature: summer handbook

Higham Lane Sixth Form 2020

1 Higham Lane Sixth Form

English Literature: Summer Handbook

How to prepare for success in Year 12

Congratulations on completing your GCSE studies and welcome to A Level

English Literature at Higham Lane School. This booklet will give you an

overview of the course and give you advice and information about how to

be a successful English Literature A Level student.

Over the summer, this booklet will support you in making that transition

from GCSE to A Level English, enabling you to engage in independent study

and commence the Year 12 course with confidence.

NAME:



Contents Transition from GCSE to A Level ................................................................................................. 3

Skills to develop to ensure you are a successful A-Level student ............................................ 3

Course Overview............................................................................................................................... 5

Year 12 ............................................................................................................................................................ 5

Year 13 ....................................................................................................................................................... 5

Terms and Concepts ........................................................................................................................ 6

Set Texts and Recommended Reading ...................................................................................... 8

Summer Independent Study Tasks ......................................................................................... 10

Terminology Toolkit .................................................................................................................... 11



Transition from GCSE to A-Level

Essential skills to develop:

A love of learning and thirst for knowledge: Be inquisitive; ask questions and then be

motivated to find out the answers. These might not be in the first place you go to: be

prepared to read around and conduct extensive research.

Independent learning: Unlike at GCSE, you will be expected to take responsibility for

your own learning with support from your teachers who can facilitate your learning.

Think autonomously and respond personally to texts.

Perseverance and resilience: Persist with your A-Level learning even when it seems

too difficult or challenging. Nothing worth achieving ever comes easily. You also need to

be resilient and thrive on constructive criticism. It will take time to build on your skills

from GCSE to achieving the same grades or higher grades at A-Level. Welcome challenges,

be inspired by others’ successes to motivate yourself to succeed and act on the advice

given to you by your class teacher. The texts you read and the concepts and theories you

come across at A-Level will be challenging and you might find this daunting at first, but

you will learn a number of strategies to support you in accessing these texts and ways of

thinking.

Motivation and Conscientiousness: Learning requires effort and a commitment to your

studies. The more you invest in your learning, the more you will gain in terms of academic

achievement. Be proactive in your learning journey; complete follow-on tasks to improve

your skills; read widely to gain more knowledge; look up definitions in a dictionary and

concepts online or in textbooks.

Organisation and time management: The English department will expect you to

complete a minimum of 4-5 hours of independent study per week. There may also be

additional reading and revision to complete at some points in the year. It would help you

to establish a routine for your studies: consider where you will work to aid meaningful

and focused study; whether you work more effectively independently in silence or in a

study group with classmates; whether you need to access wider reading resources in the

sixth form or whether you can do some tasks, such as essay writing at home; think in

advance whether you will need to seek support from a teacher before completing an

independent study task. Being able to prioritise and work efficiently are essential skills

at A-Level.

Wider reading and research: Be prepared to read widely on an English course. You will

receive set text lists, as well as recommended reading and wider reading suggestions.

The expectation is that you will be a keen reader. You will also be expected to research

texts independently, investigating biographical details for authors and literary, social,

cultural, political and historical contexts to develop an informed reading of texts. Texts

do not exist in isolation and, as such, you should seek to gain a strong understanding of



the contexts in which they are produced and received. Don’t rely on Wikipedia and

Google searches; use the recommended reading lists to support your research.

Become a critical, active reader: Question writers and texts. Be critical of their

representations of the world and form an educated viewpoint.

Note-taking: It is essential that you maintain detailed, well-organised and well-

presented notes. You will be given a guide to organising your course folder in your subject

handbook when you start in September. Notes will be checked, but ultimately it is your

responsibility to ensure your notes will enable you to be successful at the end of the

course. It is much better to keep on top of recording summary notes for texts read and

wider reading notes, than to try to ‘cram’ your note-taking in the final few weeks of the

unit.

Discussion and debate: You will be expected to have an opinion, an educated viewpoint

on texts you read and issues with which you will engage. You will need to be prepared to

communicate your views to others and participate in discussions and debates. You will

also need to respect the views of others.



Course Overview: English Literature (AQA Specification B from 2015)

Year 12

Paper 2 – Texts and Genres - Elements of Political and Social Protest Writing 3 hours written examination (open book ) 40% of A-Level 75 marks Study of three texts: one post-2000 prose text; one poetry and one further text, of which one must be written pre-1900 Exam will include an unseen passage. Section A: One compulsory question on an unseen passage (25 marks) Section B: One essay question on your set text (Songs of Innocence and of Experience) (25 marks) Section C: One essay question which connects two set texts (The Handmaid’s Tale and The Kite Runner) (25 marks)

Summer Term / Summer Independent Study

Non-exam Assessment – Theory and Independence Study of two texts: one poetry and one prose text, informed by study of the Critical Anthology 20% of A-Level 50 marks Two essays of 1,250–1,500 words, each responding to a different text and linking to a different aspect of the Critical Anthology

Year 13

Paper 1 – Literary Genres – Option 1A: Aspects of Tragedy 2 hours 30 minutes written examination (closed book) in June of Y13 40% of A Level 75 marks Study of three texts: one Shakespeare text; a second drama text and one further text, of which one must be written pre-1900. Section A: Shakespeare: one passage based question on set text, Othello (25 marks) Section B: Shakespeare: one essay question on set text, Othello (25 marks) Section C: Comparing texts: one essay question linking two texts (Death of a Salesman and Tess of the D’Urbervilles) (25 marks) Paper 2 – Texts and Genres - Elements of Political and Social Protest Writing 3 hours written examination (open book) 40% of A-Level 75 marks REVISION



Terms and Concepts

Ways of Reading

Meanings in texts are not closed and fixed but open to several interpretations. You will

explore alternative readings and be informed by the views of others.

• Reading is an active process: the reader is an active creator, not a passive recipient of

second-hand opinion – you are the ‘maker of meaning’

• It can never be an ‘innocent’ process: all readings are historically, socially and

individually specific – you bring your own personal context and experience to the text.

Meaning

For an individual reader, meaning depends as much on what is brought to the text as on

what is contained within it: your own experience will influence the way you read it.

• Meaning will not necessarily be instantly accessible; you may well need to research

difficult or obscure references and vocabulary to draw out meaning.

• Meaning will be different on different occasions, and changeable as a result of discussion

and reflection: when you reread a text, you may find your response is different from

your first reading; a critical commentary may change your response.

• Meaning can be multiple; different readings of a text can coexist – you need to be aware

that some texts are ambiguous or capable of delivering multiple meanings, and it is your

own selection of and response to textual evidence that will determine your own

personal interpretation.

Reading through a ‘lens’

You will explore texts through particular ‘lenses’ or ‘filters’.

One of these lenses will be ‘aspects of genre’. Just as meanings of texts are not fixed,

neither are definitions of genre, which frequently change and become blurred. The texts

you will study, therefore, are not necessarily classic examples of established genres.

Instead, you will explore how writers often subvert the genre in which they are writing,

just as much as you will study the conventions or typical features of a genre.

Working with genre involves looking at ways in which authors shape meanings within

their texts. 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, contexts

to do with how the text can be interpreted by readers now.

Looking at texts as belonging to a genre involves connecting individual texts with others,

as the whole idea of genre is a connective one.

And finally, because genres and their qualities are not fixed, this means that

interpretation is not fixed, and that multiple interpretations are possible.

KEY TERM: Genre A way of categorising texts: this can be by form (e.g. prose, poetry or drama), content (e.g.

politics, social protest), types (e.g. comedy, tragedy).



Developing ‘Critical’ Analysis What is analysis?

• Analyse = take apart an idea/concept/text in order to consider the factors it consists of.

Your answer needs to be methodical and logically organised.

• You need to identify devices or techniques used by the writer to create effects on the

reader.

• It involves exploring why the writer used the technique, what the specific effects are,

and how these effects are created.

• Throughout your analysis, you need to ensure you are responding to the question so

that your analysis is relevant.

• This is all part of close reading.

Questions to ask of a text: How does it make me feel?

Start with broadly: positive or negative? Then be more specific e.g. joyful, uncomfortable,

uplifted, depressed, amused, thoughtful, irritated, angry, anxious, curious.

Once we have identified a feeling, we can ask ourselves where and how is the writer using the

tools of their chosen genre to evoke this response / these responses in us and why they might

want to do this.

What are they saying?

How are they saying it?

What effect do they wish to have on us?

Why?



Set Texts The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

Othello by William Shakespeare

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Course Textbook English Literature B A/AS Level for AQA Student Book (Cambridge)

Recommended Wider Reading

General Literary Criticism Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton

Beginning Theory by Peter Barry

Introducing Critical Theory by Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon

An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory by Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle

Tragedy

Drama

William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth,, Richard III

Christopher Marlowe: Dr Faustus

John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi

Georg Buchner: Woyzeck

Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House

Arthur Miller: A View from the Bridge, The Crucible, All My Sons

Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Prose

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights

Richard Yates: Revolutionary Road

Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong

Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea

Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

Machiavelli: The Prince



Poetry

John Keats: ‘Lamia’, ‘Isabella or The Pot of Basil’, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, ‘The Eve of St.

Agnes’

Oscar Wilde: ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’

T.S. Eliot: ‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock’.

Literary Criticism

Tragedy: A Student Handbook by Sean McEvoy (Tony Coult and Chris Sandford) The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy by Jennifer Wallace The New Critical Idiom: Tragedy by Martin Regal

Elements of Political and Social Protest Writing

Drama

Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House

Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest

John Osborne: Look Back in Anger

Caryl Churchill: Top Girls

Alan Bennet: The History Boys

Prose

Charles Dickens: Hard Times

Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South

George Orwell: 1984

Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own

Kathryn Stockett: The Help

Alan Silitoe: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Jeanette Winterson: Oranges are not the only Fruit

Maya Angelou: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

Alice Walker: The Color Purple

Sam Selvon: The Lonely Londoners

Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

Aldous Huxley: Brave New World

Poetry

William Wordsworth: The Prelude

Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Masque of Anarchy

Tony Harrison: Selected Poems ‘V’, ‘National Trust’, ‘Them and [uz]’, ‘Divisions’, ‘Working’,

Benjamin Zephaniah: Too Black, Too Strong

Grace Nichols: The Fat Black Women’s Poems

Carol Ann Duffy: The World’s Wife, Feminine Gospels

Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise

T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land



Compulsory Summer Independent Study Tasks

1. In order to prepare thoroughly for your first year, you should read the three set

texts for the first year of the course:

o The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

o The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

o Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake

(We would also recommend that you read at least two further texts from the wider

reading list for aspects of tragedy or elements of political and social protest writing.)

2. You should complete notes in the wider reading journal. Your teacher will

check these notes in the first week of the new term.

3. Over the course of the two years, you will learn an extensive range of technical

terms. An introductory list of A-Level Literature terminology can be found at the

back of this booklet. Over the summer, start to build your knowledge and

understanding of these by creating a glossary in your own words. Use the

following website to help you: http://literarydevices.net/

Bring your completed summer tasks to your first English Literature

lesson in September.



Terminology Toolkit Abstract noun

Allegory

Alliteration

Allusion

Alter Ego

Analepsis

Analogy

Anaphora

Anthropomorphism

Antithesis

Authorial Intrusion

Archetype

Assonance

Asyndeton

Bathos

Bildungsroman

Byronic Hero

Cacophony

Canon

Caesura

Catharsis

Characterisation

Conceit

Connotation

Consonance

Context



Denotation

Diction

Doppelganger

Dramatic Irony

Dramatic

Monologue

Enjambment

Epilogue

Epithet

Epistolary Novel

Euphemism

Euphony

Fable

Fabliau

Foil

Foreshadowing

Frame Narrative

Genre

Hyperbole

Imagery

Internal Rhyme

Intertextuality

Irony

Juxtaposition

Metaphor

Metonym

Meter



Mood

Motif

Narrator

Onomatopoeia

Omniscient

Narrator

Oxymoron

Parable

Parallelism

Paradox

Parody

Pathetic Fallacy

Personification

Point of View

Plot

Prologue

Protagonist

Pun

Register

Rhyme Scheme

Rhythm

Satire

Semantic field

Setting

Simile

Soliloquy

Stanza



Stream of

Consciousness

Subtext

Symbol

Synecdoche

Synesthesia

Syntax

Tense

Theme

Tone

Tricolon

Vocative

Zoomorphism

english literature: summer handbook

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