English Language and Literature

English Language and Literature

Our Subject

Why Study English Language and Literature? 

  • Develop your creativity and expertise: you will produce your own original writing​.  
  • Use literary and linguistic methods to study a wide range of interesting and engaging literary and non-fiction texts.  
  • Improve your confidence with reading and writing texts.  
  • Explore a range of diverse authors, text types and genres. 
  • Analyse texts in an integrated way using literary and stylistic methods. 

 


Course Structure

In Year one, you will study ‘Pepper Seed’, a collection of poetry by Malika Booker; ‘Things Fall Apart, a novel by Chinua Achebe and a collection of diverse non-fiction texts from an anthology. You will also produce some creative narrative writing.  

In the second year, you will study ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, a play by Tennessee Williams and complete your coursework.  

The coursework is a comparative essay of ‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’, by Alexander Masters and a text of your choice (any genre). You will also write a non-fiction piece of writing for a real-life purpose and audience, such as the text for a podcast or a piece of travel writing.

 Exam Information 

The exam board is OCR and the course components are as follows.  

Component  Timing, Marks​, Assessment Type  Percentage of total A Level 
1. Exploring non-fiction and spoken texts   1 hour(32 marks)​, Closed text exam​  16% ​ 
2. The language of poetry and plays​  2 hours(64 marks)​, Closed text exam​  32%​ 
3. Reading as a writer, writing as a reader​  2 hours(64 marks)​, Open text exam​  32%​ 
4. Independent study: analysing and producing texts​  (40 marks)​, Non-exam assessment​  20%​ 






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