English Literature

Exam Board: AQA

In Year 12, you will study ‘Love Through the Ages’ for the examination, where you analyse a range of prose, poetry and drama texts from a variety of time periods linked to the theme of love. These are assessed with three essays in the examination, covering all three genres. The exam includes one question on a Shakespeare text, one on two unseen poems and one comparing two other texts (one poetry and one prose).

In Year 13, the coursework requires you to write a comparative critical study of two texts in a 2,500-word essay. The examination in Year 13 focuses on prose, poetry and drama texts. The examination includes an unseen extract as well as two other essay questions, one of which is comparative.

Texts for this A-Level are:

Paper 1 Love Through the Ages: Shakespeare's Othello, Pre-1900 poetry anthology and The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald 

Paper 2 Modern Times - Literature from 1945 to the present day: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood,  A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffy 

Assessment

80% examination / 20% coursework