Background

H.G. (Herbert George) Wells was born on September 21st 1866 and died in 1946, a year after WW2 ended. He came from a working class background but thanks to a small inheritance, his parents ran a hardware shop in Kent but this became financially insolvent and a burden on the family.  His own background is what inspired him to write in the genres he did – entertaining stories that, through their absorbing often futuristic plots allowed him to comment, convincingly, on issues he felt needed addressing in his own society. He was a...

1. Studying For The Exam
2. Examples From Literature
3. About The Exam
4. Further Reading
5. The Examination

Studying For The Exam

The title of this AQA A2 Unit is Reading for Meaning – Love through the Ages. It is worth taking a moment to consider the significance of the title. What are your thoughts? What ‘meaning’ exactly is the exam asking you to elicit? Is your interpretation of what a text means necessarily the same as someone else’s?

“Meaning” is created when language works to signify a response in...

OCR AS Unit F661: Poetry and Prose 1800-1945 (Closed Text)

The focus of this section is the study of a prose set text from the period 1800-1945. There is a choice of two questions on each set text and candidates answer one question on the text they have studied.

Candidates should be able to:

• respond to a proposition offered in the question demonstrating understanding of the text in relation to the view presented;
• explore how themes and issues are presented, taking into account the effects of language, form and structure.

Teaching Ideas

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

This guide has been written with a focus on AQA Unit 4, Section B (‘Approaching Shakespeare and the English Literary Heritage’); however, Hardy’s stories are popular and the guide will be useful for any exam board specification.

In the AQA unit specifically, candidates will need to read texts from the so-called...

Associated Resources

• Improving Your Analyses.pptx

It is because we cannot see the reader that writing needs to be different from speech. A reader is distant and so we cannot notice any misunderstandings or loss of interest that occur as they read. This creates a need for clarity in writing that isn’t so important in speech. The style and structure we adopt for example needs to be more formal; and the need to create and maintain interest means that writing should be lively. In the case of school essays, the reader is the teacher or examiner who awards marks and a grade, something that can...

Teacher’s Note

Even a poor essay is the result of a substantial amount of time and effort; and the chances are that the student knew all along that their writing was ‘going wrong’ – but press on they must, on to what must at times seem like the bitter end. How frustrating and even belittling this process must be and how much it must reduce the student’s chances of enjoying this wonderful subject.

This guide results from many years of teaching essays in a way that seems to make writing them far more enjoyable and productive. The...

Source: RSC / Peter Cook

Below are some general notes aimed at students, intended to help them analyse any stage play.

Plot and Theme

When a writer creates a story, whether for page or stage, there are two linked aspects that you can analyse and discuss in your school essays: plot and theme.

Plot

When we read or watch anything, we give time over to it. For us to feel this time will be well spent and worthwhile, the writer needs, from the outset, to find ways to interest and absorb us into the world of the fictional story or play, the...

Source: Royal Court Theatre, London | VAM

1. Studying a Play
2. A Guide to The Crucible

The Crucible

1. Background

Although Miller based his play on the seventeenth century US Salem witchcraft trials, the themes of the play are universal and probably timeless. There are parallels between the play and the lengths people will go to, for example, to separate themselves from anyone suddenly under the scrutiny of those in authority; and we all know how easy it is to leap to conclusions based on faulty judgments.

Witchcraft,...

Scheme

• AQA GCSE English Literature Unit 1 Relationships Cluster Scheme.docx

Associated Resources

Intro

• Intro Poems.docx
• Themes.docx
• Intro.ppt
• Code Breaker.docx

Essay Writing

• Essay Writing.ppt
• Essay Writing 2.ppt
• Essay Writing 3.ppt
• STIRRLS.docx
• STIRRLS all poems.docx
• Example questions.ppt
• C grade.docx

Sample Essays

• Essay B.pdf
• Essay C.pdf

Quickdraw

• Quickdraw.ppt
• Police Statement Pro Forma.pdf
• PEE Table.docx
• Starter Predictions.docx

‘Born Yesterday’ by Philip Larkin

• Newspaper article.docx
• First verse.docx
• Born Yesterday student...

Brief

Write a monologue for a character from a literary text you have read.

Image: La Ghirlandata by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Scheme

• AQA GCSE English Literature Unit 3b Sister Maude Monologue Scheme.docx

Associated Resources

• Punctuation.docx
• Mono Opening.docx
• Victorian Female.docx
• Semi Colon Revision.docx
• Sister Maude.pptx
• Reptile - passage from Sister Maude.pptx
• Reptile.pdf
• Maude’s Thoughts.docx
• Imagery Sister Maude.docx
• Thoughts and Feelings.docx
• What I need to do for a grade C or above.docx

The attached scheme of work and resources will be particularly useful to those teaching AQA Literature specification B Unit 1 Aspects of Narrative but also, I hope, to those teaching the novel elsewhere for either AS or A2 literature where the novel may appear as part of a coursework unit, as wider reading or as a specified text for The Modern Novel.

Teaching the novel has its own peculiar difficulties simply because of the size of the text and always seems to present a number of questions:

• Should I ask the students to read the novel before...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Queen Victoria’s Reign 1837-1901

‘It is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob.’ William Makepeace Thackeray 1811-1863

‘Each class of society has its own requirements; but it may be said that every class teaches the one immediately below it; and if the highest class be ignorant, uneducated, loving display,...

1. Introduction
2. Section A: Shakespeare
3. Section B: Drama and Poetry
4. Exemplars
5. Conclusion

Introduction

I think it is important to acknowledge at the outset that this is not an especially easy examination for which to prepare students. In my experience, no matter how much work you do with them on your chosen texts, even the most diligent and able of your pupils are going to enter the exam room with somewhat of a sense of unease; indeed, I’ve found that the more hard-work the pupil puts in, the more ideas...

1. Studying For The Exam
2. Examples From Literature
3. About The Exam
4. Further Reading
5. The Examination

In this examination you are required to answer two questions. There is no choice and each question carries the same number of marks – 40 for each question, so obviously you need to give them equal time and attention.

You must familiarise yourself fully with what is required of you because if you do not follow the instructions correctly you will lose marks, no matter how brilliant your wrong answer is.

So,...

1. Introduction
2. Narrative Viewpoint
3. Structure
4. Social / Historical Context
5. Language
6. Top Ten Quotations
7. Exam Preparation
8. Using Quotations
9. Sample Exam Response

Introduction

This short popular novel is a ghost story with gothic elements. The Woman in Black was originally published in 1983 and a successful cinema adaptation was produced in 2012 starring Daniel Radcliffe (directed by James Watkins with screenplay by Jane Goldman).

In an interview, Susan Hill described ghost stories as follows:

1. Introduction
2. AQA Specific Section: Assessment Objectives, etc.
3. A Critical Vocabulary
4. Tips for Improving Exam Grades
5. Guide to Narrative: Narrative Frameworks
6. Guide to Narrative: Narrative Concepts
7. Focalisation and Diegesis
8. Mimesis
9. Narrative Forms and Structures
10. AQA Specific Exam Tips
11. Help with Exam Revision
12. Analysis of Cousin Kate, poem by Christina Rossetti

Introduction

Storytelling is often associated with childhood or novels – and yet, as a means of communicating thoughts,...

AQA English Literature GCSE

3d Unit 4: Approaching Shakespeare and the English Literary Heritage

AQA English GCSE

3c Unit 3 Understanding and producing creative texts

AO1: respond to texts critically & imaginatively; select & evaluate textual details to illustrate & support interpretations
AO2: explain how language, structure & form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes & settings....[ read full article ] »

Click on the link below to download Alan Thomas’s AQA A ENGA3 / ENGA4 Language Change within Language Explorations Guide.

Language Change within Language Explorations Guide.docx

This 110-page editable guide, written by a very experienced A Level English Language teacher, should prove helpful. It’s in Word (.docx) format, if you can only open Word (.doc) format files use the link below to convert it.

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats

We’ve also included a PDF version to help with printing.

Binary Opposition

The way a text creates and shapes its reader’s interpretation to develop both meaning and feeling can be fruitfully and subtly analysed by means of binary opposition. Despite its apparent complexity, this method can easily be understood by students of varying levels and ability from GCSE upwards. It can allow them to create subtle analyses of texts of the kind that can fulfil the requirements of the highest grade bands.

The theory works from the premise that many words and phrases have, as Steve Campsall terms it, their...

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

This story, first published in 1879 is set in the early 1830s; it is told in the ‘third person’ by an ‘omniscient narrator’ a narrative choice and device that allows Hardy to create a usefully biased narrator when useful to his plot and themes, sharing details with the reader about characters that other characters...

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

First published in 1890. Hardy was always interested in the events of the Napoleonic Wars – his grandfather had been a volunteer in the local militia in 1804/5 when it was feared that if Napoleon invaded England he might come via the Dorset coast. Hardy wrote The Trumpet Major and several short stories about the...

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

This story is similar in style to Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver: a first person narrative, amusing story, very short.

The opening paragraph introduces the choir in detail. It seems very personal – all the musicians are introduced by name and instrument. This shows that the narrator knows the choir well. We are also told...

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

This short story was first published in 1891. It is told by a narrator as if they are recounting an incident from the past. It is told in an amusing way and there is no criticism of the characters or the events. Hardy uses the story to comment on the relationship between men and women. Hardy’s own relationships with...

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

This short story was first published in 1891, the same year as Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It is divided into 3 sections, each dealing with a specific section of the story of Sophy’s life.

Section 1

We are introduced to Sophy Twycott sitting in her wheelchair in a London park. Randolph corrects her speech and she...

1. Introduction
2. The Withered Arm
3. The Son’s Veto
4. Tony Kytes, The Arch-Deceiver
5. Absent-mindedness in a Parish Choir
6. The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
7. The Distracted Preacher

This famous and popular story was first published in 1888. It is divided into 9 sections, each dealing with a separate part of the story. These are:

• A Lorn Milkmaid
• The Young Wife
• A Vision
• A Suggestion
• Conjuror Trendle
• A Second Attempt
• A Ride
• A Water-side Hermit
• A Rencounter

Each section tells a self-contained part of...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express his thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

Arthur Munby 1828-1910

Extract from Victorian Working Women

In the fork of the two railways, in a road just...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express her thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

Mrs. Beeton 1836-1865

Extract

I must frankly own, that if I had known beforehand, that this book would have...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express her thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

The Life of Charlotte Bronte

Elizabeth Gaskell

Extract from Chapter 8

On the 29th July, 1835, Charlotte,...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. London Labour and the London Poor
3. The Life of Charlotte Bronte
4. Mrs Beeton
5. Victorian Working Women

Advice

• How does the writer express his thoughts and feelings in this extract? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your wider reading in connection with this passage?

London Labour and the London Poor

Henry Mayhew, 1852

Extract from Scavengers and Cleaners - Of The...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. A Doll’s House
3. The Importance of Being Earnest

A Doll’s House

Henrik Ibsen, 1879 (1828-1906)

Extract

Nora.  Sit down here Torvald. You and I have much to say to one another.

Hel. Nora- what is this? – this cold, set face?

Nora. Sit down. It will take some time; I have a lot to talk over with you.

Hel. You alarm me Nora! And I don’t understand you.

Nora. No, that is just it. You don’t understand me and I have never understood you either –...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Cry of the Children

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,-
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Extract from Songs

‘Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

The Darkling Thrush 31 December, 1990

I leant upon a coppice gate
When frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. Christina Rossetti
3. Thomas Hardy
4. Alfred Lord Tennyson
5. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Christina Rossetti 1830-1894

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens, 1838 (1812-1870)

Extract from Chapter 8

But the pupils – the young noblemen! How the last faint traces of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicholas as he looked in dismay around! Pale and haggard faces,...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte, 1847 (1816-1855)

Extract from Chapter 12

Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens, 1860/61 (1812-1870)

Extract from Chapter 8

‘You‘re to wait here, you boy,’ said Estella; and disappeared and closed the door.

I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was not...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens. 1850 (1812-1870)

Extract from Chapter 4

One morning when I went into the parlour with my books, I found my mother looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm and Mr. Murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane – a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when I...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte, 1847 (1818-1948)

Extract from Chapter 3

‘See here, wife; I was never so beaten with anything in my life; but you must e’en take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.’

We crowded round, and, over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

Mary Barton

Elizabeth Gaskell, 1848

Extract

The two men, rough tender nurses as they were, lighted the fire, which puffed into the room as if it did not know the way up the damp, unused chimney. The very smoke seemed purifying and healthy in the thick, clammy air. The children clamoured again for bread; but this time...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. A Guide to Victorian Literature
2. The Diary of a Nobody
3. Mary Barton
4. Wuthering Heights
5. David Copperfield
6. Great Expectations
7. Jane Eyre
8. Nicholas Nickleby

The Diary of a Nobody

George and Weedon Grossmith, 1892

Extract from Chapter 12

A serious discussion concerning the use and value of my diary. Lupin’s opinion of ’Xmas. Lupin’s unfortunate engagement is on again.

December 17. As I open my scribbling diary I find the words ‘Oxford Michaelmas term ends’. Why...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Assessment Objectives for Question One - Victorian Literature AS English Literature

It is essential that you bear these assessment objectives in mind when planning and writing your answer.

AO1 6%

Articulate creative, informed and relevant responses to literary texts using appropriate terminology and concepts, and coherent, accurate written...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

What To Expect In The Contextual Linking Question

On opening up your examination paper you will see a short extract related to Victorian Literature which will be NON-FICTION.

It could be any one of the following;

• A letter
• A work of criticism
• A diary extract
• A biographical extract
• An autobiographical extract
• A piece of cultural commentary
• A history...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

The following passages are non-fiction and though longer than the exam extract will be, they are similar to the type of extract you will meet in the exam.

• How do the writers express their thoughts and feelings in these extracts? Look closely and comment upon language, form and structure.
• Think of your wider reading. What could you use from your...

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Extracts from Victorian Literature

Each extract in the list below is accompanied by a commentary.

• A Doll’s House [1879], Henrik Ibsen 1828-1906
• The Importance of Being Earnest [1895], Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Examples from Victorian Literature

Each example in the list below is accompanied by a commentary.

• Christina Rossetti 1830-1894
  • A Christmas Carol
  • Song
  • Remember

• Thomas Hardy 1840-1928
  • The Darkling Thrush 21 December 1890

• Alfred Lord Tennyson
  • Songs

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • The Cry of the Children

Source: Work, Ford Madox Brown

1. Queen Victoria’s Reign
2. Prose
3. Poetry
4. Drama
5. Non-Fiction
6. Examination
7. Assessment Objectives, Exemplar & Contextual Linking

Extracts from Victorian Literature

Each extract in the list below is accompanied by a commentary.

• The Diary of a Nobody [1892], George and Weedon Grossmith
• Mary Barton [1848], Elizabeth Gaskell
• Wuthering Heights [1847], Emily Bronte 1818-1948
• David Copperfield [1850], Charles Dickens 1812-1870
• Great Expectations [1860/61], Charles Dickens 1812-1870
• ...

1. Introduction
2. Section A: Shakespeare
3. Section B: Drama and Poetry
4. Exemplars
5. Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide will have given you a starting point on how to prepare your students for this very difficult examination.

I cannot stress enough the importance of a focus upon the assessment objectives. If the pupils are aware constantly of how they are going to be assessed, they have the best chance of achieving a good mark.

With a few weeks to go before study leave, our lessons become exclusively about...

1. Introduction
2. Section A: Shakespeare
3. Section B: Drama and Poetry
4. Exemplars
5. Conclusion

OCR say that all of the six questions on this paper can be answered by any possible combination of the texts – and that they spend a long time ensuring this is so. I’m not sure I necessarily agree – there was a question on ‘women’ a few years ago that I would have been interested to see a response to it using Dr Faustus and Paradise Lost Book 1 – containing, as they do, no women . . .
Thus, I would suggest...