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Specifications and Assessment Objectives

AQA English Literature A A2 Unit 3 Reading for Meaning: Love through the Ages Examination

Content

Candidates should read at least three texts in order to prepare for a paper which will contain unprepared passages for close study, comparison and critical commentary.

The topic for this unit is Love Through the Ages. ‘Love’ will include romantic love but will not be restricted to that...

• Throughout this guide, a past exam-style question based on the play Macbeth has been used to illustrate ideas, but these have been written in a way that will allow you easily to transfer the idea to any other exam text, whether another ‘Gothic’ text or Pastoral.

• To achieve a high grade in your exam answer, one major precondition exists:
  • That you know your text well.

If that condition has been met, through classroom and personal study along with research via the Internet or other study guides, then this guide should help you achieve the...

This collection of lesson starters for A Level English Literature complement the collection of ‘ice breakers’ and general English starters for broad recapping ideas, word games, creative writing starters, essay skills, general terms activities and skill builders. See A Level English Starters.

General discussion prompts are useful as broad starters once in a while. Try one of these quotations to get the class thinking:

• “Literature adds to reality. It does not simply describe it.” C. S. Lewis
• “Poetry is the best words in the best...

This collection of suggestions includes ice-breaker or ‘getting to know you’ ideas which are especially suitable for a new class and some broadly ‘English’ lesson starters suitable for either English Language or Literature (or the combined English Language and Literature A Level) lessons, and some specific topic-related ideas. The focus here is on suitable starters for A Level classes, as starters for lower levels and younger ages are more readily available.

Ice Breakers

Human Bingo is an old favourite which can be quite easily given...

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...

Associated Resources

• 1. Shelley - Frankenstein Walton’s Letters 1-4.pptx
• 2. Shelley - Frankenstein Allusions and Victor Ch 1-4.pptx
• 3. Shelley - Frankenstein The Birth of the Creature Ch 5-8.pptx
• 4. Shelley - Frankenstein Families Ch 15 Focus.pptx
• 5. Shelley - Frankenstein The Trial Ch 16-17.pptx
• 6. Shelley - Frankenstein Female Characters Ch18-20.pptx

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...

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,...

Austen is well known for her mastery of free indirect discourse, her omniscient third person narration and her heavy use of irony. Northanger Abbey demonstrates all of these things, but is evidently the work of a less experienced author, despite its posthumous publication date. This is partly seen in the more intrusive authorial voice, and the clear acknowledgment of the fictional nature of the ‘fable’. Northanger Abbey is also the most intentionally...

The novel takes place across three locations: Fullerton, Bath and Northanger Abbey itself. Fullerton, her childhood home, is the provincial setting which cannot provide an appropriate hero for Catherine to be a heroine – so she must leave.

As the eponymous location, the Abbey looms large in the reader’s mind, but is in fact the setting for less than half of the novel. It is significant in that it represents the major Gothic element of the novel,...

Growing Up

Northanger Abbey is not a ‘Bildungsroman’ as such, although the first chapter describing Catherine’s early years does begin to approach one. It does, however, deal with the theme of growing up and reaching adulthood far more than other Austen novels, featuring a much younger heroine with far less worldly experience. The Catherine who goes to Bath, despite her amiability, is essentially a naive and unworldly girl. It is noticeable that early...

Catherine Morland

Catherine is not a typical Gothic heroine – as Austen makes clear from the start. ‘No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.’ She isn’t an orphan, she’s plain rather than pretty, she’s a tomboy, she isn’t clever, she isn’t musical and she isn’t artistic.  The first three make her an untypical Gothic heroine, and the last three make her an untypical romantic...

Satire is a genre, which mocks vices and follies with the intent of making a social point, and improving its target by shaming people into changing. A parody is an imitation of a specific work or type of work, with satirical or ironic intent, but aimed at the art form or text type which it imitates. Northanger Abbey is both a parody (of Gothic texts in general and The Mysteries of Udolpho in particular) and a satire...

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

An influential and immensely popular Gothic novel published in 1794, The Mysteries of Udolpho is specifically and repeatedly referenced in Northanger Abbey as one of the main influences on Catherine Morland’s impressionable imagination. The Mysteries of Udolpho features an orphan who is imprisoned by her guardian aunt’s husband, an Italian pirate, in an attempt to force her to marry his friend, rather than the...

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein subtitled ‘The Modern Prometheus’ is one of the most famous novels of the Gothic genre.  Frankenstein was an offshoot of a ghost-story writing project proposed by Byron in 1816. Mary Shelley’s explanation of how she came to write this novel is used in the introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein: ‘I busied myself to think of a story… One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror.’

Shelley’s decision to ‘awaken thrilling horror’ can be seen,...

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

The ‘Storyworld’

A very useful idea to grasp is that of the ‘storyworld’. It’s an idea taken from the field of...

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

If your exam board is AQA, you will have been introduced to various ways of analysing narratives using analytical...

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

AO1

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

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

• Stories have been told since time immemorial and have, over that time, developed in very conventional ways, that is, they...

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

In the vast majority of fictional stories, the narrator, characters, settings and actions are most often painstakingly...

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

Focalisation

A fictional story has to have a ‘teller’ in the form of the voice of a narrator, an equivalent of the...

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

To meet your assessment objectives, whatever exam board your school is using, you are asked to use an appropriate critical...

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

Note | This first section apples to AQA students only. In Section A of the exam paper, the ‘odd numbered’ parts of each...

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

Cousin Kate

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

I was a cottage maiden [1]
Hardened by sun and air,
Contented with my cottage...

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

• Make a revision timetable from now till the exam – but avoid being too much of a goody-goody as it won’t stick....

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

What do AQA Examiners say successful students do?

Section Aa

• Only AO2 is tested here. Students who do well write about how...

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

• The key is to be sure your answer is based on an analysis that is objective. A story is always composed of a PLOT – that...

The following guide would be useful for AQA LITB1, Aspects of Narrative but also for many other A level (and GCSE) units, where Hardy’s poems might be studied.

• Neutral Tones
• The Darkling Thrush
• ­At Castle Boterel
• ­The Voice
• ­Drummer Hodge
• ­In Church
• ­The Oxen

To many, Hardy is a genius, worthy of the highest respect as a technician in his poetry: a poet able to move his readers deeply often by his portrayal of ordinary people and events, both rendered special by the manner of his telling; to others, his technical ability is never...

The Duke, who left Vienna in secret and who has always shied away from the limelight, returns very much in public and in the open to bring judgement and justice – hence the trumpets, symbolic perhaps of the Last Judgement? This act is one very long scene and must obviously be studied in some depth by A level students. In contrast to the revelation of the Duke’s fallibility in Act 4, here he does take on something of the role of divine ruler.

He appears at first to disbelieve totally Isabella’s charge against Angelo, sharing with...

In a Shakespearian comedy, the audience would probably now expect the rest of the play to be the outworkings of the Duke’s plan followed by a happy ending usually involving at least one wedding (AO4). The events of Act 4 show this is not going to be the case in Measure for Measure.

The first part of the Duke’s idea goes to plan. Mariana agrees to co-operate and Isabella successfully pretends to Angelo that she will meet him (and sleep with him). However, time is running out for Claudio who is supposed to be executed by eight the...

Scene 1

Escalus’ view – he appeals to Angelo to consider the possibility of his own weaknesses, a possibility Angelo will not recognise, lines 29-31

‘When I that censure him do so offend
Let mine own judgement pattern out my death
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.’

In the following section, Escalus encounters Elbow, Froth and Pompey in his role as magistrate. Note how the two parts of scene 2 are parallel; Angelo’s attitude to Claudio in his judgement and condemnation of him and Escalus’ treatment of and...

Hamlet: tragic hero?

Hamlet is usually regarded as the finest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and one of the greatest tragedies ever written; however, it is frequently defined as ‘tragedy’ with little or no reference to tragic tropes, either Greek, Renaissance or later theories of tragedy, or with insufficient consideration of other useful theoretical approaches.

The aim of this teaching guide is to trace Shakespeare’s development of his eponymous hero through the play looking at aspects of language, form and structure as well as genre,...

Hamlet: tragic hero?

Hamlet is usually regarded as the finest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and one of the greatest tragedies ever written; however, it is frequently defined as ‘tragedy’ with little or no reference to tragic tropes, either Greek, Renaissance or later theories of tragedy, or with insufficient consideration of other useful theoretical approaches.

The aim of this teaching guide is to trace Shakespeare’s development of his eponymous hero through the play looking at aspects of language, form and structure as well as genre,...

Hamlet: tragic hero?

Hamlet is usually regarded as the finest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and one of the greatest tragedies ever written; however, it is frequently defined as ‘tragedy’ with little or no reference to tragic tropes, either Greek, Renaissance or later theories of tragedy, or with insufficient consideration of other useful theoretical approaches.

The aim of this teaching guide is to trace Shakespeare’s development of his eponymous hero through the play looking at aspects of language, form and structure as well as genre,...

Hamlet: tragic hero?

Hamlet is usually regarded as the finest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and one of the greatest tragedies ever written; however, it is frequently defined as ‘tragedy’ with little or no reference to tragic tropes, either Greek, Renaissance or later theories of tragedy, or with insufficient consideration of other useful theoretical approaches.

The aim of this teaching guide is to trace Shakespeare’s development of his eponymous hero through the play looking at aspects of language, form and structure as well as genre,...

Hamlet: tragic hero?

Hamlet is usually regarded as the finest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and one of the greatest tragedies ever written; however, it is frequently defined as ‘tragedy’ with little or no reference to tragic tropes, either Greek, Renaissance or later theories of tragedy, or with insufficient consideration of other useful theoretical approaches.

The aim of this teaching guide is to trace Shakespeare’s development of his eponymous hero through the play looking at aspects of language, form and structure as well as genre,...

Associated Resources

• A Student’s Guide to ’Much Ado About Nothing’ by Mandy Lloyd
• Much Ado Guide.doc

‘Much Ado about Nothing’ in context: ‘Comedy’ vs. ‘Tragedy’

Much Ado About Nothing is technically considered to be a Shakespearean ‘comedy’ of the classical kind; indeed, it’s even frequently taught at KS3 owing to its frequent comic tone. The witty and entertaining exchanges between the main protagonists Beatrice and Benedick have been the subject of much literary criticism and are often considered to be the most...

Click on the link below to download the resource.

Hamlet Scheme of Work LITB2.doc

Associated Resources

• Part 1 - AWONI Teaching Guide.doc
• Part 2 - AWONI Annotated Guide.doc
• Part 3 - AWONI Teaching Guide.doc

Why you might like to teach this text!

A Woman of No Importance is a wonderful text to teach and your students will enjoy studying it.

It is short, it has an absorbing and convincing plot and its themes are easily recognised, interestingly explored and persuasively presented.

On top of this, Wilde is a fine and witty dramatist who uses his chosen form in fascinating ways not only, at the level of plot, to entertain but...

Associated Resources

• A Guide to Much Ado About Nothing by Steph Jackson
• Much Ado About Nothing - Student’s Guide.doc

This brief study guide focuses on the themes, language and issues of the play relevant to the current A-Level Literature specification AO2 requirement of form, structure and language: ‘demonstrate detailed critical understanding in analysing the ways in which structure, form and language shape meanings in literary texts’.

The guide also explores some areas of the historical context of the play which will assist you with...

Although analysing a text at the level of narrative is a direct requirement of some English Literature courses, such as AQA’s LITB1, it is an analytical technique that can be quite generally applied across many texts – even non-fictional and media texts.

Associated Resources

A Guide to Teaching Othello

Click on the link below to download this resource.

Othello Guide Part 2 EnglishEdu.doc

Othello Guide Part 2 EnglishEdu.docx

Associated Resources

How to improve grades when writing for Othello

This EnglishEdu guide on Shakespeare’s popular A Level play, Othello, aims to supplement rather than replace other readily available Internet and printed material for the teaching of the play.

The guide explores the issues, themes and characters in the play that are particularly relevant to the current (2010) A Level Literature specifications. To add to the usefulness, and with an eye to the central AO requirement of close textual analysis of form, structure and...

Introduction

The tenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse narrative viewpoint in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Narrative viewpoint: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of narrative viewpoint is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully...

Introduction

The fifteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the genre of novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Genre: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (gothic); Hamlet by William Shakespeare (tragedy); As You Like It by William Shakespeare (pastoral)

NB Whilst the EnglishEdu Literature Frameworks generally analyse novels, short stories or prose extracts, the specific nature of the tragic and pastoral genres...

Introduction

The fourteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to help students analyse the context of novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow them access to the highest grades.

Context: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of context is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

Introduction

The thirteenth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the symbolism in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Symbolism: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using carefully chosen...

Introduction

This is the twelfth in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse the narrative presentation of time in novels, short stories or prose extracts in order to allow students access to the highest grades.

Time: The Time Machine by H G Wells

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to closely analyse a text in terms of the theme above is to exemplify it. The extract below is followed by a series of bullet points which demonstrate how to analyse closely using...

Introduction

The eleventh in the EnglishEdu series on ‘frameworks’ for A Level English Literature.

This guide explores how to analyse how authors create a convincing sense of realism or ‘verisimilitude’ in novels, short stories or prose extracts.

An analysis at a level like this is capable of revealing the kind of subtle insights that allow students access to the highest grades.

Verisimilitude: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The most straightforward way of demonstrating how to analyse a text closely in terms of verisimilitude is...

Introduction to the Literary ‘Frameworks’ Guides

At EnglishEdu our wish is always to try to help you, the often stressed and overworked English teacher, with something that you will feel is both very useful and – where possible – very different from what might be found elsewhere, either on the Internet or in print.

All of the guides, schemes of work and classroom materials on EnglishEdu have been written and produced by experienced and well-respected English teachers.

The guides are based on their best experience of teaching...