Student Workshops

The Nuts and Bolts of Textual Analysis for English Language A Level

Getting used to the demands of textual analysis at A Level is often a major hurdle for students. With English Language A Level, there’s a new technical vocabulary that needs to be learnt, and there’s often a degree of rustiness over the basics of grammar.

Aim

• To introduce new students (and perhaps new teachers) of A Level English Language to key frameworks and linguistic methods, using a range of written and spoken texts as a starting point
• To equip...

This collection of tried and tested classroom ideas is intended to help add variety, particularly to the A Level classroom. 

There are things that need to be practised, in order for students to develop the requisite skills, but it’s still important to ring the changes, for our own sake at least as much as for the students’!

The idea is for this collection to provide ways of meeting those constantly repeating needs with as much variety as possible.  All ideas also indicate where and how differentiation can be planned in, or how the ideas...

by the Super Baby Project

Guides to poetry by Duffy, Armitage and Pre-1914 Poets

Task: You will work in pairs to produce a revision guide to one of the following poems (I will tell you which one). It must be suitable for use by other Year 11s. The aim of this is both to help you to revise the poems for your English Literature examination, and for you, as a class, to produce a pack of revision guides. This task must be complete by the end of today’s lesson.

Poems to cover:

Duffy
Anne Hathaway
Before You Were Mine
Havisham
Stealing

Armitage
Mother, any distance
...

This teaching guide for students of higher ability is designed as a self-contained unit which can be used to produce the AQA A GCSE Pre-1914 Prose coursework. It can also be used as a springboard for Original Writing.

A Modest Proposal is an excellent alternative for the more able students to the rather well-worn (though useful) Pre-1914 Prose path of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Great Expectations and Pride and Prejudice. Its blistering satire allows students to produce some quite subtle and impressive analyses.

• The AQA A Pre-1914 coursework...

Poetry from Different Cultures

This teaching guide for high-ability students is designed as a self-contained unit which can be used to prepare for the AQA A Paper 2 Section A question on the poetry from different cultures in the Anthology.

Let us remind ourselves of the assessment objectives addressed by this section. Candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to:

(i) read, with insight and engagement, making appropriate references to texts and developing and sustaining interpretations of them;

(iv) select material appropriate to...

Compare the ways an event is described in ‘Blessing’ with the ways an event is described in ‘Island Man’.

Imtiaz Dharker and Grace Nichols are both clearly concerned with issues of identity and clashing cultures when exploring the main events in their poems ‘Blessing’ and ‘Island Man’. Despite the fact that Dharker originates from Pakistan, and Nichols from Guyana, each seems able to use similar poetic techniques to get to grips with wider issues beyond the apparently mundane occurrences in their poetry.

The concept of identity is...

Titus Andronicus

This teaching guide for higher ability students is designed as a self-contained unit which can be used to produce the AQA A GCSE Shakespeare coursework.

• The unit uses one of the lesser-known and less critically-acclaimed Shakespeare plays in order to encourage a high-quality and truly original response.
• The AQA A Shakespeare coursework is what is termed as a ‘cross-over’ piece; therefore, if you are using it for assessment for both English and English Literature GCSEs (the most common approach), you need to be able...

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Romeo & Juliet

This teaching guide for high-ability students is designed as a self-contained unit which can be used to produce the AQA A GCSE Shakespeare coursework. The AQA A Shakespeare coursework is what is termed as a ‘cross-over’ piece; therefore, if you are using it for assessment for both English and English Literature GCSEs (the most common approach), you need to be able to address the assessment objectives for both.

Let us remind ourselves of these:

English

Candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to:

(i) read,...

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Tess of the d’Urbervilles in context

In an ideal world, we would study the whole text with all our students for AS and A2 English Literature. However, we realise that, given the pressures of A level study and teaching, this is not always possible. Therefore, it can be useful to teach using carefully selected extracts which are relevant to the module being studied. This can necessitate just as much preparation on the part of the teacher, who must read the whole text and locate suitable extracts. This guide aims to facilitate this process by...

Associated Resources

• Of Mice and Men Revision Guide on Loneliness.doc

This revision guide takes you through the central theme of loneliness in the novella “Of Mice and Men”.

Questions at GCSE often focus on this theme.

Consider the central theme of loneliness in the novel, Of Mice and Men.

Where and when is the novel set? Look on the first line of the first page. The action is set around Soledad. What does soledad mean in Spanish? Do you think it is a coincidence that this placename is chosen to set the tale?

Who are the two central...

A Pre C20th GCSE Assignment on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Speaking & Listening and/or Written Response

I often get asked how to make Pre-Twentieth Century texts more accessible. This assignment has been used with a number of classes with children with statements of SEN and the students have enjoyed it. I hope you can make use of it too.

It can be used in conjunction with the full novel, the full chapters and/or the film version of the novel. The full chapters are available as a separate download and can be used on a whiteboard or...

Points to consider when assessing Chapter One of “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens.

Some ideas to get you started…

• What makes this opening chapter a good read? It might be useful to colour code your sheets with a highlighter pen!
• Narrative technique – first person narrative. What effect does this have on you, the reader? What does first person have that third person misses and vice versa?
• Setting (Where is the story set?)

The setting is very important in Great Expectations in a number of key scenes. The varied settings...

The narrative technique employed by Emily Bronte is both complex and beguiling.

There are two obvious narrators in Lockwood and Nelly Dean but several other elements are incorporated within the novel to channel the story.

Bronte ensured that the action as a whole is presented in the form of an intricate collection of written fragments or verbal eyewitness accounts by characters who have all had some part to play in the story they unfold.

The author employs a general Rahmenerzählung approach to the narrative with Lockwood’s tale...

Read the LAST paragraph of this article FIRST, then go back to the beginning.

• Highlight or put a ring around issues which relate to the characters Mickey and Edward.

OR

• Write ten bullet points which sum up this article.

OR

• Draft a short reply to Philip Webster outlining your ideas on this topic.

The Times
January 12, 2009

Children of poorer families face as big a hill as ever

Philip Webster, Political Editor

A child’s chances of success still depend largely on the background and earnings of his or her parents despite the billions...

Getting your teeth into a text!

Look closely at the newspaper article on Heather Mills.

Heather’s rants wrecking case

Got the wind up ... Mucca with papers at GMTV yesterday

By VICTORIA NEWTON Showbiz Editor
Published: 09 Nov 2007, The Sun

HEATHER Mills was last night looking for new divorce lawyers – after the top firm she hired “fired” her over her bizarre TV war against Sir Paul McCartney.

Lady Mucca, 39 – who went on GMTV AGAIN yesterday – was phoned by legal eagles Mishcon de Reya and told they could no longer represent...

An English Media Assignment

Film Review by ………………..

Blade Runner

Look at the advertisement for the film below. Who are the central characters and who are they played by?

Which other characters in the film caught your eye? Why?

What type or genre of film is Blade Runner? You can look at the information below which was taken from the DVD.

Who directed the film? This person has made some changes to the original film that was shown in the cinemas in 1982. What do you think the director has done to it?

The film was based on a...

A Scaffolded Essay Guide to Lord of the Flies

At the beginning of the novel, Ralph stands on his head and celebrates the fact that there are no adult survivors.

This is a dream come true. How does this dream turn into a nightmare?

It is true that at the beginning of the novel that in conversation with Piggy that Ralph celebrates the fact that there are no adults on the island. I think he…

Within hours of celebrating the lack of adult supervision. Ralph assumes the role of…

The dream really turns into a night mare when…

Another key...

Act 5

Act 5 scene 1

Brutus and Cassius make a military mistake.
Cassius regrets letting Antony live.
Octavius and Antony compete for control.

The final Act concerns the final conflict between the two sides and is compressed into 5 fairly short scenes.  Again Shakespeare compresses time for dramatic purposes.  There were actually 2 battles at Philippi and they were about 3 weeks apart.  Shakespeare merges these into one continuous battle and brings Antony and Octavius face to face with...

Act 4

Act 4 scene 1

Antony and Octavius plan their revenge.

This scene contrasts with the previous one in that the result of Antony’s victory over Brutus at the funeral is shown as political – the deliberate, cold-bloodied drawing up of a list of conspirators who must die.  According to Plutarch the list ran to 300 names. 

Antony’s opening line is flat and unemotional in contrast to the grisly subject.  Octavius and Lepidus then try to bargain for the lives of various...

Act 3

Act 3 scene 1

Caesar reaches the senate but is surrounded by the conspirators.
Caesar is stabbed by all the conspirators, finally by Brutus.
Antony meets the murderers and is given permission to speak at the funeral of Caesar.

This is the pivotal scene of the play.  The scenes in both previous Acts have been building to this moment and it provides the motives for the actions in the rest of the play.

Caesar is surrounded by the conspirators – Artemidorus and the soothsayer...

Act 2

Act 2 scene 1

Brutus considers the murder of Caesar.
Brutus reads one of the false letters and is visited by Cassius.
The decision is taken not to harm Antony or any of Caesar’s other followers.

The storm from the previous scene is continuing and Brutus refers to the darkness in the opening speech.  Darkness is symbolic in this scene – it represents the darkness and confusion in Brutus’ mind.  The conspirators arrive in darkness later in the scene which adds to the feeling...

This guide has been written to help teachers in their reading, preparation and teaching of the play. Julius Caesar can be taught as a part of several exam board English Literature units:

• AQA GCSE English Literature 4710 | Unit 4: Approaching Shakespeare & the English Literary Heritage
• AQA GCSE English 4700 | Unit 3 Understanding and producing creative texts
• OCR GCSE English Literature | 2.1 Unit A661: Literary Heritage Linked Texts
• OCR GCSE English | Unit A641 Reading literary texts
• Edexcel GCSE English Literature | Unit 3: Shakespeare and...

The Language of Radio DJs

• AQA GCSE Spoken English CA SOW 2013.zip

This AQA GCSE Spoken English Scheme on The Language of Radio DJs contains the following resources:

Week 1

• EnglishEdu - AQA Unit 3c Spoken Language Study SOW Week 1.doc
• Introduction to Unit.doc
• Studying Spoken Language Intro.ppt
• A Glossary of Spoken Language Features - Teacher Copy.doc
• A Glossary of Spoken Language Features - Student Copy.doc
• Conventions.ppt
• Info on DJs.doc
• Key.doc
• Medium.ppt
• Radio Stations.doc
• Spoken vs Written Cards.doc
• Terminology.ppt
• Thought Bubble.doc

This anthology is used for the following courses:

GCSE English Spec Code 4700
GCSE English Language Spec Code 4705
GCSE English Literature Spec Code 4710

The Anthology can also be used for Controlled Assessments in the following:

GCSE English Literature Unit 5: Exploring poetry
GCSE English Unit 3: Understanding and producing creative texts
GCSE English Language Unit 3: Understanding spoken and written texts and writing creatively

Associated Resources

• Moon on the Tides: Character & Voice PPTs
• Moon on the Tides: Place PPTs
• Moon on the...

AQA A Literature | Unit LITA4: ‘Literary Connections’

This novel can be chosen as a coursework text for this A2 unit.

Below is a summary of the AQA Assessment Objectives. The guide focuses on the techniques Fowles used when writing his novel, including what are called his ‘postmodern’ techniques. There are also two worked essay examples to show how you might achieve high marks in this unit.

The Assessment Objectives

It’s important thing to be aware of the assessment objectives for your piece of work or exam paper. If you know...

The topic of interaction could be huge, including concepts which are important in a range of sub-topics in linguistic study, including speech, general textual analysis and power.  Many A Level specifications do not require students to have considerable knowledge of studies into conversational behaviour, but only to use the terminology which arose out of that research (e.g. three-part exchange or initiation/response/feedback). This guide therefore covers a selection of broad and conceptual theories relating to speech and interaction, which...

This topic is concerned with how language stands for things in the real world and how language is able to affect our impressions of things in the real world.  There is therefore some overlap here with concepts such as language and thought and some power issues in language (NB: theories relating to the effect of power/status on interaction will be found in the guide to discourse, speech and pragmatics).  This whole topic is highly conceptual, requiring considerable engagement with theory.  Although some of this theory is not explicitly tested...

This topic is concerned with the study of differences between male speech and female speech. The guide to Language and Power will cover theories relating to the representation of gender in language and concerns about sexist language. Some specifications put these together under the topic of ‘gender’ whilst others treat them separately. Specifications including Variation as a topic of study often include gender as one possible variable. The topic has been treated separately here since there has been so much work carried out in this area,...

Editsense & Filmsense

What is Editsense?

‘Editsense is a new approach to learning about film language and film-making’.

This is an interactive DVD with excellent, practical examples of film - perfect for teachers of moving image, be it English, Creative and Digital Media or Film Studies.

It has over fifty video examples and includes materials for the introduction and revision of film. 

What does it include?

It includes video examples of film language including camerawork, mise-en-scene, editing techniques, sound and even advanced...

Win £5000 for your school!

Be ©reative is a unique and exciting production competition for young people aged 11-19, offering recognition for UK creative talent plus great prizes for individual winners and their schools. This year’s competition brief, provided by a real-life industry body, asks students to create an original ad campaign that encourages young people to respect the UK film and TV industries and make the positive decision to choose official film and TV.

Winning entrants in each of the 11-14 and 15-19 age categories get to...

This topic is concerned with changes to the English Language over time.  In different specifications, students are asked to compare and analyse texts from different periods, to trace the usage of a word or phrase, and/or to discuss how and why language changes, and how people react to those changes.

Studying change is therefore concerned with three main questions:

• How has the English language changed over its history?

This is largely an AO1 concern, dealing with the particulars of usage in terms of lexis, semantics, grammar and (possibly)...

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...

Associated Resources

• Blake - Innocent Sweep.ppt
• Blake - Experience Sweep.ppt
• Blake - Holy Thursday.ppt

Introducing William Blake

Abstract

The course discussed in these notes is designed as a short course of enrichment and development of skills of poetry analysis based in a personal response to pairs of poems from the Songs of Innocence and Experience.

It is not designed to cover too many of the poems, but rather to spark interest and enthusiasm.

It can be used as part of a cross-curricular activity and benefits from a high level of...

Context

This poem was written in 1938, just before Yeats’ death.

Structure

The poem is written as a conversation between the man and an echo. It is composed of rhyming couplets which is the simplest rhyme form.

Stanza 1

The word ‘Alt’ is a rocky fissure at Knocknarea, County Sligo. The phrase ‘broad noon has never lit’ suggests a dark, secluded place.  This is an alliterative phrase ‘shout a secret to the stone’ ; ‘shout’ suggests a public declaration but by shouting at ‘the stone’ the man keeps his secret while making...

Context

This poem was written in 1927. The people mentioned in the title are Eva Gore-Booth (1870-1926) and Constance Markiewicz (nee Gore-Booth) (1868-1927). They were childhood friends of Yeats.

Structure

The poem has 3 stanzas with 10 or 12 lines. There is no regular rhyme scheme in the poem which may reflect the fact that Yeats is writing about friends; this is a personal poem and not the place for the formal or structured.

Stanza 1

‘Lissadell’ is a late Georgian house, home of the Gore-Booths, in County Sligo. The description...

Context

This poem was written after a visit by Yeats in his capacity as a Senator to St Otteran’s School, Waterford in 1926. The school was run on Montessori principles.

Structure

The poem is 8 stanzas long with 8 lines per stanza. It is also written in ottava rima, a verse form Yeats used in Sailing to Byzantium. The subject matter is appropriate for this verse form – the changing face of man and mortality.

Stanza 1

Yeats walks through the school in the company of Mother Philomena who ran the school. He lists the children’s activities...

Context

This poem can be seen in reference to The Second Coming; it describes a moment that represented a change of era in Yeats’ model of gyres. But where Yeats’ poem The Second Coming represents the end of modern history, Leda and the Swan represents something like its beginning; the rape of Leda by Zeus resulted in the birth/hatching of Clytemnestra, Helen, Castro and Polydeuces (Castor and Polydeuces were war gods) and this brought about the Trojan War which in turn brought about the end of the ancient mythological era and the birth of...

Context

This poem was written in 1926 and first published in 1928. Yeats wrote in a draft script for a 1931 BBC broadcast:

I am trying to write about the state of my soul, for it is right for an old man to make his soul, and some of my thoughts about that subject I have put into a poem called Sailing to Byzantium. When Irishmen were illuminating the Book of Kells, and making the jewelled ‘croziers’ in the National Museum, Byzantium was the centre of European civilization and the source of its spiritual philosophy, so I symbolize the...

Context

The poem was written in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War. Richard Ellman and Harold Bloom suggest the text refers to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Bloom argues that Yeats takes the side of the counter-revolutionaries and the poem suggests that reaction to the revolution would come too late. Early drafts also included such lines as: “And there’s no Burke to cry aloud no Pitt,” and “The good are wavering, while the worst prevail.” (Wikipedia)

Yeats intended The Second Coming to describe the current historical moment –...

Context

This poem was written as a reaction to the Easter Rising of 23-29 April 1916.

It was written in September 1916 when Yeats was staying with Maud Gonne MacBride at Les Mouettes, Calvados. In it he records his reactions to the Easter Rising in Dublin, when the city centre was occupied by a force of around 700 members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, led by Patrick Pearse, and members of the Citizen Army, led by James Connolly. They held out for 6 days – 15 of their leaders were sentenced by courts martial and executed between 3rd...

Context

This poem was first published in 1916. The Fisherman is presented as the ‘ideal man’ with his country skills; he is also a symbol for Ireland – where Yeats believes the ideal man ‘exists’. It draws a contrast between Yeats’ ‘ideal Irishman’ and the real man of his contemporary Ireland. Yeats was a skilled fly fisherman and used this knowledge to develop the character of the fisherman.

Structure

The poem is written as a single stanza with a regular ABAB rhyme scheme, 3 stresses per line.

The word ‘him’ refers to...

Context

This poem was first published in 1919. It is widely believed to be a tribute to Major Robert Gregory, the only child of Lady Gregory; he joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 and was shot down in 1918 over Italy.

Structure

This is a 16 line poem written in iambic tetrameter (4 quatrains of alternating rhymes). The title reflects the reality of life for airmen in WWI. This may have happened to many people fighting during wars: they know their death is approaching but there is little they can do about it. There is no real sense of...

Context

This poem was first published in 1917 when Yeats was 52 in a collection of the same name. The setting is in Coole Park, Galway, the home of Lady Gregory. Lady Gregory was a patron and friend of Yeats and he first visited her home in 1897.

Structure

The poem has 5 stanzas each 6 lines long and is written roughly in iambic pentameter; 1st & 3rd lines = tetrameter, 2nd, 4th & 6th lines trimester, 5th line pentameter. Pattern of stresses 434353. This is very precise and links with the precision of the subject matter – events are...

Context

This poem was published in 1914 at the start of World War One. It is about remorse over failure in love and the fear that this remorse will continue after death as a purgatorial punishment. This could be said to have links with the ‘guilt’ which is felt particularly by Irish Catholics. Some commentators have said that the failed love was for Maud Gone, but it doesn’t really matter for the readers’ understanding of the poem.

Structure

This poem is 1 stanza long, a total of 12 lines. There is a regular rhyme scheme with all the...

Context

This poem was first published, unsurprisingly, in 1913 and was inspired by the dispute over the Lane art gallery in Dublin; Hugh Lane wished to present his collection of French paintings to Dublin but there was disagreement about whether the City should provide or pay for a gallery to house them.

Structure

4 stanzas, 8 lines in each. The last 2 lines of each stanza form the refrain. A regular rhyme scheme is used which shows the control that Yeats’ displays in much of his poetry.

Stanza 1

The use of ‘you’ means the Irish people...

Context

First published in 1886 when Yeats was 21. This poem is set in County Sligo where Yeats spent part of his childhood; some actual locations mentioned illustrate Yeats’ fond reminiscing about his childhood – Yeats has a tendency to romanticise childhood.

The poem also illustrates Yeats’ interest in Irish mythology – the story of a child abducted by ‘faeries’. This feeds into many cultures’ fears of loss of children; also the story of changeling children (a human child abducted and replaced with faery child).

There is a...