Curriculum overview for A Level English Literature

Curriculum intent – the knowledge, understanding and skills that students will learn
The English Literature A-Level qualification builds on the knowledge, understanding and skills established at GCSE, introducing students to the discipline of advanced literary studies, and requires reading of all the major literary genres of poetry, prose and drama. The A Level qualification in English Literature extends these studies in breadth and depth, further developing students’ ability to analyse, evaluate and make connections between texts. Students are required to study a minimum of eight texts at A level, including at least two examples of each of the genres of prose, poetry and drama across the course as a whole. The course requires students to develop judgement and independence as they synthesise and reflect upon their knowledge and understanding of a range of literary texts and ways of reading them. It also requires students to show knowledge and understanding of:
• The ways in which writers shape meanings in texts 
• The ways in which texts are interpreted by different readers, including over time 
• The ways in which texts relate to one another and to literary traditions, movements and genres 
• The significance of cultural and contextual influences on readers and writers.

Curriculum implementation – teaching, learning and assessment strategies
Students are expected to complete independent wider reading on a variety of texts ranging from extracts, novels, novellas, critical interpretation and poetry. Class teaching is sequenced to ensure that students begin with the foundational knowledge of the A Level course and what is required. This leads onto studying Component 1 and Component 2 and, later, Component 3 simultaneously, with a key focus on the conventions of genre and contextual understanding of the various texts. Class teaching requires a high level of verbal participation through discussions. Students also have the opportunity to debate ideas from various perspectives, not just their own perspective, to encourage them to consider other points of view in relation to the texts. Students take regular written assessments in timed conditions and are set homework tasks that focus on extended writing skills. The course also includes a non-examination assessment section in which students are encouraged to do their own research and scrutinise their work in detail. They begin the non-examination assessment towards the end of Year 12, after they have developed skills such as understanding the way writers shape texts, the significance of cultural and contextual influences and how texts can be interpreted by different readers. Students often have the opportunity to attend a school trip and watch a play that they are studying or is relevant to what they are studying.

Curriculum impact – intended outcomes for students 
This qualification will enable students to:
• Explore and understand a wide range of texts 
• Develop the valuable transferable skills of sustained research and composition
• Have freedom of choice with regards to texts for study in the non exam assessment component 
• Choose to write creatively if they wish
• To be inspired, motivated and challenged by reading widely across a range of texts and developing their independent study skills
• Cultivate their own critical responses and engaging with the richness of literature

Course overview for A Level English Literature
Exam board: Edexcel - A-Level English Literature Edexcel Specification
Coursework: Yes – 20% of the qualification

Component 1 – Drama 30% of the qualification
Section A: Shakespeare 
Students answer one question from a choice of two on ‘Hamlet’, incorporating ideas from wider critical reading, relating their response to contextual factors with a given theme as their focal point of analysis.

Section B: Post-1900 Drama
Students answer one question from a choice of two on ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams with a given theme as their focal point of analysis, discussion must relate to contextual factors.

Component 2 – Prose 20% of the qualification
Students answer one comparative essay question from a choice of two on their chosen theme: ‘Science and Society’ based on their reading of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood and ‘The War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells with a given theme as their focal point of comparison, discussion must relate to contextual factors.

Component 3 – Poetry 20% of the qualification 
Section A: Post-2000 Specified Poetry and Post-2000 Unseen Poetry
Students answer one comparative essay question from a choice of two on an unseen modern poem written post-2000 and one named poem from the studied contemporary text with a given theme as their focal point of comparison. 

Section B: Specified Poetry Pre-1900
Students answer one essay question from a choice of two on their studied ‘Victorian Anthology’, discussing two poems, one named with a given theme as their focal point of analysis. Their discussion must relate to contextual factors. 

Component 4 – Coursework 20% 
Students write one extended comparative essay of 2500 – 3000 words which explores contrasts and comparisons between two texts (poetry, prose, drama or literary non-fiction), informed by different interpretations and an understanding of contexts.