English

AQA A Level - exam board website.

TOPICS

You will study a very wide range of texts, from the speech of toddlers and young children, to magazine articles and advertisements that are published during the course. For your exams at the end of Year 13, you will focus on:

• Language diversity: how different groups in society – from working-class British men to urban immigrant communities – modify their language to communicate their identity.
• Language change: how words completely change their meanings at different points in history; how the changes in our language reflect the changes in our society.
• Textual variation: the ‘science of language’. How elements like graphology, semantics, lexis, pragmatics and morphology influence how we react to what we hear or what we read.
• Child language development: how a baby gradually learns how to make sounds, and how these correspond to things in the world; the magical journey of learning to speak and understand other people.

Coursework forms 20% of the final mark, and comprises two fascinating areas:

• Language investigation – your own coursework about an area of language that interests you: from the use of taboo language to the influence of Twitter on the way grammar is changing.
• Language in action – an original piece of creative writing (such as a story, newspaper or magazine article, or blog entry) with a commentary explaining your language choices.

TAKE THIS COURSE IF...

You want to learn to read texts in ways that are more scientific and more enlightening. As well as analysing the texts and discussing what their producers were trying to achieve, you will also be challenged to think about all the different ways in which language influences us. Who decides what is ‘correct’ and does this vary in different situations? How do advertisers subtly make us feel inadequate or empowered? And what influences do gender and age have on how we use language? The course builds on English Language GCSE but is quite different from it - it considers the various meanings behind different communications and gives you the technical terminology to describe language in detail.

WHERE IT COULD TAKE YOU

English Language A Level is an excellent grounding for degrees in linguistics, media, psychology, creative writing, education and journalism.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE YOU WILL NEED

Most students who are successful on this course will have a grade 6 or higher in English GCSE and at least five grade 5s including in subjects with a significant literacy content such as English Literature, Geography, History, Business and RS.

OCR A Level - exam board website.

TOPICS

You will study a very wide range of texts by men and women from different periods, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century. For your exam texts, you will:

• Discover the farcical, mischievous world of Chaucer’s ‘The Merchant’s Tale’.
• See how intoxicating language can be in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi.
• Explore brave new worlds in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
• Read George Orwell’s prescient dystopian masterpiece ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.
• Immerse yourself in the feminist dystopia of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.

Texts studied for coursework will be confirmed by your teachers later on, but will include the opportunity to study English texts from other cultures. Texts might include:

• Caleb Azumah Nelsons ‘Open Water’, the winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2021.
• Inua Ellams’ ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’, a hilarious and challenging look at black masculinity.
• Poetry by former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

TAKE THIS COURSE IF...

You love reading and you want to learn to read texts in ways that are more adult and more enlightening. As well as analysing the texts and discussing what their authors were trying to achieve using ever more precise technical language, you will also engage with different interpretations of a text, for example by comparing several different productions of a play. You will develop a more sophisticated conceptual understanding of how genre shapes how we receive a text and explore the effect of context by comparing pairs of texts from different historical periods.

WHERE IT COULD TAKE YOU

English Literature A-level is a qualification for life. It is very well regarded by Russell Group universities, who consider it to be a ‘facilitating subject.’ This means that it is part of a small group of ‘traditional’ subjects which grant students access to the top universities. Whether you wish to study Science or Engineering, Literature or Drama, English Literature will help you to succeed at university and beyond.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE YOU WILL NEED

Most students who are successful on this course will have a grade 7 or higher in English language and literature GCSEs and at least five grade 5s including in subjects with a significant literacy content such as English Literature, Geography, History, Business and RS.

Students in the Sixth Form who do not yet have a grade 4 or higher in GCSE English Language or English Literature receive lessons to prepare them for re-sit opportunities in English Language in November and May/June. It is a requirement of the Department for Education that students without a grade 4 in English continue to study English Language throughout their time in the Sixth Form.