DS 15 and A level English?

Excellent! Proof-read also acceptable apparently but I always prefer a word without the hyphen.

Yep, me too and me too and, likewise, please don't.

Except - can't resist it - 'proofread' is one word.

@PointsSouth your punctuation was on point. The full point was not said as part of the quote.

(copy editor and general pro pedant* here)

*please don’t proof read my MN posts

noooooo I meant Chaucer was compulsory when I took A levels in the 1989s @TizerorFizz not now!

I did English Literature A level and got an A (in the days when A* didn't exist at A level) despite reading no classics outside of school. Presumably your son can read and has the ability to think critically, which are the two key skills for English literature. He'll be fine. :)

Tbh typing on a phone even getting the punctuation in is a pain so I’ll let it go either way.

Gee, thanks.

So did you do your GCSEs in the 18th century or not? I mean it would make you a ghost but I’m guessing these days it’s ageist or similar to point that out …

....somebody help me out here.

Tbh typing on a phone even getting the punctuation in is a pain so I’ll let it go either way.

So did you do your GCSEs in the 18th century or not? I mean it would make you a ghost but I’m guessing these days it’s ageist or similar to point that out …

Yes, I did. And I also said that Dickens was our Modern Author. Short of a smiley face, it's difficult to see what more I could have done to suggest that that was whimsical little joke.

On the full stop inside or outside the quotes thing, there's a lot of debate about that, and most of it comes down to context. In this case, what's being quoted isn't part of a sentence that would have a full stop, but a single word specifically cited as a separate syntactical entity.

The first Google entry I found was this..

British English puts commas and periods (full stops) outside the quotation marks unless the quotation is also a complete sentence or the punctuation is part of the quotation.

But, actually, I found others that would say you were right.

I’m not really following your posts!

Did you realise you said you did your GCSEs in the eighteenth century?

ps: fullstop goes inside quotation mark…

Comma required after 'changed'.

This stuff stays with you.

My daughter wanted to do English Lit but when she saw what she was expected to read: both "core texts" and reading around the text, she independently came to the conclusion that it was just too much.
Either your son will decide the same or he will step up and do the reading or he will probably change his choices in the first few weeks ( almost every school allows this). The summer before can be a big eye opener as you usually get a huge list to read over the summer.

Leave the choice to him.

I think reading for pleasure (to immerse yourself in a story; understand different lives; feel vicarious emotion; find out what happens; escape from reality etc) is a VERY different ‘need’ to the desire to STUDY writing (how does a writer construct text; what techniques do they use and why; how does a text sit in its cultural and historic context: what is it ‘listening’ to; what is it telling to contemporary ears that we might miss? ) My dd has just completed a level language and literature (which is a fascinating course imo): she read avidly for pleasure up to maybe 12; then had a real gap and I would say has only really got back into reading in the final year of her A level - she’s hoping to do literature and linguistics at uni. But - she loves language; understanding techniques; analysing what’s going on in and around a text. She’s fascinated by how retelling the same story can bring out different stuff and different responses (she loves the modern retelling of Shakespeare plays or Greek myths for example). Is this stuff that echo’s for your son - I think if he loves the processes, the debate of what an author is doing and what it means, dissecting language, that’s what’s key for a level - it’s the detail on the set texts you need to have rather than the broad sweep
of all literature at A level!

I'm aphantasic and I love reading. I don't need to visualise the thing I'm reading to enjoy it.

I'm also good at creative writing and had a couple of short stories published in the past.

@Boedatives DH managed to get an A in English Lit without reading the entirety of any set novel...I don't think he's read a fiction novel since. I have no idea how he managed it.
You can also do an A level in English Language, but it's more difficult to find schools which offer it.

In the mid eighteenth century?! Well yeah, things will have changed old timer…

What do you mean by spoon feeding? Do you mean the teacher ensures that the pupils have a firm grasp of the curriculum? I would hope so, if it's a really expensive school! What on odd put down of your own very hard working DS.

On the English side, you have a point. If he's doing that well in all subjects, seems odd to go for English if he doesn't like reading that much. I wouldn't talk to the school, though. It's up to him. Haven't you had meeting with the school careers advice teacher to talk this through when making A Level choices.

I have a 2:1 from a RG university in English Literature, I didn't even read all the course texts

No compulsory Chaucer here.

Yes and I was exactly the same. I barely read anything for my degree except for skim reading for quotes.

I was amazed when my husband told me he had read the actual reading list in full. What a dreadful waste of time 😂

Even now I skim read novels.

Honestly, it’s his choice and not yours, and if you are worried about his lack of reading you should be pleased if he chooses English A level as at least he will read some texts.

Perhaps you need to work on accepting that your kid will do things differently from you as he grows up, and that’s fine and as it’s meant to be. I suspect the psycho drama you have here about his a level choices may roll over into other things.

OP i hated reading 'classics' when I was a teen.

Yet I got an A for Eng Lit Alevel in the 1990s.

My GCSE teacher always told my parents I needed to stop reading Stephen King and Virginia Andrews and read Hardy. Took until I was in my 20s to start reading classics.

I found the analytical part of eng lit very easy. I was really good at writing essays. It comes down to that really. If it's an easy Alevel for him and he can pass the exam and it makes him happy, then 🤷🏼‍♀️

Btw I also work in a girls version of one of those high achieving spoon fed schools and a lot of those young people do it purely by determination and no specific love for their subject.

Ooo that's awful.

I do enjoy the analysis but I also think it can be taken too far and think sometimes it's like they forget books are there for pleasure.

@clary Is Chaucer compulsory now for A level English Lit?

I think I have proved my point. Chaucer at O level, or The Hobbit? I think I know the easier read!

Fair point.

I think Eng Lit is a different thing from reading for pleasure. I read a lot but I don't analyse and question what I'm reading.

We did the Hobbit for GCSE at school, for two years. The Teacher was awful and absolutely ruined the book with all the analysing and said no written book can ever just be what it is, you must only ever read to find the true meanings. I never touched a book again till I was 20 because he almost killed my love of reading! Sometimes I just want to read something light to escape, not annotate and find hidden meanings!