A Level English Literature

@lemonsorbet1 I think some of the books which talk about the texts can be helpful - so e.g. York notes (advanced) . Not to be taken verbatim but helpful to give a pointer as to what to look for. Can be v cheap 2nd hand on Amazon - Best of wishes. Oh and there are some points of reference between A Street Car named Desire and the Glass Menagerie. Might be worth a read of the Glass Menagerie - not very long or onerous .

Having done English at University, I think the key thing is to enjoy your reading, find a classic author you like and read up about them and explore!

@lemonsorbet1 how is you DD finding it? My DS is taking it and while he found the GCSE 'easy' I think he's struggling with the step uo to A level a bit. I think he is having problems with properly understanding what he is being asked for in his essays and so tending not to answer the question fully.

If she fancies a challenge and will be studying any Shakespeare or Renaissance plays, she could give 'The Illiad' and 'The Odyssey' a go - I really enjoyed Emily Wilson's translation of the latter. An understanding of Homer's two epic poems might help her decode the classical references which Shakespeare and his contemporaries are so fond of.

Excuse the last paragraph, I had meant to delete that sentence

My daughter did A-Level English Lit and is hoping to begin a degree in it in the Autumn. For context, her course consisted of:

Pre-1800 Literature: 'Hamlet', 'The Duchess of Malfi', 'The Merchant's Prologue and Tale'

Comparative and Contextual study - American Literature: 'The Great Gatsby', 'The Grapes of Wrath', Unseen American Lit passages 1880-1940

Coursework: T.S.Eliot's poetry (1,500 words), an extended essay comparing 'Translations' to 'Atonement' (3,000 words).

She found the most useful wider reading she did was reading critical interpretations of her set texts by academics and reviews of different stage productions of the drama texts. For some questions, the mark scheme rewards you for engaging with critical ideas, but she also found that reading criticism gave her inspiration and helped her adapt to the standard of essay-writing expected at A-Level. She found the criticism on websites like JSTOR and the British Library and also used Google Scholar as a search engine to locate articles.

Additionally, for some texts marks are awarded for discussing context (for my daughter's syllabus, this was for the essay question where she compared 'The Duchess of Malfi' to 'The Merchant's Tale', all American Lit essays and her extended piece of coursework). For these texts, part of her wider reading aimed to understand the time period in which they were written better. For example, for 'The Merchant's Tale' she read 'A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England' and for unseen American Lit, she read numerous non-fiction and literary non-fiction texts about the Jazz Age, the Dust Bowl, civil rights, feminism etc.

All of this secondary reading isn't useful without an understanding of the primary, set texts. The best thing for your daughter to do would be to email the Head of English at the school that she's planning to go to for Sixth Form to find out what the set texts are. If she reads the set texts over the summer holidays and gets a sense of the plot and characters, when she comes to study them she'll be in a better position to dive straight into analysis and secondary reading which facilitates thinking critically about the texts, rather than having to first grasp what is going on in each book.

The most important thing to identify is if your daughter's course has a

Othello and some other plays are on iPlayer at the moment.

I didn’t realise they could/should read the set texts. 😵

My dd is trying to find a suitable book for the part where they study a novel of their choosing. No luck yet.

Just wanted to add that a lot of these books and audio books can be borrowed for free from your local library. I wouldn't buy them unless you know what edition they are expected to read. Also, I did Alevel English a long time ago and we were all encouraged to read the bible as it helps put so much in context - still good advice I think.

Dd starts A-level lit in September. First year they're doing Handmaids Tale & George Orwell's 1984. Second year it's Shakespeare & poetry.

Check whether your local library can provide ebook loans. Older stuff you can often get electronically for free. It's great to have physical books to read but also great to be always able to find the next book without having to buy it or wait for the library. I know my daughter's reading a lot online (yr 12).

She might like to have a look at a good introduction to lit crit.

Try Seven Types of Ambiguity by Empson, or any one of the many 'Introduction to' books for literary criticism/theory

I'd also recommend Changing Places, and Small World by David Lodge. Also 'The British Museum is Falling Down (as each chapter is in a different literary style - not intrusive enough to get in the way of the story, so it doesn't matter if you don't get it, but another way to look at writing style)

Not on the list but slaughterhouse 5 is a good read.

Yess The Yellow Wallpaper is amazing

My DS doing A level as well from September. They haven't been told set books - am thinking they won't want kids getting bored of them! He has lots of transition work with numerous different tasks - some long some v short and had to do an essay on the Great Gatsby. He has read a fair few different books since March. He hated the Handmaids Tale. Loved Dorian Grey, Fathers and Sons, Great Gatsby, Catch 22. I did English degree so have a lot of books he can plough through. Am going to try him with the Yellow Wallpaper next...

I think rather than reading just the same author (unless they are genre specific) then read books within the same genre so if doing Gothic read other gothic novels or dystopian read other dystopian. Then she will be able to introduce comparisons into her essays but for now I would leave the set texts so that she isn't sick of them by the end of 2 years.

Abe Books is a great website for 2nd hand books. Sometimes only £2.50 including postage.

Hi, I took my A level in English in 2013 if it helps. I went on to do an Ma and undergrad in the subject.

At A level I'd say she doesn't need to do reading around. So long as she reads the set texts and applies herself to researching around the essay topics when set then she'll be fine.

It's not like undergrad where you need to be aware outside of the focused scope. Reading for fun over summer and watching some of the film versions should set her up well.

If she's capable and puts her mind to the task and goes to all her classes I'd say she'll do fine.

Somehow I managed to pass an A level essay despite not fully reading the book

Hi just asked DD who did a level English lit this yr, and she said she didn't find it a huge step up from GCSE.
Found the poetry easier because you don't have to learn as much off by heart.
She's a big literature fan, works at an A mostly.

She says the modules in terms of what you learn, 1st year 2 plays, streetcar (modern) and The Duchess of Malfi (historic type). She had questions in mocks comparing the two plays.

Then, during the second half of the first year her class started reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

In second year she got to choose from two modern novels to write coursework on - this coursework was a 2500-3000 word essay comparing Cuckoo's Nest with her chosen novel. She also studied Hamlet in second year, with nothing to compare it with - it was a standalone text.

Poetry wise, in first year she studied Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy's poetry, so she read the anthologies of each poet. In the exam you were allowed to take a clean copy of the anthology which meant she didn't have to learn each poem off by heart. In second year she learnt more about unseen poetry, so she was taught how to analyse poetry she'd never seen before.

Disclaimer, DD took over and wrote the majority of the above.

Hth!

I did it for higher and DH did it for degree. We both enjoyed it - horses for courses and I think it depends on the teacher too!

I loved English literature and language at school....I wish more than anything I hadn’t followed it to a level, surely the enjoyment is dependent on her interest in the particulars studied? I actually did Margaret Atwood st a level and I couldn’t stand it. At school I did of mice and men and blood brothers which were entirely different kettle a fish! The year below me studied Harry Potter st school. I’m sure many of them enjoyed it but wouldn’t enjoy Margaret Atwood so much. God they were some of the most depressing years of my life. Sorry. I know that’s not really the question you asked I guess I’m just pointing out something which could make a difference

The Yellow Wallpaper is so brilliant

Hi, I did A level English lit not too long ago (and now tutor it). I'd recommend reading the set texts this summer, not making notes or anything, just to enjoy them first. If she can find a theatre production of the plays on video, so much the better! Also she could find out what era her unseen paper is from and read some stuff from there. If she's not done much reading for a while though, to start off just reading anything she fancies (even YA stuff/ old children's books, which aren't "lesser") is good. I also advise my tutees to get into the habit of reading a broadsheet/ higher quality opinion articles online, to improve their writing style.

You can probably get a load of these on eBay but I’m not certain which versions are best!

Things Fall Apart/No Longer at Ease/A Man of the People – Chinua Achebe The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga
The Oresteia – Aeschylus, translated by Ted Hughes
The Handmaid’s Tale/The Testaments – Margaret Atwood
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov The Stranger—Albert Camus
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
David Copperfield/Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby – Scott Fitzgerald
Madame Bovary—Gustave Flaubert
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God—Zora Neale Hurston
Daisy Miller/ The Aspern Papers – Henry James
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce Metamorphosis—Franz Kafka
Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
Moby-Dick/Billy Budd—Herman Melville
Cry, the Beloved Country—Alan Paton
The Chosen—Chaim Potok
Close Range – Annie Proulx
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Three Theban Plays – Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Anna Karenina/The Death of Ivan Ilych – Leo Tolstoy
Candide, or Optimism – Francois Voltaire
Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf