English Literature- drop poetry or short novel for GCSE

[Headunderthecovers]

My dd has to choose either poetry or A Christmas Carol for GCSE Literature (Edexcel).
He got the same grade - High 5- in both in a recent mock with no revision for poetry (but having recently done it in class) and some revision for ACC.
If anything he favours poetry, but I'm thinking this is the harder option for a child who dislikes the subject generally!
For reference he got 7 in English Language mock paper 1.
Any thoughts on which to choose?

Ds not Dd.

Honestly.....
Let her do what interests her!
Part of the actual point of education is to learn, and to cultivate intellectual curiousity.

I'm surprised he gets to choose which he drops .. are the school going to divide the year group into 2 for revision sessions?

If he's already getting 5s in both (and sounds like no interest in pursuing the subject further) then he should probably pick the one he is most interested in.

Yes, school is letting the Year 11s choose and dividing for revision.
Poetry seems like a lot more work. He's ambivalent about the whole thing, but feels since he got about the same mark on both he may be better at poetry (no revision going into the test but he had covered it in this term).

His favourite subjects are geography and history and he's Grade 8/9 maths and science.
With the interest in History the ACC novel (being Dickens) addresses some social history, but the Edexcel questions are not as straightforward as say the play (AIC- An Inspector Calls where he finds the push for socialism after war an interesting subject).

He has a good memory for say quotes, but he's not a natural reader/writer really unless it's maps and random history he watches massive YouTube videos on.

I'm just writing my thoughts, so rambling a bit for context

I was confused at first but then realized you have two kids. To me he should pick the one he loves and excels at etc.

Personally I would say poetry if he favours it and got a fair mark with no revision.

Does your child get to choose what to drop ? The school decided what to drop here.

As others say, since he has the luxury let him pick what he enjoys

God, An Inspector Calls. A Christmas Carol. How depressing, I do wish exam boards would show a little more initiative in their choices. What about Stoppard or Beckett? Austen or Henry James?

Sorry OP, not the point of your post, I know. He should definitely go with the one he enjoys the most.

English teacher here. Probably drop the poetry. ACC is a well trodden path and the revision materials are more copious.

@thing47

God, An Inspector Calls. A Christmas Carol. How depressing, I do wish exam boards would show a little more initiative in their choices. What about Stoppard or Beckett? Austen or Henry James?

Sorry OP, not the point of your post, I know. He should definitely go with the one he enjoys the most.

DD's teacher told them that their biography unit was their only chance to get in some tests that weren't by dead white men. I had a look at the exam board syllabus, and it's not the exam board's fault; there are other options there. But most schools teach the same texts year in, year out, because that's what they have lots of resources for.

texts, not tests...

@thing47

God, An Inspector Calls. A Christmas Carol. How depressing, I do wish exam boards would show a little more initiative in their choices. What about Stoppard or Beckett? Austen or Henry James?

Sorry OP, not the point of your post, I know. He should definitely go with the one he enjoys the most.

They can't use Henry James, as they wouldn't be able to find any paragraphs short enough to use as extracts!

@thing47

God, An Inspector Calls. A Christmas Carol. How depressing, I do wish exam boards would show a little more initiative in their choices. What about Stoppard or Beckett? Austen or Henry James?

Sorry OP, not the point of your post, I know. He should definitely go with the one he enjoys the most.

Pride and Prejudice is on the spec to be fair, but not many choose it because a) it's quite long and b) perhaps it is not appealing to boys. I mean I love it but I can see that a 15yo lad might not.

I think that James and Beckett might be a bit challenging for a lot of students. Unfortunately the English GCSE is not tiered and everyone has to do it. I think you have there a massive argument in favour of H and F tiers with different set texts. Lowest common denominator is a bit depressing.

Poetry - 15 relatively short poems vs a whole Victorian novella.

Ds2's school chose the poetry option and they dropped An Inspector Calls. Ds was gutted. He chose to watch a TV version of AIC when his brother was studying it. School had already taught A Christmas Carol so it made sense to drop AIC.

The poetry was picked because they have to do the unseen poetry which is worth a load of marks so they felt that looking at the Power and Conflict poems was better preparation for the unseen. I told Ds it could have been worse because they could have done the Love and Relationships rather than Power and Conflict. Although why the powers that be chose to include Wordsworth's Prelude to the Stealing a Boat I will never know. No one wants to hear their teacher talk about sexual imagery.

Assuming he still has to do the Unseen Poetry option (which I think, along with Shakespeare, is the compulsory option across all boards), I'd go for the poetry as it covers a good range of poetic styles and and therefore serves as good prep for the unseen element.

He sounds very like my ds1.

He loved Geography and history and loathed poetry BUT he also had a good memory for quotes and with poetry there is more of a formula to follow to answer the questions.

He got an 8! :)

Keep poetry for the reason posted above. It’s better prep for the unseen

I'm an English teacher and generally speaking our kids do much better in the poetry question than in the novel. We have made the decision as a school to drop the modern play. I think it's easier when it's taken out of the kids' hands tbh.

Thank you everyone.

We've gone for poetry.

Precisely because it has a more formulaic structure, he can memorise the quotes easily and he was interested in some of the context of the poems.

Also his sister got an A* in poetry (back in the time before numbers) and I'm roping her in to help him as there's an overlap in a few of the same poems such as Belfast Confetti and Cousin Kate (I even did Exposure in the time of O levels).

@cloudtree

Keep poetry for the reason posted above. It’s better prep for the unseen

I don't think there is an unseen element to Edexcel though, just AQA (when I agree this is good advice).

@thing47

God, An Inspector Calls. A Christmas Carol. How depressing, I do wish exam boards would show a little more initiative in their choices. What about Stoppard or Beckett? Austen or Henry James?

Sorry OP, not the point of your post, I know. He should definitely go with the one he enjoys the most.

I totally agree about the narrow GCSE text choices. List Gove reforms all the exam boards pretty much chose the same options. Having taught Secondary English for 25 years I can tell you that Stoppard and Beckett are definitely not GCSE level texts!

Looking at Edexcel GCSE there is an unseen element if you choose poetry in comparing two unknown poems (the other part of the poetry being the compare the known extract poem from Conflict with one of your choosing).
If you choose the novella the reading part is comprehension questions based on an extract from the novel, then a slightly random essay question (not the formulaic character/theme of AIC).
So with Edexcel GCSE if you choose the novella (so at ds school Jekyll and Hyde or ACC) you can do no poetry at all for English Literature GCSE.