A level Lit

[Piggywaspushed]

Anyone got any ideas or thoughts why the decline in popularity of Lit? Is it just the cult of STEM? (no offence STEM ists)

At my school, the numbers for next year have twice as many doing economics as A level lit, 3 times as many doing maths and 3 times as many doing physics and psychology...

Politics has fallen off, too, but history remains very popular.

Large comp - high achieving - lots of A level choice. Usual issues of MFL being dead on its feet.

Someone upthread mentioned The Handmaid's Tale. Is that on any spec?

I only teach form year 9 ... I think is said those things upthread. There isn't much lit in year 9. A few poems, a couple of mystery stories and a Shakespeare.

Handmaid's Tale is on some A level specs yes. I think it's very dry.

I certainly didn't plough through ! I really enjoyed it!

I am doing God Of Small Thing sand Carol Ann Duffy next term much to the boys' consternation. Actually the route I have chosen through A level is quite feminist!

Oh, Hardy. We did Far from the Madding Crowd for lit A Level and it was painful. It was only the Shakespeare choices (Hamlet and Much Ado) that kept me in the class, I think. With a whole world of wonderful literature out there, I don't know why anyone chooses Hardy.

I love Hardy but not Far from the Madding Crowd . Students always warm to Tess (that character and the book) and I personally love The Mayor of Casterbridge.

His poetry leaves me cold, though.

I did Jude the Obscure for A level. The question on the day fell in my favour but gosh wasn't it a depressing read.

You know what, I'm lying, we did Return of the Native. I think I read FFTMC independently to find out whether it was Hardy I hated or just RotN. Turned out it was Hardy. One of my revision notecards just said "Egdon Heath blah blah fucking blah".

My sister did Return Of The Native. She called it Return Of the Bloody Native.

There's the rub , though. Most modern A level students wouldn't read another book additional to what they were studying as part of an independent intellectual enquiry. I do have one ( a boy!) who does and quite a few film students will do this with films.

That said, I have read The Great Gatsby and do not care to read another Fitzgerald.

I have, however, read every Zadie Smith and every Toni Morrison in a futile attempt to discover whether they could ever top their magnum opuses (opi?). Taught both of those at A Level. Both very popular!

I'm a bit odd, though, I will read almost anything. I have only given up on a handful of books in my lifetime (Wolf Hall is one, although one day when I have nothing but time I may force myself to get at least 5 chapters in) and I don't consider even time spent on a book I hated wasted. Time spent reading is time well spent! I remember having a bit of an argument with my lit a level teacher about this- I'd been talking about a Jeffrey Archer short story I'd recently read and cried over, and he was very sneery about wasting one's time reading rubbish. I think it was to prove a point to him that I wrote about an Anne Rice novel for one of my coursework essays :)

I am proud to say I made it through Wolf Hall! (don't give up on much either but Salvage The Bones is trying me...). I have also done Bring Up The Bodies . Apparently she is even boring herself with the next instalment!!

This has become a very interesting book club!

I asked my current year 13s why they thought year 11s weren't opting for A level. they said:

• I hear the new GCSE is really hard

-maths is useful and they think they'll get a good job

• people don't read books any more so if they are good at writing they'll do history
• all the SLT are science teachers .
• people think you are REALLY clever if you do maths so it is good for the ego.
• students think psychology and economics are sexy new subjects. they think physics is cool (they'll learn, they muttered) and then want to drop them after a few weeks.

To be honest I did Return of the Native and wasn't a big fan at the time
and personally I hate FScott Fitzgerald , but I was making the point that we can underestimate teenagers and assume that just because something is hard they won't enjoy it .

English is still massively popular at my ds school for boys and girls and interestingly quite a lot combine it with maths so it doesn't have to be either or.I wonder if the drop is also tied up to having only 3 options rather than 4 .

Does anyone do Chaucer anymore, we had to do it at O level and lots of people did Paradise Lost for A level, it seeems unusual now to do any literature pre 1800 at school?

Sorry just realised they obviously do because someone mentioned Gullivers Travels , which fra nkly I have never managed to finish so they have my sympathies.

Gulliver's Travels was actually a text chosen by a teacher for coursework so not a set text. There is pre 1800 smattered about. No Chaucer on my board but the poetry we do goes back to 16th century and there is Shakespeare of course!!

I think you are right about the 4 to 3 impacting on English. I am just intrigued why it hasn't had an even impact. it seems maths, physics , economics and history are firm top 3 choices.

all the SLT are science teachers

How weird that they would even notice let alone think it would influence choices. Did they explain why they thought this made a difference?

I skated over that one ...

If you knew our school you wouldn't think that was at all weird...they obviously identify science with status and have concluded that, if they do end up being teachers the better paid and promoted ones are scientists

I wonder if we need to get cleverer about contrasts in literature. I recently bought Ian McEwen's Nutshell when the pb came out, and it would be a fabulous pairing to read it against Hamlet.

What other combos would work? So students saw 21st century retelling of an older story.

I'll bear that one in mind. There are lots of recent rewrites of Shakespeare and Austen by established authors and I am sure Tracy chevalier did something about Blake.

The Val McDermid retelling of Sense and Sensibility as a vampire story is fun, if trashy. As well as Pemberley, I liked a novel about Mary Bennett by (I think) Colleen McCullough (of Thornbirds fame). And, there's a Pride and Prejudice account of life in the Bennett's house from a maid's POV. Sorry, have forgotten all the titles as they were mostly library books.

I was asking dd about this last night - she's doing English Lit and also Maths. Her thoughts -

• yes, more are doing Maths. 3 full groups for maths v. 1 small group for English lit
• yes, it's because they think it will be a) boring and b) pointless
• this is partly do to with the GCSE. And also confusion about English Language GCSE - analysing the language in pamphlets about nursing bored them witless, and they think A level lit will be like that, but with books.
• they very much perceive English lit as 'analysing things to death', and also as not really relevant or helpful: what's the point in it?

She is actually enjoying English Lit - although like me thinks The Kite Runner is a big pile of balls.

... and they did think the English Lit GCSE was boring, but no more so than I remember dd1 finding hers boring when it did still include Of Mice and Rape Myths.

Gosh MN is very anti Of Mice and Men! I have never come across this in RL ! Honest!

I find it really sad that students are so anti analysis. Al I can say is they must have had very boring English teachers...

I sort of get the points you/ your DD make but cannot see (not just based on my own bias!) why maths would be seen as fun and English boring. that attitude is pretty alien to me...

I really do not like this only doing things because there is a 'point' in them attitude ---- but I accede this is the modern world. I never ever did anything because it had a point. I don't know what these nursing pamphlets are but I do keep saying in my department that we need to stop teaching language as a separate entity as it is so dry.

We need to make students love English again ( and reading) . Lord knows how!

What would the world be without people who have embraced the Arts? Sigh.

The Kite Runner is a good book for interest but it isn't actually all that well written : his next one is better.

I find it really sad that students are so anti analysis. Al I can say is they must have had very boring English teachers...

Couldn’t agree more. GCSE and A level English lit were for me the springboard for so many discussions about what it is to be a human being, how they relate to one another/the world/god. I can’t imagine a world in which that is boring.

Though I will say that I found prac crit at A level deeply dull. I get that the skill is important/necessary, but it always seemed to me like studying English lit without doing the fun bit you put it altogether.

But we don't often do that. Lots of the interest comes form the texts themselves, well chosen (within the confines of set texts of course...) the driest bit is probably unseen practice but we don't do that an awful lot.

But - yes - the discussions. that doesn't seem to draw students in any more. they seem to find that 'pointless'.

I think I have a jaded view of it having been forced to do endless Keats prac crit (I loathe Keats to this day) .

That’s very depressing but unsurprising. My undergrads seem to have a terribly instrumental view of education. It’s all about passing the assessment.

Surely not seeing why Maths would be fun is your own bias? I enjoy it enormously. And talking about it. I also love reading and talking about that, mind you. I even like talking about why I don't like books...