A level English set books - clutching at straws for help!

[tobee]

My 16 year old son is on long summer break after GCSEs. He wants to do English lit for A level and just been sent a compulsory reading list from school of 3 books for the summer for the AS part.

He's very good at the subject but is a slow reader for various sen reasons. We thought of audible (and whisper sync) . It's surprisingly hard for teenager to get into the habit of audio listening.His dad is planning to download the first book and they can each read a chapter or two a day and then compare notes.

The books are Jane Eyre, A Room With a View and Wide Sargasso Sea. He's mostly read modern novels and Shakespeare for GCSE.

How can I encourage him to not been downhearted if he finds them girly or alien (especially Jane Eyre being Victorian) ? Part of me realises it might just be tough luck!

I tricked him into borrowing my Kindle to take for his 2 weeks holiday with his dad.
First he was saying that he prefers to read a real book. I know he does. But only during holidays away from home he reads more. Constantly Harry Potter in the summer and Hunger Games during our winter trips to visit family!
Pretty little liars bt Sarah Sheppard is what he got into this time. Via Kindle because he left late to order them. He read 3 and downloaded 4th. I say to myself - better that than nothing!
As we know there are so manh great books he could raed. I read lots and thee are thousands of books about the house. Building houses and furnishing rooms for Sims are more interesting....

My son is in sellective Grammad school and says none of his friendsvread ANY books! He at least reads some. He said is thanks to me encouraging him and taking him to bookshops where they could buy books to read at home. That was one of tricks I devised. It worked but not as well as I hoped .

tobee my 15 yo is an avid reader, but not of fiction. Biographies, science philosophy etc. I did A Level English and Languages (3 set texts each) and there were very few boys in our classes. Now I think of it, the books were pretty unattractive for boys Tess, Emma, Look Back in Anger and Le Blé en Herbe (young love) and short stories by Merimée (inc. Carmen)
He's not doing A Level, but I bet the set texts at his Boys' School are more attractive.

Oh, that's interesting. My daughter (now 20) has always read for pleasure. But she never wanted to do eng lit A level. She thought she was no good at it. But I know about the problems of choosing the wrong a s and A levels. She choose biology for a s level and we said "yes, yes!" We were so excited at having a scientist in the family, as opposed to all the rest of us doing humanities, but she found it such a leap from GCSE she regretted almost immediately.

Ps we only had one boy in my 6th form college eng lit class. He was like our little pet! It's such a shame because you can miss out on the male perspective in discussion.

how.about subscribing to the A level magazines emag or English review? lots of articles on set texts from interesting perspectives so he will be fired up and informed before tackling the texts? he should get a discount rate as a current student and it will help with coursework (Or Nea as it will be from September)

Good grief! I had no idea that those magazines existence. Thanks, will get onto it.

"Very very female " .... Meaning they are by women and about women's lives? Why is this even noteworthy?

I'll havs look but not sure if my ds woukd read it
www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine

Can I PM you ?

The gender thing is interesting because I think unless teenagers are already enthusiastic readers, a book that is mainly about the other sex can be a turnoff. I was quite annoyed that the two novels DD had for GCSE were The Lord of the Flies (no female characters) and Of Mice and Men (one nameless female character, who winds up dead). There is no hook that a teenage girl can grab on to and say "I recognise that". Of course reading should be about widening your experience and understanding of the world, not just reflecting your own experiences, but if you're trying to get teenagers to read, it does help to have something to draw them in.

^^what hackmum said. I was the poster who was shocked at how female all the chosen set texts are. I'm struggling to justify that comment! I think it's because the whole concept of analysing different life experiences in a literary criticism context is a bit strange anyway. Particularly as an 18 yo.

Agree about Emag. Really good articles, written to supplement AS and A2 English Lit. Most School Libraries should either have the hard copy or online access. A really user friendly way for students to 'read around the book'.

I've just googled Emag and, if I've got the right place, it seems to say you need to join up via your school. Does this sound right or am I reading it wrong? Thanks if anyone knows.

I think though you'd still be hard pressed to find an equivalent of "Of Mice & Men" or "Lord of the Flies" in female form. It's annoying but normal to read books or watch films that have no female characters whatsoever but I can't think of an equivalent book only about women with no male characters that would be deemed a classic (rather than niche) or that would find itself on A level set texts. After all Jane Eyre might be about JE but the story revolves around men and two particularly strong male characters who have the power and status that Jane doesn't have.

I agree that it's a fine balance for A level students - they need to explore other lives but they also need a point of reference that they can relate to. Women still are expected to explore other lives in fiction rather than see themselves reflected, and if they need to relate to anyone, well the walk on part or the nameless character who dies will do.

I'm an English teacher. I've seen a lot of pupils take Lit A Level despite not especially liking reading, or ever reading anything beyond the syllabus. It's very frustrating. I must take issue, however, with your point about schools giving pupils less challenging texts because teenagers don't read; we choose texts for younger pupils based on very different factors to those for A Level. We expect the able, interested pupils to read the 'classics' independently, and we encourage this through library lessons and reading lists. I would expect the set texts of 11-16 schooling to comprise only a very small proportion of the reading of a student beginning A Level English. It sounds like your son has an aptitude for the subject, and that he does need a confidence boost, but I think he also needs to think very carefully about whether he's willing to undertake the kind of extra reading that is essential for a B grade or above.

I really don't mean to be negative and I hope I don't come across as such; I'm simply annually amazed by the number of students who take Literature but don't really like books very much, and I know what a slog is ahead of them. Does his school / college offer English Language? He might find that this is more suited to his analytical nature.

Incidentally, if his SEN are related to processing then it's crucial that he receives proper exam access arrangements, if these aren't already in place. He should be entitled to extra time and possibly rest breaks, and it's essential that he receives these for all pieces of timed writing and mocks as well as external exams.

Sorry - I've just reread my post and it sounds like I think your DS doesn't like reading. That isn't quite what I meant; rather, I wanted to communicate how challenging the course can be for pupils who don't, or have not, read, for whatever reason.

Do?ores do you have list of books you'd expect an aspiring A level student to read?

Hi antimatter, I have some stuff at school so the following isn't mine, but looks like a good start:

This thread on the Student Room is aimed at students applying to read Lit at university but has some good suggestions.

This document has a good reading list towards the end.

Hope this helps.

Hi Dolores. Thanks for your interesting reply. Currently my ds has time and a half for exams which, I think, is the maximum possible. He doesn't get rest breaks. There is no oppotunity to do language and literature. Actually, in my earlier post I stated that pupils don't get classic novels at the beginning of secondary. At my mixed state school we were set The Mayor of Casterbridge at age 12. But I certainly wasn't meaning to criticise teachers. I think they've got an impossible task in this respect. How do you cater for those in year 7 who will take A level English ( and everyone else ) when no one knows who they will be?! I suppose I just sometimes feel sad that there are so many demands on teenagers time these days. But probably there always has been. I could go on and start a debate about the pressures on today's teens and the highly publicised competitive academic world. I managed to do a b.a in English when I only got a D at A level and still got a 2.2. Unlike ds, I wasn't very good at the subject but I read quite a lot. But I digress....

PS Just thought. My ds, having just come out of GCSEs, and all the compulsory subjects his school made him take, and having to jump through the hoop of getting points to even get into his school 6th form, probably can't envisage yet the wonderful freedom that doing A levels brings in comparison. Just studying a few, complementary subjects that you have chosen. Having study periods to be able to begin to learn how to work properly by yourself. You can read a book when you haven't just been driven to distraction by maths homework!!!!!

Can he watch the adaptations first, so that he's got an idea of the plot whilst reading so he doesn't get discouraged?

I think he also needs to think very carefully about whether he's willing to undertake the kind of extra reading that is essential for a B grade or above.

Dsis walked her English Lit A Level with an A* in 2014. She only has ever read the set texts. As did I, many many years back, despite not liking reading very much then.

You are being discouraging - I understand if you are referring to potential English lit students, but for kids who just want to carry on with something they are reasonably good at for another poxy two years, your view is off-putting. It is perfectly possible to achieve higher than a B without doing much reading for pleasure.

It may not be the ideal scenario (or be much fun to hear as a teacher) but it is very, very doable.

I find the idea of books being "female" very interesting. I would say that the books the OP lists really are more likely to be enjoyed by teenage girls than boys- I am prepared to bet that very few adult men have Jane Eyre as their favourite book- and lots of women do. I was going to start a similar thread actually about 14 year old ds having Pride and Prejudice on his summer reading list...I have suggested he pick something else because I think that reading it now will spoil it for him for later. I wouldn't say that to a girl.

scatter: you're quite right. Some pupils do very well indeed when they are very bright. I'm sorry if I sounded discouraging when my intention was to be realistic. This may not apply to the OP's DS, but in ten years of A Level teaching I have seen countless students with unrealistic expectations of the literature course, some of whom then decide to drop or change subjects in year 12 with significant disruption to their studies. I know how much of an impact our words can have on sixteen-year-olds and I never discourage a student from taking the subject; I do, however, lay out very clearly our expectations of them and the workload that they can expect. It's often said that the jump in difficulty from GCSE to A Level is greater than that from A Level to degree, and in the case of Literature I have found this to be true.

OP, as an aside - I believe that there is no need for formal assessment for pupils to have rest breaks, so if your DS feels that this would be beneficial then it is worth asking the school to put this in place for him.

Thanks Dolores - I'll try to get him to read some lighter books from those lists.