How to revise for English Literature?

You, quite simply, have to be smart.  You could spend endless hours and not gain much, so I really hope the following will help:

Literature Set Texts:

1. You must re-read or listen to (audible) the set texts again over the next month or so.  There can be no substitute for clear knowledge of the plot and how the characters develop in the plays/novels that you are studying.
2. Quotations:  be very smart in what you choose to commit to memory with quotations and how many you choose to list as your key quotes.  

For each text I would personally select no more than 15 quotations to commit to memory, to help you in a general discussion of the texts (which is necessary as well as analysing extracts that you are given for most of the texts).  The key is to choose quotations that you, as a student, believe have multi-purpose qualities.  What I mean by this is quotations that you can link to many themes and characters.

I will give an example: In Macbeth I would commit to memory:  'Come, you spirits, that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here'.  This is because it offers a contribution to the following themes and character questions:  Lady Macbeth, theme of supernatural, theme of women, theme of ambition, theme of evil, theme of morality. This quote also offers plenty of opportunity to discuss contextual factors (how the supernatural elements were feared, how females were seen as the 'milder sex' in those days, hence why Lady Macbeth wants to rid herself of her femininity).

And what I would do is simply list these potential connections, next to each quote.

I would record this on a spreadsheet as it will be nice & neat and easy on the eye.

Set Poetry:

1. Again, there is no substitute for re-reading these set poems.
2. Type them in YouTube and you will see, almost certainly, for every one that somebody has made a video clip of the poem with visual examples.  They will also discuss the poem which is always helpful.
3. Memorise the three best quotes from each poem and consider what you would say in your analysis of these quotes for language analysis/structure analysis. You could even write this down on a spreadsheet.
4. Link together the poems that you, as a student, feel is a 'best fit' for when you have to compare (on a spreadsheet).
   
   

Unseen Poetry

I think that the best thing to remember for unseen poetry is to read the poem twice, as often the second read allows the poem to unfold itself to you.

Also, don't expect to understand absolutely every line.  If you do... great! But don't sit worrying about a line you can't understand.  Focus on what you can understand.

Simply read poems you haven't read before. This link is a great book of poetry:  The Nation's Favourite Poems: Amazon.co.uk: Griff Rhys Jones: 9780563387824: Books.

Consider... what is the message that the poet is trying to give?  What is the poet's intention?

And... if you had to... which four quotations would you select to analyse to discuss the poet's main motivation?

I hope this helps! 

March 2023

Why planning for descriptive/narrative writing is so important.

For all exam boards (be it AQA, Cambridge ICGSE, OCR, EDEXCEL or WJEC) descriptive or narrative writing forms a substantial part of the exam paper.   

It is, therefore, essential that this part of the exam is embraced and prepared for as diligently as possible by students.  

I often say to my students that success in this type of exam response is achieved in the planning process.   

Allow me to give an example. 

A possible question might be:  write an account of a day that means a lot to you. 

I always suggest thinking of 6 key ideas, each key idea representing the main concept in each paragraph.  So, the key ideas part of the planning might look like this: 

1. Walking 
2. Weather starts get bad 
3. Need to shelter from sudden bad weather 
4. Concerned – isolated 
5. Send flare 
6. Mountain rescue come and save me 

By revising a list of sophisticated words to use, it ensures that marks are maximised for expression in the exam.  I wouldn't personally have 

too many for each genre of writing.  8-10 words or phrases is more than enough.  For Literature these are the kinds of words I would encourage students to use, in order to demonstrate sophistication:

Demonstrate, subtly, cleverly, profoundly, conveys, enlightens, emphasises, depicts, evokes, portray, embodies or compelling.

Notice that this plan is deliberately simply but the key thing is that there is a structure now that I can follow. 

The next stage to planning is the bit that really helps significantly: 

1. Walking (birds singing, appreciate mountains, beautiful tree) 
2. Weather starts get bad (clouds gather, silence, no people) 
3. Need to shelter from sudden bad weather (find cave, sound rain, blackness) 
4. Concerned – isolated (silence again, fear growing, no food) 
5. Send flare (sound, thoughts and regrets, waiting) 
6. Mountain rescue come and save me (helicopter, face of person, family) 

My strategy is to add three extra points for each main point of the plan.  Then, when students start writing their response there are two main benefits:  there is no way that they will run out of things to write about or lose sense of the structure of the response (this often happens with this kind of question).  The other benefit is that the student can then focus on key things whilst writing and not just the plot.  Instead of thinking about what to write they will be thinking of how to write it – so how to use descriptive techniques, a variety of sentence structures and vary punctuation and vocabulary. 

In my experience this way of planning makes a dramatic difference for students. 

I hope that this helps! 

January 2022

Is it possible to revise for English?

English is certainly a very difficult subject to revise for.  Unlike the other 'fact driven' subjects, where the route to successful revision is often a lot easier to navigate, English revision can be a challenge.

Yet there certainly are ways that students can independently revise for English.

The first strategy that I would suggest revolves around the set texts.  I always use 'audible' to listen to any new texts that I am going to teach.  There are many benefits to gain from listening to novels.  Often the individual reading them is an actor/actress and is therefore able to use intonation and expression whilst reading in a very successful way that makes the novel interesting and engaging.  Also, listening to a novel/play can realistically be completed in a day or so whilst reading a play or a novel can take a considerable amount of time longer.

Secondly, it is always important to have a bank of really superb phrases/words to use.  I give my students a list of really strong generic words to use for when they are writing to persuade, writing to describe and also analysing work. 

By revising a list of sophisticated words to use, it ensures that marks are maximised for expression in the exam.  I wouldn't personally have too many for each genre of writing.  8-10 words or phrases is more than enough.  For Literature these are the kinds of words I would encourage students to use, in order to demonstrate sophistication:

Demonstrate, subtly, cleverly, profoundly, conveys, enlightens, emphasises, depicts, evokes, portray, embodies or compelling.

Another tip to give students when revising, is to make sure that they watch any set poems on YouTube.  YouTube is a fantastic tool to use as very often there are some clips of the set poems that are read out.  On these clips there are often visual images to help understand the poems and also teachers explaining the key themes of the poems.  

Lastly, I always recommend students of mine to read broadsheet newspapers. Often within these papers, if articles about politics are put to one side, there are really fantastic articles about interesting issues/subjects.  The wonderful thing about reading a broadsheet newspaper is that this then provides students with all of the techniques that they themselves have to use (so these articles are a fantastic example of the kind of thing that students themselves need to create).  In addition to this, students are provided with impressive vocabulary, sentence structures and tone usage - all things that they get awarded marks for in the exam.

June 2021

What to consider when writing to persuade

Writing to persuade, in the English Language GCSE, constitutes 25% of the final grade.

This is such an important part of the exam that it is certainly worth considering the essential ingredients that are necessary for success.

The first thing is to consider the correct genre.  The genre that you write in is the style/type of writing that you write in.  So, therefore, if you are asked to write a letter then the techniques that you use within that letter will be different in comparison to if you were writing a story.  Types of genre techniques that I suggest that students use are triples, repetition, rhetorical questions, statistics, personal pronouns, anecdotes and reliable quotations.  This makes sure that the examiner can reward you for writing in the correct genre and it also adds some substance to your paragraphs.

Secondly, ensuring that you use a range of sentence structures is always very important.  I encourage my students to consistently use the full range of sentence structures in every paragraph:  simple sentences, compound sentences and complex sentences.  This will enable the examiner to reward you for showing the different types of structures.    I particularly like to encourage complex sentences being used as they are so successful at being able to emphasise a point in a subtle and intelligent way.

Additionally, using a range of punctuation is also important.  Using colons, semi colons, hyphens, exclamation marks and inverted commas are all essential to demonstrate this skill set.  Perhaps the most important thing for me to see is the semi colon and colon as this portrays a student with class and elegance.

Lastly, vocabulary is certainly an important ingredient as well.  I advise my students to have a bank of 15 words that can be used generically in most persuasive writing responses.  These 15 words should be oozing with class, style and sophistication so that when the examiner reads them, they are instantly placing the student in higher levels.  Words such as 'imperative', 'compelling', 'exacerbate' and 'futile' are all words that are wonderfully striking to use and can also be used in most responses.  This is a fantastic strategy.

May 2021

How to approach unseen poetry

For many students, approaching unseen poetry is perhaps the most daunting of things that they can experience in English.  Simply because of the fact that they have not seen the poem before, it places students in a position of unknown and this, understandably, promotes uncertainly.

I have a few tips for students.  Firstly, I find that poetry is very much so like a puzzle.  It only unfolds when read at least twice.  The first read of a poem is often met with students understanding a small amount of it, and then students jump straight into analysing it.  Just taking an extra three or four minutes to re-read and establish very clear thoughts on the direction you want to take works wonders.

Secondly, I often say to students to think what the 'Golden Thread' is.  What is the thread that runs through the entire poem?  The single most important message that the poet is trying to convey.  Once that is decided students can then base their analysis strongly around this one key concept/idea.

It is also very important to look at poetry metaphorically as well.  Often, if there is a poem about a tree - students should look for a deeper message.  Is it really about a tree?  Or something far deeper. Many poems about seemingly insignificant things such as a flower, a tree or an animal is often a metaphorical thought that contributes to a more philosophical discussion of an element of human nature - so students shouldn't be too literal with poetry!

An example of this is a very well-known poem about snowdrops. In this poem, dedicated totally to a snowdrop, the poet is really trying to offer a discussion not on the gentleness, beauty and tenderness of a snowdrop but on human nature: how we are as delicate and ill-fated as flowers, who can be blown by the wind at any stage into different circumstances in life.

I hope that these tips help!

April 2021