English Literature

Assessment

Component 1 – Literary Genres: Aspects of Tragedy Literary Genres: Aspects of Tragedy is an externally-assessed written paper (2 hours and 30 minutes). It represents 40% of the overall qualification. The examination is closed book and is made up of three sections (with the same text studied for Sections A and B). ● Section A: A passage based question on Othello ● Section B: An essay question on Othello ● Section C: An essay question linking together a second drama text (Death of a Salesman) with one other text from a prescribed list (Keats poetry) Component 2 – Elements of Political and Social Protest Writing Elements of Political and Social Protest Writing is an externally-assessed written paper (3 hours). It represents 40% of the overall qualification. The examination is open book (unannotated copies) and is made up of three sections. Students must study three texts, including one pre-1900 text (Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience), one post-2000 prose text (The Kite Runner) and one further text (The Handmaid’s Tale). There is also a question on an unseen passage (which will display recognisable features and conventions of political and social protest writing). ● Section A: Compulsory question on an unseen passage ● Section B: An essay question focusing on one of the three texts studied ● Section C: An essay question that allows for connections to be made between the other two texts studied. Component 3 – Independent Critical Study: Texts across Time Independent Critical Study: Texts across Time is an internally assessed unit (formally known as coursework and now referred to as ‘non-examined assessment’). It is comprised of two separate tasks and represents 20% of the marks for the overall A level. The word count for each piece is 1250-1500 words. One piece must be focused on a poetry text and the other on a prose text. A critical anthology will be studied alongside the focus text and students will be required to apply their understanding of a particular critical approach to the text in their response. Some examples of the critical approaches that can be considered are ‘Narrative Theory’, ‘Feminst Criticism’, ‘Marxist Criticism’ and ‘Post-Colonial Criticism’