Kenilworth School and Sixth Form

English Literature Preparation

Welcome to the English Department. 

While there is a significant jump from GCSE to A Level in completing the enclosed activities, you will work towards narrowing the gap in preparation for your A Level studies from September. 

There is one compulsory activity and then you should choose a minimum of 2 others to complete before you join us in September. These activities will be looked at by your teachers and will form the basis of the first few lessons of your A Level course. 

We hope you find them interesting! 

 

Genre study is at the heart of English Literature B. We focus on Tragedy for paper 1 and Political and Social Protest writing for paper2. Just as meaning in texts are not fixed, neither are definitions of genre, which frequently change and become blurred. The texts offered, therefore, are not necessarily classic examples of established genres, and this is reflected in the modifying words 'aspects of genre.’ Indeed, writers often subvert the genre in which they are writing. 

 

Paper 1-Aspects of Tragedy.  

Section A consists of one passage-based question on the Shakespeare play Othello; section B: one essay question on the whole of the play Othello and section C: one essay question linking Death of a Salesman and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. This paper is worth 40% of your A Level. 

Paper 2 - Political and Social Protest writing.  

Section A involves one compulsory question on an unseen passage; section B: one essay question on either the poetry of William Blake, The Kite Runner or The Handmaid’s Tale and section C: one essay question which connects two of the above texts. This is worth 40% of your A-level. 

 

NEA – coursework. You will study Marxist and Feminist ideas and then choose texts to explore through these lenses. This is an opportunity to work independently on a choice of novels and a poetry. This is worth 20% of your A Level.  

 

Ms Martin 

Head of English 

Compulsory Preparation Task

Research elements of tragedy. Put your notes into a poster/leaflet. Consider what the typical features are of this genre for example: themes, setting, characters, plots, audience positioning etc? 

 

Annotating texts at A Level is a little different to GCSE.  

Using the features you have researched for your elements of tragedy, annotate the following text. Consider any of the features of tragedy demonstrated in the text. Do you think these ideas or the extract itself are significant to the rest of the novel? How do you feel about the characters, plot, setting, themes reading this extract? 

 

TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES BY THOMAS HARDY 

 

'Never mind that now!' she exclaimed. 

'Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?' 

'Yes.' 

'All like ours?' 

'I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard tree. Most of them splendid and sound — a few blighted.' 

'Which do we live on — a splendid one or a blighted one?' 

'A blighted one.' 

' 'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, when there were so many more of 'em!' 

'Yes.' 

'Is it like that really, Tess?' said Abraham, turning to her much impressed, on reconsideration of this rare information. 'How would it have been if we had pitched on a sound one?' 

'Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does, and wouldn't have got too tipsy to go this journey; and mother wouldn't have been always washing, and never getting  

'And you would have been a rich lady ready-made, and not have had to be made rich by marrying a gentleman?' 

'O Aby, don't — don't talk of that any more!' 

  Left to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy. Tess was not skilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present, and allow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so. She made him a sort of nest in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could not fall, and, taking the reins into her own hands, jogged on as before. 

Prince required but slight attention, lacking energy for superfluous movements of any sort. With no longer a companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie than ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul, conterminous with the universe in space, and with history in time. 

Then, examining the mesh of events in her own life, she seemed to see the vanity of her father's pride; the gentlemanly suitor awaiting herself in her mother's fancy; to see him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her poverty, and her shrouded knightly ancestry. Everything grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer hew how time passed. A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from the sleep into which she, too, had fallen. 

       They were a long way further on than when she had lost consciousness, and the waggon had stopped. A hollow groan, unlike anything she had ever heard in her life, came from the front, followed by a shout of 'Hoi there!' 

The lantern hanging at her waggon had gone out, but another was shining in her face — much brighter than her own had been. Something terrible had happened. The harness was entangled with an object which blocked the way. 

    In consternation Tess jumped down, and discovered the dreadful truth. The groan had proceeded from her father's poor horse Prince. The morning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels, speeding along these lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlighted equipage. The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound his life's blood was spouting in a stream, and falling with a hiss into the road. 

  In her despair Tess sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole, with the only result that she became splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops. Then she stood helplessly looking on. Prince also stood firm and motionless as long as he could; till he suddenly sank down in a heap. 

 By this time the mail-cart man had joined her, and began dragging and unharnessing the hot form of Prince. But he was already dead, and, seeing that nothing more could be done immediately, the mail-cart man returned to his own animal, which was uninjured. 

'You was on the wrong side,' he said. 'I am bound to go on with the mail-bags, so that the best thing for you to do is to bide here with your load. I'll send somebody to help you as soon as I can. It is getting daylight, and you have nothing to fear.' 

He mounted and sped on his way; while Tess stood and waited. The atmosphere turned pale, the birds shook themselves in the hedges, arose, and twittered; the lane showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers, still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation; and when the sun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from it. Prince lay alongside still and stark; his eyes half open, the hole in his chest looking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated him. 

' 'Tis all my doing — all mine!' the girl cried, gazing at the spectacle. 'No excuse for me — none. What will mother and father live on now? Aby, Aby!' She shook the child, who had slept soundly through the whole disaster. 'We can't go on with our load — Prince is killed!' 

When Abraham realised all, the furrows of fifty years were extemporised on his young face. 

'Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday!' she went on to herself. 'To think that I was such a fool!' 

' 'Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it, Tess?' murmured Abraham through his tears. 

In silence they waited through an interval which seemed endless. At length a sound, and an approaching object, proved to them that the driver of the mail-cart had been as good as his word. A farmer's man from near Stourcastle came up, leading a strong cob. He was harnessed to the waggon of beehives in the place of Prince, and the load taken on towards Casterbridge. 

The evening of the same day saw the empty waggon reach again the spot of the accident. Prince had lain there in the ditch since the morning; but the place of the blood-pool was still visible in the middle of the road, though scratched and scraped over by passing vehicles. All that was left of Prince was now hoisted into the waggon he had formerly hauled, and with his hoofs in the air, and his shoes shining in the setting sunlight, he retraced the eight or nine miles to Marlott. 

Tess had gone back earlier. How to break the news was more than she could think. It was a relief to her tongue to find from the faces of her parents that they already knew of their loss, though this did not lessen the self-reproach which she continued to heap upon herself for her negligence. 

But the very shiftlessness of the household rendered the misfortune a less terrifying one to them than it would have been to a thriving family, though in the present case it meant ruin, and in the other it would only have meant inconvenience. In the Durbeyfield countenances there was nothing of the red wrath that would have burnt upon the girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare. Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself. 

When it was discovered that the knacker and tanner would give only a very few shillings for Prince's carcase because of his decrepitude, Durbeyfield rose to the occasion. 

'No,' said he stoically, 'I won't sell his old body. When we d'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's meat. Let 'em keep their shillings. He've served me well in his lifetime, and I won't part from him now.' 

Voluntary Preparation Task

  • Read the exam texts listed in the course information above. 

  • Watch Othello 

  • Transform a text from prose to drama. Take a short extract from a novel you know well, Jekyll and Hyde for example, and experiment turning a section into a piece of drama. What changes have you had to make? Is anything lost in transformation? Is anything gained? 

  • Listen to a literary podcast. Make a note of the podcast and what it was about and any points of interest made.  Keep listening to any of the podcasts you enjoyed (or try out some others), follow the ones you like on Instagram or Twitter and let the presenters know what you thought.  

Some podcast ideas: 

 

The Guardian Books podcast https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/books  

 

 

 

 

  • Read an essay. The ideas below are just suggestions to get you started. If while browsing these you spot another essay title that intrigues you, read it instead.  

 

  1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: “Beware Of Feminist Lite” From We Should All Be Feminists https://ideas.ted.com/Beware-Of-Feminism-Lite  

 

  1. Zavi Kang Engles: My Mother’s Tongue https://therumpus.net/2019/04/My-Mothers-Tongue/  

 

  1. George Orwell: Politics of the English Language 

 

  1. Zadie Smith: Some Notes On Atunement   

 

  • visit the British Library’s Virtual Library 

 

The British Library’s Discovering Literature website is a real treasure trove for anyone interested in Literature. It includes hundreds of articles on texts from Chaucer to 21st century novels such as Andrea Levey’s Small Island, plus images of many of the fascinating items in the British Library Collection.  

The Discovering Library website is divided into the following periods:  

 

 

Shakespeare https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare  [Including: Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Tempest]  

 

 

Romantics and Victorian https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians [Including: Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, Pride and Prejudice, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, Christina Rossetti]  

 

20th Century https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature  [Including: An Inspector Calls, Animal Farm, the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Nineteen Eighty-Four]  

 

The first thing you could do is simply spend an hour or so exploring the different sections of the website, allowing yourself to follow whatever paths interest you. (It might be worth having a Word document open so that you can copy and paste titles and web addresses of anything you might want to return to later. But on this first visit, you could just be an interested browser!)