English Literature at ALevel

English Literature Course

A English Literature is a two year course.

The awarding body (exam board) is OCR.

Recommended Editions to buy for Year 12

‘Twelfth Night’, The Arden edition and York Notes advanced

‘The History Boys’,

‘’The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale,’ by Geoffrey Chaucer. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-04631-2.

‘The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale,’ York Notes Advanced

‘Nineteen Eighty Four,’Penguin Classics (3 Jan. 2013)ISBN-10: 0141393041

‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ York Notes Advanced

Recommended Editions to buy for Year 13

‘The Kite Runner,’ published by Bloomsbury, ISBN-10 0747566534

‘The Kite Runner,’ York Notes Advanced, ISBN 978-1-4082-1729-0

‘Kindertransport,’ published by Nick Hern Books, ISBN 978-1-85459-527-0

‘The Duchess of Malfi,’ Arden Early Modern Drama Edition, ISBN978 1904271512

‘The Duchess of Malfi,’ York Notes Advanced

‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ York Notes Advanced.

‘The Handmaids Tale,’ Vintage; New Ed edition (5 July 1996)ISBN-10: 0099740915

NB. You will need to have purchased all texts by September.

Equipment

In class for every lesson you will need:

  • An A4 ring binder with file dividers.
  • A booklet of A4 lined writing paper which is hole-punched and margined.
  • The Concise Oxford English Dictionary – Oxford University Press, H.W. Fowler, FG.Fowler (authors), Editor: Judy Pearsall. ISBN 0198610475. Also available on £13.20
  • A set of highlighter pens.

At home you will need:

  • An A4 lever arch folder in which to store worksheets etc.
  • The Concise Oxford Thesaurus – Oxford University Press, Maurice Waite (author). ISBN 019860453X - £13.00.

A Level English Literature: Summer Tasks

It is essential that this work be completed to ensure a confident, well-informed start to the course.

Task 1: Read at least one of the following fiction texts (these have all been selected for their relevance to your course) and write a review and upload to Canvas. You must be prepared to deliver a presentation on your chosen text to your class in one of your first English lessons in September. In your review you should: briefly outline the story; consider major themes and how they are presented and comment on style

Texts:

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Iron Heel by Jack London

The Running Man by Richard Bachman

Armageddon’s Children by Terry Brooks

The Chysalids by John Wyndham

The Children of Men by PD James

The Time Machine H G Wells

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

The Drowned World by J G Ballard

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

The Republic by Plato

Utopia by Sir Thomas More

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Task 2: Read one of the above texts. Research and produce a factsheet on one of the texts you have read.

Task 3: Shakespeare research on the following areas:

Elizabethan court life

The Globe Theatre

Fashion and theatre costume

12th Night (the festival)

Gender roles during Shakespeare’s era

Explore the period using the following websites:

Task 4: Go to the theatre and see a play – any play!

Have a great summer!

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