SUMMER ASSIGNMENT

This COMPULSORY work is set to help you make the transition from Year 11 to your Post-16 studies. It is very important that you complete it to a high standard as it will help you start to build to the skills you will need to do well at the North Bristol Post-16 Centre.

READING LIST Post 1900 prose
McEwan: Atonement/ Chesil Beach/Saturday/Enduring love
Winterson: Oranges are not the only fruit
HanifKureishi: Buddha of Suburbia
Sebastian Barry: Secret Scripture
Waters: Nightwatch
Woolf: To the Lighthouse / Mrs. Dalloway
Heller: Notes on a Scandal
Z Smith: NW/ WhiteTeeth
Yates: Revolutionary Road
Jean Rhys: Wild Sargasso Sea / American literature
1885 The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
1899 The Awakening by Kate Chopin
1905 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
1929 A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1930 As I lay Dying by William Faulkner
1934 Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
1939 The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1940 Native Son by Richard Wright

Want to know the set texts on YOUR OCR AS level literature course?

Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Shakespeare Hamlet Rossetti’sPoetry Ibsen A Doll’s House

This course is ALL ABOUT READING, READING, READING.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT YOUR SUBJECT TEACHERS WILL USE THIS WORK TO HELP ASSESS YOUR SUITABILITY FOR, AND COMMITMENT TO, YOUR COURSE.

English Literature Summer Task – Hamlet

Watch one production of Hamlet. This could be a live performance or a filmed version. Recommended versions include:

  • Hamlet by the RSC starring David Tennant (2009)
  • Hamlet directed and starring Kenneth Brannagh (1996)

Copies of these films are available to buy online or borrow in the school library as well public libraries around Bristol.

If you are struggling to obtain a copy of one of the film versions please use the clips from the RSC production below which are available on Youtube:

  • Act 2, Scene 2: Hamlet shares his inner thoughts with the audience about his conflicting feelings. He knows he should avenge his father’s death but is simultaneously anxious that revenge is never the answer to any problem.
  • Act 2, Scene 2: Polonius, the king’s advisor, tries to engage Hamlet in conversation. He believes Hamlet has been driven mad after falling in love with his daughter, Ophelia. However Hamlet has previously claimed to his friends that his madness is just an act to help cover up his plans for revenge.
  • Act 3, Scene 1: Polonius and the King (Hamlet’s uncle) plan to spy on a private conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia in order to ascertain whether or not he is truly mad.
  • Act 3, Scene 4: Hamlet is very aware that Polonius and the King have been spying on him and wishes to confront his mother about this and about the part she may have played in his father’s death.

As you are watching make notes on the following:

How are the audience made to feel about Hamlet and his situation at the beginning of the play? How does the version you have watched convey this? (Think about the setting, style of acting, music, filming techniques, etc)
Does our opinion on Hamlet change as the play goes on? What key events change our opinion on Hamlet? Once again how is this reflected in the version you have watched? (Think about the setting, style of acting, music, filming techniques, etc)
Can you find any reasons to justify Hamlet’s behaviour in the play? How are these reasons presented in the version you have watched?
Who are the villains and the victims of this story? How does the version you have watched make it clear about their roles?