English Literature

Course summary

This A Level course enables students to explore a wide variety of engaging, challenging and interesting literature texts from the 16th century to the modern day: a range of plays, novels and poetry. The course centres on different interpretations of texts. Students are introduced to a range of critical and theoretical ‘lenses’ for exploring writing. They are encouraged to recognise and examine the connections between different texts within a literary genre (for example, ‘tragedy’). Students will gain an understanding of how texts can be connected and how they can be interpreted in multiple ways in order for them to arrive at their own interpretations and to become confident, autonomous readers. During the course, students will study novels, poetry and plays within the tragic and social and political protest genres. Equally, students will also complete two independent study projects in preparation for their coursework pieces, using their own chosen texts.