AS English Language and Literature

Welcome!

This week!

• Introduction to the course, the requirements and the assessment objectives.

• Getting to know each other• Introduction to the texts, themes and

outcomes. • Reading and writing test (This is as fun as it

sounds)• Interrogating the language in American

literature texts (The Yellow Wallpaper)

You have two weeks…

• To catch up on your reading of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’

• For the next two weeks, we’ll be looking at some short stories which have links to the main theme of Escape.

Around the room

We will go around the room and each of you has to say the following:•Your Name•Your favourite book•Why you chose English

GCSEs are behind you now…

• Once upon a time you read texts and concentrated on what was going on-

• Characters• Plot • Themes

• These are still important but now you need to work out…

HOW?

• Ways and methods• Purpose• Context• Audience• Attitudes and ideas• Language• Genre• Structure and presentation

There’s lots to discover!

“There is no correct response – only a well-argued one”

Structure of the A Level

• Your first year is spent studying for an AS level in English Language and Literature

• You will study Two Units. Unit One is worth 60% of your AS Marks.

• You will sit a written, 1 hour 30 min exam in the summer.

• 2 questions:

The exam

• Question 1 is on an UNSEEN text related to the theme of the AQA Anthology Travel, Transport and Locomotion (we will provide you with an Anthology soon).

• Question 2 is on the Anthology itself.• This exam is OPEN BOOK so we will give you a

clean copy of the Anthology to use in the exam.

Unit Two

• This is a Coursework Unit.• You will submit your coursework in the Spring

term, it is worth 40% of your AS level.• Your coursework is a 2-part assignment on

Catcher in The Rye and Huckleberry Finn.• The theme of your coursework is Escape.

Escape

• Part A is 1200-1500 words – a comparison of 2 extracts from your set texts.

• Part B is creative writing which extends your discussion of the above (500-850 words)

Assessment Objectives

• Assessment Objectives are the areas of the subject you’re being examined on in the particular piece of work you’re doing.

• You will hear more about these in due course but to give you an idea…

AO1

• Select and apply relevant concepts and approaches to the texts you study.

• Use appropriate terminology.• Write accurately and coherently.

AO2

• Demonstrate how:• Structure• Form and• Language• shape meanings in a range of spoken and

written texts.

AO3

• Use your understanding of Language and Literature together to explore relationships between texts.

• Look at the context in which they were produced and received.

AO4

• Use language creatively and expertly for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Synoptic

• A Level courses are synoptic• This means that you are expected to get

progressively better and accumulate skills as you learn.

• Therefore A2 is more challenging than AS, and of course you will find AS more challenging than GCSE.

• If you are struggling speak to your teacher!

Reading and Writing test

• You have 45

minutes

• Have Fun!

The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• A short extract• Lets read together…• Initial ideas, what are out thoughts?• What are the main themes?

A little bit of context…In 1886, early in her first marriage and not long after the birth of her daughter, Charlotte Perkins Stetson (as she was then known) was stricken with a severe case of depression. In her 1935 autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she describes her “utter prostration” by “unbearable inner misery” and “ceaseless tears,” a condition only made worse by the presence of her husband and her baby. She was referred to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, then the country’s leading specialist in nervous disorders, whose treatment in such cases was a “rest cure” of forced inactivity. Especially in the case of his female patients, Mitchell believed that depression was brought on by too much mental activity and not enough attention to domestic affairs. For Gilman, this course of treatment was a disaster. Prevented from working, she soon had a nervous breakdown. At her worst, she was reduced to crawling into closets and under beds, clutching a rag doll.

Once she abandoned Mitchell’s rest cure, Gilman’s condition improved, though she claimed to feel the effects of the ordeal for the rest of her life. Leaving behind her husband and child, a scandalous decision, Charlotte Perkins Stetson (she took the name Gilman after a second marriage, to her cousin) embarked on a successful career as a journalist, lecturer, and publisher. She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” soon after her move to California, and in it she uses her personal experience to create a tale that is both a chilling description of one woman’s fall into madness and a potent symbolic narrative of the fate of creative women stifled by a paternalistic culture.

How does this change the way in which read it?

Context

• Having a good awareness of context is the key to unlocking the texts we’ll be studying this term.

Exploring specific details in the text

Can we find examples in the text which: •Can make a link between Gilman’s private life and the text•Illustrate women are suppressed in marriage•Suggests Gilman needed to escape•Identifies a need for self-expression

Writing a PEHE

• How does Gilman present the position of women in 19th century America?

Homework

• Read ‘Slight Rebellion off Madison’