Hi

We are also completing the Edexcelt Lit A level and i'm not exactly enjoying it. Aside from very little resources/ information available, i find it very difficult to get my head around. I have just started to look at the A2 coursework element now as we prepared for the Jan exam but it was too much for me to take in during the hols. If you have any tips/ advice then let me know and i will gladly pass on any useful tips i learn along the way!

Doing OCR for the first time and liking it.  It's very flexible & you can pick up on student / teacher interests eg AS coursework is 3 texts - 'Literature Post 1900' some scope for re-creative writing too - so I'm doing 'The Kite Runner' as a stand alone & then 'Wise Children' & 'The World's Wife' for the comparative.

Trish

Tina & Mrs C,

Like both of you, I am teaching the Edexcel Lit course & not finding it the most accessible. The previous teacher's on ML & left next to nothing which has made covering my half of the course very time consuming. I teach the Prose & Poetry while my colleague teaches the Coursework so I can't comment on that side of things but on Monday I start teaching Howards End & leading up to The Remains of the Day. Similarly, had hardly anything provided & have spent hours starting out from scratch.

 I was very disappointed with the response from Edexcel: 'have you tried York Notes?'

I would have much preferred teaching the AQA spec (can't remember if it's A) withthe Love Through the Ages synoptic unit - far more opportunities to be creative with delivery.

I am very happy to email the resources I have (for future ref perhaps) for Unit 1 from last term: unseen prose, poetry & Anthology (I covered 'Home' poems from the Oxford Anthology).

Lola

I'm also in the same position and have just taken over a class from a member of staff who is off on maternity leave.  I have gone round and round in circles with Edexcel and generally found them unhelpful and a bit rude.  Am definitely going to look at the other specs for next year.

Lola, anything you could send would be really appreciated:

lesliseste@googlemail.com

Laura,

I have an email to send to you but it was bounced back to me yesterday - I checked the one you'd posted at the end of your message but it seemed a no-go!

Thanks, Lola

Sorry Lola,

a typo (it was a long week last week when Ofsted decided to descend upon us!)

It should be:

leslieste@googlemail.com

Thanks,

Laura

Hi, Tina,

we have been doing WJEC and whilst the course is fine, (we rather like it), the marking of our first examined unit was dire - very inconsistent.  We had re-marks, but even that was poorly handled by the Board.  So, in spite of liking the course, we are switching to AQA B.  I don't think there's a huge amount to choose between these two: both courses are lovely, but support of the exam board, and faith in their competence is crucial!

Hope that helps.

Hi,

My school is teaching the Edexcel A Level Lit spec too and I'm teaching the poetry and prose aspect of the course. Again, searching for anything useful relating to the poems is a nightmare and very time consuming and I'm seriously considering suggesting a change to another board. The fact that there are three different strands from three different anthologies makes it even more difficult as trading resources isn't as easy as it otherwise could be!

On that note, would it be possible for you to send me some of your resources for the poetry? I'm teaching the Home from the Rattle Bag but anything would be useful!

jellybaby_steph@hotmail.com

Thanks!

We do AQA B and whilst I enjoyed the legacy spec, I am hating this one.  Year 13 seems to have very little content - we did the coursework for January submission and there just doesn't seem to be much left to work with.

Aspects of the Gothic seems to be legacy texts shoe-horned in, and it all just feels very wishy washy.  Of the 5 of us teaching it, we all feel the same; but the HoD refuses to even consider changing - which seems mad to me, especially as I am meant to be in charge of KS5.  I liked the look of the OCR spec - it looks to me to offer a broad and interesting range of topics. 

Hi,

I would really appreciate knowing how you structure the A/S year. It is the first time we have delivered AQA spec B and I am finding everything a tight squeeze. Any guidance would be appreciated. We are using Streetcar and Hamlet for Tragedy and then Browning/Hardy/ poetry and Dubliners and Kite Runner for Aspects of Narrative. At the moment I have two hours a week per poem and that is it! Poems liek Fra Lippo Lippi seem impossible to do from all angles for the exam!

Thanks.

We have been doing OCR as I felt that of all the specifications it was the most straight forward. We had some great success in the AS exam in the summer, but really came unstuck with the coursework, falling foul of misplaced grade boundaries, the upshot being that some of our really good students are having to re-sit the coursework module, never had to do that before. I think OCR are very harsh in their marking, but we are sticking with the course for the time being. The coursework options are really flexible in terms of texts you can study so it can be tailored more easily to suit the students. Some of the text choices, particularly poetry at AS, are a bit odd I think.

Paula 

Hello

I am the English Subject Advisor at Edexcel. I would very much like to help. If you could send me an email we can then arrange the most appopriate support for you. My email address is englishsubjectadvisor@edexcelexperts.co.uk

With best wishes

Lionel Bolton

I'm surprised there hasn't been much more discussion of the new A Level Eng Lit syllabus.  The simple truth is that it doesn't matter which board you're with, it's less rewarding and more difficult teaching A Level than it was.    

I'm still not really clear what the rationale was behind moving from 6 units to 4 but I do know that it has given my students 2 fewer chances to show what they are capable of.  How many classroom teachers think their new spec is an improvement on the old one?  I'm guessing there won't be many. 

'other school's points of view'

Is that helpful? I suppose it could have been a type with the apostrophe or with 'point' of view...

'other school's points of view'

Is that helpful? I suppose it could have been a type with the apostrophe or with 'point' of view...

'other school's points of view'

Is that helpful? I suppose it could have been a type with the apostrophe or with 'point' of view...

Tina,

I taught Edexcel AS English Literature last year and found it difficult for a number of reasons. However, on teaching it this year, I have found that using context as a starting point is really very important. For example, when looing at Dr Faustus and Othello, pupils reasearch the key elements of The Renaissance and the playwrights. It made the coursework far more interesting to teach and bearable.

In terms of A2, I teach the paired texts and the section on "Identifying Self". Which section have you chosen?

Also, there are student books available from Edexcel. I have bought one for each of the department. Expensive but invaluable.

I have resources if you wish?

Ed

Ed,

Now I'm interested - we did Othello and Faustus too this year (although I didn't teach it, my colleague did).  We also did that contextual research, but I think they need quite a bit of guidance about how to apply this knowledge without writing a history essay. How did you divide up your year? For various reasons, we did the coursework only from September to December, and I now think this was a mistake as it's too difficult for them (and offputting) when they first come to college.

I'm much happier with the A2 spec - we're doing War - Kite Runner and Spies and I'm happy with how it's going. It's really only Unit 2 I find a problem.

Would love to share ideas though.

Tina

only just saw your message, otherwise would have answered earlier.

we teach the edexcel spec and we have come to love it!  we changed from aqa because of problems with marking and because they didn't seem to want to take responsibility when they got marks  VERY wrong. 

the coursework is not easy as there is a lot to cover but we've done it twice now and have refined it so now we do only the minimum needed ... not because we are lazy but because there isn't time for anything else.

i'd be happy to send you shemes of work/lesson/coursework ideas if you like... it'll be good to hear from someone else who is doing the same stuff.

we're doing land (rattle bag collection) and love it!! we have got resources coming out of our ears ... maybe we could/should all send them to teachit so we can share them that way??

I'm astonished that you have to cope with students on an A Level Lit course who may have little or no prior knowledge of the subject!  I don't know how you do it.  I'm Head of Eng at my school and we offer the Lit A Level through AQA and I've really enjoyed teaching the AS. Lots of choice in terms of texts and I've found the poetry interesting.   The feedback from the board has always been good, in my experience.  Also, the A2 has the choice of studying pastoral or gothic texts and the students are really enjoying getting to grips with the genres. 

Have you thought about offering Lang/Lit instead?  I've taught that in previous schools and there would be more scope for progression from GCSE Language (some creative writing element etc).

Anyway, let me know how you get on.  Good luck!

Nancy

We  do the edexcel spec and find the coursework part the easiest (until you reach unit 4!). We did King Lear (main text) and Hamlet (secondary text) and comprised the question from  quote from  AC Bradley (already hitting the ao3 target there).

Is that what you are after? Remember the second doesnt have to be studied in much detail!

x

We are doing AQA A struggle for identity at AS and Literature of Love for A2 and have found it very difficult, so we are probably changing to AQA B next year.  We feel sorry for the students because no one knows what to expect. 

We are doing AQA A struggle for identity at AS and Literature of Love for A2 and have found it very difficult, so we are probably changing to AQA B next year.  We feel sorry for the students because no one knows what to expect. 

Yes! It's been a struggle all round and i am really concerned about the whole thing. Am i correct in thinking that English students now have to be social historians? We are tying ourselves in knots trying to link the unseen  non fiction extract with "wider reading" on the relevant "struggle for identity" Has anyone else felt they were going mad asking students to compare the form and structure of literature to a piece of non-fiction? M y students are saying pointless things like " thie structure is very different  because it is a political speech whereas "Small Island" is  a novel. To make sense of the literary and historical context students need a good general knowledge of the 20th century. They rarely have this. NOW imagine the A2 course where students need to be able to refer to and have an understanding of almost the entire canon of English literature from Chaucer onwards!!! Needless to say we are drowning in trying to expose them to a sufficiently wide range of poetry, drama and prose so that they will not be completely floored by the exam extracts. YES i know we are suppose to be teaching skills, but metaphsyical poets, Samuel Richardson and Virginia Woolf (to mention a few) all offer their own challenges. I used to love A level teaching but that has disappeared under a weight of anxiety and frustration at the impossibility of teaching this course. The demands on average students are unrealistic and in all honesty the extra demands on English teachers, who are often teaching from y7 to y13 , are ridiculous. Any comfort or suggestions gratefully accepted!!

Donna,

Anything on the OCR website?

Mauren,

I wholly agree.  More and more students with lower GCSE grades are opting for Eng Lit at A Level and the boards decide to make the demands of the syllabus that much greater.  Genius!

Oh, and if you want to see just how out of touch are the people who are running the show, have a read of the OCR report on the January examinations.  It's a real hoot and goes to show these people exist in another world.

Caliban

Tina, don't knock yourself. There are always aspects of A-level courses that I find harder than others.

We moved from AQA Lit A to Edexcel this year and have been pleased with it so far.

We begin with the AS coursework. This year we looked at Hamlet and Othello as tragic heroes and used a couple of critical texts as a starting to point. Next year we are using a broader critical theory (probably feminist) to look at how women are represented in the same texts, as we have a girl group. I started with the review task based on David Tennant's BBC version of Hamlet and used reviews off the internet as stimulus. Othello was then taught along side this as the primary text for analysis and pupils made links to Hamlet. They needed some directing towards particular scenes for analysis.  

For A2 ( a girl group) we used a quote from Gilbert and Gubar’s ‘Madwoman in the Attic’ and used this as the basis for our coursework question. We then read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The focus of the question was representations of women in 19^th century lit.   

Use a quote from your critical text as the basis for your coursework question as it will ensure your pupils are referring to the critical text. They can discuss/argue the validity of the statement made. Use words from the criteria in your question eg; evaluate, validity…

Hope this helpsJ

Steph x

BingBong - I agree with every single word you write.  My thoughts entirely and exactly!!!

Hey Tina,

I teach the AQA spec and I really enjoy it.  I don't know much about the excel - have you considered ringing the board?  When I was stuck last year AQA were really helpful.  We teach the Struggle for Identity option and the students get really invovled.