AS/A2 English Lang & Literature
A Level
In North Walsham
Description
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Type
A Level
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Location
North walsham
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Duration
2 Years
Important information
Government funding available
Facilities
Location
Start date
Start date
About this course
A minimum of BBCCC at GCSE including English Language and at least one of Maths or Science.
Reviews
Course programme
Exam Board: AQA
If the book we are reading doesnt wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. Franz Kafka
English at Paston is rated as nationally outstanding by Ofsted and, in our mission to provide you with the blow to the head prescribed by Kafka, we offer two English A-Levels: Literature, and Language and Literature. Both are rich and varied, and guaranteed to give you a more informed and critical sense of the incredible power of language, the richness of the creative imagination, and an axe for the frozen sea within you. Our business is words: whether they appear in a Shakespeare play, on a bus ticket or in your own essays.
English complements other arts and humanities subjects: narrative, genre and the structure of texts are found in Film and Media; a preoccupation with human behaviour is also found in Psychology; while the need to set texts in their historical and cultural context draws on History, Geography and Sociology. English is an excellent grounding for university because you learn attention to detail, develop analytical and conceptual skills, and improve the clarity and coherence of your writing and speaking.
The English department has a strong tradition of enrichment outside the classroom. We publish Paston Letters, an anthology of student writing, staff contribute to the work of Far East Theatre, and there are regular theatre trips and visits to conferences
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AS English Language and Literature
At AS you will explore intriguing questions such as:
What makes a text literature and is it possible to define what we mean by this?
How can language be used to convey different attitudes and values?
How does spoken language differ from written language?
How has language changed over time?
What sort of constraints and considerations influence the choices you make as a writer and how can you respond to them?
The course is divided into two units:
An anthology of texts on travel and transport. One day you might be studying the intricacies of an extract from Dickens; on another, the mechanics of a tube-train ticket or pages from Thomas the Tank Engine. You will gain the core skills of linguistic analysis and prepare for the unseen texts in the exam.
Coursework. You will produce one critical, one creative response to Mary Shelleys horror classic Frankenstein and Truman Capotes infamous In Cold Blood, a chilling reconstruction of the events surrounding a notorious multiple murder in 1950s Kansas.
Assessment
One examination and a coursework folder.
A2 English Language
and Literature
At A2 you will build upon your work at AS and study two units.
Talk in Life and Literature which explores the ways we use language in real conversations before applying the same theoretical models to talk in literary texts. You will study Tennessee Williams powerful tragedy of social and sexual conflicts A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).
Two text transformations of literary texts which you choose for yourself from a varied and interesting list of writers. Previous students have reworked Macbeth as a computer game, transformed an episode from Jane Eyre in the style of Lauren Childs Clarice Bean books, and recast Christina Rossettis Goblin Market as a teen horror thriller.
Assessment
One examination and a coursework folder.
AS/A2 English Lang & Literature