How do you revise for english literature?

Well, I do OMAM, An Inspector Calls and the relationships cluster. I'm quite confused on how you revise for these. I recently did my first exam on english literature, I got an A* on OMAM and AIC, however, I got a B in poetry.(Overall A)
Also should I make notes or should I just carry on watching videos and just revise a week before the exam? ( Mr Bruff and Mr Salles)

Reply 1

EmmanuellaUwaifo

Hiya I do Of MICE and Men and Romeo and Juliet, I'm sort of confused on how to revise as well. What I have started doing is looking at the past paper questions and writing notes on each question, so that hopefully later on I will just be able to easily pick up any question and be able to answer it easily. Hope this helps!!! If you want we could revise of mice and men together? What board do you do, I do IGCSE Edexcel.

Reply 2

amara.g

Original post by EmmanuellaUwaifo

I do AQA and yes we should revise for Of Mice and Men! Do you want to Skype?

Reply 3

lovelybow

Also, do you have a sort of quote bank for each character? I think I'll be starting my revision by reading the entire book to irom out any confusions.

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Reply 4

EmmanuellaUwaifo

Original post by lovelybow

Also, do you have a sort of quote bank for each character? I think I'll be starting my revision by reading the entire book to irom out any confusions.

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yep, i made mindmaps for each character and each theme and put quotes relating to each important point and put a quick analysis next to it. From these mindmaps, I made little index card notes with the character and point on one side and the quote relating to it on the other side.

Reply 5

lovelybow

Thank you so much! This is very helpful :smile:

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Reply 6

hbteiddam

Original post by amara.g

Revise quotes, themes/motifs, characters, etc - just split them up into categories like this so your revision is organised. I find that's easier. Also it's obvious but know the texts upside down inside out :smile:

Reply 7

EmmanuellaUwaifo

I go to a boarding school and accidentally left my laptop at school so i'll only be able to skype from the 13th of April. Sorry but in the meantime, what other subjects do you do, we can discuss other means of revision

Reply 8

Lkathryn08

Studied OMAM and the relationships cluster of poetry too so I'll try to help. In general, you need to make sure for poetry you have really explored the poems and considered the themes, language, structure, characterisation etc of each, have a clear understanding of each poem and these aspects so it's easier to transfer this knowledge across in the exam, the mr bruff videos help especially with that! For novels, I would suggest going over key characters, themes and key moments in each text as these are the common questions you will be asked about! Make sure you also look at the context as you will be asked how a certain aspect relates to the time it was written. I would also reccommend the mr bruff videos for alternate interpretations and this will help you reach those higher grades and is what the examiners are looking for!! I did this for every aspect I could in my exams and got full UMS in my prose exam and 1 off full UMS in the poetry and I believe offering these alternate interpretations got me those grades. If you still want more do, practice doing timed exam questions! It's not pleasant but will certainly help you to know the pace you need to go at and how you need to tackle the question to fully answer it in time! I hope this helps and good luck!!!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 9

lovelybow

Thank you, i will organise my notes like that!

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Reply 10

lovelybow

Thank you for your very in depth answer! I will go through everything you have said. Also, how do you approach the unseen poetry section?

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Reply 11

lovelybow

It's cool! Well, I do triple science (OCR Gateway), Maths (Edexcel), RS ( Edexcel), Spanish (Edexcel), Geography(OCR B), Psychology (OCR). For these subjects I either write out notes in an exercise book or on flash cards according to the specification. For any key words, I make flashcards on 'Get Revising' and print them off and memorise them on the way to school. Wbu?

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Reply 12

AfcFob

You can't really revise for English imo as its luck really... You get awesome poetry and it's an easy exam or you get bad poetry and it brings your grade down (the books and plays you can revise by doing PPQ's)

I winged that exam and got an A so you'll be fine (I was awful at English too)

Reply 13

Lkathryn08

Original post by lovelybow

Thank you for your very in depth answer! I will go through everything you have said. Also, how do you approach the unseen poetry section?

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Well I have a revision guide full of examples of the types of poems you could get in the exam. I just would annotate them commenting on the themes, structure, setting etc and there would normally be a summary of what each poem was about and reading those help too. For the unseen poetry practice makes perfect so if you can get your hands on some examples, definitely go through them. I think mine were form a cgp revision guide.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 14

stopopups

I'm doing AQA for English and studying OMAM , The Crucible and the character and voice cluster. I'm really struggling to revise. I think I'm just gonna practice a past paper every day cos I personally don't feel like standard note writing etc helps me in English.

Reply 15

EmmanuellaUwaifo

I do IGCSE Maths (edexcel), IGCSE English (edexcel, history edexcel gcse, geography aqa a gcse, photography gcse edexcel, triple science aqa gcse,

Reply 16

glowanti

Novella and Prose

For both of these, I revised pretty much the same way. I would make loads of posters with a theme / character / symbol in the middle and from this sprout how the audience are made to feel, quotes, the writer's attitude, for the play I did stage directions, and other ideas and themes and characters and 'points' that would be relevant in the exam.

I did A LOT of past questions - sometimes typing them up if I couldn't be bothered to write, and always in a timed environment because with English a lot of people (including me) struggled with time keeping etc.

On BBC Bitesize I did some background research on what was happening at the time the novella/play was written and how that might affect the content of the story & what the author is feeling and wants to portray to their audience. For example OMAM was written during 1930's America, where they were going through the Great Depression after the Wall Street crash and it was all situated around this idea of the 'American dream'. It was also a time where prejudice was a major thing and Steinbeck captures that through all of his characters, such as Curley's Wife and Crooks, and he gives them a voice in order to portray his own feelings that he disagrees with the prejudice and feels as though they should have a voice.

I also made alot of flash cards, one side would be the quote and the other would be who said it etc, I feel like this really helped me to remember the quotations (my exam was a closed book exam)

Poetry

I'm unsure how your exam board does it, but mine did one section was analysing an unseen poem, and the other section was comparing two poems that we had studied in class (we studied 16 I think).

For the unseen poetry, it's literally just about tearing the poem to shreds, picking out every language device you can find and suggesting what everything means etc and how the audience are made to feel, how the poet may feel. Remember to include the structure of the poem, the layout, the language used, the tense, is it first person, is it formal/informal etc. To revise this I just did a load of past papers and some of my own poems I found online which I liked - but in all honesty I didn't revise an awful lot for unseen poetry, I feel like the skills for that are learned through analysing your poetry you learn in class

For your 'known' poetry, I made posters with the poem name in the middle, then surrounded it with language devices, themes, key words, the structure and the way the verses are set out, some background information about the poets etc. I also did a lot of past questions aswell.

Mr Bruff is amazing, couldn't recommend him enough!