What books are you reading for English?

Which books are you reading for AS and A2? I'm a private candidate and just want to confirm I am buying the correct ones.

According to the syllabus you do one per unit or topic?

Reply 1

rugbyladosc

12

Brighton Rock and A clockwork Orange

AQA I think

Reply 2

Tori-Ilana

What topic are you doing it on? I do English Literature... AS year was war and now in A2 we are doing love through the ages....

I'm not sure if my syllabus is the same as yours.

Reply 3

KJane

15

In A2 for core texts we read:

A streetcar named desire
Othello
The Great Gatsby
Notes on a Scandal
An anthology of different poems on romance
Poetry anthology of Robert Browning.

But since in the exams you have to relate it to wider reading we've read a ton of extracts from loads of different genres, times and themes.

Today we read extracts from 'The doll house' and 'The seagull.'
Yesterday it was Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. It's quite broad, it'd be impossible to list everything I've read for the course.

Reply 4

Gromit94

9

I'm doing AS AQA English Language and Literature and we studied A Streetcar Named Desire for a creative writing exam, Wuthering Heights for a character/theme analysis exam and we're now reading Waiting for Godot for a speech exam in the summer.

Reply 5

Liam_G

14

AQA English Lit -

AS
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,
Poetry by Christina Rossetti,
The Kite Runner,
Othello (Coursework)
Death of a Salesman (Coursework)

A2
Macbeth,
Wuthering Heights,
Frankenstein,
Dracula (Extra reading)
The Bloody Chamber (Extra reading)
Goblin Market (Coursework)
Rebecca (Coursework)
The Woman In Black (Coursework)

Reply 6

Lily Academia

11

Original post by Liam_G

AQA English Lit -

AS
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,
Poetry by Christina Rossetti,
The Kite Runner,
Othello (Coursework)
Death of a Salesman (Coursework)

A2
Macbeth,
Wuthering Heights,
Frankenstein,
Dracula (Extra reading)
The Bloody Chamber (Extra reading)
Goblin Market (Coursework)
Rebecca (Coursework)
The Woman In Black (Coursework)

I've read all of those bar the poetry, Goblin Market (never heard of that one?) and Frankenstein.

You're so lucky :h:

(Why does my school have to do OCR?! :frown:

)

Reply 7

Liam_G

14

Original post by Lily Academia

I've read all of those bar the poetry, Goblin Market (never heard of that one?) and Frankenstein.

You're so lucky :h:

(Why does my school have to do OCR?! :frown:

)

Well you wouldn't have heard of Goblin Market because it's one of Christina Rossetti's poems :biggrin:

I chose it because it's teeming with creative/conventional metaphor and it's pretty damn feminist (so easy to analyse), plus I think it's a great piece of writing.

I got to pick my own books for Coursework in A2, chose Rebecca and The Woman in Black and wrote about the representation of evil, I really enjoyed both the books (And I got 28/30 for it! :woo:

)

I wrote a re-creative piece for Othello rather than an ordinary essay, so I chose to write a dramatic monologue by Emilia emulating Shakespeare's style (as best I could :s-smilie:

) It was really fun to write.

I've genuinely enjoyed all of the books on my course, except for Wuthering Heights. I just hate it. I really wish that it will burst into flames the next time I open it.

Reply 8

Lily Academia

11

Original post by Liam_G

Well you wouldn't have heard of Goblin Market because it's one of Christina Rossetti's poems :biggrin:

I chose it because it's teeming with creative/conventional metaphor and it's pretty damn feminist (so easy to analyse), plus I think it's a great piece of writing.

I got to pick my own books for Coursework in A2, chose Rebecca and The Woman in Black and wrote about the representation of evil, I really enjoyed both the books (And I got 28/30 for it! :woo:

)

I wrote a re-creative piece for Othello rather than an ordinary essay, so I chose to write a dramatic monologue by Emilia emulating Shakespeare's style (as best I could :s-smilie:

) It was really fun to write.

I've genuinely enjoyed all of the books on my course, except for Wuthering Heights. I just hate it. I really wish that it will burst into flames the next time I open it.

Such a lovely mix. Though I agree with you on Wuthering Heights; the protagonists irritated me too much for me to enjoy the book in any way shape or form. Cathy and Heathcliff. *Mutters* How come you got to do the Kite Runner? I love that. How did you find Death of a Salesman? I've studied that; our recent exam was terrible (it had a very heavy focus on Charley and Bernard as opposed to the more key roles) but I got 40/40 on it (this is GCSE, before you start thinking that's an amazing achievement!) :tongue:

Well done for your 28/30 :h:

Are you planning on taking English Lit further?

Reply 9

Liam_G

14

Original post by Lily Academia

Such a lovely mix. Though I agree with you on Wuthering Heights; the protagonists irritated me too much for me to enjoy the book in any way shape or form. Cathy and Heathcliff. *Mutters* How come you got to do the Kite Runner? I love that. How did you find Death of a Salesman? I've studied that; our recent exam was terrible (it had a very heavy focus on Charley and Bernard as opposed to the more key roles) but I got 40/40 on it (this is GCSE, before you start thinking that's an amazing achievement!) :tongue:

Well done for your 28/30 :h:

Are you planning on taking English Lit further?

The Kite Runner was on the syllabus, and I guess my teacher thought it would be a good novel to study :dontknow:

I quite liked 'Death of a Salesman', I thought Linda Loman was an interesting character... I always seem to prefer the female character though (Lady Macbeth over Macbeth, Emilia/Desdemona over Othello...)I thought it was a better play than 'A View from a Bridge' anyway (which we studied for GCSE).

40/40 is great! Well done! I'm pleased with my Coursework mark, my teacher is the type who would almost never give full marks for a piece of work, so I'm happy.

I want to study English/Philosophy at Uni... My only problem is my exam technique, last year I was under the impression that as long as I wrote a good essay, and showed full understanding of the texts I'd get a good mark, so I kind of... ignored the mark-scheme a little :colondollar:

I have an A in last year's coursework, an A* in this year's Coursework and a C in last years exam :frown:

(I was one mark off a B)... I'm confident I can average a B all together (which is all I need), but I'd obviously like to get an A.

Well done :h:

Reply 10

pardonmyfrench

I'm in AS year and for coursework I studied A Clockwork Orange, Brighton Rock, and Closer, and for the exams I'm doing The Great Gatsby (my favourite book) and Robert Frost (with whom I have a love/hate relationship!)
We have studied other authors/poets though at the start and end of the syllabus - I've read Heart of Darkness (gorgeous), Tony Harrison, John Donne, a bit of Keats, and some others, for class.

Reply 11

Accalia

12

So far we've done the Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, lots of short stories, Murmuring Judges and the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. We got to choose a book independantly to base a piece of coursework on, so I chose the Turn of the Screw.

No idea what exam board though, it's only been coursework up to now and we have a 2+ hour exam coming up.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 12

Bella Occhi

16

AS - The Great Gatsby, Enduring Love, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and selected Tennyson poems. Death of a Salesman and Othello for coursework.

A2 - Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein and Macbeth. The Bell Jar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for coursework.

I'm with AQA.

What books are you reading for English?

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