AQA A2 Literature - &quot;Love through the Ages&quot; wider reading

Original post by xelarose

Thanks ever so much but i'm getting really confused now..
My teacher told me that there were two questions. Question 1 you could only refer to ONE type of literature.. (e.g. prose for a prose extract) and in Question 2, you could refer to all three. However, I have just looked at the past papers on AQA and they say: "Both questions test your wider reading in the prescribed area for study, Love Through the Ages. In your answers you should take every opportunity, where relevant, to refer to your wider reading.
Ensure that you write about a minimum of one wider reading text from each of the three genres of poetry, drama and prose."
What the hell is going on?! :confused:

Thanks for your help by the way!

Oh! I've just doubled looked.. silly me I have it now :p:

Sorry, and thanks for your help!

Haha that's good. Yeah your teacher is right in saying that you must only refer to your wider reading in the area prescribed on the first question, but the second question is going to be extracts of the remaining two literature types so you can refer to poem prose and drama here, but dont rely heavily on the literature that was already concentrated in question one.

Not sure if I already posted this or someone else has, but this is from AQA officially, if you're still unsure about anything...;

LITA3:
Reading for meaning ?- Love through the Ages
Reminders
Question 1 asks candidates to compare two unseen items of the same genre and make relevant
references to wider reading from the same genre. For example, if each item is a prose extract,
candidates should refer to wider reading prose texts only. No credit will be given for wider reading
references outside the named genre for Question 1.

Question 2 asks candidates to compare two unseen items from the two remaining genres and make
relevant references to wider reading from any genre. For example, if the items in Question 1 were
prose, in Question 2 one item would be a drama extract and the other a poem (or an extract from a
poem). Credit will be given to relevant wider reading references from any genre in Question 2.

Further advice
Across the whole paper, a minimum of three wider reading references must be covered. There
should be at least one wider reading reference to each of the genres of poetry, prose and drama. We
expect candidates to pay close attention to the unseen items and anticipate that 60-70% of each
answer will be devoted to the unseen items, with the remainder on wider reading. Often the best
answers are those which develop detailed references to a few, well-chosen wider reading texts,
rather than those which reference many texts in an undeveloped or superficial manner.

In a two and a half hour paper, in which each question is worth 40 marks, candidates should spend
an equal amount of time on each question. To pay sufficient attention to the unseen items,
candidates should read, think and plan for around 30 minutes per question and spend around 45
minutes writing each answer.
Candidates should be encouraged to read actively, annotating the unseen extracts and planning their
answers as they do so. Invigilators and Exams Officers should be reminded that candidates are
allowed to use highlighters and pencils to annotate their question papers. They must not, of
course, use anything other than black ink when writing in their answer booklets.

Reply 22

OP

Original post by meowoofbaa

Ah nice. Well good luck! We've not been given our coursework grade for this one yet mm :frown:

Do you get your coursework grade before your exam grade results in August then? I thought that coursework grades were always given on the same day as exam results.

Reply 23

OP

Original post by meowoofbaa

Wuthering Heights - Bronte
'Tis a pity she's a wh... (yeah, lol) - Ford
The Millers Tale - Chaucer
A Woman Of No Importance - Wilde
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof - Williams
On Chesil Beach - McEwan
Rebecca - Du Maurier
Othello
Hamlet
Much ado about nothing

Lots of William Blake poemmms and others, i.e. Christina Rossetti, Andrew Marvell, Ben Jonson, Heaney etc.
Personally, I really enjoy the works of Wilde, I would reccommend it.
There's also a lot of extracts in the little orange 'love through the ages' book if you've got that.

That's MORE than enough :-)
I'll attach something that's quite helpful, I just found it while googling - it's quite helpful when trying to analyse form structure language.

The website ''helpmewithenglish'' is also very helpful.

Thank you. So it's not essential to study loads of texts then? I am struggling to 'narrow down' my text selections because I keep thinking of more and then I worry that if I don't study them for this exam, I won't pass! I've already got about ten drama texts - maybe I should cut a few of those out... It is hard to get a good balance between wider reading and the detailed references that AQA want.

Reply 24

OP

Original post by Melting Sugar.

I didn't mean they shouldn't stick to one topic, I mean they shouldn't waste time worrying if the extract doesn't fit into any of the topics they've studied - which is why studying texts rather than topics would be better.

But if the extract doesn't relate in any shape or form to the topics/texts that candidates have studied, wouldn't it be difficult to get a good grade? This is what I worry about: that I will get into the exam room and have no idea what texts to use for my wider reading. :redface:

Reply 25

Melting Sugar.

14

Original post by Bella_Cullen

But if the extract doesn't relate in any shape or form to the topics/texts that candidates have studied, wouldn't it be difficult to get a good grade? This is what I worry about: that I will get into the exam room and have no idea what texts to use for my wider reading. :redface:

Nah if you're good at English Literature you will find a way to jump through all the AOs and still get a good mark :smile:

Just make sure you have a wide range of wider reading. :smile:

Study the texts and say which types of love they fall under, but don't spend all your time focusing on topics and linking your wider reading to these as you might get a shock if your topics aren't similar to those mentioned in the exam.

Have you looked at last year's paper yet?

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 26

OP

Original post by Melting Sugar.

Nah if you're good at English Literature you will find a way to jump through all the AOs and still get a good mark :smile:

Just make sure you have a wide range of wider reading. :smile:

Study the texts and say which types of love they fall under, but don't spend all your time focusing on topics and linking your wider reading to these as you might get a shock if your topics aren't similar to those mentioned in the exam.

Have you looked at last year's paper yet?

Thank you. :smile:

Not yet, but I'm planning to start going over past papers in the next couple of weeks.

Reply 27

Original post by Bella_Cullen

Do you get your coursework grade before your exam grade results in August then? I thought that coursework grades were always given on the same day as exam results.

No the coursework grades are available to your teachers before August results day as only a select few are externally moderated to check for 'fair' marking. Usually we get our grades for the coursework after Easter-ish. If I remember correctly. Meh.

Reply 28

Original post by Bella_Cullen

Thank you. So it's not essential to study loads of texts then? I am struggling to 'narrow down' my text selections because I keep thinking of more and then I worry that if I don't study them for this exam, I won't pass! I've already got about ten drama texts - maybe I should cut a few of those out... It is hard to get a good balance between wider reading and the detailed references that AQA want.

Yeah my friend who is like amazing at English said to me even she focused on a few texts in much detail rather than a range more simply. It depends how you want to go about it. She said she analysed a few common texts that were easily malleable to whatever type of love were to pop up.

Reply 29

OP

Original post by meowoofbaa

Yeah my friend who is like amazing at English said to me even she focused on a few texts in much detail rather than a range more simply. It depends how you want to go about it. She said she analysed a few common texts that were easily malleable to whatever type of love were to pop up.

Would it be cheeky to ask which texts she studied? :tongue:

Still finding it hard to decide which texts to look at.

Reply 30

[[Lolita, Othello, Death in Venice, Love in the Time of Cholera,]] <-- Focused on these.
But also looked at, Memories of my Melancholy Whore, Room with a View and Wuthering Heights.

Reply 31

OP

Original post by Melting Sugar.

I took the exam last year and would agree with the examiners report that sticking to topics held people back as the text we were given to analyse in the exam wasn't really any particular group so I guess a lot of people tried to twist it to be nothing it's not.

I hated this subject but really enjoyed the wider reading. :mmm:

Just wondered how you linked your wider reading together? Presumably candidates need to link wider reading texts to each other as well as to the unseen extracts. I don't find this hard in terms of theme but linking texts in terms of structure, form and language is harder because there are so many different ways that writers/poets/dramatists etc. can use them! At the moment, I'm making lists of the main elements (e.g. use of imagery, sonnet structures, unusual use of structure such as e.e. cummings' poems) and linking texts to them.

As you have already taken this exam, I wondered if you have any tips about linking wider reading texts to the unseen extracts in terms of structure, form and language? Thanks. :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 32

Em9358

I was wondering whether anyone could help me with the contextual links expected in the exam. I'm finding it really difficult to remember and categorise different authors into their 'eras', (I hate dates and numbers with a passion) I've tried making several time-lines, but I was wondering if anyone has a really simple way of remembering/categorising the different eras (for example Renaissance , Humanism etc.)

Reply 33

Salmon33

Hey I was wondering, in the multiple form question for example comparing prose and poetry, can you use wider reading from prose and compare it to the unseen poem? Or do you have to compare poetry to poetry and prose to prose?

Reply 34

The Empire Odyssey

21

Original post by Salmon33

Hey I was wondering, in the multiple form question for example comparing prose and poetry, can you use wider reading from prose and compare it to the unseen poem? Or do you have to compare poetry to poetry and prose to prose?

For Q1 you will be given two extracts from the same genre. So two extracts from poetry for example. This means you are only allowed to refer your wider reading in poetry, NO drama, NO prose!

For Q2, the other two extracts will be on the remaining unseen genres. So continuing from my example above, that would be prose and drama. This means you are allowed to reference from your wider reading in prose and drama, no poetry!

When you are comparing for Q2, you can compare the unseen drama text to one of your wider reading in prose and vice versa. That is completely fine. If you do this, make sure your analysis is strong in terms of genre differences, such as comparing drama misc-en-scene (lighting, stage directions, etc) with settings in a prose novel.

Hope this helps. :smile:

Reply 35

Salmon33

Yes thank you, that really cleared things up!

Reply 36

Biologist123

Hi! Has anyone got any exemplar essays I can take a look at? I'm struggling to revise for English!! How is everyone else revising?

Reply 37

Biologist123

Original post by Em9358

I was wondering whether anyone could help me with the contextual links expected in the exam. I'm finding it really difficult to remember and categorise different authors into their 'eras', (I hate dates and numbers with a passion) I've tried making several time-lines, but I was wondering if anyone has a really simple way of remembering/categorising the different eras (for example Renaissance , Humanism etc.)

Same here would love a booklet on the time periods and characteristics of each!!!!

Reply 38

Biologist123