AS and A2 AQA English Literature?

Hi, so due to some complicated circumstances I'm going to be doing both AS and A2 English Literature simultaneously next year. I've already done the AS coursework and received an A for it, so i'll be doing the AS exam, A2 coursework and A2 exam. I am doing AQA Lit B Aspects of Narrative for AS and Gothic for A2.

I'm basically a home study student, although I am enrolled in a sixth form and can get help/materials from teachers. I'm also doing two other A2s.

I guess my main question is how hard it will be/if it will even be possible? I still have the option to drop English and just do the two A2s. But I love it as a subject and don't want to give up on it

I also wanted to ask what the easiest texts to study are? My school does Keats, Tennyson, Gatsby and Enduring Love for AS and Wuthering Heights, Dr Faustus and The Bloody Chamber for A2, but as I'm home studying I can do whichever ones I want. I've thought about swapping Tennyson poetry for The Rime of The Ancient Mariner as that is only one poem vs the 6 or 7 Tennyson ones. But maybe it's a hard poem? I also might swap Dr Faustus for Macbeth as the latter is more well known so there is probably more revision material on it. Although again I don't know which one would be easier to study as I'm not familiar with them.

Also I wanted to ask how you go about choosing the texts for the A2 coursework? Should they be classic, well known books or should you try and be unique in your choices? And does anyone have a view on whether it is easier to write about Feminism or Marxism?

Oh and any revision guides or websites you'd recommend? I've found plenty of info on each of the individual books but not really in relation to the AQA exam specifications. For example I found a York Notes revision guide on The Great Gatsby but it doesn't really relate the book specifically to the Aspects of Narrative exam.

Any other advice would be much appreciated, thanks

Hi there I've just finished this course so I will try my best to reassure you a bit

Personally, if you keep on top of it, I think it's very doable. Thankfully the AS exam does not necessarily require extensive revision as it isn't closed book. As long as you know your texts pretty well and are aware of the characters, themes etc, you won't struggle in the exam. Also, learn the assessment objectives and follow them strictly and you're bound to do well. What's great about LITB1 is that the grade boundaries are very low; 47/84 for an A the year I sat it!

At AS I studied The Great Gatsby, The Kite Runner, Keats, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and all were pretty straightforward. I'd definitely recommend The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as, although it's fairly long, it's not too difficult and it's a really interesting text to cover, full of imagery and things to discuss for form and structure, the narrator, and setting which are all vital for this exam. Although I didn't study Dr Faustus, I did study Macbeth and again, I'd recommend it as it isn't too hard to understand, the exam questions are usually fairly straightforward and as you said, there will be plenty of revision materials. TBC is also an excellent choice as it's quite short, you don't necessarily need to learn all of the stories within it and it's absolutely full of everything gothic

For the coursework, I decided it would be best to choose gothic texts so I'd have wider reading covered for the exam. I chose The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe) and The Prussian Officer by Lawrence and discussed whether or not insanity and torture were integral in them. I think it's always better to choose something a bit different but honestly, just choose texts that you can easily analyse. I personally think metaphor is easier than Marxism or Feminism, but the latter is easier in my opinion. (I did metaphor in Porphyria's Lover)

I'm afraid I'm not too sure on revision materials, but for A2, check out this amazing blog

http://jakedoesrevision.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/a2-english-literature-lady-of-house-of.html?m=1

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Hi, so due to some complicated circumstances I'm going to be doing both AS and A2 English Literature simultaneously next year. I've already done the AS coursework and received an A for it, so i'll be doing the AS exam, A2 coursework and A2 exam. I am doing AQA Lit B Aspects of Narrative for AS and Gothic for A2.

I'm basically a home study student, although I am enrolled in a sixth form and can get help/materials from teachers. I'm also doing two other A2s.

I guess my main question is how hard it will be/if it will even be possible? I still have the option to drop English and just do the two A2s. But I love it as a subject and don't want to give up on it

I also wanted to ask what the easiest texts to study are? My school does Keats, Tennyson, Gatsby and Enduring Love for AS and Wuthering Heights, Dr Faustus and The Bloody Chamber for A2, but as I'm home studying I can do whichever ones I want. I've thought about swapping Tennyson poetry for The Rime of The Ancient Mariner as that is only one poem vs the 6 or 7 Tennyson ones. But maybe it's a hard poem? I also might swap Dr Faustus for Macbeth as the latter is more well known so there is probably more revision material on it. Although again I don't know which one would be easier to study as I'm not familiar with them.

Also I wanted to ask how you go about choosing the texts for the A2 coursework? Should they be classic, well known books or should you try and be unique in your choices? And does anyone have a view on whether it is easier to write about Feminism or Marxism?

Oh and any revision guides or websites you'd recommend? I've found plenty of info on each of the individual books but not really in relation to the AQA exam specifications. For example I found a York Notes revision guide on The Great Gatsby but it doesn't really relate the book specifically to the Aspects of Narrative exam.

Any other advice would be much appreciated, thanks

Ah what a helpful reply thank you! Good to hear that The Rime of The Ancient Mariner isn't too hard, I'll probably do that instead of Tennyson then

And yeah that makes sense to do Gothic texts for the coursework. Oh but the thing you said about wider reading for the exam- is that a specific requirement? Like would they expect you to actually reference other texts in the exam or do you just mean for extra practice of analysing Gothic themes etc.?

Ah what a helpful reply thank you! Good to hear that The Rime of The Ancient Mariner isn't too hard, I'll probably do that instead of Tennyson then

And yeah that makes sense to do Gothic texts for the coursework. Oh but the thing you said about wider reading for the exam- is that a specific requirement? Like would they expect you to actually reference other texts in the exam or do you just mean for extra practice of analysing Gothic themes etc.?

Hi for AS I did Gatsby - I have a load of past paper questions I've completed and just general notes I made which are specific to the AOs - I got an A for AS, if you message me your e-mail i'd be happy to send them

I did Feminism for my A2 cw - I wrote about The Wife of Bath's Tale by Chaucer
Other texts you could study (which others in my class did)
Orange is not the only Fruit
Hamlet
As you like it

If you're doing both exams in the summer, I recommend reading at least some over the summer now to get an idea

You're welcome yeah it's great, I really loved studying it

I was always told by my teacher that to hit top marks, you need to create links between other gothic texts it doesn't have to be extensive, just a little sentence or something

Oh and if you'd ever like me to send my coursework to give you a bit of an idea, I will gladly do so after results day

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That sounds really helpful, I'll PM you I was also wondering if for the Aspects of Narrative exam you should choose in advance which text you're doing for Section A? Or do most people just choose in the exam?

some people in my class chose depending on the question - me, I was a bit sneaky haha I did Auden for section A and because the first question for AS is always how does the writer tell the story in (poem) - I just wrote an exemplar answer for each poem and learnt my points then I could just rattle it off in the exam

I was really confident with Auden so I did that easily, go with whatever you feel most comfortable