Choosing which course for A-Level

I can't speak for English language but for English literature, I had to remember A LOT of quotes. It depends on the exam board -- I was with Eduqas and my drama paper was closed book and it covered three plays: King Lear (Pretty sure it's on the curriculum now that you have to study a Shakespeare play so there's no escaping that!), The Duchess of Malfi and A Streetcar Named Desire. I really struggled with remember pages and pages of key quotes and I completely messed up that exam. My poetry paper was open book so I didn't need to memorise much there. Aside from quotes on the texts, there's also the element of critics where you'll be expected to memorise quotes from critics and incorporate them into your exams. There's also an unseen paper where you'll be provided with an unseen extract and a poem as well as quotes from critics so I didn't need to remember anything there.

As for coursework, I loved writing it! Again, it depends on your exam board and how teachers teach it but I had to write an essay comparing two characters from two different books and I really felt in my element. Sometimes they'll let you choose which books you want to use but I didn't get a choice. I didn't like the books I had to use initially (A Room with a View and Girl Meets Boy) but found that analysing them made me admire more because of all the little things you see the authors do. No need to memorise quotes or anything as you'll probably have months to work on it and you'll probably have all your notes with you as well.

Unfortunately, you'll probably not be interested in a lot of books that you have to read but you may find that you oddly find them enjoyable after properly analysing them. I really hated Chaucer initially but now find it oddly fun to read :/

I did really well in my coursework and really badly in my drama paper and not very well in my poetry paper but absolutely smashed my unseen paper so it all levelled out to an A. You don't have to be amazing at memorising quotes, just be great at analysis and you'll be fine in my opinion.

I’m considering doing either English Language or Literature for an A Level because I really like analysing texts and the effects they have also I don’t mind creative writing however I dislike memorising a tone of quotes and reading books that I find boring e.g Romeo and Juliet so does English Language or literature suit me or should I avoid it also what is the coursework like

Thanks

Thanks that’s really helpful

How much are you assessed of SPAG also out of interest how many books did you have to read during your time at college due to the English Literature course

I originally wanted to do English language but the course was full at my college and so, my teacher recommended English lit and lang. Honestly, it was the best decision and I'm glad that English language was full or else i would've never got to do it. I hated poems at GCSE but the poems you do at a-level are so much better and i wasn't a big fan of memorising quotes either but most of the books/texts we study are open book so we aren't required to revise quotes. As for books, we do have quite a few that we have to read but they're actually much more interesting than the books at GCSE. It'd be better if you look at the course content so you get an idea of what you'd be doing in that course it should be available on your college website. Our coursework it easy but again it requires us to choose our own book which we have to read and then write about, as well as compare it to another text.

No worries! Happy to help!

I don't think you're penalised too much for SPAG, you'll probably drop a couple of marks for accuracy in SPAG. It'll fall into AO1, which assesses terminology and written expression, but if, say, you write caesura as seasura or accidentally miss out an ending of a word, usually they won't care that much. I remember my teacher saying that they're more lenient towards that sort of thing than in English language. You'll also find that AOs are weighted differently for each component so it may matter in one exam but might not matter as much in another.

During my course, I technically read 8 books altogether. These were 2 poetry collections (Duffy + Larkin), 1 long poem (Chaucer), 3 plays and 2 novels but the poetry isn't that long. Sometimes my the teacher would tell us to choose a novel from a certain time period so we can understand the kind of writing or context of said time period for the unseen paper but rarely though.

Would you have to read the books/ poems in your own time with a deadline just because I’m quite a slow reader

That will pretty much depend entirely on your college and teacher. Every college will have it differently - in mine, we read all the key acts/chapter/poems during lesson and annotated them as well. In first year, we read two novels and a play in their entirety in class and a select few poems too. In second year, I had a different teacher and we only read the key acts for the other two plays in class and you could (but didn't need to) read the acts inbetween in your own time. I know other people at college with other teachers that did have to read a lot in their own time so it will depend on your college and teacher :/