How is AQA English Literature?

I initially wanted to pick English Literature for my fourth A-Level, but I have been worrying (I am a big worrier) about if the work will overflow me. I am not great at English at GCSE and I'm targeted a B. My other A-Level choices are Maths, History and Psychology. I enjoy English Literature and think it will be a good subject for History and Psychology. Should I choose it? Does anyone have any information about it? My dad also wants me to do it as he says I NEED English and Maths to get anywhere. I know this isn't the case but I wouldn't be able to persuade his views. I am not a big reader but I do like reading. The other thing is if I didn't pick English Literature I wouldn't know what else to pick. I don't particularly enjoy the Sciences and have heard that if you don't have a great interest in them you won't get a good grade. Help?

I think English Literature would go nicely with your choices, especially History. (Currently doing both at A2 and I love them). They compliment each other well in the way that they're both analytical I found English Literature had the smallest workload out of my AS subjects (Biology, Chemistry, History and English Lit). I'm not a MASSIVE reader myself like you, but I do enjoy reading when I do it. Personally I found AS Literature quite easy, the texts I studied were great so that really helped. I didn't get an A* at GCSE but an A, however I still managed an A at AS so I think you'd cope fine As long as you read your texts and know them fairly well, are able to write a decent essay by covering all of the assessment objectives, you'll do well! Although wider reading would do no harm, it's definitely not important at AS like it is at A2. I'd definitely recommend this subject

Would you be doing specification A or B? And do you know what texts you'd study?

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Thank you for your reply! I don't know what specification I would be doing but I received a small paper booklet of the courses outline. In AS coursework I am to read and analyse 'The Handmaid's Tale' 'Top Girls' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and for A2 the coursework is an extended essay and Shakespeare study based on three core texts, one of which must be Shakespeare but it doesn't specify the texts I will be doing? :/ Oh and in AS one section of the exam will be on a collection of poetry 'Feminine Gospels' Thank you!

Also what exam board are you doing for History. I would like to go onto studying History or Maths at University.

You're welcome Oh that sounds great, it must be A as I did B and those texts definitely weren't an option! Hopefully you'd enjoy it! I did The Great Gatsby, The Kite Runner, Rime of the Ancient Mariner and poems by Keats for my exam, and A Midsummer Night's Dream and Educating Rita for the coursework.

I'm on Edexcel for History, what will you be on? History is absolutely amazing, it's so interesting oh lovely! I've applied for Anthropology

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Oh Okay, It's so nice to hear someone so involved in the subjects I want to do haha! I absolutely love History too, I am doing AQA history for GCSE and really enjoy the modern day history. Ooo! The History course in my sixth form is also Edexcel! How are you finding it? I think I am doing about Russia for the first unit in AS but I can't remember the rest.

Aww hehe I'm glad you do! As do I, I much prefer modern. Oh that's good. It's great, this year my exam is on Germany, so we learn about the Second Reich, the controversy of who started the First World War, all the way to the rise of the Nazis and the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor, the lead up to the Second World War, the Holocaust etc It's quite intense but I love it so much. Ah that's amazing I did Russia at AS too, both Russia in Revolution and Stalin's Russia, it was so interesting, I fell in love with Russian history! If you're doing Stalin's Russia I have a couple of essays I could send that could help you when the time comes Also did the experience of warfare in Britain (Boer, Crimean and First World War) for the unit 2 source paper

I'm currently doing AQA Literature AS spec B
I got an A* in both my Englishes at GCSE and I can admit that the essay structure in Literature is currently a struggle for me! I don't know why this is, perhaps the long summer holiday or even the fact that my teacher is a bit of fluke, but so far i haven't got an A on any piece of work that I've handed in. It's really frustrating me, so I guess you should be aware of this too. I thought that English would be a walk in the park (since I'm doing Chemistry, Biology and English Language as well) but as of right now I'm a bit miffed - the system is quite different than at GCSE
I'm determined to get an A out of it though, and I suppose that's the most important thing with literature - taking feedback both good and bad without getting frustrated, and improving your writing style and thought process.

I am really scared now! I am lacking in my english structure but I am learning from subjects like History. I also want to take English as it will improve my exam technique, essay writing and vocabulary for other subjects. What did you get in English literature for GCSE if you don't mind me asking. And are you studying any of the texts I quoted in the post before?

I got A* in Literature and A* in Language.
At my college we're going Tennyson (Ulysses ect) and Christina Rossetti (haven't gotten to her yet) for poetry; The Great Gatsby (started this week) and The Kite Runner (haven't gotten to this yet). For coursework I've just handed in an essay in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare (which took me 378 min + another ~200 min of planning) and we'll also do Educating Rita.

To be honest it massively depends on what teacher you have in a subject like Lit.

Oh right, well my teacher at the moment is okay but we are studying 'Kindertransport' (GCSE) and she is making us learn it in really weird ways and seen as we only have 3 weeks to do so I don't think sitting in a circle and reading until you see punctuation is really helping me tbh...

Help?

English teachers are a weird bunch of people
We had to do A View From the Bridge for GCSE and my teacher decided that we needed to act it out, for no reason other than a laugh (she recorded it and we watched it at the end of Y11 for ''revision'').
I never liked having to do posters and cut-and-stick type of learning for ANY of my subjects. But they make you do it anyway. What I've found with Lit at AS is that I have to go online and see what articles/interpretations there are online, as my teacher doesn't seem to have any ability to give clear and concise analysis. She's boring and has no sense of humour, both things I never associated with English teachers.
So I suggest you take what you can get, but only keep the things that you find useful

I'm currently in Y13 and am doing AQA English Literature. My other AS options were similar to yours - Maths, Politics and History (which I dropped - was so hard). I LOVE English so might be a bit biased but here is what I've gathered:

Pros of doing English:
- will go really nicely with your other essay writing A levels
- It is fun! All the lessons consist of are sitting around and reading and discussing. Even the people at my school who dropped it after AS enjoyed the lessons
- It's one of the few subjects that has retained coursework at AS, which means you can get 40% of the work done and then just focus on the exam
-Lots of my friends who took it up as a 4th AS actually carried it on to A level because they enjoyed it so much.

Negatives
- This year there have been reports of people doing badly in the exam. At my school lots of people did disastrously worse than expected (Some A/B candidates getting Ds in the exam, for example). I think this was just because lots of people didn't stick to the assessment objectives though. If you do take it make sure to look at the mark schemes and you'll be fine.
- It's purely essay writing, although this is the same for History and mainly psychology.

Yes we are currently acting out scenes, even though there is nothing in the syllabus to do so and I've told her that this isn't helping me learn the play at all. I also hate cutting and sticking, making posters either. I am no good at creative things.

Take your learning into your own hands too often teachers focus on getting all their pupils to decent C's. If you want to get a good grade do independent revision, or see your teacher one to one and ask her about anything you don't feel confident on.