A-level English literature books

I'm currently in year 11 and I am contemplating doing English literature as an A-level, and I was just wondering about what sorts of books you read, poems, plays etc..

Reply 1

emily_rose235

Depends what exam board you're going to be on. I'm on wjec, and for the coursework I had to read The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye, and then write an essay on that (I chose how women were represented in the novels) and the second coursework was writing a short story, and then writing a commentary on that.
For the exam I've studied the play Oleanna, and then poetry by Sylvia Plath, and Ted Hughes. It's fairly simple, quite challenging, but doable once you get technique/structure/terminology down. However, I know someone doing AQA and apparently that's ridiculously difficult, and there's more independence in terms of having to read several books/plays of your own choosing in your own time, and being required to use them in the exam.....the technique is also a lot harder to learn. Either way, put the work in during the year, as revising for english the weeks leading up to the exam doesn't work too well, because you need to be good at the techniques by then anyway, and it's impossible to cram.
Good luck!

tldr; Basically depends what exam board you're on, but if you enjoy english lit you should be fine.

Reply 2

Jo890

I'm doing AQA and we're studying pride and prejudice, the kite runner, Rossetti poems and Keats poems for the exam and for coursework we have done Shakespeare's twelfth night and lysistrata by Aristophanes
However, there are about 12 poets your teacher can choose from and around 15 books so the 42 mark question in the exam has to be able to fit all the authors so it is a broad question
Message me for more information on aqa English lit
What other subjects were you thinking of studying??

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