Teacher Resource Bank

GCE English Literature A Coursework Guidance: LITA2 Creative Study

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

ENGLISH LITERATURE SPECIFICATION A Coursework Guidance LITA2 Creative Study

Rationale The AS coursework unit LITA2 provides candidates and teachers with the opportunity to choose texts within the chosen AS option of either Option A Victorian Literature, or Option B World War One Literature or Option C The Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature. Candidates folders will contain two pieces of writing; one will be on the selected prose text and the other will be on the selected drama text. The overall folder, which should be between 2000 and 2,500 words in total length, will examine AO1 Articulate creative, informed and relevant responses to literary texts, using appropriate terminology and concepts, and coherent, accurate written expression; AO2 Demonstrate detailed critical understanding in analysing the ways in which structure, form and language shape meanings in literary texts; AO3 Explore connections and comparisons between different literary texts, informed by interpretations of other readers and AO4 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received. How the Assessment Objectives Work in LITA2 Weightings Prose Task Drama Task Totals AO1 8% 4% 12% AO2 10% 4% 14% AO3 0% 10% 10% AO4 2% 2% 4% Percentage Total 20% 20% 40%

As can be seen, the various mark allocations for the Assessment Objectives add up to 40% which is the weighting of LITA2 at AS Level. When selecting appropriate and challenging AS coursework tasks, centres are reminded of the absolute necessity of enabling candidates to cover all of the Assessment Objectives in the appropriate proportions, so that candidates have the best possible chance of securing a higher grade. AQA will offer advice and guidance, both in this document and elsewhere, about appropriate task-setting and accurate marking for AS Level English Literature. The role of the Specification A consortium and of the consortium adviser/moderator will be of key importance for centres for, as well as being able to offer advice about questionsetting, the consortium adviser will also be able to approve alternative texts should centres wish to select texts from beyond the parameters of the set texts outlined in the specification document. In line with the spirit of this specification, LITA2 Coursework encourages students to engage with their texts and tasks and to produce independent, personal and informed responses to their prose text and to place their drama text within its contexts (especially the dramatic) by connecting it to another drama text (or texts) from wider

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

reading or to the selected prose text, focusing on such aspects of literature as presentation of theme, presentation of character or the writers use of form, structure and language. Coursework must enable students to respond to texts in ways that differ from written examinations, so centres should ensure that candidates have a sufficiently wide and varied range of coursework tasks. For creative, original and differentiated responses to emerge, the tasks centres ask candidates to do should also be sufficiently differentiated. This approach will also provide opportunities for less able candidates to negotiate tasks which will give them a better opportunity to work to their strengths and interests. Similarly, very able candidates will benefit from tasks which offer appropriate stretch and challenge, thus presenting an early opportunity to practise and hone the sort of analytical skills which will be further tested at A2. The aims of this specification will not be supported by centres giving all candidates identical coursework tasks. Setting Appropriate Tasks Task 1 Prose The first piece of writing in the folder will focus on a personal, informed response and will be either: a. creative (as in a personal or original interpretation); or b. creative transformational writing. Example 1 Option: Victorian Literature Text: Wuthering Heights, Emily Bront

a) How does Bronts presentation of ideas about Time affect your interpretation of the novel? or b) Write Heathcliffs journal entry describing the day Catherine dies and the events leading up to her death, creating Heathcliffs voice, capturing Bronts use of form, structure and language and building on the novelists presentation of character. Example 2 Option: The Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature Text: The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood

a) How does Atwoods presentation of rituals and ceremonies in The Handmaids Tale influence your understanding of the novel? or b) Write the confession obtained from the Commander by the Gilead authorities after Offreds disappearance in Chapter XV (15), capturing the form, structure and language of the novel and building on Atwoods presentation of the Commanders character.

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

Example 3

Option: World War One Literature Text: Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

a) Analyse Faulks presentation of friendships and love affairs in Birdsong, showing which relationships and love affairs had the greatest impact on your understanding of the novel. or b) Write the letter that Stephen Wraysford wrote to Jeanne Fourmentier after his escape from the tunnel at the end of section 6 of Birdsong, describing his thoughts about being trapped underground, his attitude to Weir and Firebrace and his feelings for Jeanne. The letter should create Stephens voice, capturing Faulks use of form, structure and language and building on the novelists presentation of character. In the examples above, all tasks examine AO1 (8%), AO2 (10%) and AO4 (2%). Questions 1a and 2a are designed to assess the candidates critical understanding of the writer at work through an invitation to write about form, structure and language by enabling them to access the dominant AO2 via the key phrase How does Bronts/ Atwoods presentation Question 3a enables candidates to access AO2 through its instruction to analyse presentation (which is an invitation to explore form, structure and language) and takes care to allow for a creative, relevant, personal response via the instruction to write about which love affairs and relationships had the greatest impact on the candidate. Questions 1b, 2b and 3b invite candidates to write a transformational response in the voice of one of the novels main characters. Contexts for such transformational writing given here are a journal entry, a confession and a letter but other contexts could be, for example, a diary entry written by a major character or, perhaps, a missing chapter in a novel. It is important to note the slight differences in the wording of the questions: 1b and 3b invite candidates to demonstrate understanding of the novelists presentation of character. So, though in 1b the voice in the answer will be Heathcliffs and in 3b the transformational task requires candidates to recreate the voice of Stephen Wraysford, candidates need to pay attention to how other characters are presented by the novelists or are understood by Heathcliff and Stephen respectively. Question 2b asks candidates to recreate an authentic voice for the Commander and the focus of the task is solely on him. Centres, when agreeing tasks with candidates, need to be aware of the subtle differences which can be made to a question by the inclusion or exclusion of small but significant key words and phrases. For the purposes of providing opportunities for differentiation and stretch it is expected that more able candidates may be able to benefit from the sort of wording utilised in examples 1b and 3b. Heathcliff, for example, may be realistically expected to have a very different understanding of Catherine than either Lockwood or Nellie Dean. Similarly, in 3b, candidates may be able to explore not only the ways Stephen understands Weir, Firebrace and Jeanne but also how Faulks creates subtleties in the characters of Weir, Firebrace and Jeanne not quite understood by Stephen who, according to Colonel Gray is an odd fish. Rewards for candidates critical understanding will be based on their abilities to explore detail: the more confident the exploration of how writers use form, structure and language to shape meaning, the greater will be the reward and the further up the achievement ladder candidates will be placed. AO1 is assessed via the invitations for the candidates to make a personal response either in an academic, formal register or by authentically and persuasively recreating

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

the form, structure and language with which an important character has been presented in the selected prose text or in the authentic narrative style of the novelist. All answers written in response to these questions need to be informed, relevant and coherent using accurate written expression thus further examining AO1. AO4 is worth only 2% here but candidates will be able to demonstrate their understanding of contexts via accessing such key themes and ideas as: Time in Wuthering Heights (as well as the idea of an early nineteenth century journal written by Heathcliff who brings to the novel other contexts such as the outsider, mental derangement, obsession, cruelty, passion, Byronic hero and so on); rituals and ceremonies in a religiously-fundamental, dystopian vision of the future in The Handmaids Tale (as well as the idea of the sort of confession a right-wing, fundamentalist hypocrite may make) and the importance of friendships and love affairs in Birdsong, most of which are set on the Western Front during World War One but some of which are set in Amiens, Plombires and St. Rmy-de-Provence in 1910 or in the London of 1979. It is accepted that AO4 will be a minor consideration for AS coursework but centres, when setting tasks for candidates, should try to find for it the space it needs. Task 2 Drama The second piece of writing in the folder will focus on the chosen drama text and will need to include a comparative element. Either making connections to wider drama reading or to the selected prose text will enable candidates to achieve AO3. Example 1 Option: Victorian Literature Text: Arcadia, Tom Stoppard

a) Thomasina in Stoppards Arcadia is presented as no more than an incomprehensible brainbox with no passion for life, whereas Catherine the younger in Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights is presented as a creature of passion and no intellect. In the light of this statement compare and contrast the ways Stoppard presents Thomasina in Arcadia with the ways Bront presents Catherine the younger in Wuthering Heights. or b) Compare and contrast the ways Stoppard presents Thomasina in Arcadia with the ways Dickens presents Louisa Gradgrind in Hard Times. How far would you agree with the view that Thomasina is too clever for an audience to understand, whereas Louisa is too dull for the reader to like? Example 2 Option: World War One Literature Text: Journeys End, R.C. Sherriff

a) Explore the ways Sherriff presents human weakness in Journeys End to create dramatic effect. Compare and contrast the ways Journeys End and The Accrington Pals by Peter Whelan present human weakness and say how far you agree with the view that The Accrington Pals is far more believable in its portrayal of human weakness than is Journeys End. or b) Compare and contrast the ways in which R.C. Sherriff in Journeys End and Pat Barker in Regeneration present the lives of men who are living under enormous stress in the light of the opinion that Sherriffs characterisation is realistic and believable whereas Barkers is unrealistic and unbelievable.

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

Example 3

Option: The Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature Text: Making History, Brian Friel

a) Compare and contrast the ways Making History and other plays you have read about the struggle for identity in modern literature present ideas about the importance of culture and history. How far do you agree that Friel and writers of other dramatic works propose the view that it is always very easy to abandon one culture in favour of another? or b) Compare and contrast the presentation of Peter Lombard in Making History with the presentation of Ishmael Chambers in David Gutersons Snow Falling on Cedars in the light of the opinion that the truth doesnt matter. All that people really want is a good story. All examples of the drama tasks above examine AO1 (4%), AO2 (4%), AO3 (10%) and AO4 (2%). All the above questions are designed to assess the candidates abilities to explore connections and comparisons between different literary texts, informed by interpretations of other readers making AO3 the dominant Assessment Objective. AO1 and AO2 are only worth 4% each on this part of AS coursework and as with the prose task, AO4 is worth only 2% but candidates will be able to demonstrate their understanding of contexts via the comparative nature of the task. With AO3 being the dominant Assessment Objective for the drama part of the folder, centres must ensure that candidates are given opportunities to cover both components of the AO: Example 4 Option: Victorian Literature Text: A Dolls House, Henrik Ibsen

Explore the presentation of Nora Helmer in A Dolls House by setting the play within a dramatic context or contexts which has/have helped to enrich your understanding of it. Relevant contexts you might choose to write about include: other Victorian plays which compare and contrast thematically performance/staging/setting feminism/literary criticism/political theatre the genre of tragedy/the notion of the tragic heroine/ tragicomedy/melodrama/the well-made play

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

1. Explore connections and comparisons between different literary texts 2. informed by interpretations of other readers Hence, the exemplar drama tasks above demonstrate the importance of creating opportunities not only for the candidates to compare and contrast but also for them to do so against a backdrop of literary debate. It is anticipated that centres will be able to set tasks as a natural consequence of some of the debates that emerge in classrooms from a consideration of the drama text in relationship to other works in the dramatic genre or in relationship to the prose text. In this sense, successful coursework tasks should naturally flow out of the learning experiences of the candidates studying the coherent, integrated course offered by this specification. Meeting the Assessment Objectives across Both Tasks AO1 requires particularly careful attention in a coursework unit. It is disappointing for moderators to see AO1 occasionally ignored when assessment is made, and little attention paid to even the most glaring errors in the teachers marginal annotation and/or summative comments. Cohesion and clarity can be hugely aided by the use of appropriate discourse markers and this aspect of the drafting process often needs as much teacher attention and input as the actual content of the essay. It is important, too, that the application of AO2 to prose and drama texts does not operate on a merely lexical level. In both parts of the folder, working with aspects of form, structure and language to demonstrate detailed critical understanding will be far more likely to generate a high mark for candidates than a consideration of theme or meaning divorced from an analysis of literary technique. In addition to those aspects of AO3 mentioned above centres should ensure that to access the higher mark bands candidates must tackle issues of narrative, genre, critical debate and context. Comparing content inevitably leads to candidates adopting an unhelpful narrative and descriptive approach which deals with subject matter at the expense of higher order skills. Genuine engagement with debate is important, even at AS and will become more important at A2. In order to develop and maintain this crucial notion of a debate, students should be encouraged to refer to textual possibilities rather than certainties. Though only worth 4% in LITA2 AO4 is still present. Candidates need to locate their key contexts with care in order to demonstrate an understanding of their significance. Administration and Presentation Candidates now submit word-processed work and it is useful to remind them to use a clear and formal font such as Times New Roman or Arial. Using black ink, 12point type and 1.5 or double (2.0) line-spacing makes the work easier for teachers and moderators to read and annotate. Folders which exceed the upper word limit of 2,500 words by more than 10% should be strongly discouraged; excessive writing is inevitably self-penalising in terms of AO1 alone. Candidates who adhere to recommended word lengths have learned to draft and edit their work effectively and so can be reasonably expected to achieve a higher mark. Word counts should be included and all secondary sources, including internet sites, clearly acknowledged in attached bibliographies. Pages of individual essays should be numbered and should carry the candidates name. Folders should be securely fastened with treasury tags or staples and the Candidate Record Forms must be signed by candidates and

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Teacher Resource Bank / GCE English Literature A / LITA2 Coursework Guidance / Version 1.0

attached to the front of each folder. Work should not be submitted in plastic wallets or bulky cardboard folders. Finally, meeting deadlines is very important. Candidates who submit late work should be re-entered for the following series. January or June Entry Centres who use the January entry for all their candidates must successfully manage work-load issues for both students and staff; limited time can focus candidates minds and may well lead to crisply focused and well structured writing and it is certainly possible to submit work in January which reflects the best of the candidates ability. A January entry allows candidates to complete their coursework before beginning their final preparation and revision for the LITA1 examination. On the other hand, centres may believe that to enter candidates for a demanding coursework component worth 40% of the entire AS marks after only three or four months teaching is ambitious. Such centres may feel their students need further time for reflection and revision and will therefore choose a summer entry, balancing work for Units 1 and 2 throughout the autumn and spring terms and allowing time for assessment and internal moderation before or during the Easter break. Then again there will be centres who, after having made accurate assessments of their candidature will wish to employ a mixed entry profile with some candidates being entered for the January examination and others who perhaps do not possess such well-developed AS skills (such as AO1 which is not always secure with candidates who have recently emerged from GCSE) being left until the June entry point when their skills are more mature and their confidence is greater. Future Support As this is a new specification, teachers should make regular contact with their consortium coursework advisers for support in delivering this unit. Centres and candidates should not submit tasks which have not been approved by the moderator or alter previously agreed questions. In addition to the teacher support meetings run by AQA, consortium standardisation meetings - held in the autumn term - will provide extra help, and, in due course, past reports will be made available online. AQAs Teacher Support Department also runs courses and centres are urged to seek help from the range of sources available. As the new specification beds down, standardisation materials and further guidance will be issued.

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