English Department

English at Key Stage 4

For GCSE English students are required to demonstrate their ability to:

AO1 Speaking and Listening

• Communicate clearly and imaginatively, structuring and sustaining their talk and adapting it to different situations, using Standard English appropriately.
• Participate in discussion by both speaking and listening, judging the nature and purposes of contributions and the roles of participants.
• Adopt roles and communicate with audiences using a range of techniques.

AO2 Reading

• Read, with insight and engagement, making appropriate references to texts and developing and sustaining interpretations of them.
• Distinguish between fact and opinion and evaluate how information is presented.
• Follow an argument, identifying implications and recognising inconsistencies.
• Select material appropriate to their purpose, collate material from different sources, and make cross-references.
• Understand and evaluate how writers use linguistic, structural and presentational devices to achieve their effects, and comment on ways language varies and changes.

AO3 Writing

• Communicate clearly and imaginatively, using and adapting forms for different readers and purposes.
• Organise ideas into sentences, paragraphs and whole texts using a variety of linguistic and structural features.
• Use a range of sentence structures effectively with accurate punctuation and spelling.

The Coursework

Speaking and Listening (20%)

Variety of tasks. Assessment should focus on:
• extended individual contributions
• group discussion and interaction
• drama focused activities

English Written Coursework (20%)

1) Reading: Play by Shakespeare *
2) Reading: Poetry from different cultures and traditions*
3) Writing: Either to explore, imagine, entertain or to inform, explain describe
4) Writing: Either to argue, persuade, advise or to analyse, review, comment ( similar to AQA media)

English Literature Written Coursework (30%)

1a) Drama – Shakespeare (crossover)
2a) Poetry – Different cultures (crossover)
5) Poetry – Pre-1914
6) Prose  - Pre-1914

Texts to be chosen so that pre- and post- 1914 are covered in the coursework and the exam.
(At least two assignments must show evidence of ability to make comparisons between two texts.)

The Exams

ENGLISH Exam =  60%
Paper 1 30% (2 hours)

Section A (En2) 15%
Reading of a prose passage from the English literary heritage
Answer 4 questions

Section B (En3) 15%
Two writing tasks:
• one to inform/explain/describe (7.5%)
• one to explore/imagine/entertain (7.5%)

ENGLISH LITERATURE exam = 70%
Written Paper 70% (2½ hours)

Section A Prose 30%
Close reading of extract from set text (10 marks)
Extended writing on set text (20 marks)

Section B Drama 30%
Close reading of extract from set text (10 marks)
Extended writing on set text (20 marks)

Section C Poetry 10%
Guided response to unseen poem (10 marks)

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.
 - Theodore Parker

Glosssary of Terms

• affect: to produce an effect or have an emotional impact on a character
• aspect: a particular component or feature in staging, performance or use of language
• attitude: a settled feeling or opinion held about someone or something
• effective: successful in producing a strong or favourable response (on the audience)
• influences: the power that someone or something has over other people’s thinking or actions; the effect of something on a person
• relationship: connection, or emotional association, between two or more characters
• significance: importance; (in addition) having a meaning which may be concealed, unstated, or not realised at the time (of an event or a speech)
• theme: an abstract idea that emerges from the play’s treatment of its subject matter.

 The Mock Turtle
What is the use of repeating all that stuff, if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!
Lewis Carroll