A Level English Literature

The study of English Literature at A Level is the perfect opportunity for lovers of literature, the theatre and the English language to develop their understanding of the breadth and depth of the subject.

The course allows you to feed your imagination and explore the world through the lens of some of literature’s finest minds. Studying Literature allows students to philosophise about human nature and the world in which we live, and to challenge and augment our preconceptions, beliefs and values.

Students will also develop their critical thinking skills as they seek to interpret, analyse and evaluate the meanings in the texts they study; additionally, these highly refined skills will serve as crucial and necessary preparation for the academic rigours of university. English Literature is regarded as a highly valued academic discipline by universities, equipping students with the necessary skill set to help them thrive in such a setting.

The English Literature A Level course is split between two genres, Crime and Tragedy. For the Crime genre, students will consider how tropes of the genre are explored through the study of an anthology of poetry including poets such as Robert Browning and Oscar Wilde coupled with an Agatha Christie novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and a Kate Atkinson novel When Will There Be Good News? Students will also deal with the presentation of crime tropes in an unseen extract from a crime novel.

For the Tragedy genre, students will study Shakespeare’s Othello coupled with a collection of Keats poetry and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman; similarly to the Crime genre, students will study the conventions and historical influence of significant Tragedy tropes and the ways in which each narrative portrays the tragedy of its characters.

Additionally, there is a coursework element to the study of Literature in which students are able to explore various areas of their own literary interest and develop and apply this interest to significant theoretical principles including Marxist, feminist and narrative theory.

To join BG6, you must achieve five or more GCSE grades 4 or above. These must include a minimum GCSE grade 4 in English Language or Literature and Mathematics and also meet the specific subject entry requirements for courses you are interested in.

SPECIFIC SUBJECT REQUIREMENTS:

GCSE Grade 5 in English Language and GCSE Grade 5 in English Literature

Students who study the subject at A Level go on to study subjects at university such as English Literature, History, Sociology, Linguistics, Speech and Language Therapy, Law and many more.

As a consequence, our English Literature A Level students go on to careers in a diverse range of fields including, but not exclusive to: journalism, newspaper and magazine editor, digital marketing, the teaching profession, advertising and marketing, writer and screenplay writer, forensic linguist, speech and language therapy, university lecturer and the legal field.