Context

Literature: Students are encouraged to develop an interest in and enjoyment of literary studies through reading  widely,  independently  and  critically.  They  will  be introduced to the traditions of English Literature covering drama, poetry and prose across time up to the modern age, as well as wider reading.

Language and Literature: A Level courses will encourage students to develop their ability to use linguistic and analytical frameworks in commenting on a wide range of spoken language and written texts. Students should become confident and reflective readers who can relate to literary and non-­literary texts and to the contexts in which they were produced.     

IB Literature: Students are encouraged to develop an interest in the study of texts, both literary and non-literary, to develop an understanding of how language works to create meanings in a culture, as well as in particular texts. Students will journey around the world through literature, focusing on the social, historical and cultural contexts becoming active, independent learners.

A Level Literature

Essential reading: The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald (Penguin Modern Classics) 

Suggested research: 

Research the authors and the historical/ social context of the texts named in the essential reading:

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gatsby/

https://daily.jstor.org/what-the-great-gatsby-reveals-about-the-jazz-age/

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/nyregion/a-fleeting-eras-timeless-chronicle.html

Suggested viewing: 

Watch an adaptation of Othello by William Shakespeare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCdHpKXw_Tg

Suggested reading: Using the General Recommended Reading List for English at Key Stage 5 below - choose 1 or 2 that sound interesting to read or listen to the audio book.

A Level Language and Literature

Essential Reading: 

Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus  Mary Shelley (OUP Oxford 24 Oct 2019) ISBN-10 : 0198840829 

Robert Browning Poems: My Last Duchess, The Lost Leader, The Laboratory, Cristina, Johannes Agricola in Medit, Porphryia's Lover, Home Thoughts, From Abroad, Meeting at Night, Parting at Morning, De Gustibus - Prospice

Suggested Research:

Research the authors and the historical/ social context of the texts named in the essential reading:

https://www.biography.com/writer/mary-shelley

https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/frank.comment1.html

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/frankenstein/context/

Researching Paris:  : https://en.parisinfo.com/

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/france/paris

IB Literature

Essential research: 

Start getting to know the world around you - try and cover all of the continents. Read and/ or watch the news (local and international) at least once a week. 

BBC World News: https://edition.cnn.com/world

CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/world

World Literature Today: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/

Sky News: https://news.sky.com/

Suggested reading:

Choose 3 texts from the General Recommended Reading List or English at Key Stage 5 below.  Research the historical and social context of each text and have a think about the possible Global Issues being explored in them.

UN Global issues: https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/global-issues-overview/

Global issue: https://www.globalissues.org/

Global seminar: http://globalseminar.weebly.com/global-issues-of-the-21st-century.html

General Recommended Reading List for KS5 English 

C. Achebe Things Fall Apart (IB)

Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale

Jane Austen anything

Louis de Bernieres Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (IB)

Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

Bill Bryson  Mother Tongue,  A Walk through the Woods (Lang/Lit)

Tim Butcher  Blood River

Angela Carter The Magic Toyshop

Wilkie Collins The Woman in White (Lang/Lit)

Charles Dickens anything

Sebastian Faulks Birdsong

F.Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night

E.M. Forster A Room with a View

John Fowles The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Susan Hill I’m the King of the Castle

Khaled Hosseini  A Thousand Splendid Suns (IB, Lang/Lit)

Aldous Huxley Brave New World

K. Ishiguru The Remains of the Day (IB)

Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird

Gabriel Garcìa Márquez Love in the Time of Cholera (IB)

Haruki Marukami, The Elephant Vanishes (IB)

Iain McEwan Atonement, On Chesil Beach

Toni Morrison Beloved

George Orwell Animal Farm, 1984 (IB, Lang/Lit)

Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar, any poems

Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea (IB)

J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (Lang/Lit)

Sophocles Oedipus Rex(IB)

Bram Stoker Dracula

Patrick Suskind Perfume (IB)

Alice Walker The Color Purple (IB)

Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest

Tennessee Williams A Glass Menagerie

Jeanette Winterson Oranges are not the only Fruit

Virginia Woolf Mrs Dalloway

·         The English Review - a periodical online and in library

·         E-magazine – online and in the library