QualificationAccredited

GCSE (91)Delivery Guide

ENGLISH LITERATUREJ352For first teaching in 2015

Exploring Modern TextsVersion 1

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GCSE (91) English Literature Delivery Guide

Delivery guides are designed to represent a body of knowledge about teaching a particular topic and contain:

Content: A clear outline of the content covered by the delivery guide;

Thinking Conceptually: Expert guidance on the key concepts involved, common difficulties students may have, approaches to teaching that can help students understand these concepts and how this topic links conceptually to other areas of the subject;

Thinking Contextually: A range of suggested teaching activities using a variety of themes so that different activities can be selected which best suit particular classes, learning styles or teaching approaches.

If you have any feedback on this Delivery Guide or suggestions for other resources you would like OCR to develop, please email resources.feedback@ocr.org.uk

GCSE (91)ENGLISH LITERATURE

Curriculum Content Page 3

Thinking Conceptually Page 4

Thinking Contextually Page 5

Learner Resources Page 7

Teacher Resources Page 44

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Delivery GuideGCSE (91) English Literature

When exploring modern prose or drama, learners should be encouraged to fully engage with their reading through exploration of:

keythemes,ideasandissues

charactersandrelationships

language

social,culturalorliterarycontexts.

In developing their comprehension skills, learners learn to articulate their understanding of aspects of plot, characterisation, events and settings and to distinguish between explicit and implicit meaning.

In developing their critical reading skills, the emphasis is on learners engaging personally with their reading and building confidence in their abilities to sustain an individual response which is supported and justified. In relation to this, learners reflect on the contexts in which texts are set, for instance, those relating to location, social structures or theme, as well as looking at literary contexts in their reading, for instance, use of symbolism or allegory for effect. Learners develop their own viewpoints supported by textual evidence, whilst at the same time recognising that there are different interpretations that other readers could make.

Learners analyse and evaluate how language, form and structure inform and impact on their reading of texts.

Learners are encouraged to explore modern literature more widely, through reading a diverse range of modern prose and drama extracts and texts. This enables them to develop their critical and comparative understanding of texts. Through engaging with different texts, learners can begin to discover how understanding of one text is illuminated by its relationship with another. This prepares them for making fresh comparisons between their studied text (printed extract) and a thematically linked unseen modern prose or drama extract in the exam.

In developing their writing skills, learners learn how to make a sustained, informed personal response to their reading. They are able to write effectively about literature for different purposes, including writing to describe, explain, summarise, argue, analyse and evaluate. Learners learn to craft their writing and create impact through careful selection and emphasis of key points, interwoven with textual evidence to back up their understanding and ideas.

For OCR J352 GCSE English Literature, learners study one set text from the list, either prose or drama:

Anita and Me Meera Syal

Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro

Animal Farm George Orwell

An Inspector Calls J. B. Priestley

My Mother Said I Never Should Charlotte Keatley

DNA Dennis Kelly.

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Delivery GuideGCSE (91) English Literature

Constructing an english literature curriculum

Its about joining the dots, tell your learners, or storm chasing. Its about looking inside a text and nosing out a theme, a character, a writers technique, and then tracking it right through the text, out the other side and through more texts.

In her reading from The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, Tilda Swinton completely hits the mark when she pictures herself alone in a rowing boat on a vast lake that represents the matrix of interconnected texts that we exist inside: Try to visualise all the streams of human interaction, of communication, she says. All those linking streams flowing in and between people, through text, pictures, spoken words and TV commentaries, streams through shared memories, casual relations, witnessed events, touching pasts and futures, cause and effect. Try to see this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, see the size and awesome complexity of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73f3LWZALE

Share the conceptual idea with your learners that literature, art, and even they themselves are part of this vast echo chamber. Pair Van Goghs Bedroom in Arles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedroom_in_Arles with Tracey Emins My Bed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Bed. Things repeat, mutate and accrue layers of meaning. Ask them to think about the traits they possess that they see mirrored in family members or friends; these are echoes, too.

http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/zhang_xiaogang_bloodline_2005.htm

Genes, artists beds, stories. Everything repeats and overlaps. The OCR J352 GCSE English Literature will help learners explore some of these pathways, and in so doing it will help them hone their critical and comparative understanding of texts, show them how one text illuminates another, and leave them with an appreciation of literatures power and depth.

Before considering the immense latticework of global texts and their inter-connections, learners can dip a toe in by considering the latticework of theme, character, setting and context contained within their set text. In Section 1 this guide looks at how themes run through Animal Farm by George Orwell, for instance, mutating, amplifying, but ultimately unifying the text.

The guide then moves on to consider context in Section 2. This could be the context in which a text is set, for instance, relating to social structures or setting, or relevant literary context, for instance, the morality tale. Having followed the tracks and trails within a text, candidates can venture outwards. The guide aims to show how candidates can utilise context to inform and enrich readings rather than bolting it on as an afterthought. This is knowledge that should be embedded at Key Stage 3. Co-director of the English and Media Centre, Barbara Bleiman, says: Knowledge of the social and historical context of the times

may be needed to allow learners to engage with the world of the novel but this is not important English knowledge in its own right only valuable for how it can be applied in an illuminating way to the text itself. Even at KS3, keeping the text at the centre of discussions of context seems crucial, coupled with a recognition that the text itself often provides much of its own context. This avoids the risk of English becoming mistaken for history, with that history, at worst, becoming a grossly generalised and watered down version.

Finally in Section 3 of the guide, learners can consider the streams running back and forth between texts. In the GCSE English Literature external assessment learners have the opportunity to compare a short extract from their set text with a modern prose or drama unseen extract.

The ability to make comparisons and connections between texts in order to enrich understanding is a skill that both the GCSE English Language and English Literature specifications aim to instil. With GCSE Literature the connections aim to enhance understanding of themes, characters, settings and contexts; with GCSE Language the connections illuminate ideas, attitudes and values. In GCSE Literature the unseen texts will be British, whereas in GCSE English Language texts may be international. There is opportunity for crossover here, as this guide demonstrates. By way of example, included in this guide is a memo sent by former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, which could be paired with an extract from the set text Anita and Me by Meera Syal. The aim is to enhance learners understanding of attitudes towards beauty as conveyed by the writer of the memo and the characters presented in the novel.

Going back to The Raw Shark Texts, learners set texts might be thought of as an area of the lake that they have mapped extensively, and the rest of the lake as comprising unseen literature. Thanks to their wider reading prior to the exam the rest of the lake will not be entirely unchartered, they will have an idea of what its depths might be, and hopefully the lake will be less intimidating as a result. By the end of their GCSE course they will know the lake; know the place for what it is and be ready to take a look over the boats side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73f3LWZALEhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedroom_in_Arleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedroom_in_Arleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Bedhttp://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/zhang_xiaogang_bloodline_2005.htm

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Delivery GuideGCSE (91) English Literature

Activities

Teachers and learners can cut path