A Level English Literature

When asked why it is important that English Literature is studied at A Level I struggled to develop a reason that wasn't 'because it is important!'. English Language is important to understand and apply as a study of reading and writing, as it develops the key skills that all people require to use on an everyday basis. English Language gives us the vocabulary to read, write and communicate in a variety of forms, but Literature gives us the depth and understanding that we require to tease out the underlying currents in conversations and stories. Literature provides the tools and skills to develop the understanding that Language begins to create in early years and GCSE. Without an English Literature A Level i would not be able to understand satirical comments, sarcastic conversations, hidden agendas or be able to see what is not being stated in a media post and define what we are not being told (in a propaganda/anti-state sort of way). Without the observation, interrogation and interpretation skills that the Literature A Level developed i would miss out all of these aspects in conversations, therefore missing out on possibly important information.

A Literature A Level also builds your analytic skills, more so than other A Levels would. You are given a piece of writing and told to search for x topic being shown in any way during your extract. The topic is not glaringly obvious, so it requires deep analysis to uncover any form of information. These skills are crucial in a new job market, where people who can work quickly and effectively towards a main goal are sought. Therefore, having an A Level in English Literature does not mean you are confined to a job that has a main focus with the English language. In fact, English opens up almost any job opportunity shy of medicine and science due to the skills it develops inside of you.

As a nation we are becoming more and more ignorant of our rich literary and cultural heritage. This is predominantly because there are no easy ways for the public to access the knowledge, short of history programs and period films. These are tainted because they always have an agenda that is biased from the director, and do not show what would be a true representation of the time period. Books are different and can work as time capsules waiting to be unlocked by a willing reader. While you do not need an A Level to read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, it is beneficial to have one to tease out the details from the time. Through these sort of texts we can understand what it is like to live when these writers were completing their works without being there. The rich language and imagery builds a picture that is significantly more vivid than if the A Level knowledge were not there to provide a foundation. People may think that these texts are redundant in the modern information age, but we cannot grow as a society until we learn from the past. Only then can we grow to a better future, and with a Literature A Level on your side you have the tools to provide for a better future by learning from the lessons of the past.

Poetry lightbulb moment

Throughout my school life I struggled with poetry. Year 9, 10 and 11 were rife with poets that I couldn't understand or comprehend. For my AS and A2 I chose to study English Literature which opened it up for me. We studied Carol Ann Duffy, Robert Lowell and Wilfred Owen. Owen and Lowell opened up poetry to me because the subject was exceptionally emotive. My teacher was also enthusiastic which helped me to access the topics. The one thing that I found beautiful about poetry was a fully analysed and annotated poem. The poem looks bare on a blank page; I find it an achievement to expand a full poem and take a snippet of the poet's life. 

Evaluate a lesson where you clearly differentiated and explain the strategies and resources you used.

The best lesson for me to evaluate my use of differentiation is the year 5 set 4 class that I have been taking. This class has a very low writing/reading age and has a very low predicted grade for their SATs. All of this makes the learning that they require rather specialised.

The pupils need a fast paced lesson to keep them interested, much like we require a fast paced film to keep us interested and to stop us drifting off or falling asleep. Similarly, to stop the pupils from drifting off/falling asleep in lessons due to being unable to access the materials I have had to learn to differentiate. The starter began with a recap of prior knowledge, as their retention of knowledge can be quite poor. This was done by recalling the uses for a comma and a connective in sentences, then writing them on whiteboards. This allowed me to assess their knowledge and get them thinking about the task in hand- working with commas to a greater extent. The main was split into three fifteen minute sections (lessons last for one hour) which meant the tasks set the pace. I began by reading Matilda to the pupils, which helps with their reading skills. This was then supplemented by a photocopy of the book from the beginning of a chapter where the pupils had to highlight the commas and connectives with highlighters and pens. This photocopy was done on buff paper to aid the pupils who have dyslexia and dyslexic tendencies. After this I handed out the worksheets for them to work on (again on buff paper to aid dyslexia friendly strategies). This lesson was differentiated because I used five work sheets of progressing difficulty, and this worked well in the class due to some pupils working at a greater rate than others, therefore having more work to do of a greater difficulty was useful to keep all pupils working at all times. The main strategy here was to push pupils to work at their optimum speed whilst progressively stretching them, which fulfils the stretch and challenge whilst using differentiation to target all pupils. After the lesson I received informal feedback from my tutor who said that I should try to differentiate on an even smaller scale, and target specific pupils to push harder, not just allow all pupils to progress with a number of sheets.

'Wow' lesson observed.

I observed the year six top set class that I am timetabled to for the last time this week, as my timetable has been changed to allow extra PPA time. In this lesson the teacher decided to change the task from reading Kensuke's Kingdom to imagining being in the scenario of Michael from the text.

The teacher gave me a task sheet before the lesson started so that i could familiarise myself with what needed to be done in the lesson. The task required five pupils, each with a different character card. Each character card had a different brief ranging from being a leader or being overly agreeable to being completely disagreeable. Whilst in these roles they had to imagine being the stranded on a desert island and the task was to assign roles (such as sentry duty, collecting food and water, gathering firewood) to ensure the survival of the group. After briefing the pupils they were split into groups and sent to separate areas of the school. I believe that by doing so the teacher actively removed the rules and constraints that a classroom provides, therefore enriching the role play. I observed three groups of girls in the school's dining hall, who were all in the full swing of their task.

The main reason i thought this lesson was worth mentioning for a 'wow' factor is because the teacher managed to engage every child with the role play, and their enthusiasm was obvious. Afterwards the teacher asked for feedback from the class, and they noted down what was difficult and enjoyable. To relate the drama to work the pupils were to write in the fashion of Kensuke's Kingdom from the perspective of their character in the next lesson.

The pupils were actively encouraged to create their own success criteria for the next lesson, a skill that shows self evaluation and provides targets for the class to work towards. This was only slightly guided by the teacher, who helped to word the sentences properly and type the criteria into a word document for printing.

In my mind this was a fantastic and enjoyable lesson that involved all and required minimal teacher input.

Timings within lessons

I recently observed a lesson in a set 1 year 6 class, and this lesson taught me a lot about both the timing within lessons and how timings can go awry in lesson plans.

The teacher allowed ten minutes (five at the beginning and five at the end) for the housekeeping tasks.This allowed fifty minutes for the students to complete an almost finished draft of their work, recognise the learning objectives and success criteria within their work, write a neat copy and get it peer assessed. With this being a top set class, the teacher thought that this would be no problem for the able pupils. I was asked to assist two lower ability pupils, one of which completed the task fully, and went onto extension work. To keep on top of the lesson and to ensure that the pupils stayed on time and on task the teacher and i constantly reminded them of how much time they had until the end of the lesson. However, as a majority of the pupils did not fully complete the task (for a variety of reasons, namely not working quick enough), the teacher has now had to postpone her next lesson plan to allow completion of the task. This is because the current piece is a writing assessment and important for gauging the writing levels of the pupils. It was important that i watched this lesson as the teacher is fully competent and I have observed other lesson by said teacher before, and know that their lessons can run like a well oiled machine. This is useful as an AT because I have seen first hand that even the best teachers can have lesson plans that do not fully work.

Initial Week of Being an Associate Teacher. Homework task 1.

During my initial week at my first placement i had the fortune of observing a very insightful English lesson with a year seven set three class. This class was very 'middle of the road' in ability, and their average level was 4/5. Their task was to read a set text and 1) develop dramatic techniques to explore a text whilst in role, 2) to answer questions whilst drawing on relevant evidence from the text and 3) to distinguish between the view of the writer and those expressed by characters in the text. I thought that this lesson was particularly useful when trying to attain and improve levels in the key stage three curriculum for reading. The second learning objective is key in progressing upwards of level five, and this was the main focus of the lesson. The children had to read a chapter of the book, then answer questions written by others as if they were particular characters. This reinforced their knowledge of the book and it helped to give the teacher an understanding of where they were with their reading levels. This was mainly shown through the level five sub-section as many of the children were able to 'select sentences, phrases and relevant information to support their views'. By doing so they were able to understand certain ideas and tropes within the text, therefore working to increase the level that they are reading at.