Exam Board: AQA
Course Outline
In the first year, students will cover the material for Paper 1 of the A-level. They will develop expertise in the way they evaluate non-fiction texts, with a focus on how the city of Paris is represented across a range of genres. Towards the end of Year 12, students choose the texts they will compare in the non-examined assessment. Plenty of guidance is given, but students are encouraged to explore their own interests, and no two essays will be on the same pair of texts.
In Year 13, the course switches focus to Paper 2. This requires an element of creative writing, as students are asked to adapt a piece of familiar literature for a new purpose and audience. The source text could be fiction, such as The Great Gatsby, or it could be factual, such as Into the Wild (John Krakauer’s account of a young man’s adventure in the American wilderness). The drama text comes next, leaving plenty of time for revision before the exams.
Assessment and Examinations
The A-level comprises two exams at the end of the second year. The exams contribute 80% of the overall mark, with the remaining 20% coming from a non-examined assessment (i.e. coursework). Paper 1 is called Telling Stories and it looks at a range of different narrative strategies. Paper 2 is called Exploring Conflict; it looks at the role of the individual in society, and includes re-creative writing based on a set text; it also explores conflict in drama. The non-examined assessment (NEA) is a personal investigation that explores a specific technique or theme in both literary and non-literary discourse and needs to be between 2,500-3,000 words long. This is broken down into sections in a really clear and helpful way, with an introduction and aims, a literature review, the main body, a conclusion, and a references section (or bibliography), so it provides excellent training for undergraduate study.
Future Prospects
This course will lay the foundation for further study in a wide variety of fields, as well as helping to develop core transferable skills. Studying English Language and Literature is not just about pursuing a career in English; the analytical and research skills you will develop can help open doors to fields as diverse as Law, History, Economics, Journalism, Politics or Psychology. The course is also widely recognised by the country’s leading universities. Recent CoLAHG A-level Language and Literature students have gone on to study Psychology at City University, Classical Civilisation at the University of Swansea, and International Law at the University of Leicester.