A Level English Literature Long Term Plan - Year A (2020

A Level English Literature Long Term Plan - Year A (2020 – 2021) - Year 12 & 13

Teacher 1

Autumn Spring Summer

Tragedy: An Introduction to Tragedy and Othello by

William Shakespeare

Tragedy: Richard II by William Shakespeare

(Richard II is used as a comparison text for The Great

Gatsby.)

Non-examined Assessment: Question 1 on a text of student’s choice and linked literary theory (Year 12)

Exam Revision (Year 13)

Domains of Knowledge Literary Context - Jacobean Literary Context; Ancient Greek Literary Context. Genre/ Form – Jacobean Revenge Tragedy. Literary Terminology associated with Poetry, Drama and Tragedy. Critical Concepts linked with tragedy, self-invention, post-colonialism and feminism. Written Communication – In-depth analysis of language, meter and form in single extracts and across the entire play. Verbal Communication – Presenting to an audience.

Domains of Knowledge Literary Context - Elizabethan Literary Context; Medieval Historical Context. Genre/ Form – Elizabethan History Play & Tragedy. Literary Terminology associated with Poetry, Drama, History and Tragedy. Critical Concepts linked with history plays, tragedy, self-invention and kingship. Written Communication – In-depth analysis of language, meter and form in single extracts and across the entire play. Verbal Communication – Discussion and debate.

Domains of Knowledge Literary theory, including: • Narrative theory • Feminist theory • Marxist theory • Eco-critical theory • Post-colonial theory • Literary value and the canon. The specific area of theory selected is determined by the focus of the non-examined assessment and the text chosen by the student for study. (Year 12). All relevant domains previously studied (Year 13)

Key Concepts • Retrieval of prior learning about Shakespeare and

Macbeth. • Themes – Jealousy, marriage, race and racism,

alienation, outsiders, identity, self-invention, reputation, patriarchy, hierarchy, civilization and savagery, war and militarism, female virtue, corruption, subservience, madness and silencing, disruption of the natural order, appearances and reality, male violence, fate, omens, foreshadowing, cuckoldry, the supernatural and exoticism.

• The Early Modern context, including Renaissance Humanism in art and literature. Soliloquy and the Renaissance Self in Hamlet and As You Like It.

• Othello source material - Cinthio. • Dramatic and prophetic irony.

Key Concepts • Richard II and the historical context, including

usurpation by Bolingbroke and England’s internal unrest from 1399 to 1485.

• Themes – Kingship, identity, self-invention, reputation, hierarchy, civilization, vacillation versus action, judgement, leadership, usurpation, war.

• The History plays, the fluidity of genre and the conception of Richard as a tragic hero.

• Kingship, including the Divine Right of Kings and the conflict between the king as a figurehead and the king as a man like any other.

• Application of knowledge about Renaissance, selfhood and self-invention to the concept of kingship.

Key Concepts Theoretical perspectives:

Narrative theory focuses on the ways in which narratives are constructed, paying attention, to the ways in which the reader’s perspectives are shaped by narrative perspective, sequence, and style. The structural differences between story and narrative (form).

Feminist and Marxist theory both draw attention to issues of power, looking at how literary texts reflect and explore the struggles between genders and social classes for fairness and equality. (First-wave feminism; Second-wave feminism; Third-wave feminism and feminist attitudes to the body. In addition, the

• Aristotle’s Concepts of Tragedy. • Revenge Tragedy – Senecan, Elizabethan and

Jacobean; political and domestic; wider reading of The White Devil, The Revenger’s Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, Hamlet and Titus Andronicus.

• Comic relief in Shakespearean Tragedy. • Women in Shakespeare: Madness & music, silencing. • Medieval influences – The morality play and the

figures of Vice and Mankind; January-May plots, courtesy and chivalry.

• Jesters, clowning and fools in Shakespeare. • Feminist theories, including Gilbert and Gubar - The

Madwoman in the Attic. • Selfhood/self-invention theories including Stephen

Greenblatt - Renaissance Self-fashioning. • Post-colonial theories - Ania Loomba, Gender, Race,

Renaissance Drama, & Karen Newman, And Wash the Ethiop White.

• Racial politics and racial prejudice in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

• Foils and doubles • Poetic meter & scansion.

• Application of knowledge about tragedy to the character and events of Richard II, including Aristotle’s concepts of tragedy and renaissance humanism.

• Awareness of death and mortality, and how this affects decision-making.

• Leadership, military strategy and incompetence.

representation of class in literary texts (importance of social power and the balance of power)).

Eco-critical theory looks at the relationship between humans and the natural world, highlighting the way the natural world is depicted and the values associated with it – including the exploration of pastoral writing.

Post-colonial theory explores texts written in, and about, nations that have been colonised by others, and by writers whose roots are in these nations. It looks at questions of power, identity, and exploitation, and offers a counter-narrative to challenge the narratives offered by those who have historically held most power. An exploration of the legacy of colonialism (the relationships between different cultures)

Value and the canon over time and debates about literature. (Year 12)

All relevant concepts previously studied (Year 13)

Key Vocabulary Vocabulary - Tragedy, tragic hero, fatal flaw, hubris, hamartia, complication, climax, peripeteia, denouement, catharsis, cathartic, anagnorisis, playwright, aside, comic relief, renaissance, humanism, Jacobean, Senecan, alienation, self-invention, reputation, patriarchy, patriarchal, hierarchy, civilization, savagery, militarism, animalism, animalistic, female virtue, corruption, subservience, cuckoldry, exoticism, feminism, post-colonialism. Literary Terminology - Soliloquy, monologue, foreshadowing, symbolism, dramatic irony, prophetic irony, iambic, iamb, trochaic, trochee, spondaic, spondee, monometer, dimeter, trimiter, tetrameter, pentameter, feminine ending, dramatic methods.

Key Vocabulary Vocabulary - Tragedy, tragic hero, fatal flaw, hubris, hamartia, complication, climax, peripeteia, denouement, catharsis, cathartic, anagnorisis, tragic, pathetic, sympathetic, History, playwright, aside, comic relief, renaissance, humanism, Elizabethan, self-invention, reputation, hierarchy, kingship, status, weakness, reputation, corruption, militarism, failure, usurpation, vacillation.

Literary Terminology - Soliloquy, monologue, foreshadowing, symbolism, dramatic irony, prophetic irony, iambic, iamb, trochaic, trochee, spondaic, spondee, monometer, dimeter, trimiter, tetrameter, pentameter, feminine ending, dramatic methods.

Key Vocabulary All relevant key vocabulary previously studied/linked to area of focus for non-examined assessment.

Assessment* Essay 1 – Othello as a Tragic Hero in Act 1, with reference to Shakespeare’s dramatic methods. Essay 2 – Marriage and the role of women, with reference to Shakespeare’s dramatic methods.

Assessment* Essay 1 – Is Richard II a tragic hero? Essay 2 – Evaluation of Richard II and Jay Gatsby as tragic heroes whose downfall is caused by serious misfortune.

Assessment* Year 12 – Completion of draft and final responses for Non-Examined Assessment Question 1. Year 13 – Practice exam essays.

*Note on assessment: The essays detailed here are formalised assessments; in addition, students will complete regular formative extended written responses in lessons and for independent study. Regular practice of extended writing is an imperative part of A Level study and it is essential that students complete all independent study work. Feedback on formative writing will be given using a range of techniques and approaches in lessons.

Teacher 2

Autumn Spring 1 Spring 2 Summer

Tragedy: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott

Fitzgerald

(The Great Gatsby is used as a comparison text for Richard II.)

Crime: Poetry Anthology

An Introduction to Literary Theory for the Non-Examined Assessment

(Year 12)

Revisions & improvements to the Non-Examined Assessment

(Year 13)

Non-examined Assessment: Question 2 on a different text of student’s choice and linked

literary theory (Year 12)


Domains of Knowledge Literary Context – Modernism and the Roaring Twenties/ Jazz Age. Genre/ Form – Modern Tragedy and tragic narratives in the novel. Literary Terminology associated with Prose and Tragedy. Critical Concepts linked with domestic tragedy, the American Dream, Marxism and genre conventions of romance and crime. Written Communication – In-depth analysis of language, structure, and form in the novel. Verbal Communication – Discussion and

debate.

Domains of Knowledge Literary Context: The literary tradition of crime. Genre/ Form: elements of crime in pre-1900 poetry. Literary Terminology associated with crime writing, for example a criminal register, legal register and register of guilt. Critical Concepts linked with Freudianism, and social commentary of sensuality and violence, and spiritual transgression and capital punishment.

Domains of Knowledge Literary theory, including: • Narrative theory • Feminist theory • Marxist theory • Eco-critical theory • Post-colonial theory • Literary value and the canon.


Written Communication: In-

depth analysis of language,

structure, and form in a

collection of poems by

Crabbe, Browning and Wilde.

Verbal Communication: Discussion and debate.

Key Concepts

The Roaring Twenties/ Jazz Age

Representation of American consumer culture during the 1920s.

The vision and realism of the American Dream.

Frame Narrative: Nick Carraway’s dual role as both narrator and character.

The use of setting to convey ideas of social mobility and struggles – the death of the American Dream.

Gatsby as a tragic hero – links between the classical aspects of a tragic hero and the common man.

Tom Buchanan as the tragic villain

Domestic chaos

The institution of marriage

Themes: The role of blindness, order and disorder, disguise and reinvention, fate and free will and aspects of morality. The obsession with the past, present time and the doomed romantic. The corruption of social mobility and the illusion of classlessness.

Key Concepts

Introduction to the elements of crime writing including settings, pursuit, method, violence, murder, plotting, isolation, balance of power, confession and punishment, betrayal, secrecy.

All Browning’s speakers reveal their crimes with confidence and impunity and have no fear of detection.

Crabbe’s narrator is censorious, condemning Peter for his ghastly crimes though giving him a long confessional in which some sympathy is established for the fallen and hopeless man.

The focus in Wilde’s poem paradoxically is on the injustice of justice and the



Feminist and Marxist theory both draw attention to issues of power, looking at how literary texts reflect and explore the struggles between genders and social classes for fairness and equality. (First-wave feminism; Second-wave feminism; Third-wave feminism and feminist attitudes to the body. In addition, the representation of class in literary texts (importance of social power and the balance of power)).





Post-colonial theory explores texts written in, and about, nations that have been colonised by others, and by writers whose roots are in these nations. It looks at questions of power, identity, and

horrors of Victorian punishment.

Themes: murder and violence, the criminal psyche, victims, and punishment.

All the poems imply criticism of the societies in which the crimes are committed and of which the murderers are products.



Value and the canon over time and debates about literature. (Year 12 & Year 13)

exploitation, and offers a counter-narrative to challenge the narratives offered by those who have historically held most power. An exploration of the legacy of colonialism (the relationships between different cultures)



Key Vocabulary Tragedy, tragic hero, fatal flaw, hubris, hamartia, complication, climax, peripeteia, denouement, catharsis, cathartic, anagnorisis, American Dream, consumerism, materialism, culture, alienation, isolation, obsession, past

Key Vocabulary Morality, conscience, criminality, vice, murder, criminal psyche, victim, betrayal, jealousy, revenge, violence, chaos and disorder,

Key Vocabulary Literary theory, literary criticism, authorial intention, context, the literary canon, narrative, epistolary novel, hegemony, gender, sex, feminism, Marxism, class,


and present, superficiality, reinvention, Prohibition, bootlegging, social mobility, corruption, fate

capital punishment, guilt, transgression

proletariat, bourgeoisie, alienation, oppression, eco-critical, dystopian, colonialism, subaltern

*Assessment Essay 1 – To what extent is Gatsby’s tragic

downfall determined by outside forces.

Essay 2 – Explain how far you agree that obsession is the ultimate cause of tragic isolation in The Great Gatsby.

*Assessment Essay - ‘In this selection of poetry the criminals are not appropriately punished for their crimes.’ To what extent do you agree with this view? You should refer to at least two authors in your answer.

*Assessment Year 12 – Apply a literary theory

studied in class to an unseen prose

extract (two unseen prose extracts

are provided one from the tragedy

genre and the other from the

crime genre – student chooses

one).

Year 13 – Make necessary amendments to both NEAs.

*Assessment Year 12 – Completion of draft and final responses for Non-Examined Assessment Question 1. Year 13 – Practice exam essays.


A Level English Literature Long Term Plan - Year B (2021 – 2022) - Year 12 & 13

Teacher 1

Autumn 1 Autumn 2 & Spring 1 Summer 1 Summer

Crime: An Introduction to Crime Writing

& Unseen Texts

Crime: Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Independent Wider

Reading and Research Project

Non-examined assessment: Question 1 on text of

student’s choice and linked literary theory (Year 12) Exam Revision (Year 13)

Domains of Knowledge Literary Context: The literary tradition of crime. Genre/ Form: 19th & 20th century crime fiction and non-fiction writing, sensation fiction, the English country house mystery, 1930s spy thrillers, the postmodern detective novel. Literary Terminology associated with crime writing, for example a criminal register, legal register and register of guilt. Critical Concepts linked with Freudianism, semiotics, modernism and post-modernism. Written Communication: In-depth analysis of language and form in extracts. Verbal Communication: Discussion and debate.

Domains of Knowledge Literary Context: The literary tradition of crime. Genre/ Form: The modernist crime novel. Literary Terminology associated with crime writing, for example a criminal register, legal register and register of guilt. Critical Concepts linked with Freudianism, semiotics, modernism. Written Communication: In-depth analysis of language and form in entire text. Verbal Communication: Discussion and debate.

Domains of Knowledge Domains of knowledge are determined by the focus of the independent research project. Students will be encouraged to select genres and texts which broaden their knowledge of the literary tradition, and enrich their understanding of other domains studied, from areas of personal interest. Verbal Communication: Presenting to an audience


Key Concepts • Elements of crime writing including settings, pursuit, method, violence, murder, theft, detection, confession and punishment, justice and the legal system and the detective and their nemesis. • Themes of crime including motive, love, money, danger, death, suffering,

Key Concepts • Elements of crime writing including the setting of Brighton as a vice-filled and dangerous place, pursuit, violence, murder, suicide, capture and justice, the protagonist and the sociopathic antagonist. • Themes including youth, motive, sociopathy, danger, death, suffering,

Key Concepts The key concepts are determined by the focus of the independent research project.



guilt and remorse, moral purpose and the restoration of order. • The structure of texts, for example the hook and reveal, the restoration of order after crisis, or the rejection of resolution. • The origins of crime fiction and the age of rationalism in The Hound of the Baskervilles • Criminal motive, morality and psychology in nineteenth century fiction (Crime & Punishment). • Victorian Sensationalism (Charles Dickens’ Letters & The Woman in White) • Crime, Colonialism and Othering the Foreigner. (Charles Dickens’ Letters, The Moonstone & The Woman in White) • The interwar years and the ‘golden age’ of English crime fiction. (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd). • Trouble on the continent and the rise of the ‘lone wolf’ spy thriller. (Epitaph for a Spy). • Crime and postmodernism. (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Secret History). • How crime stories affect audiences & readers, creating suspense, repugnance, and relief.

victimisation, conscience and moral purpose, the restoration of order. • The structural patterning of the text, including the use of the third-person perspective that shifts between characters, and the restoration of order after crisis. • The dangers of youth and inexperience. • Catholicism and morality, including the products of sin and shame. • Pride, ambition and the creation of criminality. • Post-war societal changes of the 1920s and 1930s. • The breakdown of stable communities through transience and vice. • Gang culture in the 1930s and 1940s. • The conflict between faith and the harsh reality of the world. • The use of setting in Graham Greene’s novels to convey vice, danger and suffering – ‘Greeneland’ and the harsh reality of the world.






Key Vocabulary Rationalism, Freudianism, psychology, Othering, colonialism, sensationalism, modernism, unreliable narrator, subjectivism, post-modernism, idyll, pastoral

Key Vocabulary Morality, conscience, criminality, sociopathy, gang culture, vice, transience, protagonist, antagonist, narrative perspective and reliability, modernism, faith, Catholicism, tension, conflict, juxtaposition.

Key Vocabulary The key vocabulary is determined by the focus of the independent research project.


*Assessment

*Assessment

*Assessment

*Assessment

Essay - Evaluation of the view of foreigners in Victorian sensation fiction.

Essay 1 – The presentation of punishment and justice in Brighton Rock. Essay 2 – Evaluation of the extent to which order is restored in the end in crime writing, focusing on Brighton Rock and another crime text studied.

Assessed presentation to the class on area of independent reading & research.

Year 12 – Completion of draft and final responses for Non-Examined Assessment Question 1. Year 13 – Practice exam essays.


Teacher 2

Autumn Spring 1 Spring 2 Summer

Crime: Atonement by Ian McEwen

Crime: Oliver Twist by Charles

Dickens (extracts chosen to broaden students’ understanding of the crime genre – focusing on

Victorian Crime)

An Introduction to Literary

Theory for the Non-Examined Assessment (Year 12)

Revisions & improvements to the Non-Examined Assessment (Year

13)

Non-examined Assessment: Question 2 on a different text of student’s choice and linked

literary theory (Year 12)


Domains of Knowledge Literary Context: The literary tradition of crime. Genre/ Form: The modernist crime novel. Literary Terminology associated with crime writing, for example a criminal register, legal register and register of guilt. Critical Concepts linked with Modernism, narrative and Marxism. Written Communication: In-depth analysis of language and form in entire text. Verbal Communication: Discussion and debate.

Domains of Knowledge Literary Context: The literary tradition of crime. Genre/ Form: 19th crime fiction, social realism, Victorian Crime Literary Terminology associated with crime writing, for example a criminal register, legal register and register of guilt. Critical Concepts linked with Marxism, Narration and Victorian Crime & Punishment Written Communication: In-depth analysis of language, structure, and form in extracts from the novel. Verbal Communication: Discussion and debate.

Domains of Knowledge Literary theory, including: • Narrative theory • Feminist theory • Marxist theory • Eco-critical theory • Post-colonial theory • Literary value and the canon.


Key Concepts

Elements of crime writing including the setting and different time periods, pursuit, violence, revenge, justice, the narration, guilt and crime.

Themes: including motive, social classes, indifference of power, danger, suffering, victimisation, conscience and moral purpose, the restoration of order, crime and punishment

The structural patterning of the text, including the use of the third-person perspective that shifts between characters, and the restoration of order after crisis.

The role of the narrator

What constitutes crime and transgressions against law and order

Inclusion of deception

Guilt, remorse, confession and the desire for restitution and liberation

The nature of right and wrong

Key Concepts

Elements of crime writing including settings, pursuit, violence, murder, theft, detection, confession and punishment, justice and the legal system and morality.

Themes: childhood, virtue, vice, poverty, hypocrisy, crime and punishment, violence, murder, child labour, moral purpose and the restoration of order

The construction of the objective third narrator as the observer of the criminal world: London of the 1830s (i.e., Newgate Prison)

Poor Law Act of 1834.

Purpose and reality of the creation of workhouses

The dangers of child labour

Childhood: the link between poverty and criminal acts

Psychological realism

Criminal gangs

Victims or products of societal changes

The work of detection - police/law enforcers

Restoration of order

Moral purpose of criminal trials and punishment




Eco-critical theory looks at the relationship between humans and the natural world, highlighting the way the natural world is depicted






and the values associated with it – including the exploration of pastoral writing.


Value and the canon over time and debates about literature. (Year 12 & Y13)



Key Vocabulary Protagonist, narrator, guilt, atonement, social responsibility, war and torment, a war preserved, violence, misspent love, truth and memory, consequences, morality, victim, punishment and reward

Key Vocabulary Protagonist, villain, morality, conscience, criminality, vice and virtue, murder, psychological victim, betrayal, theft, revenge, violence, chaos and disorder, capital punishment, transgression, restoration of order

Key Vocabulary Literary theory, literary criticism, authorial intention, context, the literary canon, narrative, epistolary novel, hegemony, gender, sex, feminism, Marxism, class, proletariat, bourgeoisie, alienation, oppression, eco-critical, dystopian, colonialism, subaltern


*Assessment Essay 1 – ‘Robbie is a victim of circumstance’ To what extent do you agree with this view? Essay 2 – ‘In crime writing, the guilty are justly punished.’ Explore the significance of punishment in Atonement and another crime text you have studied.

*Assessment Essay - ‘In Oliver Twist, it is need rather than greed which is the cause of crime.’ To what extent do you agree with this view?

*Assessment Year 12 – Apply a literary theory

studied in class to an unseen

prose extract (two unseen prose

extracts are provided one from

the tragedy genre and the other

from the crime genre – student

chooses one).

Year 13 – Make necessary amendments to both NEAs.

*Assessment Year 12 – Completion of draft and final responses for Non-Examined Assessment Question 1. Year 13 – Practice exam essays.


Documents

A Level English Literature Long Term Plan - Year A (2020