A Level English Literature A for AQA Sample by CUPUKschools

Blended digital and print resources specifically created for the new AQA A/AS Level English Literature A specification, available from early 2015. Main intro back cover copy text here Rumquo esequos doloreictus et mo volores am, conse la suntum et voloribus. Brighter thinking for the new curriculum: voloreriate prae es vendipitiaauthor diatia • Cerrore Written by anpaexperienced team of teachers, partners necusam ditia aut perrovitam aut eum et im ius and advisers. dolut exceris et pro maximintum num quatur aut landese quatem.content Sedit et am, eum quiassusand ius motivate learners. • et Rich digital to engage con none eris ne nobis expliquis dolori ne cus,

• Differentiated resources to support all abilities.

• Progression and development at the heart of all our resources.

Brighter Thinking

ENGLISH LITERATURE A A/AS Level for AQA Sample

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Written from draft specification

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Foreword From September 2015, there will be some major operational changes to post‑16 qualifications. AS and A Levels will be decoupled, and a full A Level will be assessed over a two-year linear course. The content of specifications will reflect more current thinking in higher education, providing a supportive yet challenging platform for key stage 4 to 5 transitions, enabling students to move beyond their studies either to undergraduate courses, employment or alternative training. Within this context, Cambridge University Press is developing brand-new resources to support teachers and their students at every stage of the AS and A Level journey. From planning programmes of study and schemes of work, to delivering exciting lessons and assessing and supporting students’ progress to encourage criticality, wider reading and independence of thought. The A/AS Level Student Books from Cambridge University Press are designed to support students, providing differentiation through scaffolding for those who need more support, and real degrees of challenge for the more able. Each book is designed around an innovative three-part structure. • A ‘Beginning’ section that sets out the basic parameters for the subject, eases the transition from GCSE, and provides a substantial reference point for students as they work through the course. • A ‘Developing’ section that offers the most up-to-date content around key topic areas, activities that support analytical and writing skills and references to research and further reading where necessary. • An ‘Enriching’ section that provides learning beyond the specification, including extensive wider reading lists, up-to-date and relevant research from higher education and professional practice, independent research projects and specially commissioned written pieces and video interviews with leading academics, writers, actors and poets. All of the resources from Cambridge University Press have been written by established and trusted names in English education, drawn from secondary, further and higher sectors. They have many years of experience in teaching, writing, researching and assessment, and are committed to providing the best possible resources for teachers and their students to use. Marcello Giovanelli, Series Editor

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Authors Series Editor: Marcello Giovanelli Marcello is a Lecturer in English in Education at the University of Nottingham. He previously worked in secondary schools as a Head of English, an Assistant Head Teacher, a Deputy Head Teacher, and a Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics in higher education (at the University of Nottingham, and Middlesex University). He is a consultant teacher for NATE and sits on their post-16/higher education committee. Marcello is the co-author of two A Level English Language textbooks, and has written a number of articles for professional journals as well as having significant research publications in stylistics and applied linguistics.

Russell Carey Russell has been a teacher for many years, and is a highly experienced teacher-trainer for the Cambridge IGCSE who delivers training courses on the syllabuses in the UK and internationally.

Anne Fairhall Anne has many years’ experience teaching A Level English and publishing for secondary English. She has worked as a visiting tutor at higher education level and has authored resources for teachers and students. Anne was Publications Manager for NATE for over 10 years.

Tom Rank Tom is a former Head of Department and is currently Chair of the NATE ICT Committee. Tom writes a regular column for NATE’s Teaching English magazine and is the author of a number of publications for teachers and students of GCSE and A Level English.

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Our offering for AQA Cambridge University Press is delighted to have entered an approval process with AQA to publish resources for their new 2015 A Level Literature A specification. We are driven by a simple goal: to create resources that teachers and students need to ignite a curiosity and love for learning. As England enters a new educational chapter, we are publishing a comprehensive suite of blended print and digital English resources specifically written for the new AQA English specifications, available from early 2015. Written by an experienced author team of teachers, partners and advisers, our A/AS Level English Literature resources for specification A will help bridge the gap from GCSE to A Level and prepare students for possible study beyond A Level. Supporting students at every stage of the new linear course, our differentiated resources are suitable for a range of abilities. Their unique three-part structure focuses on texts within a particular time period and supports students in developing skills to interpret texts and reflect on learning, whilst encouraging independent study and wider reading. With rich digital content to engage and motivate learners, our simple and affordable resources build on subject knowledge and understanding, and support navigation of the new assessments and exams. Student Book A print Student Book bundled with our Elevateenhanced Edition, this skills based student resource covers the full two-year course embedding AS Level.

Elevate-enhanced Edition An enhanced digital learning resource for students and teachers with customisable content, including engaging videos and opportunities to track and report on studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; progression. Teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Resource Everything necessary for teachers to plan and deliver the specification.

Our inclusive print Student Book and Elevate-enhanced Edition bundle offers a sophisticated and costâ&#x20AC;&#x2018;effective solution, including everything necessary for the effective teaching and learning of the new A Level specification in one package.

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Our AQA resources Student Book

Elevate-enhanced Edition

Bundled with our Elevate-enhanced Edition, this Student Book has been created specifically for the 2015 AQA A/AS Level English Literature specification A. Incorporating differentiated support, our Student Book is suitable for all abilities, providing stretch opportunities for the more able and additional support for those who need it.

Developed specifically for the new 2015 AQA A/AS Level English Literature specification A and available as a standalone product or as part our print Student Book and digital bundle, our Elevateenhanced Edition provides you with a flexible solution to deliver the new 2015 qualifications. This enhanced digital learning resource provides students with a range of tools that will allow them to take ownership of their learning.

The easy-to-navigate book clearly explains the differences between AS and A Level content and includes a balance between teaching content and activities to encourage deeper learning. Our A/AS Level English Literature A Student Book includes: • a unique three-part structure: a ‘Beginning’ section helps bridge the gap between GCSE and A Level, providing students with a firm foundation of knowledge a ‘Developing’ section develops students’ knowledge and understanding of the core specification content, engagingly written and packed with activities an ‘Enriching’ section encourages students to develop their knowledge and interests further, and includes interviews with leading experts and professionals in the field

Our Elevate-enhanced Edition: • includes rich digital content including topic summary videos providing engaging bite-sized refreshers and overviews • allows students and teachers to annotate text, add audio notes and hyperlinks to content • enable teachers to create specific student groups to share notes and resources with – ideal for differentiation • allows for tracking and reporting in tests and includes a My Work folder that can be used to submit work to teachers • is available online through browsers, or offline through iOS or Android apps, so students can access the content anytime, anywhere.

• full coverage of a range of set texts and additional texts, giving students exposure to a wider range of reading • a thematic and skills-based approach, to develop the required skills and engage students with themes across a range of contexts and genres • a focus on texts within a particular time period • support for students in developing skills to interpret texts and reflect on learning, whilst encouraging independent study and wider reading • a range of activities to engage the learner • concise definitions of the key terms students need to know, accompanied with contextualised examples 4

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Teacher’s Resource Specifically developed for the 2015 AQA A/AS Level English Literature A specification, our FREE Teacher’s Resource will help with the planning and delivery of the course. Packed with practical guidance and support, our Teacher’s Resource includes: • a full Scheme of Work, mapping the Student Book content to the qualifications and highlighting opportunities to co-teach • links to additional online resources supplementing the content of the Student Book and providing teachers with a rich bank of content • clear and practical support for using activities from the Student Book and Elevate-enhanced Edition in the classroom, including differentiation opportunities • support for embedding and using Assessment for Learning within your teaching, written by Sue Brindley, a leading practitioner from the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education • includes practical delivery advice to help prepare for the new specification requirements.

You can access the Student Book sample chapters featured here online, and to view a sample demonstration of the Elevate-enhanced Edition, contact your local sales consultant through

www.cambridge.org/ukschools

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Using the Student Book

A/AS Level English Literature A

Activities Activities engage learners to develop understanding and provide opportunities for students to test their skills.

ACTIVITY 3 Examining form, structure and language Look back at Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 from earlier in the unit. You considered how the poem looked different in its rst printing from how it is presented now, and how we as readers might be inuenced by visual presentation.

Now have a look at the way Shakespeare plays with the sonnet form itself. What could you say about his use of language, form and structure in the poem? Check your responses in the Ideas section atbthe end of thebunit.

Ideas on… Feedback on specific activities, providing students with support to reflect on their responses.

Cross reference

AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the signicance and inuence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received Every text in this book effectively provides a point of context for the three subject content areas. The wider reading you do will provide you with even more points of contextual reference. Wider reading comes in many shapes and sizes: • reading books by the same author • reading books from the same time • reading extracts from critical books or magazines • seeing plays performed (or taking part in them) • listening to audio text adaptations • watching lm or television adaptations of texts • listening to or watching documentaries about writers and context. All these are tried and trusted ways of broadening and deepening your knowledge and understanding of texts and their contexts. Take up some of the many suggestions in this student book.

Connection points as defined in the specification; to link concepts, skills and texts, and used to develop the recursive approach of the book. These provide links between content being studied, overviews of skills and approaches covered in Section 1, and related links between content in other units.

Think carefully about how readers might have interpreted your texts differently over time, from the readers at the time of publication to readers today, as well as readers from different backgrounds. Be alert to alternative interpretations of texts. See Unit 3 for more on texts, contexts and time AO4: Explore connections across literary texts The texts and related activities in this book will encourage you to make purposeful connections across texts. You will be exploring the similarities and differences of texts in terms of their content, form, structure and language. In addition, you will be making comparisons of texts from very different times and also texts from broadly the same time period. All this work will prepare you for those examination questions which invite explicit comparison and also the coursework task which requires the comparison of two texts of your choice. See Unit 4 for more on wider reading

AO5: Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations As you work towards developing an informed personal response to the examination and coursework texts you study, you will encounter other people’s views. These may be the views of your fellow students expressed in class discussions or debates. Listening to what others have to say about these texts will have the effect of either conrming

O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

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to in ch st st yo th e d co se th m a re

T a (t in m p In w lo th re

Enriching Short ‘for interest’ features to give a new dimension to the content i.e. application to the workplace, bringing the subject to life and providing a link to the Enriching section at the end of the book.

Key Terms Concise definitions of key terms and, where possible, accompanied with contextualised examples.

1 Beginning: Overview to analyse both set texts and unseen texts. In your interactions with other students you will have the chance to express your own views about the texts you study. This kind of debate with teachers and other students will play an important role in developing your critical skills. You will need to persuade them of the validity of your views by pointing to supporting evidence from the texts. In the give and take of these discussions you will see your own opinions either conrmed or challenged. This book will help you to see the sorts of questions readers ask of the texts they read. Your own wider reading will enable you to make pertinent connections across the texts you read and also give you a sound understanding of contexts relevant to your study.

Key terms

The specication you are following encourages a historicist approach to the study of literature (the doctrine that nothing can be understood independently of its historical context). One of the main premises is that no text you study has been produced in isolation. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In fact, any text you read is a product of the time in which it was produced. It is, therefore, important to look carefully at the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they have been produced and received.

Check your learning

Historicismbis the doctrine that nothing can be understood independently of its historical context. An intelligent historicist response remembers that individual situations vary in every time period, and is wary of oversimplied, blackand-white assumptions. You would not assume, for example, that every contemporary woman has the same opinion or faces the same challenges, so neither should you make statements generalising about ‘women in the 17th century’ or ‘men in Oscar Wilde’s time’.

Regular self-assessment opportunities throughout and at the end of each unit. • Self-assessment will support Assessment for Learning principles, helping students understand their areas of strength and areas for improvement. • Answers or short summaries of things to consider provided for each question.

Exploring context

1.2bHow texts are produced

Additional features not included in sample

•

One of the key ways to build up a thorough understanding of literary context is to read widely across historical periods. You will begin to see connections between texts and appreciate established literary traditions. It will help you to build up knowledge of the way meanings have changed or expanded over time, too: would a writer from 1895 describing a person as ‘cool’, sick or ‘wicked’ mean the same thing as a writer from 1995?

Debate A focus on an issue for controversy/ debate/discursive essay writing (with reference to critical sources provided) to encourage deeper learning.

Research Research point that has been carried out in the area of study.

Critical Lens

‘A thoroughly wicked woman is wicked indeed.’

Prompts the student to read through the lens of a particular critical theory, picking up on different ways of reading specific texts and linking to appropriate theories discussed in other units.

Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge

Critical thinking 5

Questions related to research points/ study areas to provoke thinking.

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Using the Elevate-enhanced Edition Students can personalise their resources through text or audio annotations, adding links to useful resources, inserting bookmarks and highlighting key passages.

The userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s data synchronises when online, so their annotations and results are available on any device they use to access the Elevateenhanced Edition.

Additional functionality includes image galleries, zoomable images, animations, videos and interactive questions.

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Features available online only Supports deep links, so teachers can link from the Elevate-enhanced Edition to their VLE, and vice versa, helping integrate this flexible resource into your teaching with minimal disruption.

Teachers can send their annotations to students, directing them to further sources of information, adding activities or additional content.

Media galleries and fully searchable content help users find the information they need.

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A/AS Level English Literature B

BEGINNING

1 Overview

1.1bEnglish Literature at A and ASbLevel

1.1.1bBridging the gap between your previous studies andbA Level

This student book is designed to support your studies as you progress through your English Literature course, whether at AS or A Level. Such a book cannot say everything there is to be said about the set texts you study. But it can provide a framework in which your study takes place. It will provide you with an overview of the subject at AS and A Level. In this book, you will have the opportunity to read and analyse poems and extracts from prose and drama texts. Some of these will be from texts you’re studying for the examination papers. Others will provide opportunities for wider reading.

You may have decided to study English Literature at AS or A Level because you enjoy reading or because you are pleased with your performance in your earlier studies. You may have a clear idea of how this subject fits into your future studies. You may be thinking even now of pursuing the subject at undergraduate level, or it may be a subject that complements well another subject you plan to study later. It certainly helps that you enjoy the books that you read. But at A Level you are likely to find that the texts you study are increasingly challenging. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise. For example, many of the texts you will study were written decades or centuries ago. Some words in these texts we may no longer use or they may be used in a different way. Some of the sentences written by Jane Austen or Charles Dickens may provide a greater level of challenge than those found in more recent books you have read.

A key aim of the book is to help you to develop the skills necessary for success in an A Level Literature course. The poems and extracts in this book cover a lot of important territory. Activities based on these texts will require you to: • develop informed personal responses to what youbread • use close reading skills to look at what is being said and how it is being said • explore relevant contexts in order to illuminate the texts themselves • make connections across different texts.

In this book you will find glossary definitions for some of the more difficult or unfamiliar words. However, there will be occasions when you yourself will need to look up the meaning of a word. This initial effort will be rewarded: as time goes on, you’ll find that you need to rely increasingly less on looking up words. In A and AS Level English Literature you will receive the guidance of your teachers as they lead you through your reading and study of the set texts, and as they help to develop the skills you will need

1 Beginning: Overview to analyse both set texts and unseen texts. In your interactions with other students you will have the chance to express your own views about the texts you study. This kind of debate with teachers and other students will play an important role in developing your critical skills. You will need to persuade them of the validity of your views by pointing to supporting evidence from the texts. In the give and take of these discussions you will see your own opinions either confirmed or challenged. This book will help you to see the sorts of questions readers ask of the texts they read. Your own wider reading will enable you to make pertinent connections across the texts you read and also give you a sound understanding of contexts relevant to your study.

1.2bHow texts are produced The specification you are following encourages a historicist approach to the study of literature (the doctrine that nothing can be understood independently of its historical context). One of the main premises is that no text you study has been produced in isolation. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In fact, any text you read is a product of the time in which it was produced. It is, therefore, important to look carefully at the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they have been produced and received.

Key terms Historicismbis the doctrine that nothing can be understood independently of its historical context. An intelligent historicist response remembers that individual situations vary in every time period, and is wary of oversimplified, blackand-white assumptions. You would not assume, for example, that every contemporary woman has the same opinion or faces the same challenges, so neither should you make statements generalising about ‘women in the 17th century’ or ‘men in Oscar Wilde’s time’.

Exploring context •

‘A thoroughly wicked woman is wicked indeed.’ Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge

A/AS Level English Literature A Text 1A

ACTIVITY 1

Sonnet 130

The changing shape of language Read Text 1A, one of Shakespeare’s most famousbsonnets.

Now take a look at Text 1B. It is a facsimile of the 1609 Quarto version of the same sonnet. There are only thirteen copies of the 1609 Quarto in existence. Compare the two versions. Find differences in: • the form of certain letters • spellings • punctuation • layout. Does the appearance of the original text affect your own response to Shakespeare’s writing? If so, how?

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks, And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go – My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven I think my love as rare As any yet belied with false compare. William Shakespeare

Check your responses in the Ideas section atbthe end of thebunit. Text 1B

1 Beginning: Overview Text 1D

ACTIVITY 2

Anthem for Doomed Youth

The author’s craft Text 1C is a draft of Wilfred Owen’s poem ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, written whilst he was convalescing from shell shock in Craiglockhart Hospital, Edinburgh, in September 1917. At the hospital he met a fellow poet, Siegfried Sassoon, who had an enormous influence on Owen. You can see revisions to an earlier draft, which included suggestions from Sassoon.

Compare this with the final version in Text 1D. How does seeing the author’s draft help you to understand andbrespond to the final poem? Check your responses in the Ideas section atbthe end of thebunit.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, – The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds Wilfred Owen

Text 1C

A/AS Level English Literature A

1.2.1bHow we receive texts

1.3bSubject content

Readers bring their own contexts to their interpretations of texts. Your own life experiences will help to shape your response to the two poems you have just looked at, and indeed to any text you read. It’s not really possible to divorce you and who you are from your reading of a text. Just as texts are not written or ‘produced’ in isolation, so they are not read or ‘received’ in isolation, let loose from their contexts. For example, think how many different responses there might be today of Katherina’s submissive speech to her husband (in a marriage arranged between him and her father) at the end of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew:

The examinations for the specification you’re following focus on three areas of subject content. • Love through the Ages is explored through texts across time, from the Renaissance (1550–1700) to the present day.

I am ashamed thatbwomen are sobsimple To offer war where they should kneel for peace, Or seek for rule, supremacy andbsway, When they are bound to serve, love and obey. The Taming of the Shrew, 5.2.161–4

Read the whole of Katherina’s speech on Elevate It will be important to remember that interpretations are not fixed across time, and indeed that multiple interpretations are possible.

1.2.2bCritical debates This book encourages you to engage in critical debates about the texts you study both for examination and coursework components. The activities provided will help you to: • develop informed personal responses • make coherent and well-supported arguments • challenge the interpretations of others • probe writers’ techniques • explore contexts that illuminate your reading ofbtexts • make connections across texts. The skills developed through the activities will enable you to become a confident, autonomous reader.

There are two other topics which have a narrower and more clearly defined time period: • World War I and its Aftermath • Modern Times (texts since 1945). The coursework element allows you to select any two texts to compare, either from the same time period or from different times. The choice is yours.

1.4bDemystifying assessment objectives Every A and AS Level specification is underpinned by assessment objectives. There are five assessment objectives for English Literature. AO1: Articulate informed, personal and creative

responses to literary texts, using associated concepts and terminology, and coherent, accuratebwrittenbexpression. Writing informed personal responses is central to the study of literature. The key word here is ‘informed’. A personal, creative response on its own might suggest that anything goes; any old view will do. In practice, your personal response must be supported by relevant evidence from the text (or texts) if it is to be taken seriously. In this way your personal response can be described as ‘informed’. You must write arguments that are carefully supported by appropriate references to the text(s). You will be considering the texts in ways that are appropriate to the study of literature and using literary terms. Literary terms can be helpful in pinpointing precisely the techniques used by writers. They provide a shared language, used by writers and readers for exploring texts. They are the specialist jargon that literary critics use to discuss literary concerns with each other. However, they come with a health warning: literary terms on their own do not constitute literary analysis. Inexpertly used, they can

1 Beginning: Overview become a way of listing and labelling the features of a piece of writing, rather than exploring precisely the effects created by the way writers have used particular devices.

book will help you to become increasingly skilful at uncovering implicit meanings as well as explicit ones, that is, deeper meanings of texts as well as surface meanings.

In order that your reader can follow your argument, it is your responsibility to produce writing that is fluent and coherent. In your essays you are seeking to persuade readers that your interpretation is plausible. That means that you will need to take care over the following: • logical progression and linking of ideas into a coherent argument • careful integration of references (often brief, relevant quotations) into your own writing • correct spelling of names (of texts, characters, places, writers) • accurate punctuation and grammar.

However, it’s not just the content (or what texts have to say) that is important. You will already have begun to explore the ways in which writers communicated their meanings, and at A Level this is taken to a new and higher level.

In examinations, it simply doesn’t look good if you copy incorrectly words from questions or printed extracts. One important responsibility you have is to make your writing legible for any reader, whether student, teacher or examiner. AO2: Analyse ways in which meanings are

shaped in literary texts The more you read, the more adept you will become at analysing the detail of the texts you have to write about, whether set texts, unseen or coursework texts. Many of the activities in this book invite you to probe analytically, or critically, the detail of texts.

There are three principal ways in which writers convey and shape meanings: • They use a particular form to convey their ideas, for example poetry, prose or drama. • They structure their ideas in a particular way in order to communicate their ideas in the most effective manner. For example, it might be easy to chart the development of ideas in a poem as you look at the content and organisation of stanzas. A prose fiction writer might use a non-chronological sequence of events for a particular reason. • They use language – words, sounds and imagesb– in order to create certain striking effects for the reader or audience. All writers use form, structure and language consciously and purposefully to achieve certain effects for their readers or audience. See Unit 2 for more on form, structure and language

Reading texts for what they have to say (i.e. ‘meanings’) is clearly an important aspect of literary study. It’s unlikely that we would want to read texts that had nothing to say to us. The activities in this

I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks © Cambridge University Press 2014 Written from draft specification

A/AS Level English Literature A ACTIVITY 3 Examining form, structure and language Look back at Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 from earlier in the unit. You considered how the poem looked different in its first printing from how it is presented now, and how we as readers might be influenced by visual presentation.

significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received Every text in this book effectively provides a point of context for the three subject content areas. The wider reading you do will provide you with even more points of contextual reference. Wider reading comes in many shapes and sizes: • reading books by the same author • reading books from the same time • reading extracts from critical books or magazines • seeing plays performed (or taking part in them) • listening to audio text adaptations • watching film or television adaptations of texts • listening to or watching documentaries about writers and context. All these are tried and trusted ways of broadening and deepening your knowledge and understanding of texts and their contexts. Take up some of the many suggestions in this student book.

O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

1 Beginning: Overview or challenging your own views. This is a good thing as you have to be prepared to justify or amend your own position, all the time relying on evidence from the text to support your views. You will also come across interpretations in the form of literary critical texts, where critics develop their own analyses of texts. You can find examples of critical analysis of this kind in the final ‘Enriching’ section of this student book. These will permit you to compare your own views, again confirming or challenging some or all of them. Interpretations can also come in the form of adaptations. Plays are intended for performance on stage, or might be written for television or radio. They can also be filmed for the cinema. Think of two famous films made of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: • the 1968 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli • the 1996 film directed by Baz Luhrmann. These and other film versions of the play, as well as opera and ballet adaptations, can enrich your own reading or viewing. The varied decisions taken by the directors, set designers and costume designers, as well as the performers themselves, can all add to your understanding of the various ways different people have been known to understand and interpret Shakespeare’s words. See Unit 4 for more on comparison skills ACTIVITY 4 Comparing interpretations Listen to or watch two different readings, by two different people, of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. Do the performer’s choices – or the choice of performer – affect the way you understand the sonnet? If so, how?

Compare interpretations of Sonnet 130 on Elevate

Check your responses in the Ideas section atbthe end of the unit.

A/AS Level English Literature A IDEAS ON ACTIVITIES Activity 1 Seeing the form of language in the original manuscript makes it easier to grasp how different Shakespeare’s world was from our own. We realise that his writing would have been influenced by very different experiences, surroundings and styles of language. In turn, this makes us even more appreciative of Shakespeare’s sharp observations on humanity, which are still relevant today, after four centuries.

Activity 4 Some of the things you may wish to consider when comparing performances are: • does gender choice matter? • what happens if the age of the performer changes? Does an experienced voice compared to a youthful voice change the effect of the sonnet? • do the performers choose to emphasise different aspects of the sonnet? Does this have any effect on the meaning of the sonnet as you understandbit?

Activity 2 Having the chance to see an early draft can help you to a more confident interpretation and personal response to a poem: it is revealing to see one word chosen over another and you can speculate whether the final choice was to refine meaning, effect, or rhythm. You are able to see the poet at work – on the one hand they become more ‘human’ because you see that words and thoughts don’t always flow smoothly but, on the other hand, you can appreciate their skill and craft even more keenly. Activity 3 You will know from your previous studies that the traditional sonnet subject is romanticised love, and that there is a small number of established sonnet forms. Shakespearean sonnets end with a rhyming couplet that summarises the earlier lines. In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare follows all the ‘rules’ of language, form and structure in a sonnet – including mentioning eyes like the sun, coral-red lips and skin white as snow – but he uses these rules in order to break them by saying something very different about his sonnet’s subject.

In order to talk about the traditions of the sonnet form and how Shakespeare subverts expectations, you would need to be able to discuss what those traditions and expectations were – which leads you on to AO3 and AO4.

• Differentiated resources to support all abilities.

• Progression and development at the heart of all our resources.

Brighter Thinking

ENGLISH LITERATURE A A/AS Level for AQA Sample

For more information or to speak to your local sales representative, please contact us:

www.cambridge.org/ukschools ukschools@cambridge.org 01223 325 588 CUPUKschools

Written from draft specification

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