SCRIBBLE
HOW TO REVISE FOR ENGLISH LITERATURE by Abby Spalding English Literature can seem like a daunting subject to revise for, both for GCSE’s and A-Level; so here are some tips on how to revise and get the grade you want: 1. Firstly, and most importantly: RE-READ YOUR TEXTS and make sure you actually know what’s going on! although this may seem menial and even boring, reading your texts can you help familiarise yourself with both the key events and the sequence of events. So, tip one is to read your texts 4 times, although this may seem daunting, it’s really not that much, if you read your text: before starting the course, once during class, once after finishing studying the book, and once when revising, you can really become familiar with your texts. By doing this, you are much more likely to pick up on little details which you can include within essays to make the examiner think you’re clever.
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES! Revision guides, extra reading, websites and youtube videos are a great way to gain additional knowledge, that other people may not have, and to make your essay stand out! Shmoop and Get revising are great websites for characters and themes, which you can add to your own ideas to make them even more interesting, however, – do not rely only on these as they can be quite brief. Youtube is also great at explaining exam technique or key ideas within texts – I highly recommend Mr Bruff for GCSE.
2. YOU CAN’T LEARN EVERY QUOTE, you need to prioritise quotes that are most useful and most versatile, which show multiple themes or ideas within the book. You can learn quotes in multiple different ways, however, the most useful – is flashcards. Either physically or using quizlet, either by writing half a quote on one side and the second half on the back or by writing, for example ‘quote about….’ And a quote on the back. If flashcards aren’t your thing, you could create quote summaries, for each theme or character: with a specific quote and its analysis.
5. CHAPTER SUMMARIES can help you condense a 200-page book into 3 a4 sheets of paper. They are a great way to make texts manageable, and easy to quickly glance at before an exam to remind yourself of the order of events. Within the summaries, you can include: key quotes, key events, and analysis of both – to extend your summaries into a useful revision resource.
3. MINDMAPS ARE CRUCIAL, mindmaps are an EXTREMELY effective method to learn both characters and themes within a book – getting to know both these things can improve your knowledge and subsequently essays by miles. Mindmapping is a great way to get everything you need to know down on one piece of paper, making it easy to revise – Plus they look great if you have pastel pens! The only hard thing about mindmapping is obtaining the information, to do this I suggest reading through your texts and post-it-noting key themes, events and characters, whilst annotating the book and quotes and writing down ideas, and then transferring it onto your mind map. .
6. MAKE A REVISION PLAN! This is probably the most common piece of advice for any subject, as by planning out your time, you are bound to be much more effective within your revision. I suggest 1 week per text, consisting of varied revision; by doing this it stimulates ideas and creates a headspace within text, to help you extend your ideas. Within this week you can use different revision methods, like quote flashcards or more interestingly different interpretations and adaptations e.g. films, can help you visualise a text – so in this way I guess watching a movie does count as revision, however, DON’T ONLY RELY ON THE FILMS, as they could misinterpret or miss out key scenes. Do this per text, and when it becomes closer to exams you can incorporate multiple texts into the same week, if you’re a bit worried.
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