Tag: study-guide

GCSE study

Analysis: Compare how poets present changing relationships in Mother, Any Distance and Climbing My Grandfather.

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Reading Time: 5 minutes In Mother, Any Distance and Climbing My Grandfather, these modern poets explore the ways that relationships change over time. In Mother, Any Distance, a new relationship is being forged as the child seeks independence by moving out but contemplates the ways that the relationship will stay the same in its love and support. In Climbing My Grandfather, Waterhouse considers the ways that understanding one another can change over time and, particularly, the way that understanding across the generations can develop. Simon Armitage uses an extended metaphor of distance to suggest the potential gulf that can open up between parent and …

A-level study, Analytical

Identity and belonging: the importance of names in The Handmaid’s Tale

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Reading Time: 10 minutes   If you’re studying this text for A-Level, you can pretty much write about the significance of names for any topic – gender, class, rebellion, politics, personal identity, relationships – even the use of humour can get a good paragraph on the politics of naming. Names are one of the main ways we signify our identities to other. In The Handmaid’s Tale, like so much other dystopian fiction, characters lose, change or adapt their names as they’re subjugated to the will of others or trying to represent themselves in different ways. Places are renamed too, to fit the new regime …

Analytical, GCSE study, Literature, Studying

Compare how poets present romantic relationships in ‘Love’s Philosophy’ and ‘Sonnet 29’

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Reading Time: 5 minutes   Percy Shelley uses traditionally Romantic natural imagery to conjure an impression of a world coupled up, blissful in its togetherness, with the final persuasive implication that, therefore, the listener should also want to be a part of this happy pairing. Barrett-Browning’s poem is less happy, more questioning of her lover and determined to convince them that she is always thinking of them, as though answering an unheard accusation of forgetfulness. Shelley’s natural imagery creates a progressive sense of coming together. Verbs like “mingle”, “mix”, “kiss” and “clasp” are all sweet, gentle, even elegant, creating an impression of a caring …

A-level study, Analytical

Appropriation of Language in dystopian fiction

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Reading Time: 8 minutes As an English teacher – and student, still, I think! – I love novels that engage with the idea of language itself. For me, literature’s how we enter and understand the world, and dystopian novels often bring that to the forefront. They explore communication, memory, story-telling, and the way that language works to soothe, manipulate, warn, and memorialise. In particular, I’ve been studying The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984 with A-Level students, and both novels have some interesting discussions about language’s role in our society. World-building Setting a novel in the future, as many speculative fictions do, language is a good …

Teaching

Ten tips for A-Level Literature students

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Reading Time: 7 minutes Read the set texts Ok, so this is THE most obvious statement. But it’s also the absolutely most important thing. First time through, read it quickly. If it’s a novel, try to get it read in a week or so. Read it as a reader. Then, when you’ve finished, write a quick response to it. Don’t worry about being academic here, but think about what you remember about it, your first impressions on finishing, the characters and ideas of it. Read all the set texts. Get the list in advance and read all of them – a large part of …

Analytical, Teaching

Why colour matters: symbolism in literature

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Reading Time: 5 minutes Towards the end of the summer term, I was teaching a lesson on “Your Shoes”, leading to monologue writing – it’s a nice one, usually provokes interest and some creative responses. But this time, one girl in particular was very frustrated by the shoe imagery and ended up exclaiming “how am I supposed to know that white means innocence?” It got me thinking about the use of literary symbols – what I’ve started thinking of as a literary shorthand – and the way that I often take for granted that students will see some of them. Not all, of course, …