English Language and Literature

Welcome to English Language & Literature!

This is an exciting course designed to further your understanding of how language works, as well as developing your knowledge and appreciation of a range of literary texts.

What to expect:

• We read literary and non-literary texts and use stylistics approaches to closely analyse the language of the texts.

• We explore the context of texts so we gain a deeper understanding.

• We are interested in representation – how do different speakers and writers present their own ideas?

• We build up a toolkit of terms in order to comment on the language of a text.

What do we study?

We will study a range of literary and non-literary texts.

In year 1 we will cover:

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams

An anthology of non-fiction texts about the city of and life in Paris

In year 2 we will cover:

A collection of poems by Carol Ann Duffy

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

You will also complete a coursework unit. This will be an independent research project.

Meet the Teachers

Claudia Algieri

Welcome to A Level English Lang & Lit at St Brendan’s! I have been teaching at the college since 2014 on A Level English Lang & Lit, A Level English Language and on GCSE English. St Brendan’s is a great, friendly place to work and to learn as you will soon find out!

I love our English Lang & Lit course. It has been thoughtfully designed so that we study diverse and relevant texts like The Kite Runner & The Handmaid’s Tale and classics such as A Streetcar Named Desire and the linguistic approach to these texts will give you a whole new perspective on them.

Meet the Teachers

Helen Urbanowicz

I've taught at the college for 6 years, both on A Level English Language and Literature and GCSE English. I love working at St Brendan's; it's friendly and fun! I enjoy teaching all aspects of our Language and Literature course, but I especially like teaching dystopian texts like The Handmaid's Tale. It's so topical and students love discussing it! I also enjoy reading lots of other genres and look forward to hearing about what you've been reading over the summer too.

English Language & Literature Transition Task

Paris: A city of love & romance?

Differing perspectives

What is your experience of 'city' life?

How is it different when you are a tourist compared to living somewhere?

Connotations of Paris

What comes to mind when you think of the city of Paris?

What kind of things are associated with it?

Contrasting Perspectives: How is Paris presented?

On the next slide are 2 trailers for films about Paris, but they provide very different representations of the city.

Watch each trailer and make notes on how Paris is represented in both.

Contrasting Perspectives: How is Paris presented?

Midnight in Paris

Link to trailer: https://youtu.be/FAfR8omt-CY

La Haine

Link to trailer: https://youtu.be/5Hs6GwQPAQE

Writing about cities

• What sort of texts are about cities?

• What is the purpose of these texts?

• Who is the audience?

• How can you recognise that these texts are different?

• What questions do you need to 'ask' about a text in order to explore it?

Framework for analysis

• Structure and Discourse

How is the text organised and structured? How is it broken down? How does it add to the meaning of the text?

• Lexis and Semantics

What type of words does the text use? What are the relationships between them? How do they add to the meaning of the text?

• Grammar

How are sentences created? How are phrases and sentences used? How does they add to the meaning of the text?

• Phonology

How is sound used? What is the rhythm of the text? How does sound add to the meaning of the text?

Prediction Task: Bill Bryson's'Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe’

In the morning I got up early and went for a long walk through the sleeping streets. I love to watch cities wake up, and Paris wakes up more abruptly, more startlingly, than any place I know.

I know Baron Haussmann made Paris a grand place to look at, but the man had no concept of traffic flow. At the Arc de Triomphe alone thirteen roads come together. Can you imagine that?

Exploring an extract

• Read the whole extract.

• What is the text about? What are his key ideas and attitudes to the city of Paris?

• How does Bryson present Paris in the extract?

• Choose at least three sentences that are important in Bryson's presentation of Paris.

• Consider a range of literary and linguistic devices, using the framework.

So....

Q: Is Paris a city of love and romance?