English Language and Literature

Course summary

We spend every day of our lives surrounded by language. From the informal chats on the bus to the high-pressure university interview, from the quick text message to the classic novel, we all use language to forge our own identities and to shape the world around us. In this course, we will begin to make sense of the huge variety of language that surrounds us and understand more about how it works. The course is designed to help you make sense of the language we encounter across a range of literary and non-literary texts by using key literary and linguistic frameworks to analyse them individually and explore connections between them. There will be opportunities to share your ideas with your teachers and fellow students through lively classroom debates. You will also work on developing your written style so that you can express yourself clearly and concisely. A range of theatre and other extracurricular trip opportunities will also complement your studies. You will study a range of texts across the course, following broad units of study such as ‘Remembered Places’, ‘Imagined Worlds’, ‘Writing about Society’ and ‘Dramatic Encounters’.