English Language and Literature

Course summary

If you enjoyed English at GCSE and want to take your study further, then this is the course for you! This broad course takes a ‘back to basics’ look at language and applies those skills to the study of literature. You will learn a lot about how writers create meaning and have a chance to create some pieces of your own in the creative writing elements of the course. Unlike its full course equivalents, this course focuses on a broad range of skills, allowing you to develop your skills as both a reader and writer; you will explore both the literary and linguistics elements of spoken and written texts and then apply this knowledge to your own creative writing. A combination of fiction and non-fiction, modern and traditional texts will be studied, and you will explore them from both a literary and a linguistics perspective; for example: • How is dialogue used in A Streetcar Named Desire? • How is setting used in The Great Gatsby? • In what ways does Ian McEwan use suspense in Atonement? You will explore a range of non-fiction and real life, spoken texts to consider how they are designed and crafted and you will study a prose novel, poetry and a play, exploring them analytically and creatively. The emphasis of this course is on ‘The Reader as Writer and The Writer as Reader’ and, having studied your set texts, you will then have the opportunity to create your own original writing, both non-fiction creative writing.