English
Literature
Revision Tips.
Overview of examinations – Literature
Paper 1 (2hrs 15 min)
Paper 2 (1 hr 45 min)
Modern Novel – Animal Farm (45
min)
Shakespeare, Macbeth – 50 min
Poetry Anthology Comparison (45
min)
Unseen Poetry Comparison (45
min)
Pre 19 Hundred Novel, Sign of the
Four - 50 min
Mind
mapping:
characters,
themes,
events.
Write key
quotations from
each text and stick
them around a
room at homethis might aid
learning them.
Draw a timeline of
events in the novel
and /or a tension
graph to plot key
events and the
development of
characters/themes.
‘I remember my hands
in those high-heeled
red shoes, relics…’
‘…icebergs of white feather,
paused before returning again
like boats righting in rough
weather…’
Draw key images from
each text that
represent key
words/phrases from
the text to help
remember key
quotations.
Create tables or Venn diagrams to revise and
compare our poetry collection.
Use of
death
imagery
Use of
natural
imagery
‘Love’s Philosophy’
‘When we Two Parted’
Sense of
unrequited
love.
‘Love’s Philosophy’ ‘When we Two
Parted’
Use of natural
Use of death
imagery
imagery
Sense of
Sense of
unrequited love
unrequited love
Positive tone
Negative tone
Create a bank of possible exam questions on
a given text / collection of poems.
Write a summary of
the key idea /
meaning behind the
poem/chapter.
Reduce it to five
words and then one
word.
Identify two or three key
quotations from the poem.
Brainstorm ideas around
each one.
If you could only keep one
line from the poem that
best sums up its essence,
which would it be?
A parent remembers the first time their child grew in
independence, eighteen years ago, during a game of
football. The child is ‘like a satellite’ and is ‘drifting away’.
The speaker in the poem finds the experience difficult
and goes on to describe how the child, like a ‘half-fledged
thing’, began to find his or her own feet.
Images from nature, referring to birds leaving the nest
and ‘a winged seed loosened from its parent stem’ show
how this separation of child from parent happens in
other species too. Still, the speaker seems perplexed by it
and cannot ‘quite grasp’ the need for ‘nature’s give-andtake’.
In the final stanza the parent speaks of the pain of
parting from his child which ‘gnaws at my mind’. In the
end he concludes that ‘love is proved in the letting go’
showing that he accepts that separation is an inevitable
part of a loving relationship with his child.
Annotation - take a blank copy of the poem and
annotate it again as a way of testing knowledge
and understanding.
Refine annotations- are they brief and useful?
Annotations should not be ‘translations’ of
meaning but comments on ideas or effects but
they can be pictures and images as well as words.
English
Language
Revision Tips.
Overview of English Language Examinations
Paper 1 – Responding to unseen fiction
Paper 2 – Responding to unseen nonfiction
Reading extract – 15 min
Reading extract – 15 min
Section A, Reading – 45 min
Section A, Reading 45 min
Section B, Writing
(Descriptive/Narrative) – 45 min
Section B, Writing
(Writing a non-fiction text for
audience/purpose) - 45 min
Look-up the rule for using commas, dashes, semicolons, colons and exclamation marks, then write a
paragraph that includes each type of punctuation.
Find an image of a train station during commuter
time/street lamp in the snow with nothing and no
one around/beech with someone bouncing a
ball/a lighthouse about the be engulfed by a huge
wave- write the story of what happens next OR
describe the image. In the exam, this would take
45 minutes.
Write a series of openings to a story attempting to
hook the reader. Students could begin in the middle of
the action or conversation, reflecting back on past
events, etc. They should tease the reader by dropping
hints and suggestions. Afterwards, students could
annotate their opening to show the devices they have
used and the intended impact on the reader.
Produce a bank of useful and different phrases
to start sentences e.g. verb + ing, verb + ed
(Laughing, she… or Startled, he…), prepositional
phrases (At the end of the lane…), a subordinate
clause (Although she was tired, …), adverbs
(Carefully she…), similes (Like a train, she ran…).
Write an opening or closing paragraph to a story and
try to vary the length of the sentences. Balance the
rhythm of short/long sentences. Use simple sentences
for clarity and impact. Use compound for flow. Use
complex to add extra layers of meaning
Read one non-fiction text per day then list key
points about what the text was about.
Practise skimming and scanning passages the first time they are read in
order to get the gist of what is going on. A highlighter could be used
when close reading a second time to help identify the main points.
• Select a piece of nonfiction writing and
annotate it to show the
techniques used by the
writer at word, sentence
and text level.
• Write a PEE paragraph to
explain the writer’s
viewpoint in the chosen
text.
• Select a piece of non-fiction
writing and devise a sub-heading
that sums up what each
paragraph is about.
Create a flow diagram with these
to show how the writing is
structured.
• Devise questions based on a
chosen non-fiction text. Model
questions on the ones used in
past papers. Then, answer them.
Build a key list of features to identify which could include:
setting, narrative voice, characterisation and speech, imagery
and descriptive detail, structure, techniques used in the
building of tension e.g. repetition, syntax, vocabulary.
Identify these on the passage using different colours or
symbols.
Then annotate with a few brief notes on what the effect is on
the reader.
Online resources: Literature-BBC GCSE
Bitesize-
Online resources: LanguageBBC GCSE Bitesize-
Study Guides: Literature.
• York Notes• Animal Farm (Grades 9–1): York Notes for GCSE Study Guide
• Animal Farm Workbook (Grades 9–1): York Notes for GCSE Workbook
• AQA Anthology: Love and Relationships (Grades 9–1): York Notes for
GCSE Study Guide
• Macbeth (Grades 9–1): York Notes for GCSE Study Guide
• Macbeth Workbook (Grades 9–1): York Notes for GCSE Workbook
• The Sign of the Four (Grades 9–1): York Notes for GCSE Study Guide
Study Guides: Literature and Language• CGP• New GCSE English Language AQA Complete Revision & Practice - Grade 9-1
Course (with Online Edition)
• New GCSE English Language AQA Workbook - for the Grade 9-1 Course
(includes Answers)
• New GCSE English Literature AQA Complete Revision & Practice - for the
Grade 9-1 Course
• New GCSE English Literature AQA Poetry Guide: Love & Relationships
Anthology - the Grade 9-1 Course