English Literature Revision Guide
Unit 1 Section A ‘The Woman in Black’ 45 minutes
What are you assessed on?:
 Responding to the text critically and imaginatively and selecting relevant
quotations or examples to support your point.
 Explaining how language, structure and form contribute to the writer’s
presentation of the ideas, themes and settings.
 The acronym you are using is SCILS with the main emphasis on ‘I’ and ‘L’:
SC (setting and context) I (ideas and themes) L (language) S (structure)
Higher Questions:
1. How does Hill create a sense of isolation in the novel?
2. Hill writes that setting is ‘so important’ in a ghost story. How does Hill
present the setting of Eel Marsh House and why do you think it is
important?
3. In Chapter 3, The Journey North, how does Hill’s description of the train
journey from London to Crythin Gifford prepare the reader for what is to
come in the novel?
4. How do you respond to Hill’s presentation of the woman in black in the
novel?
Foundation Questions:
1. How does Hill make Eel Marsh House seem threatening? Write about: the
description of the house, the way the characters feel about the house
and the methods Hill used to describe the house.
2. Write about the woman in black in the novel. You should write about: the
actions of the woman in black and the methods Hill uses to present her.
Unit 1 Section B ‘Of Mice and Men’ 45 minutes
What are you assessed on?:
 Relating texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts (this is not
tested in Section A
 Responding to the text critically and imaginatively and selecting relevant
quotations or examples to support your point.
 Explaining how language, structure and form contribute to the writer’s
presentation of the ideas, themes and settings.
 The acronym you are using is SCILS with the main emphasis on ‘I’ and ‘L’:
SC (setting and context) I (ideas and themes) L (language) S (structure)
Suggested Revision tasks for Unit 1 (both ‘The Woman in Black’ and ‘Of
Mice and Men’)
1. Plan and respond to the practise exam questions above and attached.
2. Use the attached mark scheme to help you assess your responses.
3. Create detailed mind-maps of each novel.
4. Re-read both novels.
5. Brainstorm key themes from each novel and select quotes to back up each
theme
6. Create chapter summaries of both novels under key headings of themes,
characters, language
7. Select key quotations for each chapter/theme/character
Unit 2 Section A ‘Conflict Poetry’ 45 minutes
What are you assessed on?:
 Responding to the text critically and imaginatively and selecting relevant
quotations or examples to support your point.
 Explaining how language, structure and form contribute to the writers’
presentation of the ideas, themes and settings.
 Make comparisons and explain links between texts, evaluation writers’
different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects.
Higher Questions:
1. Compare how poets present the effects of conflict in ‘Belfast Confetti’
and one other poet from Conflict.
2. Compare how poets present the experience of soldiers in ‘Bayonet Charge’
and one other poem from Conflict.
Foundation Questions:
1. Compare how poets present the effects of conflict in ‘Belfast Confetti’
and one other poem from Conflict.
2. Compare how poets presents the experience of soldiers in ‘Bayonet
Charge’ and one other poem from Conflict.
Suggested Revision tasks for Unit 2
1. Plan and respond to the practise exam questions above and attached.
2. Use the attached mark scheme to help you assess your responses.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Create detailed mind-maps of each poem including comparisons and links.
Select key quotes to from each poem and analyse in terms of language
Create planning grid like the example in the pack
Create summaries of each poem using WHAT, HOW and COMPARE
Unit 2: Section B Unseen Poetry
What are you assessed on?


What? What is the poem about? Ideas/attitudes/feelings.
How? How has it been written? Techniques and language linked to the
ideas/attitudes and feelings. Why has the poet used these techniques/language
to get their ideas across? Why particular
language choices? Writer’s intentions/Effect on the reader.
Use the poems below to practise for the unseen section of the poetry exam.
Remember to plan briefly and that you have 35 minutes to spend on this section.
REMEMBER: You don’t have to understand all of the poem. Choose 4-5 lines that
‘speak’ to you, and focus on these to answer the essay question.
The question will always ask: What is the poem about? How does the poet
present these ideas? (the wording may be slightly different, but the idea will
always be the same!)
Stop the Clocks
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W H Auden
For an A* analysis, look at the next page, but don’t do this until you’ve had a go
yourself. Highlight where the essay tackles ‘What?’ and ‘How?’ to help you to see
how to structure an essay. Identify where the mark scheme is being addressed
and what this looks like by annotating, so that you can do this in your own essay.
W. H. Auden's poem, "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone" conveys the meaning of
overwhelming grief, tragic loss, and an unrelenting pessimism best exemplified in the last lines,
"For nothing now can ever come to any good." The tone of the poem is that of a melancholy
sadness enforced by the internal rhyme scheme (aabb)
.
The title and first line of the poem demonstrate the author's inconsolable grief by commanding
the audience to do something which is not possible, "Stop all the clocks." This reference to time
could also be an allusion to the death and brevity of life which cause the author such agony. The
verbs of the first three lines of the first stanza represent how the author wants to eliminate
the distractions; clocks ticking, telephones ringing, dogs barking, pianos playing, of the day in
order that everyone may mourn this death. These imperative verbs are all forbidding something
and not until the mention of the coffin in line 4 do the verbs begin to be more allowing; "Bring
out the coffin, let the mourners come." The next stanza continues to develop the idea of public
mourning. The author has been so deeply touched by such a personal loss that he feels the
entire world should share in his grief. The subjects of this stanza; the aeroplane, the sky, the
white necks of the public doves, and the traffic policemen, are not typically associated with
death. However, by incorporating these things into an elaborate funeral procession, the author
emphasizes the need for public mourning. Lines 5 and 6 illustrate the importance of the death
to the author, for he wants news of it spread across the sky where everyone on Earth can see
it. The funeral procession described in lines 7 and 8 serves to further represent both the
importance of the deceased and the grief caused by this death.
The third stanza, particularly lines 9, 10, and 11, again conveys the intimacy of the relationship
between the author and the deceased. The author shows reverence for this man by using
exaggerated metaphors to imply his importance to the author. Line 9, "He was my North, my
South, my East and West," demonstrates the relationship between the two and combined with
the next line, "My working week and my Sunday rest," implies this relationship to be of a very
intimate nature. This is echoed in line 12, "I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong."
This can be interpreted to represent the speaker’s ignorance toward an inevitable death. The
author’s love for this man is so all encompassing he describes him as the points of the globe.
This love is so strong that the speaker believes it will last forever, not until the death of his
companion was the realization made that love, like everything else, will come to an end.
The last stanza and in particular line 16 affirms the hopelessness of the poem. The commanding
verbs conclude in this stanza where the author serves to convey a purposeless life without the
deceased. The readers are instructed to again perform extraordinary tasks in order that the
author may mourn. Lines 13 and 14, “The stars are not wanted now: Put out every one: Pack up
the moon and dismantle the sun;” express the despair of the author. A world without the sun
and moon would be void of everything, including life. This sentiment is echoed in the following
line, “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;” Both these metaphors are again intended to
symbolize the aimless feelings of the author and the void left by the death of this man. By
commanding the audience to dispel of the oceans and remove the forests of the world, the
speaker shows both how meaningless life is without his lover.
The pessimism of the poem is captured best in line 16, “For nothing now can ever come to any
good.” The death of this man has devastated the speaker in such a way that he feels both
without purpose and unable to see any good in the world. This line concludes the poem and
emphasizes the melancholy tone evident throughout. Like the death of his lover, the last line
emphasizes the finality of life and an end void of purpose.
More poems to practise with…
IF.....
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Neighbours
I am the type you are supposed to fear
Black and foreign
Big and dreadlocks
An uneducated grass eater.
I talk in tongues
I chant at night
I appear anywhere,
I sleep with lions
And when the moon gets me
I am a Wailer.
I am moving in
Next door to you
So you can get to know me,
You will see my shadow
In the bathroom window,
My aromas will occupy
Your space,
Our ball will be in your court.
How will you feel?
You should feel good
You have been chosen.
I am the type you are supposed to love
Dark and mysterious
Tall and natural
Thinking, tea total.
I talk in schools
I sing on TV
I am in the papers,
I keep cool cats
And when the sun is shining
I go Carnival.
Benjamin Zephaniah
A useful website to find more poems: www.poemhunter.com