1. AS English Language and
Literature
Welcome!

2. This week!
• Introduction to the course, the requirements
and the assessment objectives.
• Getting to know each other
• Introduction to the texts, themes and
outcomes.
• Reading and writing test (This is as fun as it
sounds)
• Interrogating the language in American
literature texts (The Yellow Wallpaper)

3. You have two weeks…
• To catch up on your reading
of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’
• For the next two weeks, we’ll
be looking at some short
stories which have links to
the main theme of Escape.

4. Around the room
We will go around the room and each of you has
to say the following:
•Your Name
•Your favourite book
•Why you chose English

5. GCSEs are behind you now…
• Once upon a time you read texts and
concentrated on what was going on-
• Characters
• Plot
• Themes
• These are still important but now you need to
work out…

6. HOW?
• Ways and methods
• Purpose
• Context
• Audience
• Attitudes and ideas
• Language
• Genre
• Structure and presentation
There’s lots to discover!

7. “There is no correct response – only a
well-argued one”

8. Structure of the A Level
• Your first year is spent studying for an AS level
in English Language and Literature
• You will study Two Units. Unit One is worth
60% of your AS Marks.
• You will sit a written, 1 hour 30 min exam in
the summer.
• 2 questions:

9. The exam
• Question 1 is on an UNSEEN text related to
the theme of the AQA Anthology Travel,
Transport and Locomotion (we will provide
you with an Anthology soon).
• Question 2 is on the Anthology itself.
• This exam is OPEN BOOK so we will give you a
clean copy of the Anthology to use in the
exam.

10. Unit Two
• This is a Coursework Unit.
• You will submit your coursework in the Spring
term, it is worth 40% of your AS level.
• Your coursework is a 2-part assignment on
Catcher in The Rye and Huckleberry Finn.
• The theme of your coursework is Escape.

11. Escape
• Part A is 1200-1500 words – a comparison of 2
extracts from your set texts.
• Part B is creative writing which extends your
discussion of the above (500-850 words)

12. Assessment Objectives
• Assessment Objectives are the areas of the
subject you’re being examined on in the
particular piece of work you’re doing.
• You will hear more about these in due course
but to give you an idea…

13. AO1
• Select and apply relevant concepts and
approaches to the texts you study.
• Use appropriate terminology.
• Write accurately and coherently.

14. AO2
• Demonstrate how:
• Structure
• Form and
• Language
• shape meanings in a range of spoken and
written texts.

15. AO3
• Use your understanding of Language and
Literature together to explore relationships
between texts.
• Look at the context in which they were
produced and received.

16. AO4
• Use language creatively and expertly for a
variety of purposes and audiences.

17. Synoptic
• A Level courses are synoptic
• This means that you are expected to get
progressively better and accumulate skills as
you learn.
• Therefore A2 is more challenging than AS, and
of course you will find AS more challenging
than GCSE.
• If you are struggling speak to your teacher!

18. Reading and Writing test
• Yo u h ave 45
m inutes
• Hav e Fun!

19. The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• A short extract
• Lets read together…
• Initial ideas, what are out thoughts?
• What are the main themes?

20. A little bit of context…
In 1886, early in her first marriage and not long after the birth of her daughter, Charlotte Perkins
Stetson (as she was then known) was stricken with a severe case of depression. In her 1935
autobiography, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she describes her “utter prostration” by
“unbearable inner misery” and “ceaseless tears,” a condition only made worse by the presence
of her husband and her baby. She was referred to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, then the country’s
leading specialist in nervous disorders, whose treatment in such cases was a “rest cure” of
forced inactivity. Especially in the case of his female patients, Mitchell believed that depression
was brought on by too much mental activity and not enough attention to domestic affairs. For
Gilman, this course of treatment was a disaster. Prevented from working, she soon had a
nervous breakdown. At her worst, she was reduced to crawling into closets and under beds,
clutching a rag doll.
Once she abandoned Mitchell’s rest cure, Gilman’s condition improved, though she claimed to
feel the effects of the ordeal for the rest of her life. Leaving behind her husband and child, a
scandalous decision, Charlotte Perkins Stetson (she took the name Gilman after a second
marriage, to her cousin) embarked on a successful career as a journalist, lecturer, and publisher.
She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” soon after her move to California, and in it she uses her
personal experience to create a tale that is both a chilling description of one woman’s fall into
madness and a potent symbolic narrative of the fate of creative women stifled by a paternalistic
culture.
How does this change the way in which read it?

21. Context
• Having a good awareness of context is the key
to unlocking the texts we’ll be studying this
term.

22. Exploring specific details in the text
Can we find examples in the text which:
•Can make a link between Gilman’s private life
and the text
•Illustrate women are suppressed in marriage
•Suggests Gilman needed to escape
•Identifies a need for self-expression

23. Writing a PEHE
• How does Gilman present the position of
women in 19th century America?

24. Homework
• Read ‘Slight Rebellion off Madison’