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Now that GCSE exams are over… well, thanks to COVID-19, no exams had to be sat, I’ve been going through my work for the past three years and salvaging as much of it as I can to make it accessible for future GCSE students. On this page I’ve uploaded as much of my English Language and Literature work as I can find.
Annotated Literature #
I make notes right on the text; below are scans of some of my reading, annotated.
- Ray Bradbury – There Will Come Soft Rains
- Stephen Crane – The Open Boat
- Carol Ann Duffy – GCSE Poetry Collection
- Janet Frame – The Bath
- Alex la Guma – The Lemon Orchard
- John MacGahern – The Stoat
- Bernard MacLaverty – Secrets
- William McGonagall – The Tay Bridge Disaster
- Journey – Patricia Grace
- Edgar Allan Poe – The Black Cat
- Edgar Allan Poe – The Cask of Amontillado
- Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall Of The House of Usher
- Edgar Allan Poe – The Masque of the Red Death
- Jonathan Swift – The Lady’s Dressing Room
- Edith Wharton – The Moving Finger
Year 9 #
Year 9 has a very vague topic syllabus and teachers teach what they love teaching, rather than what is demanded by a rigorous specification. Work is more relaxed and the aim is to teach a skill set rather than set material.
Julius Caesar: Oxford School Shakespeare
We started Year 9 by reading Julius Caesar for a term and completed two essays.
30/09/2017: Julius Caesar Act 1 Scene 2 Essay
30/11/2017: Julius Caesar Act 3 Essay
In January we read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the original, Chaucerian English. (with explanatory notes, naturally) I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. We wrote no essays, so I have nothing to share here, but we did create PowerPoint presentations in groups of four about a specific tale.
Short Stories: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
In the spring term we moved onto Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and read The Man I Killed.
18/03/2018: Tim O’Brien - The Man I Killed - Essay
We spent the summer term preparing for the end-of-year exam, which consisted of an unseen and composition.
16/05/2018: Descriptive Writing Task - Describe a holiday resort when everyone has left
Year 10 #
With Year 10 we commence the Cambridge iGCSE syllabus. This included:
- Stories of Ourselves (a selection of short stories from this collection)
- 14 Carol Ann Duffy Poems
- Romeo and Juliet (Macbeth was also available on the spec, but the class moaned at the thought of studying Macbeth again, so Romeo and Juliet was chosen despite it being longer)
We started the year by reading The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe from the short stories collection.
20/09/2018: The work of Edgar Allan Poe - listened to a podcast for homework and made notes on it
30/09/2018: Edgar Allan Poe - The Fall of the House of Usher - Essay
I loved reading Ray Bradbury’s There Will Come Soft Rains! Probably my favourite of the whole collection.
20/11/2018: Ray Bradbury - There Will Come Soft Rains - Essay
In the spring term we moved onto a selection of Carol Ann Duffy’s poems. We went through a half or so and left it at that so that we could spend the summer term preparing for the end-of-year exam, which consisted of a directed writing task and composition.
24/01/2019: Carol Ann Duffy - In Mrs Tilscher’s Class - Essay
27/02/2019: Carol Ann Duffy - Originally Essay
Year 11 #
Oxford School Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
The GCSE syllabus provided a choice: Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet. The general consensus was to read Romeo and Juliet, because most students had already read Macbeth in their previous schools.
15/09/2019: Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 1 Essay
04/10/2019: Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2 Essay
22/11/2019: Romeo and Juliet Act 4 Scene 3 Essay
In the spring term we returned to the short story collection and the poems collection and finished off what we had not completed. Our short stories were mixed in with some directed writing and composition revision. Our last lesson together (before school shut due to COVID-19) was spent hastily finishing reading Secrets by Bernard MacLaverty!
28/01/2020: Carol Ann Duffy - Valentine Essay
03/03/2020: Descriptive Writing Task - Describe the scene from your position on the bank of a river