Welcome to English

The English Department at Ash Green School constantly strives to make lessons stimulating and enjoyable, encouraging students to make choices about the ways they learn and setting realistic yet challenging targets for themselves.

At Key Stage 3 students cover a range of topics including First World War poetry, twentieth century drama, pre-1914 fiction, media and Shakespeare.

The department uses super-learning events at both key stages. This is a teaching style that brings classes together enabling English experts to teach students key ideas, issues and skills in a public forum, making use of a range of ICT opportunities and teaching and learning styles that are not quite so readily available in a typical classroom situation.

This year students in year ten will be entered for GCSE English literature. This requires all students to study a selection of poems by Seamus Heaney and Gillian Clarke, and several poems written before 1914. Furthermore all students must study set texts. This will be either a selection of short stories or John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."

In English language students study a range of poems from different cultures.

To support students’ development as independent readers we recommend that you visit www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/progressionmaps/english/secen_prgrsnhow.htm which contains reading strategies for all abilities from Level 3 KS3 to B+ KS4.

Year 10 students

Click here http://nfs.sparknotes.com/shrew, for notes on The taming of the shrew.

Click here for an online version of the whole text of Frankenstein

Click here www.sparknotes.com/lit/crucible/, for notes on The Crucible.

Key Stage Four

Click herehttp://www.universalteacher.org.uk/contents.htm#anth, for notes on poems from different cultures, and poems for the English Literature exam (Heaney, Clarke and the pre-1914 poems).

Written Coursework There are four pieces of coursework for English Language and three for English Literature. To reduce the workload for students two essays are "crossover" pieces i.e. count for both Literature and Language. The essays cover the following subjects: 1) Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" (crossover) 2) Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (crossover) 3) The Media (Language only) 4) Original Writing (Language only) 5) Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" (Literature only)

Written coursework counts for 30% of the final mark in English Literature and 20% in English Language.