Spotlight Spotlight on A Level English Literature
Mrs Litton is the Head of Faculty for English and Drama. At university she studied for an English BA Hons followed by an MA in English Literary Research. After university, she taught EFL across the globe before embarking on her English PGCE. She taught at various outstanding state schools holding titles such as: whole - school Gifted and Talented Coordinator, KS4 Progress Coordinator and A Level English Literature Lead. She became Head of English at Queen's in 2019. Mrs Litton introduces this spotlight on A Level English Literature: We know that studying English Literature at A Level and degree level opens broad horizons for future careers (far beyond English teaching and librarianship, which seems to be the common misconception!). Any career that requires you to have a way with words welcomes English Literature: marketing, advertising and journalism are cases in point. Moreover, as the major discipline is close reading, Literature is a popular choice amongst successful applicants to study Law. The legal profession depends on analysis and scrutiny of written text (and really does not resemble an episode of 'Suits' much at all). All this being said, pupils are not merely vassals destined for the world of work: we want them to enjoy their subjects too! Everybody knows Mrs Litton and Miss Watkins love literature, so we ventured further and spoke to Queenians (OQ and current) to find out why they love studying English. Read more about studying English and other A Levels at Queen ’ s here. Hazel in Year 13 has recently been offered a place to read English at University College, Oxford University. Hazel has had a clear passion for English since Year 11, and has pursued it to A Level, in which she has really flourished. She decided to apply to read English, including an application to Oxford. The application process is not easy: as well as submitting examples of their work, it requires candidates to prepare for the ELAT (English Literature Admissions Test, which is administered by both Oxford and Cambridge)
Through coaching, Mrs Litton supported Hazel with discussion and marking from July onwards. On the basis of her performance of the ELAT, Hazel was invited to interview and was subsequently sent an offer to read English at University College, Oxford University . Hazel ’ s highest scoring assessment was the written work on Shakespeare's Hamlet that she had completed here at Queen's.
Max Carlson is an OQ, who studied A Level English at Queen ’ s which encouraged him to go on and study English Literature at University. He wrote to the College to explain his love of English Literature. Why did I chose English? And why is English so great?
I chose to study English originally at A level after feeling fairly indifferent to it for the majority of my school life; I didn ’ t really enjoy reading, I found a lot of the texts we
studied boring, and I just wasn ’ t that interested in it. However, after much debate during A - level options evenings and tutor meetings, I eventually decided that I would give it a go, spurred on by the promise of some actually interesting texts. It was a very good decision. For the next 2 years I studied gruesome plays, beautiful poems, and thrilling texts. I fell in love with the subject largely thanks to some incredible teaching and made the decision to study it at university. I ’ m now 3 years into my degree at the University of Birmingham and am currently spending the year at Trinity College Dublin as part of my course. I think English is a great subject because you get to read things that will blow your mind; and then you get to read them again, and again; and then you get to write about what makes them so special. Over my 3 years I ’ ve studied cyborgs in 90s anime films, Bollywood Shakespeare adaptations, and why humans think mountains are cool (it ’ s because they ’ re big). English is an exceptionally varied and rewarding subject and I urge anyone interested to look into studying it further because once you get past the surface there ’ s a lot to love.
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