If you’re in Year 13 and studying English Literature, here’s what you need to be getting up to as part of your Christmas 50.

You need to be independently reading around the subject to develop your own critical interpretation of texts by understanding other critical schools of thought, focusing on the ideas of critical theorists.

The following tasks will help you produce analysis at the highest level.

1. Read Terry Eagleton’s ‘Marxism And Literary Criticism’ and Raymond Williams’ ‘Keywords’ (both available in the Literature Google Drive) – this will aid your expression and analysis.

2. Go onto The British Library site and:

• Listen to the short lectures by John Bowen on:The Brontës and the 19th century woman and make bullet point notes on the sections that will be useful for developing AO3 in your essay.
• Listen to Professor John Bowen’s discussion of the intertwined nature of fantasy and realism within Emily Brontë’s novel and make bullet point notes on the sections that will be useful for developing AO3 for your exam responses.
• Read the article on ‘The Victorian Reader’ and make bullet point notes on the sections that will be useful for developing AO3 in your essay.

3. Read the Catherine Fry article given in class, annotating points that would help develop your comparative essay.

4. Go to emagazine and log in using ‘englishatlc’ as your username and password. Search for articles on the Brontes, ‘Faustus’, ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and the Gothic. Make bullet point notes.

5. If you are aiming for a B-A grade, you need to also make detailed notes that cover key points for AO4 – identify the social, cultural and biographical influences on the texts you are studying for both of your coursework tasks and for your examination.

Happy Christmas!