Welcome to the English Department!
My name is Richard Vardy and I’m Head of the English Department here at Reigate College. We’re really pleased you’ve chosen to study English Language & Literature A Level and we’re looking forward to welcoming you to the department in person at the beginning of the academic year. In preparation for this, we’d like you to complete a series of tasks over the coming months.
These are all independent tasks, but there will be the opportunity to come together and discuss what you’ve learnt with your fellow students when we start the A Level course in September. Please also remember to use this time to be reading as widely as possible.
The tasks are organised in three distinct steps and should all be completed by Choices Day on 27 August 2025. This is to give you the best insight into what the courses will be like and/or help prepare you for them.
Please note, some Course Leaders (for example for Music) may release their tasks earlier, as they may form part of the College’s audition process. If this applies to you, you’ll be notified separately.
New Starters Course Tasks and Activities
| Release date | Suggested Completion Dates | |
| Explore your Subject | 1 June | 1 July |
| Get Going | 1 June | 1 August |
| Aim High | 1 June | 1 September |
Exploring historical context
For A Level English Language & Literature you will study F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel The Great Gatsby. It was written in 1925, and is set in New York City during Prohibition, when the USA Government tried to ban alcohol. This era is known as the ‘Roaring Twenties’, or the ‘Jazz Age’.
It is interesting to consider how social and historical contexts influence the texts we study and this is an important skill you will develop on the course.
Look at this image of ‘The Roaring Twenties’. What do you think are some of the distinctive features of this period?
Now conduct further research into the ‘Roaring Twenties’ in the USA. These links may help, but feel free to find sources of your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN7ftyZigYs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKWTXsiiYEY
For a bit more depth, go to: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161004-did-the-20s-really-roar
Once you’ve made some notes on the text, read this extract taken from The Great Gatsby. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is describing a party at Gatsby’s house.
There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden, old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners—and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz and between the numbers people were doing ‘stunts’ all over the garden, while happy vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage ‘twins’—who turned out to be the girls in yellow—did a baby act in costume and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger bowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn.
I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger bowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound.
Now answer these questions:
- How does the writer suggest the energy and excess of Gatsby’s party?
- How might the contexts of the Roaring Twenties have influenced the language and ideas in this passage?
Read widely
A significant part of the English Language & Literature course is devoted to the analysis of non-fiction. This means factual writing or speech, and is usually based on real-life events. It will help enormously if you are already familiar with the different types of non-fiction.
So, before the course, you should gather together examples of the following types of non-fiction text:
- travel writing
- autobiography
- published diary entries and memoirs
- famous public speeches
- book, television and film reviews
Once you have a good range in your collection, take notes on how the writer (or speaker) of each text uses language which is appropriate for audience and purpose.
There are also three literature texts on the English Language & Literature course, including The Great Gatsby. A Level English students enjoy developing their ability to read with greater insight and sensitivity. They also enjoy making connections between texts. You should read as much fiction as you can in the coming months. Keep a brief reading record with the following headings:
- Why I chose this book
- What I like (or dislike) about this book
- What I find distinctive or interesting about the way the book is written
If you are unsure what to read, take a look at our English Department recommended reads:
The English Department Recommends 1
The English Department Recommends 2
And here are a few other suggestions we think you might like:
- Monica Ali, Brick Lane
- Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
- *Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
- *Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
- Albert Camus, The Stranger
- *Wilkie Collins, Armadale
- Philip K. Dick, Electric Dreams
- *Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
- Sebastian Faulks, Engleby
- Aminatta Forna, The Memory of Love
- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
- Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- *Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
- Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
- *Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings
- Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
- J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
- *Bram Stoker, Dracula
- Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness
- *H G Wells, The War of the Worlds
*These titles are all available as free e-texts online. Please read other books if you are unable to get hold of any of the above list – they are just suggested titles and the most important thing is that you keep reading.
There are many different ways to describe the world we live in.
A Level English Language and Literature students should always be aware that written or spoken texts tend to express a point of view, or to be written or spoken from a particular perspective. In other words, they express an ‘attitude.’ An ‘attitude’ is the writer/speaker’s personal viewpoint on a given topic.
Non-fiction texts, such as newspaper articles or autobiographies, are written in response to a ‘real-life’ event. You will read and analyse lots of these texts in the first year of the course. Sometimes, news reports seem to be ‘neutral’ and descriptive, but reading closely, we can see that they actually have the purpose of persuading us to share the author’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings.
In fictional texts too, such as in a novel or short story, we should always be alert to how and why different attitudes/points of view about the world are expressed.
Sometimes these attitudes are expressed explicitly by the characters.
Fiction
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and set in New York in the summer of 1922, is one of the set literature texts on the course. The first-person narrator, Nick Carraway, likes to express his point of view to the reader. He is also a main character.
So, he both plays a part in the story AND he tells the reader what happens. When we read the book, there is no avoiding Nick’s voice, and his point of view.
In the first chapter, Nick leaves his comfortable middle-class home in the Mid-West of the USA and arrives in New York. He rents a cottage on Long Island, just across the river from Manhattan.
Next door to his cottage, Nick sees a house. Eventually, he discovers that it belongs to Jay Gatsby, the mysterious protagonist of the novel.
Here is the house as it appears in the 2013 film of the book.
Now, here is the description of the house from the novel. Read the sentences closely.
‘I lived at West Egg. . . my house was . . . squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard — it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion.’
1. Task
Now answer these questions:
- What does Nick Carraway think about Gatsby’s house? Is he impressed by it, or not?
- What attitudes can be detected in the language he uses to describe the house? What can we assume about Nick from the way he describes Gatsby’s house?
- Can we also assume anything about the owner of the house, Jay Gatsby?
Language Analysis
Detailed and accurate language analysis is another key skill on the A Level English Language and Literature course. It is important that, from the beginning, you learn how to focus on specific examples of language. This is known as ‘close analysis of the text’.
The best students also use appropriate subject-related terminology when commenting on the quotations from the text. Many of the key language terms should be familiar to you from your GCSE course, but at A Level it is essential to use them consistently and with precision.
Here are some of the ‘levels of language’ which a student is expected to use when analysing a text.
- Vocabulary
- Connotations
- Word classes, such as adjectives and verbs
- Imagery
2. Task
Look back over your answers to the questions on Nick Carraway’s description of Gatsby’s house. Can you add in any language terms to your responses?
Non-fiction
Below you will see the front pages of newspapers published on the morning of March 9th 2021.
All of them are focused on the topic of the royals and Harry and Meghan Markle’s release of an interview with Oprah. The interview was a televised discussion about the royal family, and how the couple feel they have been treated by Harry’s family. The release of the interview furthered tensions already established between the couple and the family.
The response of the newspapers was one of backlash towards the couple. The newspapers below are published immediately following the release of the interview.
Some newspapers seem to be reasonably neutral in their approach towards the topic as a whole; others seem to be much more critical of Meghan directly.
3. Task
Read the headlines on the front pages closely, then group them together according to whether they express their response to the release of the interview.
Language Analysis
Now focus on particular language choices used by the writers of the headlines.
Here is a slightly more detailed list of the main language terms again, to help you focus on particular details.
- Vocabulary choices – and the connotations of particular words
- Formal or informal register – and the use of names
- Semantic fields of words with similar meanings
- Word classes, such as pronouns, verbs or adjectives
- Use of imagery, such as metaphor
- Use of humour or puns in familiar phrases
4. Task
Select two front pages with contrasting attitudes towards the interview. Write a brief paragraph in which you identify the different attitudes of each front page and how the writers use language to convey those attitudes.
On your A-Level English Language and Literature course at Reigate College you will study the Voices in Speech and Writing: An Anthology booklet. This anthology covers ten styles of written and spoken mode texts, covering interviews to memoirs, to speeches to radio drama transcripts.
In your first lesson, you will read and discuss an extract from one of the entries – an extract from Maya Angelou’s autobiography Mom&Me&Mom. Within this extract she discusses her relationship with her mother. The extract explores a memory Angelou has of her mother. Within the middle of the text, she describes the setting of her mother’s house.
A section of the extract is printed below. To prepare for your first lesson, read the extract and answer the three questions which follow.
Focus on the aspects of the extract you enjoy and feel more confident about. Develop a general impression. Do not worry if there are details or references you are less sure about – these will be clarified for you in the lesson.
This is the middle section of the extract where Angelou begins to describe the house her mother lives in.
My mother had moved into another large Victorian house, on Fulton Street, which she again filled with Gothic, heavily carved furniture. The upholstery on the sofa and occasional chairs was red-wine-coloured mohair. Oriental rugs were placed throughout the house. She had a live-in employee, Poppa, who cleaned the house and sometimes filled in as cook helper.
Mother picked up Guy twice a week and took him to her house, where she fed him peaches and cream and hot dogs, but I only went to Fulton Street once a month and at an agreed-upon time.
She understood and encouraged my self-reliance and I Iooked forward eagerly to our standing appointment. On the occasion, she would cook one of my favourite dishes. One lunch date stands out in my mind. I call it Vivian’s Red Rice Day.
When I arrived at the Fulton Street house my mother was dressed beautifully. Her makeup was perfect and she wore good jewellery. After we embraced, I washed my hands and we walked through her formal, dark dining room and into the large, bright kitchen.
Much of lunch was already on the kitchen table.
Vivian Baxter was very serious about her delicious meals.
On that long-ago Red Rice Day, my mother had offered me a crispy, dry-roasted capon, no dressing or gravy, and simple lettuce salad, no tomatoes or cucumbers. A wide-mouthed bowl covered with a platter sat next to her plate.
She fervently blessed the food with a brief prayer and put her left hand on the platter and her right on the bowl. She turned the dishes over and gently loosened the bowl from its contents and revealed a tall mound of glistening red rice (my favourite food in the entire world) decorated with finely minced parsley and green stalks of scallions.
Questions:
- Within the form of an autobiography, the narrator is also the author. What impact would this have on the voice (style) of the text? For example, is it simple or elaborate? Find two examples of Angelou’s distinctive voice within the extract.
- What impression do you, as the reader, develop of Angelou’s relationship with her mother? Find evidence that supports this impression.
- Overall, do you think Angelou and her mother have a good/secure relationship? Why do you think this? Find evidence within the text that is supportive of your impressions.
Head of English
