English Language & LiteratureQ&A by dot point

Genre and wider reading: understanding genre as a set of conventions and expectations, choosing a productive genre for the NEA, and reading widely in it to establish its conventions and range, so the reading grounds the critical study (AO3, AO4) and the creative writing (AO5).

The creative writing pieces: the two NEA creative texts in the chosen genre (around 850 to 1000 words each, typically one literary and one non-literary), deploying or subverting the genre's conventions informed by the critical study, demonstrating expertise in producing texts (AO5, AO2).

The critical genre essay: the NEA critical study (around 1500 words) analysing how a prose text works within a chosen genre, using the integrated method, framed by context and informed by wider reading in the genre (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4).

The Component 4 NEA (Critical and Creative Genre Study): a critical essay on a prose text informed by wider genre reading (around 1500 words) and two creative pieces in the genre (around 850 to 1000 words each) with reflection, worth 20 percent, marked by the centre and moderated (AO1 to AO5).

The writing commentary: the reflective element accompanying the NEA creative pieces, analysing your own choices of language, form and genre with the integrated method, showing control of how meaning is shaped and how the genre study informed the writing (AO2, AO5).

Analysing dramatic method: reading soliloquy and aside, dialogue and turn-taking, dramatic structure, stagecraft and stage directions, and the construction of character through speech, sharpened by the language levels, and read as theatre rather than text on a page (AO1, AO2).

Dramatic discourse and dialogue: analysing the talk between characters with discourse and pragmatics (turn-taking, floor control, interruption, adjacency pairs, politeness, face, implicature) and idiolect, reading the power and relationships staged in the dialogue (AO1, AO2).

Staging, performance and interpretation: reading a play as realised on a stage (the meanings staging choices make) and using different productions and interpretations to drive analysis, so AO5 sharpens the reading of dramatic method rather than decorating it (AO2, AO5).

The Component 2 Drama paper: a Shakespeare question (extract analysis plus a broader essay on the same play) and an essay on a studied post-1900 drama text, analysing dramatic method with the integrated toolkit, worth 30 percent over 2 hours (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO5).

The studied post-1900 drama text: the Component 2 Section B essay on a modern play (for example The History Boys), read as drama through structure, dialogue, stagecraft and character through speech, framed by genre, period and interpretation (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO5).

The studied Shakespeare play: the Component 2 Section A question combining close analysis of a printed extract with a broader essay on the same play (for example Othello, King Lear), reading the verse and dramatic method with linguistic precision, framed by genre and period (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO5).

Context and interpretation: reading context (AO3 - period, audience, purpose, mode, production and reception) into features rather than as background, and using different interpretations (AO5) to drive analysis rather than decorate it.

Integrating AO1 to AO5: building an analytical paragraph in which the integrated method and terminology (AO1), the analysis of meaning (AO2), context (AO3), connection (AO4) and interpretation (AO5) work together, not in separate sections, across every A710 component.

The language levels for integrated analysis: lexis and semantics, grammar, phonology and prosody, pragmatics, discourse and graphology, and how each adds precision to the reading of literary and non-literary texts (AO1, AO2).

The literary methods and genre: form and structure, voice and persona, imagery and figurative language, narrative technique, and genre and convention, and how each fuses with the language levels in an integrated reading (AO1, AO2).

The five assessment objectives (AO1 to AO5) for A710: integrated method and expression (AO1), analysis of how meaning is shaped (AO2), context (AO3), connections across texts (AO4), and interpretation and creative production (AO5), and how each is weighted across the components.

The integrated linguistic-literary method: reading every text (poem, play, prose, non-literary, spoken) with the language levels and the literary methods together, so a single point moves from a precise feature to its literary and contextual effect (AO1, AO2).

Analysing non-literary texts: reading non-fiction and multimodal texts through lexis, grammar, pragmatics, discourse and graphology, and the literary techniques of literary non-fiction, to analyse how a text positions its reader by mode, audience and purpose (AO1, AO2, AO3).

Analysing spoken language: reading transcripts of interaction through discourse (turn-taking, adjacency pairs) and pragmatics, the features of spontaneous speech, and planned speeches as scripted-spoken hybrids, with mode read into the analysis (AO1, AO2, AO3).

Comparing unseen texts: structuring the Component 3 Section A comparison of unseen spoken and non-literary texts around shared ideas with all texts live, comparing how each makes meaning across modes, audiences and purposes, so the connection (AO4) is genuine (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4).

Mode, audience and purpose: reading mode (spoken, written, multimodal and the blends between), audience (who a text addresses) and purpose (what it seeks to do) as the dominant context for non-literary and spoken texts, framing every analysis of how a text makes meaning (AO2, AO3).

The Component 3 paper (Non-Literary Texts): comparative analysis of unseen spoken and non-literary texts (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4) and analysis of a studied non-literary prose text (for example In Cold Blood, Homage to Catalonia), worth 20 percent over 2 hours.

The studied non-literary text: the Component 3 Section B analysis of a prescribed non-literary prose text (for example In Cold Blood, Homage to Catalonia), read with the integrated method for its language, narrative method and voice as literary non-fiction, framed by genre and purpose (AO1, AO2, AO3).

Analysing poetic method: reading form and structure, imagery and figurative language, voice and persona, and metre and sound, sharpened by the language levels, and moving from feature to effect in an integrated reading of poetry (AO1, AO2).

Comparing poetry and unseen texts: structuring the Component 1 Section A comparison around a shared idea with both texts live, weaving similarity and difference in how meaning is made, so the connection (AO4) is genuine and built on integrated analysis (AO1, AO2, AO3).

Narrative method in prose: analysing narrative perspective and focalisation, narratorial reliability, free indirect style, the handling of time and structure, and the grammar of the narrating voice (transitivity, tense, deixis), reading the telling rather than the tale (AO1, AO2).

The Component 1 paper (Poetry and Prose): a poetry comparison pairing a pre-1914 anthology poem with an unseen post-1914 text (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4) and an essay on a studied prose fiction text (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO5), worth 30 percent over 2 hours.

The pre-1914 Poetry Anthology: the prescribed collection studied for Component 1, commanding the poems' form, language and period from memory and mapping them by theme so any one can be compared with an unseen post-1914 text (AO1, AO2, AO3).

The studied prose fiction text: the Component 1 Section B essay on a prescribed prose novel (for example Jane Eyre, Atonement), read through the integrated method with a focus on narrative method, framed by context and interpretation (AO1, AO2, AO3, AO5).

The unseen post-1914 text: reading an unfamiliar text printed in Component 1 Section A under timed conditions, working out its method with the integrated toolkit and its likely context from internal evidence so it can be compared with the anthology poem (AO1, AO2, AO3).