Within this page you will find some resources to get you started on your A Level studies. Each resource uploaded will have instructions with it and will give you an insight in to the skills/knowledge needed for A Level English Literature.

You MUST complete the Crime Writing task at the bottom right of this page and you MUST complete the reading tasks set in the transition lesson: to read one Agatha Christie novel (NOT The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) and one of the following: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins or Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin. 

Finally, you SHOULD complete the activities in the Transition Handout. The other tasks are optional however, they will support and boost your knowledge in readiness for the start in September. 

Crime Writing Reading List: Crime fiction is extremely popular at the moment and there are many modern crime writers bringing out new novels. Here are just a few suggestions – the writers at the top of the list are more traditional texts and towards the bottom of the list we have included some recent crime best sellers.

  • Murders in the Rue Morgue – Edgar Allan Poe
  • Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
  • Any novels by Agatha Christie
  • The Nine Tailors or anything other novel by Dorothy L Sayers
  • Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
  • Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
  • The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
  • The Daughter of Time – Josephine Tey
  • Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M Cain
  • The Talented Mr Ripley or any others by Patricia Highsmith
  • A Dark Adapted Eye or any other novels by Barbara Vine
  • The Vault – Ruth Rendell
  • A Judgement in Stone or anything by Ruth Rendell
  • The Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris
  • The Broken Shore – Peter Temple
  • The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
  • Unnatural Exposure- by Patricia Cornwell
  • The Naming of the Dead or any other novel by Ian Rankin
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Steig Larrson
  • An unsuitable Job for a Woman or any other crime novel by P. D. James
  • Blue Lightening by Ann Cleeves
  • Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
  • Darkside – Belinda Bauer
  • Someone to Watch Over ME – Yrsa Sigurdadottir
  • Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
  • The Passenger – Lisa Lutz
  • The Ghost Fields or any of the Ruth Galloway investigations – Elly Griffith

NB: The texts in bold are the other AQA crime texts that we are not studying.

Some Popular Crime Writers – Read any novels by these writers

  • P.D. James 
  •  S.J. Watson
  • Lee Child 
  •  Gillian Flynn
  • Ruth Rendell 
  •  Steig Larsson
  • Ian Rankin 
  •  John Grisham
  • Patricia Cornwell
  • Mark Billingham
  • Ian Rankin
  • Val McDermid
  • Karen Rose
  • James Patterson
  • Jo Nesbo
  • Dick Francis

Wider reading list: as an A Level Literature student, the more widely read you are, the more understanding and vocabulary you will engage with to assist with your analysis, using vocabulary and essay writing. Below is a wider reading list that we recommend you read.

  • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 
  • The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 
  • 1984 - George Orwell 
  • A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 
  • Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift 
  • The Feminine Mystique - Simone de Beauvoir 
  • The Crucible - Malcolm Gaskill 
  • A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - William Godwin
  • The Rights of Man - Percy Shelley 
  • Paradise Lost - John Milton
  • Carol Ann Duffy - The World's Wife (Collection of Poems)
  • Philip Larkin - The Whitsun Weddings

Research tasks:

1. Create a timeline of the different movements within Literature starting with the 14th Century and ending with modern day literature. 

2. Choose a modern/contemporary book and argue it should be part of the literary canon (research the literary canon if you are unsure).

3. Write a short response to the following: which literary character would you date and why?

4. Create an eight slide storyboard of one of the texts from the wider reading list.

5. Write an analysis of a poem of your choice including a range of literary devices it uses. Tell us why it is your favourite (or one of your favourites) poem and how you found it/came across it.

6. Read Aristotle’s Poetics (weblink below) and highlight the main features of a tragedy. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt Be ready to present your ideas about what makes a perfect Aristotelian tragedy.

Over the summer, you might wish to read Miller’s A View From the Bridge. This is will introduce you to another tragedy by Arthur Miller, and it will work as an excellent point of reference for you when you begin to study Death of A Salesman at the start of Year 13. This workbook will guide you through the play and give you tasks to complete to ensure your understanding. The booklet is attached below:

Crime Writing: Small Project Task

  • Research the type of the crime text itself, whether it is detective fiction, a post-modern novel, a revenge tragedy, an account of a life lost to crime. What do you notice about the similarities and differences here?
  • Research the settings that are created as backdrops for criminal action and for the pursuit of the perpetrators of crime. From the reading list, what kind of setting are used by writers and why? Create notes as both places and times will be significant here.
  • Think Sherlock and Watson and the characters they work to put away - writers' creation of the criminal and their nemesis, the typical detective hero. From the reading list on the left, what kinds of characters have been created and why?
  • Why would the motifs of love, money, danger and death be prominent for a crime story? How can they be used within the text?
  • Finally, begin to mind map ways that crime stories affect audiences and readers, creating suspense, repugnance, excitement and relief. 
  • Research typical crime conventions and for each one, define what you understand this to be.