Time for a breather..

Chillax with a book

It’s the summer holidays for most English A Level students – time to relax after final or mock exam stress, stretch your legs and wiggle your toes.

If you’ve got a reading list for the next academic year, now is a fab opportunity to submerge yourself in those texts, to experience them as readers perhaps for the first time ... before you have to start analysing and writing about them!

Pausing for a while

At Crossref-it, we too are taking a breather. In just the past year we have added:

• Four full-length text-guides on
• The selected poems of John Keats
• Othello, by William Shakespeare
• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• The Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare
• Themed lesson sequences on each of these texts
• Thirty-four new Big Ideas from the Bible
• Revision worksheets on eight texts featured on site
• Eight new articles exploring poetic form.

Not surprisingly, we are now taking a break from adding further material for the present, so don’t be alarmed at the absence of blogs.

Meanwhile, having been built up to contain over 20,000 web entries, we trust that the current information more than meets your A Level English needs, so please enjoy exploring all that www.crossref-it.info continues to offer by scanning the green menu headings. And of course pass on details of the site to your mates and teachers.

Love literature, love life!

Exploring the Big Ideas which run through literature

Cultural foundations

There are some themes and concepts which writers play with again and again through the canon of literature. They assume that their audience are familiar with the original concepts and so can recognise where each author has alluded to the idea or tweaked it for their own dramatic purposes.

Roald Dahl does the same thing when he takes the reader’s familiarity with well-known fairy tales, then suddenly challenges expectations by changing the narrative. His Red Riding Hood doesn’t get eaten (after whipping out a pistol!).

Reading enriched

Alluding to culturally embedded images and themes adds a whole new layer of meaning to our experience of literature, as readers bring their awareness of the source material to bear on the texts they encounter.

However, this all falls down once we lose our connection with what was once ‘common knowledge’.

• For example, when Nelly accuses the elderly servant Joseph of being ‘the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee’ in Wuthering Heights (ch 5), it means very little unless the reader recognises not only what a Pharisee is, but also the connotations of the term.

Often there’s not just one source for a concept, but it has built up through repeated usage. To explain the bigger picture, Crossref-it.info has a range of Big Ideas from the Classics and Big Ideas from the Bible. Crossref-it.info has just added to the latter as we encounter texts that refer to these concepts.

• So in Rabbi, Pharisee, teacher of the law students can discover just why Nelly used the word Pharisee as term of abuse.
• By exploring Poverty and wealth, readers will have a better understanding of Cornelia’s motivation in The White Devil, or the Old Woman’s homily in The Wife of Bath’s Tale, as they gain insight into ideas that run counter to our modern culture.

These are just a couple of examples. Crossref-it.info now features one hundred Big Ideas from the Bible. Exploring them over the summer holidays will really help you get to grips with your A Level Lit. texts come September.

Exploring The Taming of the Shrew: Lesson worksheets for A Level Eng. Lit. teachers

Last week Crossref-it.info launched a comprehensive new guide for A Level Eng. Lit. students examining Shakespeare’s problematic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew.

Now there is help for teachers.

New updates mean that the text-guide is now accompanied by two sets of freely downloadable worksheets:

• Investigate The Taming of the Shrew handouts pose exploratory questions on each scene in the play, helping students build up a valuable bank of notes. Collated from the text-guide and covering:
  • Induction and Act 1
  • Acts 2 and 3
  • Act 4
  • Act 5

these are great timesavers for teachers, and can be used to help students revise, catch up missed work or simply to set for homework.

• Exploring aspects of the play and its world in greater depth and breadth, there are six new collections of lesson ideas exploring:
  • The play’s unusual double opening of the Induction and Act 1
  • How Shakespeare employs – and deviates from – the comic conventions of his era
  • Whether Bianca really is a ‘perfect woman’
  • The ways in which Petruchio and Katherina are paired and opposed
  • How the theme of marriage is developed through the play
  • How issues of social order and disorder permeate the plot.

Complementing most of these explorations are easily photocopiable student handouts.

Text-guide links

Each worksheet suggests where students can find handy information to help them deepen their knowledge by linking back to relevant pages within the new text-guide on The Taming of the Shrew. From there they can follow other links or simply roam through the wealth of material provided.

Created by UK educationalists, you can trust Crossref-it.info resources!

New, free A Level text-guide on The Taming of the Shrew

Shakespeare’s early ‘comedy’, The Taming of the Shrew, has posed a number of problems in production since its original performances from 1593 onwards.

A play of its times?

The play reflects three cultural strands of the late Elizabethan era, which Shakespeare weaves into a narrative that can be played in a variety of ways:

• Since medieval times, there existed a rich seam of misogynistic stereotyping about women who defied the culturally desirable norm of female gentleness and obedience. Such women were branded ‘shrews’ or harridans
• Arriving from Europe, the Commedia dell’Arte stock plots and characters influenced the English theatrical world and resulted in farcical comedies where young lovers sought to thwart self-deluding and/or authoritarian old men
• Echoing late Elizabethan court life, upwardly-mobile young men dressed to impress so as to acquire status via marriage (or the personal attention of Elizabeth I). To succeed, elaborate versification and skillful social maneuvering were required.

Whilst drawing on this background, Shakespeare also challenges it. In The Taming of the Shrew:

• The ‘shrew’ becomes the most desirable wife
• The man seeking advancement is deliberately offensive in his wooing
• The knockabout farce places the innocent in genuine jeopardy and discredits the lovers.

Launched today

Now students have got an invaluable free guide to the play, accompanied by an online text: The Taming of the Shrew text guide. Targeting the many A Level English Lit. students who are studying The Taming of the Shrew (which appears on the AQA and Edexcel specifications), the new Crossref-it.info text-guide provides everything a student needs to help them enjoy the play and answer confidently when it comes to assessment.

As you might expect, it contains:

• Handy synopses and commentaries on every scene
• Character studies
• An exploration of the play’s language and the impact of its structure
• Summaries of the themes and recurring imagery of the play.

There are also sections detailing contextual aspects such as sport and marriage in Shakespeare’s era, the prevailing patriarchal culture and how critics have responded to the play – all vital to understand for success at A Level.

Make up your own mind

The Taming of the Shrew is regarded as one of Shakespeare’s most problematic dramas. As well as studying the text, why not try and see a live performance to help you make up your mind about how to interpret it? There’s still time to catch the current production of The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, running until 6 August (020 7401 9919).

www.shakespearesglobe.com

For an entertaining cultural spin-off, devised in the twentieth century, you might also check out the Welsh National Opera Company’s musical, Kiss Me Kate, which is touring from September 29th until December 10th 2016 (see www.wno.org.uk for details).

Will you want to laugh or cry?

The Color Purple: Lesson ideas for A Level Eng. Lit. teachers

A fortnight ago www.crossref-it.info launched a comprehensive new guide for A Level Eng. Lit. students examining Alice Walker’s classic text, The Color Purple.

Now there is help for teachers.

As from today, the text-guide is accompanied by two sets of freely downloadable worksheets:

• Investigate The Color Purple handouts pose exploratory questions on each letter of the novel, helping students build up a valuable bank of notes. Collated from the textguide in three handy worksheets, these are invaluable for helping students revise, catch up missed work or simply to set for homework. http://crossref-it.info/textguide/the-color-purple/42/3322
• Exploring aspects of the novel and its world in greater depth and breadth, there are six new collections of lesson ideas on the following areas:
• Celie’s narrative voice, the way it develops and is depicted through the novel
• The presentation of abuse in the text, through its various aspects
• How effectively the ending of the narrative embodies the resolution of the plot and reconciliation of the characters
• The way Walker’s characters defy gender roles and expectations
• An examination of the significant female bonds through the story
• An exploration of the impact of patriarchy and religion on the main characters and their culture.

Most are accompanied by easily photocopiable student handouts, saving teachers valuable time. http://crossref-it.info/textguide/the-color-purple/42/3322

Text-guide links

Each worksheet suggests where students can find handy information to help them deepen their knowledge by linking back to relevant pages within the new text-guide on The Color Purple. From there they can follow other links or simply roam through the wealth of material provided.

As a teacher you can be assured that all crossref-it.info material is written by UK A Level English teachers, examiners and academics – writers who want to open up the riches of literature, whilst understanding what the syllabus requires of students.

We also know how much pressure teachers are under. Here’s hoping that the resources offered here will make your life just that bit easier!

New, free text-guide on Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Launched today is a comprehensive new guide on Alice Walker’s classic text, The Color Purple. Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, the novel details two sisters’ experience of culture, racism and gender relations in the American South and in Africa. The stories of Celie and Nettie are powerful and raw, reaching out to readers of all ages.

The Color Purple features on the specifications of AQA, Edexcel and WJEC exam boards. As ever, 25% of marks awarded to students are based on their comprehension of the world the novel refers to and within which Walker was writing.

Context made clear

For readers in the UK, it may be hard to grasp the ramifications of the novel’s context. However, extensive sections in the new Crossref-it guide cover areas such as the Social / political world of the novel, with information about:

• Colonialism and slavery
• The black civil rights and black power movements
• Women’s liberation and the sexual revolution.

Alice Walker had an individual take on mainstream religion, which is shown in the development of her protagonists. Sections about the Religious / philosophical background to the work include:

• African religious beliefs
• The use of religion to uphold racism and slavery
• The role of the church to overthrow racist (and colonial) oppression.

Walker’s text is composed of a series of letters between the two sisters. Students need to know how it reflects a literary heritage of:

• Epistolary novels
• Slave narratives
• Post-colonial writing.

Understanding the text

The Crossref-it.info text-guide on The Color Purple has thought-provoking commentary of each of the 90 letters, as well as helpful character studies. It contains an analysis of the novel’s themes and its dominant imagery, as well as an appraisal of the text’s narrative devices and language. There is detailed investigation of the text’s structure and how it is used to convey meaning as well as shape the story.

As ever, there is extensive help for students in writing about the text, their ideas joining the range of critical interpretations which have been brought to bear since the novel was first published in 1982.

All in all, this new text-guide offers everything a student needs for success in A Level Eng. Lit. as well as providing fascinating insights for the interested reader.

Make the most of it! --> Free text guide on Alice Walker's The Color Purple

Othello and Keats worksheets

Help for A Level Eng. Lit. teachers and students

Those preparing for their A levels are now on study leave. However, a little later, those in the first year of their A Level Eng. Lit. course will undoubtedly face summer exams too, perhaps their first experience of what it is like to face the rigors of Advanced Level testing.

In recent weeks crossref-it.info has been releasing material to help students studying the old specifications – but here’s something for the post 2015 students and their teachers.

Othello

Shakespeare’s shocking tragedy is being widely studied. If you have gaps in your notes or are getting confused about how Iago’s machinations work out for example, then going through the worksheet questions on each Act and scene can be a great way to sort it out in your head.

Markers always want students to show that they know the whole text, not just the beginning and the final scene. And there are only thirteen really key scenes, so don’t feel defeated before

you start – it really is do-able! You can find the worksheets here.

Keats

If you are revising the poetry of Keats, also launched today are handy worksheets setting questions to help you examine each poem and build up your notes on:

• First impressions
• Language and tone
• Structure and versification
• Imagery and symbolism
• Themes.

They are also a great way for teachers to be sure students understand the poems – have a look at what’s on offer here.

Of course, all the detail you need to fully comprehend these drama and poetry texts is freely available at crossref-it.info. Just go to:

• crossref-it.info/textguide/othello/41/0 to get to grips with Othello
• crossref-it.info/textguide/john-keats-selected-poems/40/0 for help on selected poems by John Keats.

We’re sure you can do it!

Dubliners and Blake worksheets

If you are teaching or revising the Dubliners short story collection, by James Joyce, or William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, help is at hand. Launched today are handy worksheets setting questions to work through on each text.

Deceptively simple, it is sometimes hard to know what to write about the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Every Crossref-it.info worksheet directs students to investigate:

• First impressions
• Language and tone
• Structure and versification
• Imagery and symbolism
• Themes.

Students revising the poems can not only refresh their memories and fill up important gaps in their notes, but also see how the texts interrelate.

Meanwhile, for helpful explanations and detailed contextual information, make sure you visit the Crossref-it.info site at:

• http://crossref-it.info/textguide/dubliners/38/0 for help with Joyce’s short stories
• http://crossref-it.info/textguide/songs-of-innocence-and-experience/13/0 to help you get a handle on Blake’s world.

We’ll be thinking of you!

Revision time!

Get ready!

The last cohort to be examined under the old A Level English Lit. specifications is now madly revising to prepare for exams, which will start in around a month’s time.

When you have hardly looked at a text which may be the first one studied back in 2014, you probably need some help in getting your head around it again. Step forward a new launch of worksheets based on two texts:

• The White Devil, by John Webster
• Persuasion, by Jane Austen

Help with revision – in school and at home

Now teachers can issue students with a set of downloadable question sheets which cover every scene or chapter of the above works, helping students explore aspects such as structure, characterisation, language, imagery and themes.

If students are wanting a thorough way of building up their revision notes at home, they can access these worksheets for themselves in the Crossref-it.info website here and here.

Accessibility of the texts

Persuasion is fairly accessible, via myriad TV and film adaptations which have familiarised audiences with Jane Austen’s world. However, the experience of being a woman in those times is still a world away from life for girls in the UK today, so the Crossref-it.info text-guide offers detailed insight into the cultural expectations on characters like the Elliot sisters. There are also handy sections on how the novel is structured and how characters are judged, for example.

Webster’s play is far trickier. The White Devil is set in a different country, in a different religious culture and is part of a specific dramatic genre, the Jacobean revenge tragedy.

Students need to understand not just which character does what (and the plot is pretty complex) but how their worldview has shaped the way in which they think and behave.

The Crossref-it.info text-guide sets the play within its times, and the way in which English audiences of the time perceived Italian behaviour. It outlines the expectations of the dramatic revenge genre and how far the play fulfills them.

Successful study

As students start to think about how to improve their exam technique, they will find lots of advice in each text-guide to help them, as well as sample essay questions to approach.

Test yourself

Sign in to the Chrome app at http://chrome.crossref-it.info and students can also test themselves on memory questions for every scene and chapter in The White Devil and Persuasion. Furthermore they can plan out answers to sample exam questions and check how well they score compared to the site’s suggestions.

It’s time to crack on, so good luck everybody!

Enjoying the Easter holiday – and the ideas that led to it

Easter was fairly early this year, and so many are enjoying a full fortnight’s break following the celebration, as well as having been off for Good Friday. For some it is a much needed chance for rest (fuelled by chocolate eggs!) before they gear up for A Level exams in a few weeks’ time.

Down-time 

The whole concept of holidays has been shaped in the West by an idea which runs right through the Bible - that God knows humanity is frail and needs to have down-time.

Launched this week, a new article in the series Big ideas from the Bible explains how regular rest periods are important, whether it is for travellers who need to stop, for exhausted soil, or for the anxious who need relief. Physical rest is put in place by God’s laws in the Bible and by civic authorities today, who decide how the working year should be shaped. UK academic terms are framed by time off for Christian celebrations – Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and summer harvest.

Where human agency may have limited success, the idea of perfect rest is promised for believers once they get to heaven – but a measure of that can be accessed in the here and now. Why not take a break from your current task and explore the idea here?

Highs and lows

Everyone can become emotionally and physically ‘low’ if they are exhausted, whilst an exciting event can energise us and send us out on a ‘high’. Another Big idea about Ascent and descent launched this week explains how the ideas behind these idioms came via the Bible to influence our culture.

Easter itself is the premier example:

• The followers of Jesus went from being desperately low, as they despaired over the death of their leader, to ecstatically excited once they saw Christ alive again.
• Jesus’ final days were a series of physical ascents and descents:
  • He went up the Mount of Olives to pray, and came down it to be arrested
  • He was suspended high on a cross, then lowered to be interred in a rock hewn tomb
  • According to Christian belief he descended to the realm of the dead, then rose back
  • He appeared to his followers in an ‘upper room’ before finally rising up to heaven, up to life from the grave then sent down his Holy Spirit to dwell amongst believers on earth.

So next time you are ‘in the pits’ or ‘on a high’ (perhaps after the exams!), think about how the Christianised Western worldview put you there!

Teaching Othello at A Level – new worksheets launched

Earlier this term, a new crossref-it.info text-guide was launched on Shakespeare’s tense and dramatic tragedy, Othello, alongside the entire text online – all free and easily accessible at www.crossref-it.info. 

This play features widely across the 2015+ A Level English syllabuses so it’s likely that many teachers are soon to embark on teaching it, if they haven’t already.

Cut your lesson prep!

To save teachers the headache of preparation over the long awaited Easter holidays, a series of six detailed worksheets for teachers are being launched today. They cover topics such as:

• The central relationship between Othello and Iago
• The role of the three women in the play
• An exploration of the structure, pace and tension of Othello
• The way attitudes towards love, sex and male/female relationships motivate characters
• An examination of the momentous final scene
• How far prejudice about ‘outsiders’ is at the heart of the play.

Every worksheet contains ideas and activities which will take you through a number of lessons and homework sessions, as well as being extremely helpful when it comes to revision! Most of the lesson sequences also have easily photocopy-able resources to hand to students, saving you that extra bit of effort.

All bases covered

Written by established UK A Level Literature teachers and examiners, who know what you need to deliver to ensure exam success, the worksheets have:

• Clear teaching objectives
• Introductory activities
• Textual exploration
• Ideas to structure discussion
• Creative or re-creative tasks to engage students laterally
• Traditional essay topics 
• Extension tasks for the quick or dedicated workers amongst your students.

Where it is helpful, the lesson ideas refer students back to the extensive contextual background knowledge which they need to be aware of, found in the main Othello text-guide.

We hope students of Literature everywhere will come to appreciate the qualities of this exciting drama, as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the man who wrote it.

Teaching Keats at A Level – new worksheets launched

A poem by any other name.. 

Why do poets chose particular poetic forms for certain subject matter? And really, is there much difference between a sonnet and an ode?

If you are teaching selected poetry by John Keats this year, you may be pleased to know that new John Keats worksheets for teachers launched today will help you address these and other issues.

The worksheets comprise a series of ideas which will carry you through a number of lessons and help your students get to grips with the ‘typical’ elements of Keatsian style.

They cover areas such as:

• The different imaginative worlds which Keats created in his verse
• His repeated return to the themes of love, life and death
• His use of the sonnet form
• How his narrative poems work
• The association between this second-generation Romantic poet and nature
• An exploration of Keats’ famous odes.

Where it is helpful, the lesson ideas refer students back to the extensive contextual background knowledge which they need to be aware of, found in the online John Keats text-guide.

All Crossref-it.info teaching resources are written by established UK A Level literature teachers and examiners who know what you need to deliver to ensure exam success.

Happy teaching!

The season to prepare

Hot cross buns

Some shops in the UK sell hot cross buns all year round, but traditionally, they should be made and eaten in readiness for Easter.

Fasting food

Throughout the Christianised Western world, the forty days before Easter, known as Lent, is traditionally a period of restricting foodstuffs or going without some meals, a practice known as fasting. This is in order to prepare for the great celebration of Easter, with its mixture of sorrow and joy:

• Some hot cross buns were made without any dairy products, from which people abstained during Lent
• Others contained dried fruit and rich spices, as a reminder that Jesus’ followers wanted to embalm his body with spices, once he had been put to death
• All buns are marked with a cross on the top, reminding eaters of the manner in which Jesus was killed, nailed to a wooden cross. 

Feasting

Eating hot cross buns, with their depiction of a cross, might seem an odd practice, given that they commemorate such an awful event, except that, for Christians, Easter is a wonderful feast. It celebrates the sacrificial death, and coming back to life (known as the Resurrection) of Jesus, which Christians believe sets them free from the otherwise inescapable victory of sin and death.

The idea of fasting and feasting has moulded British culture, with the big feasts of Christmas, Easter and Harvest shaping our calendar. These feasts arise from events in the Bible, and a new article explaining the development of the idea of fasting and feasting has just been launched by Crossref-it.info.

A different focus

The idea of a long period of preparation before Easter also echoes another event in the Bible – when Jesus disappeared into the Judean wilderness for forty days to prepare for what would be three costly years of ministry, inaugurated by his baptism.

Experiencing the wild side

If you have ever been in a wild place, be it desert, forest, mountain or moorland, and been cut off from the usual distractions of modern life, you’ll know that it re-focuses your attention on what is around you and your place in the world.

Alone in the wilderness, we are confronted by ourselves, our physical and emotional limitations, as well as previously undiscovered capabilities. Many also feel that they find it easier to experience the divine. This experience is recounted a number of times in the Old and New Testaments and is echoed even today by many travel narratives.

The idea of escaping to the simplicity (and sometimes privation) of the wild has also been a significant factor in the development of the pastoral genre in English Literature. Find out how these ideas were inspired by Europe’s central cultural text at our article on Desert and Wilderness.

And if you want to try a brilliant hot cross bun, why not try this recipe?

http://goodfood.uktv.co.uk/recipe/hot-cross-buns/ Enjoy!

Othello

New, free, online text-guide on Shakespeare’s classic tragedy 

A popular exam text

If you are studying:

• A level English Literature with 
• AQA (A or B)
• Cambridge International
• Edexcel
• A level English Literature and Language with 
• OCR
• WJEC
• Cambridge Pre U English Literature

chances are you will encounter Shakespeare’s Othello. 

And if you want to get the most out of the play, as well as do really well when it comes to exam time, then you need to know that a new, free, online text-guide will make all the difference.

Here’s some real help

Launched this week, the www.crossref-it.info guide to Othello contains not only the usual scene-by-scene synopses and commentaries but lots more:

• The guide takes you through the key themes of the play, the imagery Shakespeare develops, the way roles are characterised through relationship, action and language. 
• There are sections dealing with what was going on in the society Shakespeare wrote for, as well as what they thought and believed, so that you can make connections with the text and see how the playwright played with the contemporary attitudes and culture of his audience.
• There are also sections about how the play was structured, how it would have been staged in Shakespeare’s day and the way critics approach it now.

All this appears alongside handy advice on how to write essays at Advanced Level. And be assured - all Crossref-it.info guides are written by experienced UK teachers and examiners, who know the best help to give students.

Let us know

We hope you will like it. Why not have a look at the Othello text guide and tell us what you think? 

2016 - a special year

Shakespeare reigns

2016 marks four hundred years since the death of the world’s most famous and frequently performed playwright, England’s own William Shakespeare. Undoubtedly the focus will peak on 23rd April, which marks the date both of his (probable) birth and death, but celebrations will continue throughout the year.

Shakespeare isn’t just for theatre buffs. His tales have inspired all sorts of other art forms. During this year you can go to Shakespeare inspired ballets and concerts, look at the way artists have responded graphically to his settings and characters, or catch thirty-seven ten minute films which represent each of his thirty-seven plays – see http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/special-events/the-complete-walk.

There’s a comic TV series (Upstart Crow) and exhibitions in Stratford and London to give a historical context to the Bard.

The Bard by any other name...

Reproducing texts in different styles is a particular skill explored in A Level English Language syllabuses. Having already started in October 2015, going through this year and on into 2017, are appearing a variety of re-tellings of some of Shakespeare’s most famous stories, using different contexts and in novel form:

• The series was started by Jeannette Winterson, setting The Gap of Time: The Winter’s Tale Retold against the worlds of London banking and the deep south of America
• In February 2016, Shylock is my name: The Merchant of Venice Retold, by Howard Jacobson might give an interesting perspective on the semitic elements of the story
• June sees Anne Tyler reimagining Vinegar Girl: The Taming of the Shrew Retold, which you will be able to compare with the original in the forthcoming Crossref-it.info guide and online text
• During October, providing interesting dystopian counterpoints from her recent work might impact Margaret Attwood’s retelling of The Tempest.

Coming up in 2017 are re-workings of:

• Hamlet by Gillian Flynn
• Jo Nesbo tackling Macbeth
• Othello by Tracey Chevalier
• Edward St Aubyn’s take on King Lear.

The writers are all high-profile, many of them prize-winners, so, if buying them yourself is an issue, get on to your school or college library to stock them (published by Hogarth, part of the Penguin empire).

Why?

Almost everybody who has ever studied English, studies Shakespeare. He’s universal.
Whilst at school, students may wonder why.
The older they get, the more they realise that William S. managed to convey, in striking ways that stay with you way beyond any performance, the most profound life truths.
No one is quite sure how he achieved it – but it’s worth celebrating that he did.

Make the most of this year!