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!