English literature GCSE: 5 strategies for the final push

We are now hurtling towards that final line with our Year 11s. Texts have been taught, mock exams have been sat and now we want to put the finishing touches in place. Sitting more full exams, especially in English, is time-consuming and may not be the best way to get ready for the race.

So here are some short, sharp, 10-minute activities to help them with the final push.

GCSE English literature: exam-preparation activities

1. Factual recall

Flashcards and quizzes can be useful to help students remember key plot points, themes and quotes. However, we need to ensure that they go beyond the superficial “facts” of a text. Learning the quote in isolation is not the most useful thing. Knowing how the quote illustrates something about the ideas in the text is really what matters. Using “super quotes” (those that can be used for multiple purposes) and knowing how to apply them is the key.

2. Text annotation

Annotating extracts or poems, including those that students have not previously seen (artificial intelligence can be a lifesaver in finding the right texts here) will be useful practice for the exam. It needs to be framed with a question so that students have a clear focus, and should preferably be done in a time-limited way to get them used to reading, thinking and annotating under pressure. 

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A next step for an extract from a literary text or one of the taught poems could be to note three ways that the extract links elsewhere. So, for example, looking at the Cratchits’ dinner scene in A Christmas Carol and identifying what it tells us about attitudes towards money linked to the description of Scrooge’s house, or linking attitudes towards conflict in Remains with the attitudes presented in The Charge of the Light Brigade.

3. Planning

This is always a weakness with students, from diving into free writing without ever thinking to spending so long on the plan that there is no time to write. Giving them a clear structure is important. Remind them that text annotation is part of planning, too, so they can combine that with drawing up a more detailed plan to work from.

4. Openings

Thesis statements are the drivers of a good essay. Equally, the opening of a creative or persuasive piece of writing will establish our genre or style and can be used to establish what’s to come. Give students different questions or stimuli so they can have a range of different models that they have crafted.

5. Identify final gaps

These short tasks above have the bonus of being limited in length and much more sharply focused. From a teacher’s perspective, these tasks can be a gift because they are a further opportunity to check for gaps and misconceptions as well as to identify difficulties that students might be having with these approaches that will be essential in the exam.

With all of these approaches you need to be explicit with what you want students to do, modelling it carefully, especially if they are going to produce some of these at home. 

But hopefully by this stage they will have seen a number of examples and written a fair few themselves. This is the final flourish. This is the motivational talk that will boost their confidence. Good luck to all of your students and to those helping them through it.

Zoe Enser is the school improvement lead for a trust in the North West of England