GCSE English Literature topics

Tracing a theme across a text

Follow one theme through a whole novel or play, showing how it grows from first scene to last.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) — “A theme is a motif traced whole.”

Learning and using quotations in a closed-book exam

Neither paper allows the book in the room. Choosing a few short quotations for each character and theme, learning them, and working them into a sentence; a precise reference to a moment counts too.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Choosing the best evidence (ENLA) — “You already know how to choose the best evidence; now you choose it in advance and learn it.” · Embedding quotations (ENLA) — “A quotation you have learned still has to be woven into your own sentence.”

Using context to explain a text

Using what a writer's first readers or audience believed and expected to explain a choice in the text. Context is ideas and attitudes tied to a moment, not a paragraph of history added on.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “This is the Year 9 skill of reading with historical context, now marked in its own right.” · Avoiding anachronism (HIST)

Building an argument about a text

Answering the question with a clear view of your own, planning the steps of the argument, and keeping to it for a whole essay in a thoughtful, critical style.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Writing a thesis statement (ENLA) — “The one steering sentence you learned to write in Year 9 is where a literature essay starts.” · Analytical paragraphs (ENLA) — “Each step of the argument is one analytical paragraph.” · Building a written argument (ENLA) · Weighing alternative interpretations (ENLA)

Analysing a writer's language

Picking out a word, phrase or image and explaining what it suggests and why the writer chose it, in a novel, a play or a poem.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Word connotations (ENLA) — “Explaining a word choice depends on hearing what the word suggests beyond its plain meaning.” · Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You first need to spot the choice the writer made.” · Learning and using quotations in a closed-book exam

Analysing structure and form

Explaining how the order of events, openings and endings, contrasts and turning points shape meaning, and what the kind of text (tragedy, comedy, Gothic novel, fable) leads a reader to expect.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Analysing openings and endings (ENLA) — “Openings and endings were your first look at how a text is put together.” · Building tension and pacing (ENLA)

Shakespeare's verse, prose and soliloquy

The ten-syllable unrhymed line most characters speak, when and why a character drops into prose or rhyme, and what soliloquies and asides let an audience know.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Builds on: Decoding Shakespeare’s language (ENLA) — “You need to be able to follow the lines before you can hear how they are built.” · Rhyme and rhythm basics (ENLA)

Paper 1: from the extract to the whole text

How Paper 1 works: 1 hour 45 minutes, one question on the Shakespeare play and one on the nineteenth-century novel, each printing a short extract and asking about it and about the text as a whole. How to divide the time and move from the extract outwards.

Written against: AQA 8702 2.0

Builds on: Planning before writing (ENLA) · Building an argument about a text — “Each answer is an argument, so you need to be able to build one.” · Learning and using quotations in a closed-book exam — “Beyond the printed extract you rely on what you have learned by heart.”

Macbeth: the story in order

A Scottish general is told by three witches that he will be king. He murders King Duncan to make it come true, kills again to keep the crown, and is finally killed himself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Decoding Shakespeare’s language (ENLA) — “You can only follow the story once you can turn Shakespeare's lines into sense.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

Macbeth: how the tragedy is built

The play as a tragedy in five acts: a hero's rise, a turning point many readers place at the banquet where he sees Banquo's ghost, and a fast fall, with each prophecy setting up what the audience waits for.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) · Macbeth: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Macbeth: Macbeth himself

How Macbeth changes from a praised soldier into a feared tyrant, and how far he is pushed by others and how far he chooses for himself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Macbeth: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Macbeth himself through it.”

Macbeth: Lady Macbeth

How Lady Macbeth drives the first murder, loses her hold on her husband, and breaks down under guilt until she walks and talks in her sleep.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Macbeth: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Lady Macbeth through it.”

Macbeth: Banquo and Macduff

Two men the audience measures Macbeth against. Banquo hears the same prophecy and does not act on it. Macduff loses his family and ends the tyranny.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Macbeth: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Banquo and Macduff through it.”

Macbeth: the witches

What the three witches say and do, how much power they really have, and why the play never settles whether they cause events or only foretell them.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Macbeth: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow the witches through it.”

Macbeth: ambition and power

How wanting the crown leads Macbeth and his wife to murder, and what the play shows about power taken by force.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Macbeth: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Macbeth: guilt and conscience

How guilt shows itself after each killing: the dagger he imagines, the ghost at the feast, the blood that will not wash off, and sleep that will not come.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Macbeth: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Macbeth: kingship and the natural order

Good kings and bad kings set side by side (Duncan, Macbeth, Malcolm), and the storms and strange events that show nature itself disturbed by the murder of a king.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Macbeth: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Macbeth: King James, witches and treason

What an audience around 1606 believed about kings chosen by God, witchcraft and plots against the crown, and how the play speaks to a new Scottish king of England.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · The Gunpowder Plot (HIST) · Macbeth: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Macbeth: language, imagery and stagecraft

The methods that come up again and again: images of blood, darkness and sleep, soliloquies and asides, the witches' chanting rhyme, and scenes played at night.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Macbeth. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing a Shakespeare scene (ENLA) — “This is the Year 9 scene analysis stretched across a whole play.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · Macbeth: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language · Shakespeare's verse, prose and soliloquy — “You need to know verse from prose and what a soliloquy is before you can say what they do here.”

Romeo and Juliet: the story in order

Two teenagers from feuding families in Verona fall in love, marry in secret, and die within days when a plan to reunite them goes wrong. Their deaths end the feud.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Decoding Shakespeare’s language (ENLA) — “You can only follow the story once you can turn Shakespeare's lines into sense.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

Romeo and Juliet: how the tragedy is built

A prologue that gives away the ending, a first half that plays almost like a comedy, the turning point when Mercutio and Tybalt die, and events crammed into a few days so that haste itself becomes a cause.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Romeo and Juliet: Romeo

How Romeo moves from sighing over Rosaline to marrying Juliet, and how acting on feeling at once leads him to kill Tybalt and, at the end, himself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Romeo through it.”

Romeo and Juliet: Juliet

How Juliet grows in a few days from an obedient daughter of thirteen into someone who defies her parents, deceives her nurse and takes the potion alone.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Juliet through it.”

Romeo and Juliet: the Nurse and Friar Laurence

The two adults the lovers trust. Both help the secret marriage with good intentions, and both fail the lovers when it matters most.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow the Nurse and Friar Laurence through it.”

Romeo and Juliet: Mercutio and Tybalt

Two young men who keep the feud alive in different ways: Mercutio through wit and mockery, Tybalt through pride and the sword. Their deaths turn the play.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mercutio and Tybalt through it.”

Romeo and Juliet: love in its different forms

Love shown as fashion (Romeo and Rosaline), as a bargain between families (Paris), as crude joking (the Nurse, Mercutio) and as something the two lovers treat as holy.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Romeo and Juliet: conflict, honour and family

How the feud, a young man's duty to answer an insult, and a father's power over his daughter trap the lovers between their families.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Romeo and Juliet: fate and haste

How far the lovers are doomed by the stars, as the prologue says, and how far the deaths come from rushed choices and bad luck with a letter.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Romeo and Juliet: family, marriage and honour in the 1590s

What Shakespeare's first audiences took for granted about a father's authority, marriages arranged for family advantage, duelling, religion and the power of the stars.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Romeo and Juliet: language, imagery and stagecraft

Images of light against dark, the shared sonnet when the lovers first meet, opposites yoked together, puns even at the point of death, and the warnings that hint at the ending.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Romeo and Juliet. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing a Shakespeare scene (ENLA) — “This is the Year 9 scene analysis stretched across a whole play.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · Romeo and Juliet: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language · Shakespeare's verse, prose and soliloquy — “You need to know verse from prose and what a soliloquy is before you can say what they do here.”

The Tempest: the story in order

Prospero, a duke pushed out of Milan twelve years ago, uses magic to wreck his enemies on his island. He tests them, sees his daughter engaged to the king's son, forgives, and gives up his magic.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Decoding Shakespeare’s language (ENLA) — “You can only follow the story once you can turn Shakespeare's lines into sense.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

The Tempest: how the play is built

One island and one afternoon. Three groups of survivors are kept apart and steered by Prospero until he gathers them in the last scene. The play ends with an epilogue asking the audience to set him free.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) · The Tempest: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

The Tempest: Prospero

Prospero as wronged duke, loving and controlling father, harsh master and stage-manager of everyone else, and how he changes from seeking revenge to choosing mercy.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · The Tempest: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Prospero through it.”

The Tempest: Caliban

The island's first inhabitant, taught language and then enslaved. Why he can be read as a brute, as a victim of someone who took his island, or as both.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · The Tempest: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Caliban through it.”

The Tempest: Ariel

The spirit who carries out Prospero's plans in return for a promise of freedom, and whose pity for the prisoners prompts Prospero's own.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · The Tempest: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Ariel through it.”

The Tempest: Miranda and Ferdinand

The young couple whose love Prospero arranges and tests, and what their match does to mend the quarrel between Milan and Naples.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · The Tempest: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Miranda and Ferdinand through it.”

The Tempest: power and control

Who rules whom: brothers stealing dukedoms, a master and his servants, a father and his daughter, and plots to seize power that repeat on the island.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: The Tempest: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

The Tempest: revenge and forgiveness

How Prospero has his enemies at his mercy and chooses to forgive them, and how complete that forgiveness really is.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: The Tempest: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

The Tempest: magic and illusion

Prospero's art as a kind of theatre: storms, banquets and visions that are shown and then vanish, and what it means when he gives it up.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: The Tempest: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

The Tempest: voyages, colonies and magic around 1611

What Shakespeare's audience was hearing about shipwrecks and new colonies across the Atlantic, their beliefs about magic, and the court entertainments called masques.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · The Tempest: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

The Tempest: language, imagery and stagecraft

Sea and storm imagery, music and songs, Prospero's commanding speeches set against Caliban's cursing and his unexpectedly beautiful lines, and spectacle that appears and disappears.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: The Tempest. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing a Shakespeare scene (ENLA) — “This is the Year 9 scene analysis stretched across a whole play.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · The Tempest: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language · Shakespeare's verse, prose and soliloquy — “You need to know verse from prose and what a soliloquy is before you can say what they do here.”

Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order

Soldiers return to Messina. Claudio falls for Hero and is tricked into shaming her at their wedding. Meanwhile friends trick the quarrelling Beatrice and Benedick into love. The lie is exposed and both couples marry.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Decoding Shakespeare’s language (ENLA) — “You can only follow the story once you can turn Shakespeare's lines into sense.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

Much Ado About Nothing: how the comedy is built

Two love stories run side by side, one nearly destroyed by a trick and one created by a trick. The play darkens at the broken wedding in Act 4, then the bumbling Watch uncover the truth and it ends in marriage.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Much Ado About Nothing: Beatrice

A sharp-tongued woman who mocks marriage, falls in love, and shows fierce loyalty when her cousin is wronged.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Beatrice through it.”

Much Ado About Nothing: Benedick

A soldier who swears he will never marry, is tricked into admitting love, and must choose between his friends and Beatrice.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Benedick through it.”

Much Ado About Nothing: Hero and Claudio

The conventional young couple: he woos through others and believes a slander at once; she is accused in public and has almost no voice to defend herself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Hero and Claudio through it.”

Much Ado About Nothing: Don Pedro and Don John

Two brothers who both arrange other people's lives by deception: the prince to make matches, his resentful half-brother to wreck one.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Don Pedro and Don John through it.”

Much Ado About Nothing: love and marriage

Love as a public arrangement between families set against love that grows out of argument between equals.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Much Ado About Nothing: deception and overhearing

How almost every turn of the plot depends on someone being tricked, disguised or overheard, for good ends and for bad.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Much Ado About Nothing: honour and reputation

What honour means for the men and for the women of Messina, and why an accusation alone is enough to ruin Hero.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Much Ado About Nothing: courtship, honour and women around 1598

What Shakespeare's audience expected of courtship, a daughter's obedience and a bride's reputation, and how soldiers home from war fit into that world.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Much Ado About Nothing: language, imagery and stagecraft

Quick-fire prose insults between Beatrice and Benedick, verse saved for formal or serious moments, scenes staged around eavesdropping, and Dogberry's muddled words.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.1

Option: Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing. A school teaches 1 of the 6 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing a Shakespeare scene (ENLA) — “This is the Year 9 scene analysis stretched across a whole play.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · Much Ado About Nothing: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language · Shakespeare's verse, prose and soliloquy — “You need to know verse from prose and what a soliloquy is before you can say what they do here.”

A Christmas Carol: the story in order

On Christmas Eve the miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by his dead partner's ghost and then by three spirits, who show him his past, the present he ignores and a lonely death to come. He wakes a changed man.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading pre-1914 language (ENLA) — “The story is told in the older, longer sentences you learned to read in Year 8.” · Reading a whole novel (ENLA) — “It is a whole book, so you need to hold its threads over weeks.”

A Christmas Carol: how the story is built

Five chapters called staves, like the verses of a carol. Three visits take Scrooge through past, present and future, and the last stave revisits the people and streets of the first so the change can be seen.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “Who tells the story is the first thing to settle about how a novel is built.” · A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

A Christmas Carol: Scrooge

Scrooge at the start, cold, shut in and grasping, and each step of his change until he is generous, sociable and laughing.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Scrooge through it.”

A Christmas Carol: Marley and the three Spirits

What each ghost looks like, what it shows Scrooge, and the different way each one teaches him.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Marley and the three Spirits through it.”

A Christmas Carol: the Cratchits and Tiny Tim

The poor but loving family of Scrooge's clerk, and how Tiny Tim is used to make the reader and Scrooge care what happens to the poor.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow the Cratchits and Tiny Tim through it.”

A Christmas Carol: Fred, Fezziwig and Belle

Three people who show other ways to live: the cheerful nephew, the generous old employer, and the fiancee Scrooge lost to his love of money.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Fred, Fezziwig and Belle through it.”

A Christmas Carol: change and redemption

The idea that even the hardest person can change, how Dickens makes Scrooge's change believable, and what brings it about.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

A Christmas Carol: poverty and social responsibility

The argument that the comfortable have a duty to the poor, made through the charity collectors, the Cratchits and the two starved children called Ignorance and Want.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

A Christmas Carol: Christmas, family and generosity

Christmas as a time of warmth, food, family and giving, set against Scrooge's solitude and his counting-house.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

A Christmas Carol: the poor in 1840s Britain

The workhouses and the Poor Law, children at work, the argument that there were too many poor people to feed, Dickens's own childhood, and the Victorian revival of Christmas.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Life in industrial cities (HIST) · Children at work (HIST) · A Christmas Carol: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

A Christmas Carol: language, symbols and the narrator's voice

The talkative narrator, long lists and comparisons, cold and fog against fire and light, and ideas turned into figures a reader can see, such as the chain Marley drags.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: A Christmas Carol. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You start from the writer's choices, as you have since Year 7.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · A Christmas Carol: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order

A London lawyer, Mr Utterson, investigates the link between his respectable friend Dr Jekyll and the violent Mr Hyde. He learns too late that they are one man, divided by a potion Jekyll made.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading pre-1914 language (ENLA) — “The story is told in the older, longer sentences you learned to read in Year 8.” · Reading a whole novel (ENLA) — “It is a whole book, so you need to hold its threads over weeks.”

Jekyll and Hyde: how the mystery is built

A short novel told mostly from Utterson's outside view, so the reader is kept guessing. The truth comes only at the end, in two documents: Dr Lanyon's letter and Jekyll's own confession.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “Who tells the story is the first thing to settle about how a novel is built.” · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Jekyll and Hyde: Dr Jekyll

A respected doctor who wants to enjoy his hidden desires without shame, and who loses control of the experiment that was meant to free him.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Dr Jekyll through it.”

Jekyll and Hyde: Mr Hyde

The smaller, younger, crueller self Jekyll releases: what he does, why nobody can quite describe him, and how he grows stronger.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mr Hyde through it.”

Jekyll and Hyde: Mr Utterson

The dry, loyal lawyer through whose eyes most of the story is seen, and why a man who prefers not to pry makes a useful guide.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mr Utterson through it.”

Jekyll and Hyde: Dr Lanyon, Enfield and Poole

Lanyon, the conventional scientist destroyed by what he witnesses, with Enfield, a gentleman, and Poole, Jekyll's butler: steady witnesses whose shock tells the reader how to react.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Dr Lanyon, Enfield and Poole through it.”

Jekyll and Hyde: the two sides of human nature

The idea that every person is a mix of impulses, and what happens when someone tries to split the good self from the bad.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Jekyll and Hyde: science and its limits

Jekyll's private, risky experiments set against Lanyon's cautious science, and the unease about how far science should go.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Jekyll and Hyde: reputation and secrecy

A world of gentlemen who avoid asking questions, lock their doors and protect one another's good names, and what that silence allows.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Jekyll and Hyde: respectability and fear in the 1880s

Victorian pressure to appear respectable, new ideas about evolution and the fear that people could slide back towards the animal, and the divided streets of a great city.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Jekyll and Hyde: language, setting and symbols

Fog, night streets and locked doors, the two faces of Jekyll's house, animal words for Hyde, and horrors left half-described so the reader imagines them.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You start from the writer's choices, as you have since Year 7.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · Jekyll and Hyde: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Frankenstein: the story in order

Victor Frankenstein builds a living being, abandons it in horror, and refuses its plea for a companion. The Creature destroys the people Victor loves, and maker and creature pursue each other to the Arctic.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading pre-1914 language (ENLA) — “The story is told in the older, longer sentences you learned to read in Year 8.” · Reading a whole novel (ENLA) — “It is a whole book, so you need to hold its threads over weeks.”

Frankenstein: stories inside stories

A sea captain's letters hold Victor's story, which holds the Creature's own account at the centre of the book. The reader hears each voice in turn and must decide whom to trust.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “Who tells the story is the first thing to settle about how a novel is built.” · Frankenstein: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Frankenstein: Victor Frankenstein

A gifted student whose obsession with making life is matched by his refusal to take responsibility for what he has made.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Frankenstein: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Victor Frankenstein through it.”

Frankenstein: the Creature

A being who begins gentle and eager to be loved, teaches himself to speak and read, and turns to revenge after he is rejected by everyone he meets.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Frankenstein: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow the Creature through it.”

Frankenstein: Robert Walton

The explorer whose letters frame the story: another ambitious man, who hears Victor's warning and has to choose whether to turn back.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Frankenstein: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Robert Walton through it.”

Frankenstein: Elizabeth, Clerval and Victor's family

The gentle, loyal people around Victor, including the wrongly executed Justine, who pay for his secret one by one.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Frankenstein: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Elizabeth, Clerval and Victor's family through it.”

Frankenstein: ambition and dangerous knowledge

The pursuit of knowledge and glory without thought for the cost, shown in both Victor and Walton.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Frankenstein: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Frankenstein: loneliness and rejection

What being shut out of family and company does to the Creature, and how Victor too ends up cut off from everyone.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Frankenstein: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Frankenstein: who is the monster?

The book's questions about nature and upbringing, about a maker's duty to what he makes, and about whether Victor or the Creature is more to blame.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Frankenstein: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Frankenstein: science, Romantic ideas and Mary Shelley's world

Experiments with electricity on dead bodies, the Romantic writers' awe of nature, the stories of Prometheus and of Adam, and the ghost-story contest in 1816 that began the book.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Frankenstein: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Frankenstein: language, setting and Gothic method

Mountains, ice and storms that mirror feeling, images of light and fire, the Creature's eloquent speech, echoes of older stories, and the pairing of Victor and the Creature as doubles.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Frankenstein (1831). A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You start from the writer's choices, as you have since Year 7.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · Frankenstein: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Jane Eyre: the story in order

An orphan survives a cruel aunt and a harsh school, becomes a governess, and falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester. She leaves on finding he already has a wife, and returns only when she can marry him as an equal.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading pre-1914 language (ENLA) — “The story is told in the older, longer sentences you learned to read in Year 8.” · Reading a whole novel (ENLA) — “It is a whole book, so you need to hold its threads over weeks.”

Jane Eyre: a life told in five places

Jane tells her own story, looking back. It moves through five houses (Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Moor House, Ferndean), each a stage in her growing up, and she speaks straight to the reader.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “Who tells the story is the first thing to settle about how a novel is built.” · Jane Eyre: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Jane Eyre: Jane

Plain, poor and fiercely principled: how Jane grows from an angry child into a woman who will not give up her self-respect for love or for duty.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jane Eyre: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Jane through it.”

Jane Eyre: Mr Rochester

Jane's moody, secretive employer: what draws them together, the wrong he tries to do her, and how he is humbled by the end.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jane Eyre: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mr Rochester through it.”

Jane Eyre: Bertha Mason

Rochester's first wife, locked in the attic. Her part in the plot, how the book describes her, and why later readers have seen her differently.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jane Eyre: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Bertha Mason through it.”

Jane Eyre: Helen Burns and St John Rivers

Two deeply religious figures who each offer Jane a way to live, patient acceptance or stern duty, neither of which she can fully take.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Jane Eyre: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Helen Burns and St John Rivers through it.”

Jane Eyre: independence and a woman's place

Jane's insistence on being treated as an equal, and on earning her own living, in a society that gave women few choices.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Jane Eyre: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Jane Eyre: love, passion and conscience

The pull between feeling and principle: why Jane refuses to stay with Rochester as his mistress and refuses to marry St John without love.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Jane Eyre: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Jane Eyre: class, money and belonging

A governess is neither servant nor lady. How poverty, an inheritance and the search for a family shape where Jane belongs.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Jane Eyre: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Jane Eyre: women, class and religion in the 1840s

The narrow choices open to a woman without money, the awkward standing of a governess, charity schools and strict religion, wealth from the colonies, and why the author published under a man's name.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Jane Eyre: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Jane Eyre: language, symbols and Gothic touches

Fire and ice, weather and landscape matching mood, the red-room, the laugh from the attic, dreams and warnings, and Jane's direct address to the reader.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.1.2

Option: 19th-century novel: Jane Eyre. A school teaches 1 of the 7 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You start from the writer's choices, as you have since Year 7.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · Jane Eyre: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Unseen poetry

A portable method for a poem you’ve never met.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.3

Builds on: Analytical paragraphs (ENLA) — “Unseen means your method must be portable.” · Poetic form and its effect (ENLA) — “Unseen poetry leans on knowing poetic form.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “With no notes to rely on, the toolkit is all you have.”

Comparing poems

Compare two poems’ ideas, methods and forms in one steady argument — the GCSE anthology skill.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.3

Builds on: Comparing two texts (ENLA) · Unseen poetry — “Compare poems once you can read one unseen.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme

The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme

The terms needed for any poem and what each can do: line breaks that run on or stop, pauses inside a line, stanza shapes, regular and free verse, the sonnet and the dramatic monologue.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Builds on: Poetic form and its effect (ENLA) — “You already treat the choice of form as part of a poem's meaning; this adds the finer tools.” · Rhyme and rhythm basics (ENLA) — “Rhyme and rhythm are where the toolkit starts.”

Paper 2: three sections in one sitting

How Paper 2 works: 2 hours 15 minutes for an essay on the modern text (a choice of two questions, no extract), a comparison starting from one printed anthology poem, and two questions on poems never seen before. How to share out the time.

Written against: AQA 8702 2.0

Builds on: Planning before writing (ENLA) · Building an argument about a text — “The modern text essay is an argument with no extract to lean on.” · Comparing poems · Paper 1: from the extract to the whole text

Unseen poetry: comparing two unseen poems

A short answer on a second unseen poem, saying how the two poets' methods are alike and how they differ.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.3

Builds on: Unseen poetry — “You compare the second poem with one you have just read by the unseen method.” · Comparing poems — “It is the comparison skill, used quickly on poems you do not know.”

An Inspector Calls: the story in order

In 1912 a wealthy family's celebration dinner is interrupted by a police inspector asking about a young woman's suicide. One by one, each of them turns out to have helped ruin her. Then doubt is cast on the Inspector himself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) — “It is a play, so the stage directions are part of the story.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

An Inspector Calls: how the play is built

Three acts in one room on one evening, with no break in time. Each person is questioned in turn, each act ends on a moment of suspense, and a final telephone call overturns the ending.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

An Inspector Calls: Mr and Mrs Birling

The parents: a self-satisfied factory owner and his cold, snobbish wife, neither of whom accepts any blame or learns anything.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mr and Mrs Birling through it.”

An Inspector Calls: Sheila and Eric

The grown-up children, who are shaken by what they have done and change, and who end the play at odds with their parents.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Sheila and Eric through it.”

An Inspector Calls: Gerald Croft

Sheila's fiance, from a grander family: partly kind to the girl, partly using her, and in the end siding with the parents.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Gerald Croft through it.”

An Inspector Calls: Inspector Goole

The questioner who controls the evening, speaks for the dead girl, and may not be a real policeman at all. What he stands for in the play.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Inspector Goole through it.”

An Inspector Calls: responsibility for one another

The play's central argument: that people are answerable for how their actions affect others, set against Mr Birling's belief that a man looks after himself and his own.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

An Inspector Calls: class, power and Eva Smith

How money and social position give the Birlings power over a working-class woman at every stage of her story, although she never appears on stage.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

An Inspector Calls: the old and the young

The divide between parents who refuse to change and children who can, and what that suggested to an audience hoping for a better society.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

An Inspector Calls: written in 1945, set in 1912

Why a play first staged at the end of the Second World War looks back to the confident years before the First, and what its audience knew that the Birlings do not.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · The welfare state and the NHS (HIST) · Causes of the First World War (HIST) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

An Inspector Calls: stagecraft and dramatic method

Detailed stage directions, the change in lighting when the Inspector arrives, things the audience knows that the characters do not, the timing of doorbell and telephone, and the photograph only one person sees at a time.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: An Inspector Calls. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) — “Most of the methods here are things seen and heard on a stage.” · Dramatic irony (ENLA) · An Inspector Calls: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Lord of the Flies: the story in order

A group of schoolboys is stranded on an island with no adults. They elect a leader and make rules, then split into rival groups. Fear of a beast and the thrill of hunting lead to killing before a naval officer arrives.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading a whole novel (ENLA) — “It is a whole book, so you need to hold its threads over weeks.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

Lord of the Flies: how the novel is built

Twelve chapters that move step by step from order to chaos, with clear turning points: the signal fire left to go out, the night of the dance, and the smashing of the shell. The rescue at the end changes how the whole story looks.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing openings and endings (ENLA) · Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Lord of the Flies: Ralph

The elected leader who holds on to rules, shelters and the signal fire, and who slowly loses his grip on the group and almost on himself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Ralph through it.”

Lord of the Flies: Jack

The choirboy who turns hunter and then chief, ruling through fear, face paint and the promise of meat.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Jack through it.”

Lord of the Flies: Piggy

The clever, mocked outsider who speaks for reason and grown-up sense, and whose glasses and death both matter to the story.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Piggy through it.”

Lord of the Flies: Simon and Roger

Two opposite boys: Simon, quiet and good, who sees the truth about the beast; and Roger, who discovers he likes to hurt.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Simon and Roger through it.”

Lord of the Flies: civilisation and savagery

How quickly rules and decent behaviour wear away once nothing enforces them, and what the boys become.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Lord of the Flies: fear and the beast

How the boys' fear of a creature on the island grows, how it is used to control them, and the suggestion that the real danger is inside them.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Lord of the Flies: power and leadership

Two kinds of leader and what each offers: agreement and shared rules, or strength, excitement and fear.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Lord of the Flies: a novel written after the Second World War

Golding's wartime service and his years teaching boys, the fear of atomic war in the 1950s, and the cheerful island adventure stories he was answering.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · The Second World War’s turning points (HIST) · The Cold War divides Europe (HIST) · Lord of the Flies: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Lord of the Flies: symbols, setting and language

Objects that carry ideas (the shell used to call meetings, the glasses, the fire, the pig's head on a stick), an island that turns from paradise to wasteland, and animal language for the boys.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Lord of the Flies. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You start from the writer's choices, as you have since Year 7.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) — “Objects and images that stand for ideas are symbols.” · Lord of the Flies: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Animal Farm: the story in order

The animals of a farm drive out their human owner to run it as equals. The pigs take charge, one pig seizes power with trained dogs, and year by year the pigs become as cruel as the farmer they replaced.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading a whole novel (ENLA) — “It is a whole book, so you need to hold its threads over weeks.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

Animal Farm: how the fable is built

Ten short chapters in the form of an animal fable. The farm's seven rules are quietly rewritten one by one, and the story ends where it began, with the animals under a master.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing openings and endings (ENLA) · Animal Farm: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Animal Farm: Napoleon

The pig who says little, raises the dogs in secret, drives out his rival and makes himself a dictator.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Animal Farm: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Napoleon through it.”

Animal Farm: Snowball

The clever, energetic pig who plans the windmill, is chased off the farm and is then blamed for everything that goes wrong.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Animal Farm: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Snowball through it.”

Animal Farm: Squealer

The pig who explains away every broken promise, changing the rules and the animals' memories with clever talk.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Animal Farm: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Squealer through it.”

Animal Farm: Boxer and the working animals

The loyal carthorse who works himself to collapse and is sold for slaughter, with Clover and Benjamin, who sense the truth and do nothing.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Animal Farm: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Boxer and the working animals through it.”

Animal Farm: power and corruption

How leaders who begin with ideals come to love power for its own sake, and how each small privilege leads to the next.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Animal Farm: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Animal Farm: propaganda and the control of truth

Slogans, songs, statistics and rewritten history used to keep the animals believing they are better off.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Animal Farm: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Animal Farm: equality betrayed

The dream of a farm where all animals are equal, and how a new ruling class grows up out of the revolution itself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Animal Farm: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Animal Farm: the Russian Revolution retold

The events of 1917 and the rule of Stalin that the book follows closely, which leaders the main animals stand for, and why Orwell, himself a socialist, wrote it.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Propaganda as evidence (HIST) · Animal Farm: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Animal Farm: irony, allegory and plain style

A simple storytelling voice that reports events without comment, so the reader sees more than the animals do, and animals and objects that stand for real people and ideas.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Animal Farm. A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Writer’s methods (ENLA) — “You start from the writer's choices, as you have since Year 7.” · Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) — “Objects and images that stand for ideas are symbols.” · Animal Farm: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Blood Brothers: the story in order

A poor Liverpool mother gives one of her newborn twins to her wealthy employer. The boys grow up in different worlds, become best friends without knowing they are brothers, and die on the day they find out.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) — “It is a play, so the stage directions are part of the story.” · Tracking plot and sequence (ENLA)

Blood Brothers: how the play is built

A musical play in two acts that begins by showing the ending. A Narrator stays on stage throughout, songs return with new words, and matching scenes show the twins at seven, at fourteen and as adults.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) · Blood Brothers: the story in order — “You cannot say how a story is built until you know what happens in it.” · Analysing structure and form

Blood Brothers: Mrs Johnstone

The warm, struggling mother who gives up a child out of desperation and carries the secret, and the guilt, for the rest of the play.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Blood Brothers: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mrs Johnstone through it.”

Blood Brothers: Mrs Lyons

The wealthy woman who takes the baby, and whose fear of losing him turns into suspicion and something close to madness.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Blood Brothers: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mrs Lyons through it.”

Blood Brothers: Mickey

The twin who stays: lively and funny as a child, then worn down by unemployment, prison and pills.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Blood Brothers: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Mickey through it.”

Blood Brothers: Edward and Linda

The twin who is given away, generous and sheltered, and the girl both brothers love, whose choices bring the story to its end.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: How writers build character (ENLA) · Blood Brothers: the story in order — “You need the whole story before you can follow Edward and Linda through it.”

Blood Brothers: social class and opportunity

How twin brothers, parted at birth and brought up in different classes, end with university for one and the dole for the other, and what the play blames for it.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Blood Brothers: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Blood Brothers: nature and nurture

Twins as a test of how far upbringing, not birth, shapes a person.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Blood Brothers: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Blood Brothers: fate and superstition

The made-up curse about parted twins, the bad-luck signs that keep returning, and the play's question about whether class is the real force at work.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Blood Brothers: the story in order — “A theme is followed through the events of the story, so the story comes first.” · Tracing a theme across a text

Blood Brothers: Liverpool from the 1960s to the 1980s

The gap between working-class and middle-class life, families moved from the inner city to new estates, the unemployment of the early 1980s, and the film-star dreams of the time.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Reading with historical context (ENLA) — “Using a text's time and place to understand it is the Year 9 skill this topic rests on.” · Blood Brothers: the story in order · Using context to explain a text

Blood Brothers: songs, the Narrator and dramatic method

The Narrator as a warning voice, songs and images that keep coming back, Liverpool speech against polite speech, scenes that mirror each other, and an ending the audience has known from the start.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.1

Option: Modern text: Blood Brothers (musical version). A school teaches 1 of the 12 AQA offers; 4 are mapped here.

Builds on: Stagecraft and stage directions (ENLA) — “Most of the methods here are things seen and heard on a stage.” · Dramatic irony (ENLA) · Blood Brothers: the story in order — “You pick out methods from moments you already know well.” · Analysing a writer's language

Ozymandias (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

A traveller describes the broken statue of a boastful king, alone in an empty desert. A sonnet about how power and pride do not last.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Detecting irony and sarcasm (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

London (William Blake)

A walk through the city's streets in which the speaker sees misery in every face and blames those with power: the church, the palace and the owners of the city.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Rhyme and rhythm basics (ENLA) · Life in industrial cities (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Extract from The Prelude (William Wordsworth)

A boy takes a boat out on a lake at night. A huge mountain seems to rise up after him, and the fright changes how he thinks about nature for a long time after.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Personification (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

My Last Duchess (Robert Browning)

A duke shows a visitor the portrait of his late wife and, as he talks, gives away his jealousy and what he did to her. One man's voice from start to finish.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Recognising unreliable narrators (ENLA) — “The Duke tells the story his own way, so you must read around a speaker you cannot trust.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

The Charge of the Light Brigade (Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Cavalrymen are ordered, through a blunder, to charge straight at enemy guns. The poem honours their courage and lets the mistake be seen.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Rhyme and rhythm basics (ENLA) — “The galloping rhythm carries the meaning, so you need to hear a poem's beat.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Exposure (Wilfred Owen)

Soldiers in a First World War trench wait through a freezing night. The weather, more than the enemy, is killing them, and nothing happens.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Personification (ENLA) · Trench warfare on the Western Front (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Storm on the Island (Seamus Heaney)

Islanders who believe they are ready for a storm find that what frightens them is something they cannot see or fight: the wind itself.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Setting and atmosphere (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Bayonet Charge (Ted Hughes)

One soldier runs across a field under fire. In the middle of the charge his reasons for fighting fall away and only terror is left.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Simile and metaphor (ENLA) · Trench warfare on the Western Front (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Remains (Simon Armitage)

A soldier tells, in everyday speech, how he and two others shot a man who was looting a bank, and how the memory follows him home and will not leave.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Formal and informal register (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Poppies (Jane Weir)

A mother remembers the day her son left home and goes to a war memorial. Conflict seen by someone left behind.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

War Photographer (Carol Ann Duffy)

A photographer back from war zones develops his pictures in a quiet darkroom and thinks about the readers who will glance at them and move on.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Setting and atmosphere (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Tissue (Imtiaz Dharker)

A poem that thinks about paper: how thin, easily torn things such as maps, receipts and holy books hold power over lives, and how human life is just as fragile.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) — “The whole poem turns on one object that stands for something larger.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

The Emigrée (Carol Rumens)

A speaker who left her country as a child keeps a bright, sunlit memory of her city, although she is told it is now ruled by tyrants.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Simile and metaphor (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Kamikaze (Beatrice Garland)

A Japanese pilot turns back from a suicide mission and is treated by his family as if he had died. His daughter tells the story years later.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “The story is told at one remove and the teller changes, so you must track who is speaking.” · The Second World War’s turning points (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Checking Out Me History (John Agard)

A speaker protests that school taught him only one side of history and sets out to claim the Black figures left out of it, in his own Caribbean voice.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Standard English and dialect (ENLA) — “The poem is written in a non-standard variety of English on purpose, and that choice is the point.” · The transatlantic slave trade (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Power and Conflict: the cluster's ideas and which poems pair up

The ideas that run through the fifteen poems (the power of rulers, of nature and of memory; war seen from the battlefield and from home; identity under pressure) and which poems make a good second poem for each.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Power and Conflict. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Linking details across a text (ENLA) · Comparing poems

When We Two Parted (Lord Byron)

A speaker looks back with grief and bitterness on a secret love affair that ended, and on hearing the other person spoken of with scorn.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Rhyme and rhythm basics (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Love’s Philosophy (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

A playful argument: everything in nature mixes and pairs with something else, so why will you not kiss me?

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Personification (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Porphyria’s Lover (Robert Browning)

A man calmly tells how, on a stormy night, he killed the woman who loved him so that the moment would never end.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Recognising unreliable narrators (ENLA) — “The speaker thinks he has done nothing wrong, so you must read around him.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Sonnet 29 – ‘I think of thee!’ (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

The speaker's thoughts of her absent lover grow round him like a vine round a tree, until she wants the man himself and not the thoughts.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Poetic form and its effect (ENLA) — “It is a sonnet, and where it breaks the usual pattern matters.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Neutral Tones (Thomas Hardy)

The speaker remembers a winter day beside a pond when a love was dying. The grey scene has come to stand for every disappointment since.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Setting and atmosphere (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

The Farmer’s Bride (Charlotte Mew)

A farmer describes his young wife, who became terrified of him after their marriage, and his growing frustration and longing.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “Only the farmer speaks, so you have to work out the wife's side from what he lets slip.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Walking Away (Cecil Day-Lewis)

A father remembers watching his young son walk away from him after a football match, and what it taught him about letting a child go.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Simile and metaphor (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Letters from Yorkshire (Maura Dooley)

A man who works outdoors writes to the speaker, who works at a screen far away. A poem about staying close to someone across distance and different lives.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Word connotations (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Eden Rock (Charles Causley)

The speaker pictures his parents as they were when young, having a picnic by a stream and calling him to cross over to them.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Follower (Seamus Heaney)

A son remembers stumbling behind his father, an expert ploughman, and wanting to be like him. In the last lines the roles are reversed.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Analysing openings and endings (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Mother, any distance (Simon Armitage)

A son measures up his first home while his mother holds the other end of the tape. A poem about leaving and about the tie that remains.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Poetic form and its effect (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Before You Were Mine (Carol Ann Duffy)

The speaker imagines her mother's carefree, glamorous life before she was born, and admits how possessive a child's love is.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Winter Swans (Owen Sheers)

After a bad spell, a couple walk in silence beside a lake. Watching a pair of swans helps them find their way back to each other.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Singh Song! (Daljit Nagra)

A newly married shopkeeper keeps slipping away from his father's shop to be with his bride. Comic and tender, in a British Punjabi voice.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Standard English and dialect (ENLA) — “The voice mixes Punjabi-accented English with standard forms on purpose.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Climbing My Grandfather (Andrew Waterhouse)

The speaker climbs his grandfather as if he were a mountain, from shoes to the top of his head, getting to know him on the way.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Simile and metaphor (ENLA) — “One comparison is kept going for the whole poem.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Love and Relationships: the cluster's ideas and which poems pair up

The ideas that run through the fifteen poems (desire and longing, love that has ended, parents and children, distance and memory) and which poems make a good second poem for each.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Love and Relationships. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Linking details across a text (ENLA) · Comparing poems

Lines Written in Early Spring (William Wordsworth)

Sitting in a wood, the speaker's pleasure in the harmony of nature turns to sorrow at how people treat one another.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Personification (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

England in 1819 (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

An angry sonnet listing what is rotten in the country, from the king and princes to the army, the law and the church, with one glimmer of hope at the end.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Poetic form and its effect (ENLA) — “It is a sonnet used for protest, not love, and that choice is part of the meaning.” · Peterloo and the Chartists (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Shall earth no more inspire thee (Emily Brontë)

A voice, perhaps nature itself, calls a troubled dreamer back to the comfort of the natural world.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

In a London Drawingroom (George Eliot)

Seen from a window, the city is a smoky, unbroken wall of houses, and the people hurry past without looking at anything.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Setting and atmosphere (ENLA) · Life in industrial cities (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

On an Afternoon Train from Purley to Victoria, 1955 (James Berry)

A woman on a train starts a friendly conversation with a passenger from Jamaica. Her questions show real warmth and also how little she knows about where he is from.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Detecting irony and sarcasm (ENLA) · Windrush and post-war migration (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Name Journeys (Raman Mundair)

The speaker traces her journey from India to England through stories from her religion, and tells what happened to her name and her first language in English mouths.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

pot (Shamshad Khan)

The speaker talks to a pot in a museum case, asking where it came from, how it got there, and whether anyone at home is missing it.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Personification (ENLA) · The end of empire (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

A Wider View (Seni Seneviratne)

The poet imagines her great-great-grandfather, a mill worker in Victorian Leeds, looking up from the crowded streets for space and beauty, and meets him on the same spot today.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Setting and atmosphere (ENLA) · Steam power and factories (HIST) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Homing (Liz Berry)

The speaker addresses a relative who was made to hide her Black Country accent all her life, and wants to let that voice out and celebrate it.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Standard English and dialect (ENLA) — “The poem is about dialect and how it has been judged, which you studied in Year 8.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

A Century Later (Imtiaz Dharker)

A schoolgirl is shot for going to school and walks on. The poem treats the classroom as a battlefield and echoes a famous poem of the First World War.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Simile and metaphor (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

The Jewellery Maker (Louisa Adjoa Parker)

A craftsman's day: the skill handed down from his father, and the beautiful things he makes for wealthier customers, which his own wife does not have.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Describing with the five senses (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

With Birds You’re Never Lonely (Raymond Antrobus)

A deaf speaker in a noisy cafe remembers standing in a forest on the other side of the world, and thinks about silence, nature and what it means to be connected.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Linking details across a text (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

A Portable Paradise (Roger Robinson)

A grandmother's advice: keep your own paradise hidden on you, and take it out when life is hard.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Symbolism and motifs (ENLA) — “One image is carried through the whole poem and stands for home and hope.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Like an Heiress (Grace Nichols)

The speaker returns to the shore of her Guyanese childhood expecting riches and finds the beach empty and strewn with rubbish, which turns her thoughts to the planet's future.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Poetic form and its effect (ENLA) · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Thirteen (Caleb Femi)

A boy of thirteen is stopped by police who say he fits the description of a man. He remembers the same officer visiting his primary school.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Understanding narrative perspective (ENLA) — “The poem is written as you, which puts the reader in the boy's place.” · The poetry toolkit: line, stanza, rhythm and rhyme — “You need the poetry toolkit to say how this poem works.”

Worlds and Lives: the cluster's ideas and which poems pair up

The ideas that run through the fifteen poems (belonging and home, people and the natural world, heritage and language, unfairness and protest) and which poems make a good second poem for each.

Written against: AQA 8702 3.2.2

Option: Poetry anthology cluster: Worlds and Lives. A school teaches 1 of the 3 AQA offers; all 3 are mapped here.

Builds on: Linking details across a text (ENLA) · Comparing poems