English Literature Exams 2021

Summary

As a GCSE student doing my GCSE's during summer 2021 and also being a Literature student, I have been quite concerned over what this will mean for the 2021 cohort as it is very likely that We will suffer more than 2020's cohort due to the significant time off school we have had due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus. Let me just back this point up, the 2020 cohort had attended school full time before this lockdown and had in many cases completed their mock exams and so they did not miss the school time that we have missed, and so we need measures in place urgently so us students of 2021 can get the grades we need for our next steps in a rather competitive world.

I could talk about a variety of subjects but because of this being mainly a book blog I will only talk about GCSE English Literature. Firstly let's understand what the exams are normally like, normally without this virus we would sit two GCSE papers both of which are close enough to 2 hours long. In the first paper, we would have a question on different Shakespeare plays, of which we would pick one question from the play we have been studying in class and then a question from a selection of 19th-century novels where again we would write about the one novel that we had been studying in class. In total, we would have answered two questions one on Shakespeare and one on a 19th-century novel and they would both be essay questions. It is also important to realise that for both of the questions in paper one we are given a short extract to refer to in our answer as well as having to remember all the key quotes from elsewhere in the text. 

For paper two, we would normally answer one question from a variety of modern prose or drama texts of which we would choose the one we had been studying in class and would answer one of those questions which do not include any extract and so we have to remember all quotes and social-historical context of by heart. For the second question we would be looking at the poems from the exam board anthologies where we would be given one main poem and then have to compare that to a poem which we would not be able to see and so would have to remember all the quotes and social-historical context of by heart once again; please also note that there are 15 poems in each anthology and we need to know all the poems from one of the anthologies. Finally, when we have finished that question our third question would be analysing an unseen poem before writing an essay on that poem and then for the last question we would be given a slightly shorter unseen poem which again we need to analyse and then compare with the first unseen poem.

Now, Ofqual has proposed that for 2021 all students must do Shakespeare but then have an option between the 19th Century Novel, Modern Prose or Drama and poetry of which they must do two. I would have much preferred the 2021 English Literature exams to be open book along with other subjects but sadly this was seen as unsuitable. Now that I have given you a summary on what the exams are like before this virus and have outlined what the changes are let's go into more detail, specifically on poetry.

Analysis

Many of the media websites I have looked at regarding the English Literature exams and the proposed changes that should be taking place have painted the picture that students will have an option to do poetry and they do not make it clear about the other topics. They make it seem like Ofqual are the bad people saying that poetry does not matter but they do not consider that it is one amongst 3 different topics that have been made optional. The only media website which makes it clear what subjects are and are not optional is The Guardian newspaper online for which I praise them for getting their facts right.

However, many people particularly poets have complained about this decision that poetry is amongst one of the optional subjects saying that teenagers need it more than ever in modern days. I do not disagree with the poets as from learning poetry at school before lockdown I learnt a variety of things about the world and the politics and it has even made me a poet myself but the people who are complaining about this decision do not understand the requirements of poetry. They lack the insight of how hard the poetry component is in English Literature GCSE, I will come back to this in a moment.

Before I continue going on about the poetry side of the curriculum let me talk about the drama/pose and 19th-century novel. These two texts are not separated into a number of different viewpoints and topics like poetry snd students find it easier to get into such things. Students are not required to know all about the social and historical contexts for 15 different stories and instead if they picked the 19th-century novel and the Drama/Pose they would only have to know a total of 3 social and historical contexts for the texts they are studying. Furthermore, in this year where we have missed a lot of our learning time, we could learn these two texts in much more detail than the poetry and get higher marks in these questions because of more sophisticated knowledge. We as students would be unable to access this sophisticated knowledge in poetry as we must know 15 poems off by heart.

Now let's go back to the argument on poetry, one step at a time. Following the point, I just left off from, because of 15 poems we have to study we are unable to get deep knowledge of all of these 15 texts as we have to know all of the quotes from these 15 poems and the social-historical context and bear in mind we are not told in advance what the main named poem is going to be and this poetry component has taken up most of my revision time making it very hard and not allowing me to provide enough time for any of my other subjects. Please also bear in mind as we talk about how intense the poetry revision is, I have not yet even considered the revision which will also be required for the unseen poetry which will take up even more time of us GCSE students revision time.

While thinking about how many poems we have to study, please remember that Ofqual are not providing any other exam arrangements for 2021 apart from making some of the English Literature curriculum optional. If they reduced the number of poems we needed to learn to only 5 poems, gave us a copy of both the two poems in the exam paper and/or letting us students and teachers know what the main named poem for 2021 is then it would make poetry much easier for us students and we would be more likely to want to do this topic but sadly they are not willing to make this change for only 1 year. Remember with the Prose/Drama and 19th-century novel we are all at an advantage as we can have an idea what the questions will be about, it is only one text for both the Prose/Drama and 19th-century novel and we are provided a short extract for one of these questions and they could have also provided one for the second questions which make it easier to answer the exam question.

As I have mentioned above, I have learnt a lot of things about not only British society but about the society around the world from poetry and this is one reason why I think all students and teenagers should access poetry but I have also learnt a lot about society and made to feel as I have entered the adult world from also studying the other texts in the curriculum. With the other texts, we learn more about society and how society has changed in much greater detail than we do in poetry but then in poetry although we are given a more vague and unclear view on different things from around the world we look at more viewpoints. There would be plenty of opportunities for students to access poetry during other moments in their childhood but right now with the virus the added exam stress is not healthy for us students and so we would benefit from not doing poetry. Furthermore, many poets have mentioned how us students need poetry which I have mentioned above that I agree with that statement but not only they have not considered the demand of the poetry topic, they are not thinking about the best interest of the students who this ultimately affects more than anyone else. In fact, these decisions only affect us students, not anyone else and us 2021 cohort will have a harder time than anyone else from this virus as those younger than us can easily catch up as they would only just be entering year 10 and those older than we will either be going to university if lucky enough or starting their A-Levels.

There is much more I could mention but I think I have got all the main points above. If you don't take anything else away from this article, please remember that these decisions affect us, 2021 students, more than anyone else and will affect our futures and our jobs and our lives. Please also remember that at the time of writing the pandemic seems to be calming down and so it currently looks like we will only need this unprecedented measures in for one year unless we go back into lockdown. That is one year where students may or may not take poetry, That is one year when students are given an option in what I would call the hardest GCSE exam subject. Please when talking about how unhappy you are about the measures put in place just think about how students feel and how these things affect us, some people must leave their selfish worlds.

Now I would like to talk about my mission with this blog briefly, I have noticed over the last few years that reading is a dying habit amongst teenagers, specifically teenage boys and as I understand the amazing benefits of reading and how positively it can affect someone's life I have the mission of getting more teenagers reading and prevent this habit from becoming extinct. I feel that we must all work together to get teenagers reading. I am a 15-year-old boy and I love reading and studying and this is positively changing my life but I can also see how I am different from others my age as I do not waste my time on video games. We need to help teenagers read more for recreation in their free time like I do. Please either buy me a book or donate via Paypal to help me with my mission so I am able to keep posting posts onto this blog and try and create a positive difference in the world. You will find the buttons to donate and buy me a book at the side of this blog.

Thank you very much for reading this article and looking at what it is like for a teenager who these decisions will affect in many different ways. Please get my message out there and share this post all over the place so many people can see what I have written. Also please check out my other blog posts and subscribe to this blog and check it regularly for all my new posts.

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Charlie Medcalf