The sound and fury surrounding text choices for GCSE English literature just won’t go away.
The exam boards got their digs in first with Paul Dodd of OCR claiming Gove wanted to ban US authors because he “had a particular dislike for Of Mice and Men and was disappointed that more than 90% of candidates were studying it”.
Gove then struck back saying neither nor anyone else had banned anything: ‘”Just because one chap at one exam board claimed I didn’t like Of Mice and Men, the myth took hold that it – and every other pesky American author – had been banned.”
And just in case we’re still tempted to blame Gove, step up Jonathan Bate. Bate seems curiously reluctant to allow Gove to take any credit:
No doubt to the dismay of the Twittersphere, I have to report that the idea that our teenagers should be asked to read a few older works of English literature before the statutory school-leaving age was mine, not Michael Gove’s.
Apparently his idea was to abandon set texts altogether with teachers allowed, encouraged even, to select the very best from the multifarious glory of the canon :
Instead of a year-in-year-out diet of predictable texts, there should simply be a requirement of breadth: at least one Shakespeare play, at least one 19th-century novel, a selection of poetry, including a taste of the Romantics (who invented our modern idea of poetry as the true voice of feeling) and a novel or play from the rich diversity of English literature written in the century between 1914 and 2014. There would be a set range, not a body of set texts.
What a wonderful idea!
The DfE have even put out English literature GCSE: a myth buster which claims, “we have given exam boards the opportunity to do is broaden – not narrow – the range of books young people study for GCSE.” It makes the point that guidance has only been issued on the minimum pupils will need to study and that, “Beyond this, exam boards have the freedom to design specifications so that they are stretching and interesting, and include any number of other texts from which teachers can then choose.”
So, as long as exam boards included certain minimum requirements (Shakespeare, poetry from 1789, a 19th century novel (from anywhere in the world) and post-1914 drama or fiction from the British Isles.) they were perfectly free to include whatever else they felt desirable. If To Kill A Mockingbird and The Crucible aren’t on the list, that’s their fault? Great news!
So what have the exams come up with the entirety of the British canon to select from? What have they chosen as the best of what’s been thought and said to hand on to the next generation? Sadly, instead of a brave new world we’ve been offered the same old same old.
Between them, the exam boards appear to have colluded to offer a choice of just eight of Shakespeare’s thirty-eight plays and only eight 19th century novels – all firmly British, with Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four the only text unique to one board. There’s a slightly greater range of post-1914 prose and drama, but even here we are offered the choice of only 12 different texts.
Now, everyone will have their own particular favourites and as Andrew Hall, AQA’s chief executive apologises “we can’t please everyone”, but is this really the best we can do? Is it really inconceivable that teachers might get to pick from Titus Andronicus, Henry James or GK Chesterton? If AQA can scrape together 11 different modern texts, why can Welsh Board only manage six? It all feels a bit rigged. Like the examination equivalent of price-fixing: “What’re you going with? Jane Eyre? Yep, us too.”
But the biggest mystery is the staggering ubiquity of some texts of Meera Syal’s Anita And Me which gets a clean sweep, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Russell’s fusty old, bottom set classic, Blood Brothers looks like they might see a boost in sales too. Are these really such seminal modern classics that they must be on the specification of every exam board? Even the DfE appears to think they’re the obvious choices:
The new GCSEs in English Literature will be broader and more challenging for pupils than those available at the moment. They will give pupils the chance to study some this country’s fantastic literary heritage, including works by Jane Austen, George Orwell, Kazuo Ishiguro and Meera Syal.
Is this really broader?
Maybe not. But what about more challenging? A cynic might suggest that A Christmas Carol, The Sign of Four and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll I and Mr Hyde have been included because of length rather than quality. I couldn’t possibly comment, but Sam Freedman suggested on Twitter that it looked like someone had googled ‘What’s the shortest nineteenth century novel?”
With the vast sweep of English literature to choose from, is this anyone’s idea of inspirational? It’s certainly not Robert McCrum’s, who says in his Guardian article, that in “Striving for educational relevance, AQA has dived into the shallow end, and sustained severe concussion.” It almost makes me wish Gove had banned some books! I can’t help but think he must be gnashing his teeth at the inclusion of the likes of the play script of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The play script! I’ve not read it or seen it so maybe it’s a literary masterpiece, but with Stoppard, Orton or Ayckbourn to choose from why go with an adaptation?
It’s all so sadly predictable. Far from being broad and challenging, this is a curriculum of low expectations and missed opportunities. Surely all we’ve done is replace a system where 90% of pupils studied Of Mice and Men with one where the overwhelming majority will study whatever is perceived as the easier, least challenging text on offer?
Jonathan Bate says, “I fear that the real culprits are the craven examination boards, who cannot free themselves from a ludicrously old-fashioned notion of a canon of set texts.” Exam boards may not be able to please everyone. But who exactly are they trying to please with this specification? It all could have been so much better!
Should we blame the exam boards, or should we rail at Ofqual for failing to hold their feet to the fire?
The one possible piece of good news is that these are just draft specifications. It’s unlikely but if enough of us make a fuss, maybe one of them will go for a set range instead of set texts. What do you think?
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I’d go with blaming the exam boards. I am particularly cross with the fact that – if it is true – they could have not had set texts, but only guidelines. I suspect they won’t do this as it would mean they would have less direct control over what everyone taught which would mean they would have to be more careful about marking and potentially have to spend more on moderating their markers work. Also it would be more difficult to sell the associated texts books, concentrating on analysis of their specific set texts. The tighter and more prescriptive the specifications and associated exams are the easier it is to ‘sell’ ways of doing them. As with so much in education these days it comes down to money…. even what we would teach comes down to that as it will partially depend on what departments already have in their stock cupboards. Looking at the grids you’ve put together it’s all one big yawn!
You’re right – the decision to go with set texts seems unimaginative and cowardly. Do you really think book sales may have informed the decision?
I don’t expect it did explicitly but the exam boards are still endorsing particular text books and were investigated fairly recently for their close ties to specific publishing companies. I think John Tomsett writes about similar misgivings as I have about the prescriptiveness (is that a word?) of the exam system more coherently than I can at the moment http://johntomsett.com/2013/12/15/this-much-i-know-about-the-lack-of-space-for-student-flair-in-our-examination-system/ The change in books studied offered an opportunity to inject some ‘flair’ into the system and it hasn’t happened.
The International Baccalaureate offers an interesting potential model here. The IB give schools a long list of ‘prescribed authors’ rather than texts. Providing certain requirements on breadth are met (i.e. a range of periods and genres are covered), the individual teacher is free to make a choice based on the needs and interests of the class.
Thus whilst one teacher might plumb for the ‘safe option’ of Animal Farm, another could go for ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’ or some of Orwell’s non fiction such as ‘Down and Out in Paris in London’.
As a teacher, I loved the freedom this gave me. It meant that I was always teaching something I was passionate about and it gave me the power to tailor my choices to suit the students’ interests.
Penny’s concerns are pertinent, however. When I taught the IB, we were always a little concerned that the marker in Venezuela or Taiwan or whichever far-flung location our students’ work ended up in might not always have a good working knowledge of say ‘The Duchess of Malfi’.
Venezuelans don’t like Webster?!
I don’t have any experience of the IB – are these prescribed author lists examined through coursework?
You mentioned that if enough of us made a fuss the draft specifications might be changed. Is there a forum or method for us to do this?
No. But you could make one:) I’d support it
The sight of Blood Brothers appearing in three out of the four boards should serve as a worrying sign, why is this play or even ‘musical’ (which version btw?) now part of the ‘canon’? Clearly some sort of collusion or lack of imagination here. Hm, British drama… er…. I know, ‘Blood Brothers’! Yes, that’s the play kids like it and it’s got a good beat/message… that and er, an inspector calls! Yes, we’ve got that in the stock cupboard…
Dreadful.
I won’t bother listing better plays, more challenging plays, more interesting plays in terms of staging because there are so many. These two, however, would not be part of the list, nor should they be.
British drama is ill served if this is the best they can come up with…
I do think that some of the issue is less with texts that students will be put off by as much as our own prejudices as teachers. There’s no excuse for trotting out the same lessons year in year out but we do need to be stimulated by the texts ourselves if we hope to pass enthusiasm on to the students. Austen has always bored me to tears – don’t cry chaps – and I can’t help feeling I’ll be a lonely figure teaching Delaney while Inspector Calls gets delivered again all round me. Speaking of which I wonder if anyone has ever thought of writing a blog or running a course on Ofsted with that as the title..?
Oh. And Head of Expressive Arts tells me Dog in the Nightime is really rather good. Although if she uses it for GCSE drama will we lose points for Progress 8 I wonder?
I agree with the comment above re: marking. Much easier to assess “agreed” texts as you can have pre-made marking schema and grids, which means quicker (and thus cheaper) marking and less need for QA between markers. This is more of the assessment tail wagging the learning dog. The best examination question I personally answered was “write about your favourite philosopher” – but more and more (at university level) I get students wanting tight specifications about what to write about – not surprising after they have had this through schools from SATs onwards.
How depressing if you’re right. Does our examination system really have to led by how easy it is to mark?
This is an excellent post David, pulling all the articles and book lists together. A great service to the nation!
I’m not a specialist but how hard or credible would it be to set generic questions that ask students to pull in their reading from one or more texts? That would mean students could read anything at all or choose from a massive list and sit the same exam. At least that could be one section of a paper. If that’s too problematic in terms of moderating standards, then the option would be to choose the unseen text from a wider range. It’s the DFE, not the exam boards, that has stipulated the wider reading should be from within the specified range, in preparation for the unseen text – a missed opportunity. There’s a lot of circularity here: the demand for grade accuracy comes from schools and government – that forces exam boards to tighten, not loosen. To achieve both the breadth envisaged by Jonathan Bate and the grade accuracy demanded by OfQual we’d probably need lots more examiners and a better way to compare answers based on different books so each paper would have 30 different questions from which students might chose only three.
Another option would be for schools or groups of schools to devise their own book lists and then to have them approved by the exam boards, using agreed criteria. We’d get a great spread of interesting lists across the country that wouldn’t be any less rigorous or interesting than those in your table. The criteria would keep the national cultural transmission boat afloat but it would be much more democratic, organic and interesting.
Thanks Tom!
I’ve no idea how difficult it might be do away with set texts and have more open, generic questions, but I’m told that’s what’s done in Scotland. And New Zealand apparently.
I fear that you may be correct and specification design is led by the profitability of administering the exam. One more reason to remove competition and have a single examining body?
When I was at school, English literature was an option. I chose not to study it, not because I hated reading, but hated being dictated to what I ought to read. I read all the time but the only book I have read on the list is Sign of Four. I did read Pride and Prejudice but only the recent reworking with added Zombies. Did find it funny though.
I would have loved an opportunity to analyse the books that I have read whilst at school. Reading Michael Moorcock’s Eternal champion series would have loved to analyse the concept of hero and anti-hero.
Why not study things that school children would prefer to read. Harry Potter, Twilight, the hunger games. What is the purpose of English Literature? To analyse how authors use words to get across ideas, or is it to tell us what is a good novel and that we ought to feel bad because we read trashier works.
What is English literature? A big question! To me it must be more than simply reading and then analysing books we like. I’m certainly in favour of cultural transmission and offering students a rich diet of culturally rich texts because only this allows working class children to compete with the privilege of the elite. I know lots of people disagree, but for me that’s the main reason why I wouldn’t want children studying Harry Potter. We should encourage children to reading everything, but reserve precious curriculum time to study that which is contains the most cultural capital.
Always assumed english lit had replaced religious moral instruction,thus the set texts need to have a message.
The ‘open generic questions’ Tom and David mention are a staple of the IB genre paper exam.
Here’s one from a few years back:
‘Writers of fiction do not always relate events in the order in which they seem to occur in the worlds of their novels or short stories’. Choosing two works by writers you have studied, show how variations of chronological order can be seen to serve the purposes of the stories.’
As you can see, the candidate is free to answer on any novel they have have studied, providing that the author is on the (long and broad) list of prescribed authors. The question and the assessment objectives are sufficiently broad (evaluation of the writer’s ideas, analysis of language and structure, response to the question etc) to facilitate a wide variety of possible responses.
I don’t see why something similar couldn’t be achieved at GCSE level. Perhaps we’re overstating the potential problems with marking. This might be controversial, but I’ll put it out there anyway: is it absolutely necessary for an assessor to be deeply familiar with a piece of fiction in order to mark a literary essay based on it? I haven’t read Titus Andronicus for about 15 years, but I’m pretty confident that I could tell the difference between an A* essay and a B grade on it.
Oh my! Open generic questions sound like a great idea if you want to broaden the literature options. It would really stretch the more able students, but really disadvantage the less able. I support Deaf students, for whom English is their second language. As well as already struggling with understanding the texts and analysis, open questions like these would really flummox them.
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You can see the IB’s very long and very broad list of prescribed authors at this link: http://englishlanguageliterature.wikispaces.com/file/view/English+A+PLA+July+10.pdf
As previous posters have stated, they get away from set texts by using open-ended essay questions which students can answer by drawing on any of the texts they have studied. It’s no good loading up the English Literature curriculum with earnest ‘cultural capital’ if the short, uninspired list of texts puts students off studying it.
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