Revise the English and English Literature Anthology for AQA A

I must emphasise at the outset of this review that Revise the English and English Literature Anthology for AQA A is intended for pupils taking GCSE English examinations, but only those who are studying the AQA Specification A as is clear from the title. (AQA is an examination board.) Pupils will be supplied by their schools with the AQA Anthology itself (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198318812); the Anthology is not available in online or offline bookshops, but if you did need to obtain a copy, you might find one on Ebay.

Tony Childs' book is therefore intended to assist with revision of the Anthology, by taking the poems and short stories one by one and asking questions that will guide pupils in the understanding and analysis of the works. The book opens with a six-page introduction that explains the aims of the book, how it can help with revision, and how to prepare for the examination. The summary stresses the importance of reading all the texts again before attempting to answer the questions in this book. There is also some guidance on sitting the examinations themselves, giving details of how long they last, how many questions there are, how to make a good choice of question, and how to plan an answer before starting to write.

The book is then divided into two main sections, Section 1 on English and Section 2 on English Literature: all pupils study at least half the poems in Section 1; all pupils study some of the poetry in Section 2; and some pupils study the prose in Section 2.

Section 1 English

All pupils have to study this section of the Anthology, although some schools concentrate on only Cluster 1 or Cluster 2, each of which contains eight poems. In the examination, there is a choice of two questions, one featuring poems from Cluster 1 and the other poems from Cluster 2. A pupil who has only studied one of the clusters will therefore not have a choice of questions. Cluster 1 contains poems by poets such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Chinua Achebe and Grace Nichols, whilst Cluster 2 has works by John Agard, Moniza Alvi and Tom Leonard amongst others. Some of these are written in non-standard English, and most are by poets of non-British origin.

Section 1 briefly explains how the English Anthology fits into the course, and then goes on to discuss what the examiners are looking for over the following two pages. It then looks at the poems one by one, giving a little information about the author followed in some cases by a glossary, and then the main 'Read and revise' set of questions. The questions are preceded by two or three sentences giving a reminder to read the poem and pointing out a basic feature of it, for example, 'Notice particularly the changing length of sentence' for Imtiaz Dharker's poem 'Blessing'. To give an example of the type of questions presented in this book, for Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes', Childs asks, 'Which details in the description of the scavengers contrast with the people in the Mercedes? Look for words and phrases, and think about their effect.' Whilst the book does not provide answers to these questions, they will guide pupils in their reading of the poems and show them the points that they need to look for. The questions are followed by 'Final thoughts', a brief summing up, for example 'Read the poem again. Much of the poem is at least half-joking, and is like a song. How does this change at the end?' sums up John Agard's 'Half-Caste'. Finally, there is a table suggesting which poems in the collection could be compared to the one in question.

After all the poems have been dealt with, Childs discusses how to go about comparing poems from different cultures and traditions. He takes 'Night of the Scorpion' and 'Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes' and draws up a plan giving notes on how they could be compared in terms of meanings and interpretations; linguistic, structural and presentational devices; language variations; and finally place and culture. The following two pages on Structuring a response to Poems from Different Cultures and Traditions considers the question 'Compare the ways in which the poets present people in Night of the Scorpion and one other poem of your choice from the selection.' It offers clear advice in the form of bullet points as well as a table of detailed notes. Pupils are always advised to end by stating which poem of the two they prefer and why.

Section 2 English Literature

All pupils have to study some poems from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank; alongside these, some pupils study the poems of Seamus Heaney and Gillian Clarke, whilst others study those of Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage. Most examination questions involve comparing two poems, either one by Heaney with one by Clarke or one by Duffy with one by Armitage, and referring in addition to two poems from the Pre-1914 Bank. The Pre-1914 Poetry Bank includes works by poets such as Walt Whitman, Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy, William Blake and William Wordsworth.

Section 2 opens, similarly to Section 1, by showing how the English Literature Anthology fits into the course and explaining what the examiners are looking for. The Assessment Objectives are explained, which include responding to texts critically, sensitively and in detail; exploring how language, structure and form contribute to meaning; and exploring relationships and comparisons within and between texts. Childs notes that examiners will be looking for an understanding of the texts and an ability to think about them and compare one with another.

The poems of Heaney, Clarke, Duffy, Armitage and those of the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank are then looked at in detail, one by one, in a way similar to that of Section 1. Questions include 'The person in the poem is violent. Find as many violent actions, thoughts or intentions as you can in the poem' (for Duffy's Education for Leisure), or 'In lines 4-6, find two examples of things being unusually sad and affecting – one stated, one implied' (for Heaney's Mid-Term Break). Some of the questions are broken down into several bullet points relating to the same aspect of the poem. Final thoughts sum up each poem, and again there is a table suggesting which other poems are suitable for comparison.

A sub-section on Comparing poems/ Structuring a poetry response explains a little about the choice of questions offered in the examination and what candidates might be asked to compare, for instance feelings, ideas, and the poets' styles of writing. A plan is given in the form of a table for the question 'Compare the ways that poets write about nature in four or more of the poems you have studied. You should write about The Field Mouse by Gillian Clarke and Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney, and two poems from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank'. Childs selects Tennyson's The Eagle and Clare's Sonnet from the Pre-1914 Bank. In the plan, one column is dedicated to each poem, and notes are then made on aggression connected with nature, feelings caused by nature, other issues, language, structure and form.

Prose follows the poetry: many pupils study a novel as a set text for English Literature, such as Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', but the short stories in the AQA Anthology provide an alternative to the novel. Pupils do, however, have to compare two short stories from the selection in the examination. There are seven short stories altogether, the authors of which are Doris Lessing, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Cary, Graham Swift, Leslie Norris and Michele Roberts – all modern or contemporary writers.

Revision guidance for the Anthology Short Stories is presented in the same way as it is for the poems. Each story is looked at in turn through a series of questions (preceded again by a brief note on the author and a glossary where necessary). Final thoughts are followed by two examples of examination questions which require the story to be compared in some way to one of the others in the collection.

Following the detailed analysis of each story, Childs gives guidance on comparing short stories with regard to both content and style. Structuring a Prose Response on the following two pages shows how to 'Compare two stories where characters face difficult situations'. Taking Lessing's 'Flight' and Roberts' 'Your Shoes', Childs defines the four main points to consider and shows how to make a plan in table form giving notes on these four points.

Sample answers and commentaries give three responses to the question 'Doris Lessing uses pigeons to represent something else. Write about how she does this, and how the author of one other story in the Anthology uses the same technique.' One of the sample answers was awarded a Grade A, one a Grade C, and the third a Grade E. Each sample answer is followed by a commentary.

The Glossary on the final page gives definitions of terms such as alliteration, paradox, refrain and syntax.

This is probably the best book available to assist in studying and revising the AQA Anthology. Whilst it does not provide answers to the questions asked, the nature of these questions gives a clear idea of what needs to be considered for each poem or short story and assists in giving a sound understanding. Even an able pupil who understands a poem or story well, however, may not be confident in comparing it with another work in the Anthology, and Childs' book gives plenty of advice in this area. There is a bonus for those studying the poems of Cluster 1 for English, as well as those studying the poems of Heaney and Clarke for English Literature, as some of these are focused on when showing how to structure a response to the poems.

I have used this book on a one-to-one basis both when introducing a pupil to a poem or short story for the first time and for the purposes of revision. I have also lent it to one or two more able pupils who were aiming at a Grade A for English and English Literature, and they were able to gain a stronger insight into the Anthology by using this book on their own. I do think it would be difficult for a less able pupil to use the book without a tutor or parent guiding them, but for a parent who does wish to help, this is an ideal book. No-one is likely to be using every single sub-section of the book, but even so, if it results in achieving even one grade higher, £6.50 seems a small price to pay. I would definitely recommend this book as a study guide or a revision guide for the examinations in question.

Revise the English and English Literature Anthology for AQA A

by Tony Childs

Heinemann, 2002

Paperback, 252 pages

ISBN 0435102885

Price £6.25 (Amazon Marketplace from £2.25)

October - Gillian Clarke

The first stanza of Gillian Clarke's poem 'October' sets an autumnal atmosphere for the poem. The metaphor of 'a dead arm' in line 2 for a branch of a tree that has broken forewarns us of the theme of the poem. Yet there is contrast here too, as the decay is seen against the 'bright' poplar trees whose leaves 'tremble gradually to gold'. Alliteration is skilfully used here as well as in the 'broken branch' and then again in line 4 as a 'sharp shower' turns the face of a stone lion a darker shade. This gloom is underlined at the end of the stanza where the lobelia, seen as the lion's 'dreadlocks', is changing from blue to brown as it dies. The imagery here is rich and describes both the beauty and decay of the season.

At the start of the second stanza, Clarke confronts us with the blunt phrase 'My friend dead', leaving us in no doubt as to the central focus of 'October'. The setting is the graveyard, where alliteration appears again as the coffin is carried to the 'hawthorn hedge'. Clarke portrays her lost friend as being but a slight burden in her coffin: 'lighter / than hare-bones on men's shoulders'. The mourners have 'stony' faces, echoing the statue of the lion from the first stanza. Rain mingles with tears, as there is 'weeping in the air'; there is a softer feel here than the 'sharp shower' stanza 1. Clarke describes the grave with the simile 'deep as a well', perhaps feeling that her friend will be separated from her by a considerable gulf. 'Thud' describes the heavy fall of the earth into the grave, while in contrast the alliterative 'fall of flowers' is a slow one, emphasising their lightness.

The final line of the second stanza consists merely of the phrase 'fall of flowers', and the opening line of the third and final stanza is indented to appear as a continuation of the preceding line, thus forming a stronger link between the second and third stanzas. This final stanza has a tremendous feeling of speed and urgency that is in sharp contrast to the initial part of the poem. Clarke's reaction to her friend's death is that of feeling a need to accomplish as much as possible before the time of her own death. In lines 12 to 13 of the poem she describes how 'the pen / runs faster than wind's white steps over grass'. Her pen is personified, and again alliteration creates a vivid image in 'wind's white steps'. The statement in line 14 'For a while health feels like pain' gives the impression that her grief for her friend was hard to bear at first. This feeling, however, was followed by 'panic', and the pace of the stanza increases again with phrases such as 'running the fields' and 'the racing leaves'. Clarke is desperate to capture the fleeting images of nature: 'holding that robin's eye / in the laurel'. Comparison with the speed of the wind is made once again in the simile of line 18: 'I must write like the wind'. Clarke ends her poem with a sense that she can win the struggle against time and the moment of her death as she continues writing, 'winning ground'.

'October' is a compact poem that gathers pace as it moves forward, beginning with leaves 'gradually' turning gold and ending with the need to 'write like the wind'. Out of the decay of the season of autumn and the sadness at the death of a friend comes motivation and the urgency to write faster and put the transient images of the changing seasons into words before time runs out. Language is used here to create powerful imagery with alliteration, metaphor, simile and contrast all playing a part. 'October' is a skilfully constructed poem that imparts a sense of using every available moment of life to the full.

Cold Knap Lake - Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke's poem 'Cold Knap Lake' centres around a childhood memory of a girl almost drowning in a lake in Glamorgan (South Wales). The poet, with her parents, 'watched a crowd' of people pull the girl out of the water. It seemed at first that they were too late: the girl's lips were blue and she 'lay for dead'. The metaphor 'dressed in water's long green silk' tells us that she was covered in weeds from the lake.

In the second stanza, Clarke describes her mother as a 'heroine' as she knelt down to resuscitate the girl. The act of kneeling, 'her red head bowed', perhaps suggests a religious act. The mother seems to have been part of the whole rescue operation, 'her wartime cotton frock soaked'. The mention of her red hair is in sharp contrast to the girl's blue lips and gives a feeling of life. Clarke was obviously struck by the idea of her mother reviving 'a stranger's child' with 'her breath'. The crowd of onlookers dare not speak but are compelled to watch, as Clarke tells us in the alliterative phrase 'drawn by the dread of it'.

The third stanza tells us that the girl began breathing; 'bleating' suggests the idea of a baby animal calling for its mother. She is now 'rosy in my mother's hands', the color assuring that she is alive. The poet's father took the girl back to her home; we are told that she came from a poor family. Rather than expressing gratitude for the fact that she survived, her parents 'thrashed' her for having got herself into such danger.

The question 'Was I there?' that opens the fourth stanza signals a change in the poem. It stands out, as it is the shortest line in the entire poem and comes at the beginning of a stanza. It suggests that the poet, now of course an adult, is unsure as to whether she actually saw the girl being beaten or whether this is something her father told her about. The following five lines of the stanza form one long question that centres around an extended metaphor where the waters of the lake represent the memory. This second question refers to the 'troubled surface' of both the mind and the water. The imagery here is rich, from the alliteration of 'surface something else/shadowy' continuing with the personification of the 'dipped fingers of willows', which links back to the fingers of the child in the water. The 'satiny mud blooms' of line 18 are reminiscent of 'water's long green silk' in the first stanza. The 'cloudiness' of the muddy water is a symbol of the haziness of our memories. The assonance in the phrase 'treading heavy webs' in the following line creates a vivid image where it is the webbed feet of swans that are disturbing the water, just as certain events provoke unclear thoughts about the past in our minds. The stanza and the extended question close with the evocative sounds of the swans' wings that 'beat and whistle'.

The poem ends with a pair of rhyming couplets:

'All lost things lie under closing water

in that lake with the poor man's daughter.'

'Lost things' suggests memories that we can no longer recall, buried deep in our minds. The final line connects back to the initial focus of the poem, the girl who almost drowned. Alliteration of 'All lost things lie ... in that lake' serves to tie together the ideas of the memory and the drowning incident. 'Water' and 'daughter' are in fact the only rhyming words that appear in successive lines in the entire poem. In the first stanza, we could consider 'lake' and 'silk' (lines 3 and 4) as a half rhyme. Stanza two has 'earth' at the end of the opening line and 'breath' at the end of the fourth line, another half rhyme. The third stanza's first line ends with 'bleating' and its last line with 'drowning'. The fourth stanza does have two rhyming words, 'there' and 'air', one at the end of its first line and the other at the end of its last line, and each is the final word in a question.

The pattern of the stanzas is an interesting one, as the first and third stanzas have four lines each and the second and fourth six lines each, with the rhyming couplets standing out at the end of the poem. The lines vary in length, with the shortest one, 'Was I there?', drawing attention at the start of the fourth stanza.

In 'Cold Knap Lake', Gillian Clarke has created a fascinating poem that seems to focus on one particular dramatic event she witnessed in her childhood but develops into an expression of how our memories of the past are a part of us that may fade or play tricks on us with the passage of time.

Baby-sitting - Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke's poem centres on her experience of baby-sitting for a baby that is asleep but will wake up to find the baby-sitter, a stranger, and feel that it has been abandoned by the mother.

The first stanza opens with the baby-sitter sitting in a 'strange room', telling us that this must be the first time that the sitter has looked after that baby. She is waiting for 'the wrong baby' to wake up, and so we assume that the baby-sitter is a mother herself. Speaking in the first person, the poet tells us quite openly that she doesn't love the baby, and this emphasizes the fact that she is a stranger. She goes on to describe the baby in quite an endearing way; snuffling in its sleep, it is fair haired and not unattractive. The narrator, however, actually feels afraid that the baby will hate her when confronted with her on waking; 'she will shout / her hot midnight rage' conveys the idea of angry cries and screams. The description of the baby towards the end of the stanza, now that it is no longer sleeping peacefully, becomes less flattering. Her nose will run 'disgustingly', and the baby-sitter will find the smell of her breath unpleasant.

At the start of the second stanza, the baby-sitter imagines that the baby, on seeing her, will feel that she has been deserted by her mother: 'To her, I will represent absolute / Abandonment.' The baby's situation and feelings are then compared to other extremely lonely situations, such as a lover alone in bed, 'cold in lonely / Sheets.' The baby's loneliness will be worse than this, worse even than the sorrow of a woman visiting her husband in the terminal ward of a hospital. Sleep is depicted by the metaphor 'the monstrous land' from which the baby will awaken, crying. It will expect to be breastfed by the mother: 'stretching for milk-familiar comforting', but instead will be held by a stranger. The repetition in the final line of the phrase 'It will not come' serves to illustrate the fact that there is no bond between the baby-sitter and the baby; no comfort will be found.

The poem consists of two ten-line stanzas with lines of slightly varying length. There is no rhyming, and in fact many of the lines run straight into the following one, so that breaks occur frequently in the middle of the line, particularly in the first stanza.

Alliteration and assonance are used in the poet's description of the baby: 'She is sleeping a snuffly / roseate, bubbling sleep;' 'absolute / Abandonment' in the second stanza uses alliteration to emphasize the fact that the baby feels deserted by its mother. 'Beside the bleached bone' combines alliteration and metaphor to create a harrowing image of a person dying in hospital.

Gillian Clarke has painted a sensitive picture here, seeing the situation from the point of view of the baby, imagining exactly how it must feel on awakening to find a stranger instead of its mother. She also understands how the baby-sitter will react, actually feeling fear because the baby will not welcome her presence. It is a convincing picture, giving an unusual slant on what to us is probably a commonplace situation.

(Note: I have referred to the baby here as 'it' to try to avoid confusion between the baby-sitter and the baby; in the poem itself, the baby is referred to as 'she'.)