Y11: English Literature Tips

Dear Parents/Carers,

 

As you will be aware, our Y11 students have their English Literature examinations coming up over the next two weeks. Our students have worked really hard to learn their key texts, but need to ensure that they know key quotations from them in order to succeed and achieve high grades in their exams. We would be most grateful if you could help to support our students with learning these quotations by testing them on them at home to check their knowledge. We will have a big push on this in school, but it would be great if  students spent some time on this at home too. I have compiled a list of key quotations for each exam for you to focus on.

 

Macbeth:

 

Macbeth: “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” / “Our fears in Banquo stick deep” / “She should have died hereafter”

Lady Macbeth: “Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty” / “Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” / “Out, damned spot!”

Banquo: “I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters” / “I fear thou play’dst most foully for it” / “Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!” / “gory locks”

Macduff: “O horror, horror, horror!” / “Ring the alarum bell” / “My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me” / “Enter Macduff with Macbeth’s head”

The witches: “Fair is foul and foul is fair” / “All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter” / “None of woman born shall harm Macbeth” / “Beware Macduff”

 

Manhunt: “The frozen river which ran through his face” / “The parachute silk of his punctured lung” / “Feel the hurt of his grazed heart” / “A sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind”

Cozy Apologia: “I could choose any hero” / “A hurricane is nudging up the coast”/ “Teenage crushes on worthless boys”

Death of a Naturalist: “Warm thick slobber of frogspawn” / “Every spring I would fill jampotfuls” / “Angry frogs invaded the flax-dam”

Hawk Roosting: “I sit in the top of the wood” / “I hold Creation in my foot” / “My manners are tearing off heads” / “The sun is behind me”

Afternoons: “The leaves fall in ones and twos” / “Setting free their children” / “An estateful of washing”

 

An Inspector Calls:

 

Mr Birling: “Absolutely unsinkable” / “there’s a fair chance that I might find my way into the next Honours List”/ “a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own” “Still, I can’t accept any responsibility”                                                                            

Sheila: “very pleased with life and rather excited” / “Yes – except for all last summer, when you never came near me” / “I told the manager I’d never go near the place again”/  “If I could help her now, I would” / “Gerald, I think you’d better take this with you [she hands him the ring]”  “I remember what he said…what he made me feel”                                                                               
Gerald: “well-bred young-man-about-town” / “The girl gave me a glance that was nothing less than a cry for help” “All right – I [adored] it for a time. Nearly any man would have done” / “I say there’s no more real evidence we did than there was that that chap was a police inspector” / “Everything’s all right now Sheila. What about this ring”                                                             

 
Mrs Birling: “a rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior” / “Girls of that class” “She called herself Mrs Birling… a gross piece of impertinence” / “I told her go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility” / “I accept no blame for it at all”Eric:  “not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive”/  “I’m not very clear about it… but I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty” / “You’re not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble” / “Whoever that chap was, the fact remains I did what I did”                                                                                 The Inspector: “an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness” / “A chain of events” / “It’s too late. She’s dead” / “Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges”/ “We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other” / “will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish”

Scrooge: “solitary as an oyster” / “Are there no prisons?” / “And the union workhouses?” “If they had rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” / “Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind” / “I will honour Christmas” “I have come to dinner” “I am about to raise your salary” 

Marley’s Ghost: “I wear the chain I forged in life” / “I made it link by link” / “you have laboured on it since”/  “it is a ponderous chain!” “I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate” 

Ghost of Christmas Past: “like a child” / “wore a tunic of the purest white”/ “your lip is trembling” /  “The school is not quite deserted” / “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.” / “she had a large heart!” 

Ghost of Christmas Present: “sparkling eye” /“cheery voice”/ “joyful air” / “If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die”/ “he better do it and decrease the surplus population” / “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want!”

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: “The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached” /“shrouded in a deep black garment” 

Fred: “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!”/ “cheerful voice”/ “Don’t be angry, uncle” “Come dine with us tomorrow” / “I fell in love” /“Scrooge’s nephew laughed”/ “his offences carry their own punishment” /“I am sorry for him”/ “It is a mercy he didn’t shake his arm off” 

Bob Cratchit: “the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal.” /“a wonderful pudding!” /“Bob held his withered little hand” / “My little, little child!” 

Tiny Tim: “God bless us, every one!”/ “He sat very close to his father’s side.” 

Fezziwig: “No more work tonight” /“ jovial voice”/ “Old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs Fezziwig” 

Bellle: “Another idol has displaced me..A golden one” / “Our contract is an old one”/ “you are changed” 

 

Some effective strategies for testing the students’ knowledge are as follows:

Students could use these quotations to produce mind maps or revision cards

 

Thank you for your support with this. It will really help make a difference for our students.

 

Yours faithfully,

      

Head of English

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