Literature Study Post-16 II

Key Issues

Assessment

As a former senior examiner for one of the A level boards, I am particularly interested in assessment of post-16 literature. Without wishing to go into the ins and outs of coursework weighting versus examination load, or comparing the specific differences of different boards and specifications, it is certainly the case that a key issue around the teaching of post-16 literature, and one that many current teachers as well as those entering the profession need to get to grips with, is the impact of the four assessment objectives which are common to all specifications. It is of course the case that the manner of assessment will have an influence on teaching, and there are many who are highly critical of the AS/A2 assessment objectives, suggesting that – as the arguments always go – they lead to formulaic teaching, training of students to jump hurdles and the like. It is not, I will claim, because I have had a vested interest that leads me to disagree in principle with these arguments. I actually think, in general, the assessment objectives – with reservations about the model of criticism they enshrine, perhaps – articulate the very sorts of knowledge and skills I would want post-16 literature students to be developing. I don't have the kinds of principled oppositions to them that I had to, for example, the key stage 3 mark schemes, which seemed to utterly fragment the assessment of both reading and writing to a point where the parts – even if they were sound – were an inadequate method of assessing the whole. There are obviously levels of artificiality, in the way that certain AS/A2 papers and questions specifically target particular AOs, and there are the hurdles teachers need clear knowledge to help their students leap, but in general, I would assert that good AS/A2 teaching will empower students to respond to the objectives as laid down.

The particular aspects of the assessment that seem to cause the tensions are assessment objectives 3 and 4. AO3 is the requirement to show understanding of others' interpretations; AO4 is the demand for knowledge of contexts in which texts are written and received. There have been, and continue to be, confusing messages and understandings about what precisely these things mean in practice. In the worst cases, they have led to teachers thinking that there is a need for a heavy injection of literary theory, so that students can clearly state what a Marxist critic might make of Othello, and that it is essential to wheel out everything about the French revolution before beginning an argument on Wordsworth's The Prelude. The reality is far from this, of course, but there remains confusion here and these are issues that English student teachers need to engage with – in order to develop their own expertise and to be able to deal with attitudes they may encounter in placement schools. And it seems to me that when (there is never an 'if' about such things) A level literature specifications are rewritten these areas will continue to be an issue – whether or not they retain the current tags.