AQA A Level English Literature Specification A: 2008 onwards (2740)

First year: the AS Literature Course

The new AQA course offers teachers and students considerable flexibility. With that, of course, comes responsibility to ensure that all the requirements are being met. Here's an outline, but always check with the AQA Specification and keep in touch with your moderator too.

Key requirements of the AS course

• The option chosen (Victorian literature, First World War or Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature) is studied for both units in the AS course
• One text must have been written between 1800 and 1945 (the Unit 1 poetry texts for the Victorian and First World War options cover this requirement, so pre-1945 texts are only marked here in the lists for Option C: The Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature)
• One text must have been first published or performed after 1990

These requirements can be met by the examination or coursework texts or in the wider reading. To assist you, relevant texts have been marked as pre-1945 or post 1990 in the AQA Specification and on these pages.

The options

Click on the images or links here to go the pages for each option.

AQA endorsed students' books

You are also recommended to look at the specially written students' books for each option of this course by Stella Canwell, Ian Stewart and Carol Leach which are now available from Amazon or from Nelson Thornes; these are supplemented by interactive units from the English and ICT team.