AQA Anthology explained
The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (the AQA) has produced Anthologies for GCSE English and English Literature studied in English schools. This follows on from AQA's predecessor organisations; Northern Examinations and Assessment Board (NEAB) and Southern Examining Group (SEG).
2000 Anthology
The 2000 AQA anthology covered four sections: poets in the English Literary Heritage, poems from other cultures and traditions, 20th-century prose, and 20th- or pre-20th-century poetry.
English: Poets in the English Literary Heritage
Simon Armitage
- "I Am Very Bothered When I Think"
- "Poem"
- "It Ain't What You Do, It's What It Does To You"
- "Cataract Operation"
- "About His Person"
Ted Hughes
- "Works and Play"
- "The Warm and the Cold"
- "The Tractor"
- "Wind"
- "Hawk Roosting"
Carol Ann Duffy
- "War Photographer"
- "Valentine"
- "Stealing"
- "Before You Were Mine"
- "In Mrs. Tilscher's Class"
English: Poems from other cultures and traditions
"Search for My Tongue"
"Unrelated Incidents"
"Half Caste"
"Blessing"
"Presents from my 'Aunts' in Pakistan"
"Ogun"
"Passengers - Charlotte O'Neil's Song"
"An Old Woman"
"Hurricane Hits England"
"Nothing's Changed"[1]
English literature: 20th-century prose
"The Darkness Out There"
"Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit"
"Flight"
"Your Shoes"
English literature: 20th- or pre-20th-century poetry
- "Hearts and Partners"
- "That Old Rope"
- "When the Going Gets Tough"[2]
2004 Anthology
The 2004 AQA Anthology was a collection of poems and short texts. The anthology was split into several sections covering poems from other cultures, the poetry of Seamus Heaney,[3] Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage, and a bank of pre-1914 poems. There was also a section of prose pieces, which could have been studied in schools which had chosen not to study a separate set text.
English: Poems from Other Cultures
GCSE English students studied all of the poems in either cluster and answered a question on them in Section A of Paper 2. In 2005, Andrew Cunningham, an English teacher at Charterhouse School complained in the Telegraph that the inclusion of the poems represented an "obsession with multi-culturalism".[4]
Cluster 1
"Limbo"
"Nothing's Changed"
"Island Man"
"Blessing"
"Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People In A Mercedes"
"Night of the Scorpion"
"Vultures"
"What Were They Like?"
Cluster 2
"Search for My Tongue"
"Unrelated Incidents"
"Half Caste"
"Love After Love"
"This Room"
"Not My Business"
"Presents from my 'Aunts' in Pakistan"
"Hurricane Hits England"
English Literature: Poetry
Seamus Heaney
Gillian Clarke
Carol Ann Duffy
Simon Armitage
- from Book of Matches, “Mother, any distance greater than a single span”
- from Book of Matches, “My father thought it...”
- "Homecoming"
- "November"
- "Kid"
- from Book of Matches, “Those bastards in their mansions”
- from Book of Matches, “I've made out a will; I'm leaving myself”
- "Hitcher"
- "The Manhunt"
Pre-1914 Poetry Bank
"On My First Sonne"
"The Song of the Old Mother"
"The Affliction of Margaret"
"The Little Boy Lost" and "The Little Boy Found"
"Tichborne's Elegy"
"The Man He Killed"
"Patrolling Barnegat"
Sonnet 130 - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"
"My Last Duchess"
"The Laboratory"
"Ulysses"
"The Village Schoolmaster"
"The Eagle"
Sonnet - “I love to see the summer...”
"Ozymandias"
English Literature: Prose
"Flight"
"Superman and Paula Brown's New Snowsuit"
"Your Shoes"
"Growing Up"
"The End of Something"
"Chemistry"
"Snowdrops"
2008 Reissued Anthology
In 2008 the Anthology was reissued without "Education for Leisure" following complaints about its reference to knives and concerns about rising levels of knife crime in schools.[5] In the new Anthology the poem was replaced with a "This page is left intentionally blank" notice. After removing "Education for Leisure" from the anthology the exam board was accused of censorship.[6]
2010 Anthology
The fifth anthology was produced for first teaching in 2010.[7]
The anthology includes poems under the heading "Moon on the Tides" and prose under the heading "Sunlight on the Grass".[8] Some of the poems are by authors of poems in the first anthology such as Agard and Armitage.
The poetry anthology was divided into four clusters, titled "Character and voice",[9] "Place",[10] "Conflict",[11] and "Relationships".[12]
Poems
Character and voice
- 'The Clown Punk' by Simon Armitage
- 'Checking Out Me History' by John Agard
- 'Horse Whisperer' by Andrew Forster
- 'Medusa' by Carol Ann Duffy
- 'Singh Song!' by Daljit Nagra
- 'Brendon Gallacher' by Jackie Kay
- 'Give' by Simon Armitage
- 'Les Grands Seigneurs' by Dorothy Molloy
- 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning
- 'The River God' by Stevie Smith
- 'The Hunchback in the Park' by Dylan Thomas
- 'The Ruined Maid' by Thomas Hardy
- 'Casehistory: Alison (head injury)' by U. A. Fanthorpe
- 'On a Portrait of a Deaf Man' by John Betjeman
Place
- 'The Blackbird of Glanmore' by Seamus Heaney
- 'A Vision' by Simon Armitage
- 'The Moment' by Margaret Atwood
- 'Cold Knap Lake' by Gillian Clarke
- 'Price We Pay for the Sun' by Grace Nichols
- 'Neighbours' by Gillian Clarke
- 'Crossing the Loch' by Kathleen Jamie
- 'Hard Water' by Jean Sprackland
- 'London' by William Blake
- 'The Prelude' extract by William Wordsworth
- 'The Wild Swans at Coole' by W. B. Yeats
- 'Spellbound' by Emily Brontë
- 'Below the Green Corrie' by Norman MacCaig
- 'Storm in the Black Forest' by D. H. Lawrence
- 'Wind' by Ted Hughes
Conflict
Relationships
Modern Prose
2015 Anthology
The newest edition of the anthology was produced for first teaching in 2015,[13] [14] in line with the reformed GCSE English Literature qualification. The anthology includes poems under the title "Poems Past and Present", and prose under the title "Telling Tales".
The poetry anthology is divided into two clusters - "Love and Relationships" and "Power and Conflict".
Poems Past and Present
Love and Relationships
Power and Conflict
- 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- 'London' by William Blake
- 'The Prelude' extract by William Wordsworth
- 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning
- 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- 'Exposure' by Wilfred Owen
- 'Storm on the Island' by Seamus Heaney
- 'Bayonet Charge' by Ted Hughes
- 'Remains' by Simon Armitage
- 'Poppies' by Jane Weir
- 'War Photographer' by Carol Ann Duffy
- 'Tissue' by Imtiaz Dharker
- 'The Emigrée' by Carol Rumens
- 'Checking Out Me History' by John Agard
- 'Kamikaze' by Beatrice Garland
Telling Tales
- 'Chemistry' by Graham Swift
- 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' by DH Lawrence
- 'My Polish Teacher's Tie' by Helen Dunmore
- 'Korea' by John McGahern
- 'A Family Supper' by Kazuo Ishiguro
- 'Invisible Mass of the Back Row' by Claudette Williams
- 'The Darkness Out There' by Penelope Lively
See also
- Poetry Live, events where poets perform their poetry for school children
References
- Web site: The NEAB/AQA English Anthology. Moore. Andrew. Justice. Sue. 2000. Universal Teacher. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20201105231705/http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/gcse/anthology.htm. 2020-11-05. 2021-02-26.
- Web site: Teachers' Virtual English Department. Moore. Andrew. 2001. Universal Teacher. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200113050000/http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/virtualschool/default.htm. 2020-01-13. 2021-02-26.
- Web site: Teachit.co.uk . 2009-08-20 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110818172452/http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/anthology/seamusheaney.htm . 2011-08-18 . dead .
- News: No prayers nor bells for the finest. Cunningham. Andrew. 2005-12-17. 2019-12-22. en-GB. 0307-1235. 2020-11-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20201117202406/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3352504/No-prayers-nor-bells-for-the-finest.html. live.
- News: The Guardian . Top exam board asks schools to destroy book containing knife poem . 15 July 2018 . 4 September 2008 . 18 January 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130118051106/http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/04/gcses.english . live .
- News: Top exam board asks schools to destroy book containing knife poem. Curtis. Polly. 2008-09-03. The Guardian. 2019-12-22. editor. education. en-GB. 0261-3077. 2013-01-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20130118051106/http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/04/gcses.english. live.
- Web site: 2010-03-30 . AQA - Anthology Zone - Home page . 2022-06-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100330032903/http://anthology.aqa.org.uk/ . 30 March 2010 . dead.
- AQA, https://anthology.aqa.org.uk/
- Web site: 2010-03-31 . AQA - Anthology Zone - Character and voice . 2022-06-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100331051423/http://anthology.aqa.org.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=15 . 31 March 2010 . dead.
- Web site: 2010-03-31 . AQA - Anthology Zone - Place . 2022-06-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100331052840/http://anthology.aqa.org.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=14 . 31 March 2010 . dead.
- Web site: 2010-03-31 . AQA - Anthology Zone - Conflict . 2022-06-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100331054041/http://anthology.aqa.org.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=11 . 31 March 2010 . dead.
- Web site: 2010-03-31 . AQA - Anthology Zone - Relationships . 2022-06-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100331051417/http://anthology.aqa.org.uk/index.asp?CurrMenu=12 . 31 March 2010 . dead.
- Web site: Anthology: AQA Anthology of Poetry - poems past and present . 2022-06-28 . www.aqa.org.uk . en.
- Web site: Anthology: AQA Anthology - telling tales . 2022-06-28 . www.aqa.org.uk . en.
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