Who says you can’t just enjoy a text?

So you’re studying Literature in Year 12?

When the Results Day dust and drama settles, and studying English Literature at A Level evolves from dream to reality, one of the first questions many students start asking is:

What are we actually going to study?

The specifications for the various exam boards in England and Wales offer schools plenty of rich and varied choices, but trying to work out what your school has chosen from the specification can feel rather intimidating, as well as being pointless.

So my first piece of advice is simple:

Ask your English department for the reading list. As soon as you can. Now.

Well, obviously not NOW. I hope you’ll finish reading this before you send that email.

If there’s anything more exciting than a reading list at the beginning of a school year, you need to let me know.

With the list, you can start reading.

Notice I said ‘reading’?

First time with a text? READ it. Don’t ‘study’ it.

One of the differences you’ll find in the months ahead is that A Level wants to know what you think in considerably more depth and detail than you’re probably used to at GCSE. You’ll come to know that as Assessment Objective 1 …

Your own ideas, responses and interpretations matter.

The trouble is that too many students begin reading their new texts as analysts rather than readers.

Writing this article, I’ve had a sudden realisation why so many people claim that studying Literature ‘destroyed’ their love of reading.

Did they actually ‘read‘ anything on their courses, or did they try to ‘revise’ a text first time round?

The clue’s in the word, people: RE-vise. Literally to look again.

They highlight similes.

They underline metaphors.

They make notes in the margins.

They hunt for things that might be useful in an essay.

Without EVER searching their own feelings, as Darth Vader might say …

They don’t enjoy the process, or the text.

And then, four weeks before the exam, they look at a page and think:

Why on earth did I highlight that?

You do not have to be like that.

There is a time for analysing a metaphor. There is a time for thinking about context. There is a time for building an argument around a quotation.

But the first time you meet a new novel, play or poetry collection, I’d suggest doing something a lot simpler.

Read it.

Read it for what happens.

Read it for the people you meet.

Read it for the things that surprise, annoy, intrigue or unsettle you.

Read it for the bits you don’t understand, and the questions the writer plants in your head.

And, yes, read it for the things you (hopefully) really like.

Avoid the Introductory Material … for now.

I almost choked typing that sentence.

Most of you will have been recommended copies which have all sorts of ‘added value’. They’re worth the extra couple of quid, believe me.

How? A short anecdote: with a student I knew pretty well, I once spent 10 minutes riffing on the life and times of John Donne. OK, call it 15 minutes. At the end, she asked:

How do you know so much about him?

My answer was that everything I said was included in the introductory material in her copy of the poems. We laughed (I said I knew her well), but the point was serious.

Timelines, essays, biographies – they are all hugely useful when it comes to AO3 and AO5 in particular. But they too often contain spoilers which are going to influence your ‘cold reading’ experience.

Reading them is important. But don’t let them colour that precious first read.

Your first reaction doesn’t have to be clever. 

“I really don’t like this character” is a perfectly respectable starting point. You can work out why later. And if your mind changes over time, don’t you think that’s absolute gold for an essay about that person?

The important thing is that you actually encounter the text before you start turning it into an examination object.

Of course, there is one problem with simply reading…

You are going to forget things.

Not because you aren’t intelligent.

Not because you weren’t paying attention.

Because you’re a human being.

So how do you leave yourself a trail back into the book?

I’m glad you asked me. That’s where the Synopsis Method comes in.

The Synopsis Method?

I’ve been using this technique for several years now, both personally and with students.

Ignore the fancy name. It’s very simple.

At the end of each chapter – or another suitable chunk, such as a scene in a play or a poem in an anthology – close the book and write a synopsis of what you’ve just read.

Give yourself about 100 words and roughly three or four minutes.

Don’t worry about making it beautiful.

Don’t worry about making it sound academic.

Just write.

---

Aim to include two things:

1. Your reaction.

What did you think? How did you feel? Who did you like or dislike? What surprised you? What seemed strange?

2. What happened.

Give yourself a concise summary of what you’ve just read. If a particular word or quotation has stayed with you, include it.

---

Then open the book again.  Check that you’ve got the important things.  Add anything you’ve missed.

Now I think about it, add the page number from the edition you’re using. It’s nearly always handy later.

That’s it.

No special software.

No enormous revision timetable.

No elaborate colour-coding system for highlights. 

Best of all? Well, the Synopsis Method is free …

Why does this work?

Quite a lot is happening in those three or four minutes.

First, you’re remembering.

With the book closed, you’re not simply copying information from the page. You’re having to retrieve what you’ve just read – a much more useful memory activity

Then you’re selecting.

A hundred words isn’t much space. You have to decide what matters.

That’s useful practice in itself: good academic writing depends on being able to select and express what matters concisely.

You’re also recording your own response.

Those little judgements — naively, unsettling, unlikeable — are the beginnings of your own interpretations.

You’re not trying to remember what somebody else has told you the text means. You’re creating a record of your own encounter with it. Joining the dots comes later.

And you’re practising writing quickly.

Three or four minutes isn’t long. Your exam self will be grateful for that practice when the clock is ticking and your wrist has decided it’s done quite enough writing for one day.

Most importantly, you’re creating a map of the text.

Keep all your synopses together in one document for each text or poetry collection. By the time you’ve finished reading, you’ll have a chapter-by-chapter record of your journey through the book — written in your own words, containing your own reactions, and sprinkled with quotations you’ve actually noticed yourself.

That is an incredibly useful revision resource.

And YOU have built it.

Because there’s more to life than just books (or so I have been told …)

I’ve spent many years teaching A Level, but I’ve also been a KS5 Form Tutor.

And one of the things you learn very quickly is that Years 12 and 13 aren’t simply two years in which students sit around reading books and writing essays.

Sixth form brings more independence, more responsibility and, for many students, the first real sense that life after school is beginning to take shape. There are a huge number of things competing for your attention.

There might be university applications. A job. Learning to drive. Relationships.

New freedoms. New responsibilities. And, somehow, several other subjects that expect you to remember things too. 

So you might finish Frankenstein in September and not think about it again until November.

Or January.

Or, ahem, the week before the mock.

Life will interrupt.

And when you come back to the novel, how useful will it be to have a short synopsis of the last chapter or two your read, written in your own words, with the things that caught your attention? Or, actually, of the whole text?

OK, OK, show me an example

Let’s take Frankenstein.

One of those novels that everyone thinks they know. Which, of course, is not quite the same thing as knowing the novel. Especially not for A Level purposes.

Here’s my entry for Letter I (page 15):

R Walton (who?) writes to sister from Petersburgh. Against her (female) ‘evil forebodings’ he’s started on a long-held (6 yrs) ambition to be first to the north pole.

Unlikeable? A dreamer who originally wanted to be the next ‘Homer’/‘Shakespeare’. Naively imagines NP as free of snow / ice because sun never sets (relies on questionable reports). Is sun going to be a metaphor for knowledge?

Hubris everywhere: talks of ‘enterprise’, and ‘undertaking’. Suggests he ‘deserves’ to ‘accomplish some great purpose’. Privileged: admits ‘preferring glory’ to life of ease.

Onward journey is dangerous – effusively promises to write again at next stage.

[about 100 words]

---

You’ll see that this isn’t an essay.

It isn’t even particularly polished. Not even a single paragraph or ‘proper’ sentences.

Good.

It isn’t supposed to be. It’s a record of what I’m thinking while I’m reading.

A few things to notice.

I’ve omitted Margaret Saville’s name because, at this point, it doesn’t seem particularly relevant to my understanding of what is happening. I can always add it later.

I’ve put R Walton (who?) at the top because I don’t yet know how important Walton is going to be to the narrative. In fact, we don’t really understand his place in the story until Letter IV.

A question mark doesn’t mean I’ve failed to understand the text. It means I’ve found something I’m not yet sure about.

And look at the words which record my reaction:

Those are useful little pieces of interpretation waiting for me when I return to the novel.

I’m also, without really working very hard at it, beginning to build a bank of quotations.

That’s useful too. More than useful. And sometimes – often – one remembered word, well chosen, is all you need.

Perhaps the most important thing is this:

I haven’t tried to make the notes perfect.

They’re for me. And your notes and annotations are for you – we all develop our own codes (mine will definitely feature in a future post, if that’s helpful) .

They’re a trail of breadcrumbs back through the book.

You can make sense of your notes later

Once you have read the whole novel, you might begin to say something like this … when it counts.

‘In the novel’s epistolatory opening, Walton acts as a kind of forerunner for Victor: our early doubts about his knowledge, motivations, and hubristic claim that he ‘deserves’ to ‘accomplish some great purpose’ are echoed when Frankenstein begins his work. In this, Shelley seem to suggest a fundamental tendency of humanity, where Victor is not an outlier, but a typical example. This is part of the way in which the novel functions as warning as well as shocking entertainment.’  

---

More importantly, when you eventually put Frankenstein away (or Hamlet, or The Handmaid’s Tale, or whichever texts you’re studying) how useful will it be to have left yourself a map?

Studying Literature isn’t just about what you understand on exam day. Your first read is incredibly valuable, which is part of the reason why I attempt a ‘cold reading’ of the First 100 Words of important novels every Friday evening. In fact, I recently looked at Frankenstein.

But it’s also about making it easier for your future self to understand it again, remembering how you felt, what you thought, and if your notes are useful, which words prompted them. Deciding whether it’s a simile or a metaphor can surely wait – for now, you need to remember how you reacted.

And most importantly, you need to remember why you liked reading enough to choose English Literature at A Level.

Any other suggestions?

Lots, obviously!

But right here, right now? I’m more interested in your questions … ?