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- How literature is studied: what, how and why
How literature is studied: what, how and why
At Key Stage 3 you read novels, plays and poems and talked about what happens. GCSE Literature asks you to go further: how the writer shapes the text, and why.
Three questions
What? What happens, who the characters are, what the text is about.
How? The writer's methods: language, form and structure.
Why? The ideas the writer explores (themes) and the time and place that shaped the text (context).
GCSE marks reward HOW and WHY much more than WHAT. Retelling the plot gains little.
How? The writer's methods: language, form and structure.
Why? The ideas the writer explores (themes) and the time and place that shaped the text (context).
GCSE marks reward HOW and WHY much more than WHAT. Retelling the plot gains little.
Three forms
The writer is in charge
Characters are not real people: they are constructs, created by a writer for a purpose.
So write 'Dickens presents Scrooge as...' or 'The writer presents the grandfather as...', not 'The grandfather is a nice man'.
Ask: why did the writer make this choice?
So write 'Dickens presents Scrooge as...' or 'The writer presents the grandfather as...', not 'The grandfather is a nice man'.
Ask: why did the writer make this choice?
Answer what, how and why for the practice extract.
- What: a grandfather lights a lamp every night, and after his death letters reveal it helped people.
- How: a first-person narrator; the ending is held back until the final line.
- Why: it suggests small, quiet acts of kindness can matter more than we know.
Answer: What: the nightly lamp. How: first-person narration and a twist in the final line. Why: the theme that small kindnesses have unseen effects.
GCSE Literature is about how and why, not just what. Treat characters as the writer's constructs and always ask why the writer made each choice.
The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.
Check you have got it
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