100 books you should read before you leave secondary school... how many have you read?

Year 12 - you don't have long left to get through this list! Maybe after the exams you could pick one of these and enjoy.

If I had to make the list 101 books, I would have to add The Otori Trilogy by Lian Hearne (Across the Nightingale Floor is the first). If you read it, let me know!

What does Judith Butler mean.. we 'perform' gender?

Straight from the horse's mouth... listen to Judith Butler explaining what she means when she says that we 'perform' gender. Don't forget, the Diversity approach (which Butler is part of) should form a large part of your revision - you need to know it in detail.

Do Men interrupt more?

I came across this interesting article this week and it's a really good example of an article written about language and gender for a non-specialist audience. In particular, notice the way the writer introduces Deborah Tannen and discusses what her research tells us. Also, notice how the writer refers to the original article that she is responding to - we spoke about this in class and this is a good example of how to refer to the source material you might be given.

Year 12 Revision for Paper 2

Article Writing - beyond level 3

A very respected English Language Teacher has written this useful blog about the mark scheme for Paper 2. It would be well worth a look as part of your revision.

Year 12 Useful youtube videos - Revision for AO1

Here's a link to a series of videos that have been produced by a Linguistics department. Their aim is to help students understand certain aspects of grammar, such as auxiliary verbs and subjects / objects. They are aimed at slightly younger students, but as such, the explanations they use are really clear.

Englicious Videos

Year 12 Link to AQA specification

A couple of people have asked me for an overview of the course. This is the place to get it.

Year 12 Practice Gender article

If you want to practise writing some articles, here's another question to try. Remember to take on board your TARGETS from your last article and incorporate what you did in your DIRT.


Sample article question

English Language Class 12B (Mrs Desai and Miss Moody) - new lesson time

If any of you happen to read this, please can you spread the word that our lesson times will be changing after Easter. This is a permanent change.

Our lessons will now be:
Wednesday period 1 - New Block Physics
Friday period 2  (same as before)

We will no longer be having a lesson on a Thursday.

You should receive an email about this from the Sixth Form team, but please do spread the word in case people don't check these emails.

Thank you!
Mrs Desai

Is txting killing our language?

What does LOL actually mean? 'Lots of love'? Yes, if you are my Grandad and you are writing it at the bottom of an email. 'Laughs out loud'? Yes, often. 

In this video, though, John Mcwhorter argues that the meaning of LOL has evolved. Useful for thinking about Pragmatics, Language Change for next year, chatroom contexts for the exams, and just interesting for budding linguists.

Is Txting killing our language?