Teaching guide: aspects of tragedy
A range of resources to help you plan your teaching and assessment for the Aspects of tragedy component of AS and A-level English Literature B.
How to use these resources
The text overviews and sample mark schemes give you details about some of the aspects of the genre each text covers. Don't forget to consult the specification for a list of possible aspects.
These documents will help you to focus your teaching on those aspects and to work towards the relevant exam question in the sample assessment materials. The example student responses with marking commentary act as models for the students and help you to assess their work.
AS
Paper 1A, Section A
Paper 1A, Section B
Paper 2A
Text overviews
These resources give an introductory overview of how the text can be considered through the lens of tragedy.
A-level
Paper 1A, Section A
- Creating your own questions
- Exemplar student response - band 5 - King Lear
- Exemplar student response - band 3 - King Lear
- Specimen question commentary - King Lear
- Text overview - King Lear
Paper 1A, Section B
- Creating your own questions
- Exemplar student response - band 4 - Othello
- Exemplar student response - band 5 - Othello
- Specimen question commentary - Othello
- Text overview - Othello
Paper 1A, Section C
- Creating your own questions
- Exemplar student response - band 2
- Exemplar student response - band 5
- Specimen question commentary
- Text overview - Keats: 'Isabella', 'Lamia', 'The Eve of St Agnes' and 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'
- Text overview - Richard II
- Text overview - Death of a Salesman
- Text overview - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Text overviews
These resources give an introductory overview of how the text can be considered through the lens of tragedy.