Literature in English
Curriculum Objectives
The aims of the Literature in English curriculum are to enable learners to:
- appreciate and enjoy a wide range of literary or creative texts and other related cultural forms;
- develop their capacity for critical thinking, creativity, self-expression, personal growth, empathy and cultural understanding;
- enhance their awareness of the relationship between literature and the society;
- develop a greater sensitivity to the nuances of the English language; and
- be adequately prepared for areas of further study or work, where qualities promoted in the study of literature, such as creativity, critical thinking and inter-cultural understanding, are highly valued.
Curriculum Framework
The syllabus is based on the study of one set of texts, which will vary over time. The set offers a choice of one of two novels, one of two plays, one of two films, a set of short stories selected from a given volume and a set of poems selected from a given volume. The texts will be examined as follows:
| Genre | Paper(s) |
|---|---|
| Novels | 1 Part I Section A, Part II & 2 Section A (text analysis) |
| Plays | 1 Part I Section B, Part II & 2 Section A (text analysis) |
| Films | 1 Part I Section C, Part II |
| Short stories | 1 Part I Section D, Part II |
| Poetry | 2 Section B (comparison of works by one or more poets) |
Set texts (HKDSE 2020)
Novels
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee OR The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Plays
- The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare OR The Crucible, Arthur Miller
Films
- The Remains of the Day (1993) Dir: James Ivory OR Vertigo (1958) Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Short stories
- Fiction: A Pocket Anthology (7th Edition) ed. R.S. Gwynn. Penguin Academics (2014).
- Raymond Carver: ‘Cathedral’
- Alice Walker: ‘Everyday Use’
- Alice Munro: ‘The Bear Came over the Mountain’
- Margaret Atwood: ‘Happy Endings’
- Washington Irving: ‘Rip Van Winkle’
- James Joyce: ‘Araby’
- Eudora Welty: ‘A Memory’
- Gish Jen: ‘In the American Society’
Poetry
- From The Rattle Bag ed. S. Heaney & T. Hughes, Faber and Faber
- John Keats: ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, ‘To Autumn’
- Sylvia Plath:‘Crossing the Water’, ‘Mushrooms’, ‘Poppies in July’
- Dylan Thomas:‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Poem in October’, ‘The hand that signed the paper felled a city’
- Wallace Stevens: ‘Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock’, ‘Earthy Anecdote’, ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’
- William Carlos Williams: ‘Flowers by the Sea’, ‘The Last Words of My English Grandmother’, ‘Raleigh Was Right’