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AQA GCSE English Literature revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE English Literature 8702. Eleven of them, eleven to fourteen minutes each. Literature poses a problem no other subject on this site has. The specification names components, not texts, so two schools following it can be teaching entirely different books. Revision content then has an awkward choice: name a text and be useless to everyone teaching another, or name none and be too abstract to practise on. These take a third route. Nine of the eleven teach the method on one of four widely-taught texts, Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls and the Power and Conflict cluster, and say so on screen. The remaining two are unseen poetry, which has no set text at all.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE English Literature 8702. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The problem every Literature resource has

Most subject pages on this site can describe a course. This one cannot, quite, because AQA 8702 does not specify a course. It specifies five slots: Shakespeare, a 19th-century novel, modern prose or drama, the poetry anthology, and unseen poetry. Your department fills four of those from lists.

The consequence is that "AQA English Literature revision" means something different in every school, and any resource has to decide how to handle it.

Naming a text makes the material sharp and narrows who it serves. Naming none keeps it universal and drains it: a student cannot practise analysing an extract without an extract in front of them.

What these actually do

They take the third option, and they say so out loud rather than leaving a teacher to discover it.

Nine of the eleven activities teach the method on a named text, chosen as the most widely taught option for that component:

  • Shakespeare, three activities, worked on Macbeth.
  • The 19th-century novel, two, worked on A Christmas Carol.
  • Modern prose or drama, two, worked on An Inspector Calls.
  • The poetry anthology, two, worked on the Power and Conflict cluster.

The activity itself says this on the opening screen. The Shakespeare one tells the student it will learn the method on Macbeth as AQA's most popular choice, and that the approach works for any set play. That is a claim about method rather than content, and it is the honest version of what these can do.

The remaining two are unseen poetry, which has no set text by definition. Those two work for every school on this specification, whatever you teach.

So who is this useful to

If you teach those four texts, the activities are directly usable: the quotations, characters and context are the ones your students need.

If you teach different texts, what transfers is the method. How to mine an extract for detail and use it as a springboard into the whole text. How to keep a quotation short enough to actually memorise. How to weave context into an argument rather than bolting it on at the end, which is where AO3 marks are usually lost.

What does not transfer is everything specific. A student revising Jekyll and Hyde will not find Jekyll and Hyde quotations here. That is worth knowing before you set one for homework, rather than after a student tells you.

What the activities ask students to do

Nine of the eleven ask for written analysis or a written plan rather than only a selection, which suits a subject assessed entirely on extended writing. Eight put text on screen for the student to work on directly.

The three embedded below are playable here without an account. One is Shakespeare on Macbeth, one is theme work on An Inspector Calls, and one is unseen poetry, which needs no set text at all.

Using them

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. The activities themselves, with the recall goal spelled out, are described in ready-to-run revision activities, and for students working alone between lessons see independent revision students actually keep doing.

If you also teach the Language course, that specification has no set content at all, which is the mirror image of this one: AQA English Language revision.

To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint. Everything else we have, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

It does not cover your texts unless they are those four. The method transfers, the material does not, and no amount of framing changes that.

It does not cover the poetry anthology beyond one cluster. Power and Conflict only; if your department teaches Love and Relationships or Worlds and Lives, the two anthology activities are method practice rather than content practice.

It is eleven activities across a two-year course, so it is a supplement, not a scheme of work.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live English Literature activity for AQA

11 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE English Literature (8702).

Good for tutor time (1)

See all 11, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA English Literature 14 minutes

Extract Explorer: Shakespeare

13 steps, 5 interactive, 5 activity types.

Best used for
Starter Homework Independent study
  • Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

The witches chant "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." What is the effect of this paradox?

AQA English Literature 12 minutes

Theme Tracker

12 steps, 5 interactive, 5 activity types.

Best used for
Starter Homework Independent study
  • Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

Which character most represents ACCEPTING responsibility and changing across the play?

AQA English Literature 14 minutes

The Unseen Poetry Gym

14 steps, 6 interactive, 5 activity types.

Best used for
Starter Homework Independent study
  • Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

Read the whole of Poem A first. What is it mainly about, and what is its tone?

Common questions

Which set texts do these activities use?

Four, one per component: Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls and the Power and Conflict cluster. Nine of the eleven activities are built around one of those. They are AQA's most-taught options, and the activities say so on screen rather than pretending otherwise.

We teach different texts. Is this any use?

Partly, and it depends what you want from it. The method transfers: how to mine an extract, how to range across a whole text, how to weave context into an argument rather than bolt it on. The quotations and the characters do not. If you want your students drilling their own text's quotations, these are not that.

Is anything here text-independent?

Yes, two activities. Unseen poetry has no set text by definition, so those two work for every school on this specification regardless of what you teach.

How is the coverage spread?

Eleven activities, eleven to fourteen minutes each. Three on Shakespeare, two each on the 19th-century novel, modern prose or drama, the poetry anthology and unseen poetry.

Do they involve actual writing?

Nine of the eleven ask students to produce written analysis or a plan rather than only select an answer, and eight put text on screen to be worked on directly.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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Related for teachers

  • AQA GCSE English Language revision for teachers Every live AQA GCSE English Language (8700) revision activity. It is the one specification here with no subject content in it, which changes what revision can even mean, and this page is honest about what that costs.
  • Independent revision students actually keep doing What keeps a student revising when nobody is watching, what DoRevision does about it, and where the limits of that are. Written for the teacher who has run out of ways to chase Year 11 in April.
  • Ready-to-run GCSE revision activities A working list of GCSE revision activities, each with the thing it makes students recall, the moment they find out whether they were right, and what they do about it. Some run on a screen and some need nothing but a board.