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How Tassomai's English literature course works

Combining creative thinking with a scientific multiple-choice format

After months of hard work from our content team, our key stage 4 English literature and maths courses are finally here! 

Both courses are already getting great responses from schools but some teachers are understandably sceptical about teaching a creative subject like English with the help of formulas and algorithms. The maths content fit seamlessly into our tried and tested scientific format, but English Literature presented a challenge.

To overcome any reservations English teachers may have, we thought it would be helpful to explain the process we went through as a team in order to create this content. We believe that studying English in this way is not only possible but beneficial for students and teachers. 

Increase knowledge retention

The new English content provides a broad spectrum of difficulty, ranging from simpler theme-based questions and definitions, to asking students to complete key quotations from texts and understand complex character relationships. 

At Tassomai we believe that if a student gains a strong understanding of a text’s plot, characters and key themes then they will be better equipped and more confident when taking on more creative challenges in their school work. One of the biggest barriers faced by English literature teachers is knowledge retention. There is simply not enough time in the school year for teachers to revisit texts and make sure that students remember all of the key plot points for closed-book exams. Tassomai is therefore the perfect support tool, which allows teachers to spend more time tackling in-depth analysis in lessons.

A structured approach to learning is both effective and confidence-building for students of all abilities, but this method is particularly beneficial for students who struggle with more creative, language-based subjects. Our English literature course will provide students with a strong knowledge base and understanding of the multiple texts they need to cover. This is not only a great way to revise, but also to expand a student’s knowledge. The content does more than just ask students to identify which literary devices are being used; students have to understand why techniques are used in certain contexts and the impact this has on a text. 

English literature course breakdown

Each course covers the following topics: 

  • Form, Structure and Language 

  • Characters 

  • Plot 

  • Themes 

  • Context

Form, Structure and Language is broken down into four key areas: Form, Literary devices, Vocabulary and Quotes. These sections help students to gain both a broad and specific understanding of the texts they are studying, while also growing their confidence in the subject as a whole. 

Each of these topics provides students with a specific area of study, while also ensuring that they correspond to the assessment objectives set by exam boards. For example, the context section provides students with an insight into a text’s setting, prompting students to draw on this understanding of the text’s time period in their analysis. However, we recognise that the context section (AO4) carries the fewest number of marks on exam specifications, so have ensured that this topic has fewer questions than other, more heavily-weighted topics. 

A wide variety of texts available

We are proud to have launched more than 15 novels and plays for the start of the 2020/21 academic year along with 6 poetry clusters for AQA, EDX and OCR. The texts range from Modern classics like Animal Farm and traditional Shakespeare plays, to less well known contemporary texts such as Meera Syal’s Anita and Me and Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy

You can read more about our commitment to diversity in our new English literature content in this blog post. 

We have prioritised texts that schools study the most as well as texts from BAME authors and hope to keep expanding our offering of texts over the next year. By combining texts from this creative subject with our scientific formula, it is our aim to help students study as efficiently and confidently as possible.

Tassomai is one of the only ed-tech companies adopting a scientific approach to the study of English literature and it is our hope that we will show just how effective it can be.