IGCSE English Literature (Online Classes)

The syllabus enables learners to read, interpret and evaluate texts through the study of literature in English. Learners develop an understanding of literal meaning, relevant contexts and of the deeper themes or attitudes that may be expressed. Through their studies, they learn to recognise and appreciate the ways in which writers use English to achieve a range of effects, and will be able to present an informed, personal response to the material they have studied.

Course Content

1 Section A: Poetry

Maya Angelou, ‘Caged Bird’
Elizabeth Barret Browning, ‘Sonnet 43’
Sujata Bhatt, ‘Muliebrity’
Boey Kim Cheng, ‘The Planners’
Isobel Dixon, ‘Plenty’
Rosemary Dobson, ‘The Three Fates’
Robert Hayden, ‘Those Winter Sundays’
Seamus Heaney, ‘Mid-Term Break’
Mervyn Morris, ‘Little Boy Crying’
Norman Nicholson, ‘Rising Five’
Adrienne Rich, ‘Amends’
Edna St. Vincent Millay, ‘Sonnet 29’
Dennis Scott, ‘Marrysong’
Stevie Smith, ‘Not Waving But Drowning’
William Wordsworth, ‘She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways’

Robert Browning, ‘Love in a Life’
Lauris Edmond, ‘Waterfall’
A R D Fairburn, ‘Rhyme of the Dead Self’
James Joyce, ‘I Hear an Army’
Philip Bourke Marston, ‘After’
Charlotte Mew, ‘Rooms’
Mary Monck (‘Marinda’), ‘Verses Written on Her Death-bed at Bath to Her Husband in London’
Alexander Pope, ‘From An Essay on Criticism’
Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples’
Algernon Charles Swinburne, ‘A Leave-Taking’
Elizabeth Thomas (‘Corinna’), ‘The Forsaken Wife’
Derek Walcott, ‘Nearing Forty’
Henry Wotton, ‘The Character of a Happy Life’
Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘I Find No Peace’
Elinor Morton Wylie, ‘Now Let No Charitable Hope’

Section B: Prose

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche Purple Hibiscus
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre
Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
Henry James Washington Square
Jhumpa Lahiri The Namesake
Yann Martel Life of Pi
George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four
From Stories of Ourselves Volume 2, the following 10 stories:
no. 2 Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘Dr Heidegger’s Experiment’
no. 16 O Henry, ‘The Furnished Room’
no. 18 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ‘The Widow’s Might’
no. 25 Henry Handel Richardson, ‘And Women Must Weep’
no. 29 Marghanita Laski, ‘The Tower’
no. 31 Janet Frame, ‘The Reservoir’
no. 32 Langston Hughes, ‘Thank You M’am’
no. 41 Anjana Appachana, ‘Sharmaji’
no. 43 Yiyun Li, ‘A Thousand Years of Good Prayers’
no. 44 Segun Afolabi, ‘Mrs Mahmood’

Details of the assessment

Paper 1 – Poetry and Prose
1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks
This is a compulsory written paper. It is an externally set assessment, marked by Cambridge International.
Candidates answer two questions: one from Section A (Poetry) and one from Section B (Prose). All questions carry equal marks (25 marks each).
There is a choice of two questions on each text.
Relevant passages/poems are printed on the question paper.
Set texts for this component are listed in Section 3 of this syllabus.
Candidates may not take their set texts into the exam room.
All questions encourage an informed personal response and test all four assessment objectives.
Candidates will have to demonstrate the following:
• knowledge of the content of the text – through reference to detail and use of quotations from the text (AO1)
• understanding of characters, relationships, situations and themes (AO2)
• understanding of the writer’s intentions and methods – response to the writer’s use of language (AO3)
• personal response – sometimes directly (answering questions such as ‘What do you think?’, ‘What are your
feelings about…?’) and sometimes by implication (answering questions such as ‘Explore the ways in which…’)
(AO4).

Paper 2 – Drama
1 hour 30 minutes, 50 marks
This is an optional written paper. It is an externally set assessment, marked by Cambridge International.
Candidates answer two questions on two texts. All questions carry equal marks (25 marks each).
There is a choice of two questions on each text: either (a) a passage-based question or (b) an essay question.
Candidates must answer one passage-based question and one essay question.
Relevant passages are printed on the question paper.
Set texts for this component are listed in Section 3 of this syllabus.
Candidates may not take their set texts into the exam room.