Hi guys! Welcome back or welcome if you’re new! Today’s blog post is actually part of a new school-themed series on my blog where I’m going to do separate posts on each subject (maybe not maths) and how I’m revising for each one. I thought I would start off with my favourite subject – English Literature. I’ll be going through how I revise and learn all my English texts by myself in preparation for my exams…
quote flashcards

Not that this is in any particular order but for my English texts the first thing I tend to do is make flashcards on the key quotes from the texts. If you are quite new to the text you are studying, I would recommend using Quizlet. Quizlet is an app where you can find flashcards made by other students about pretty much any topics/texts you’d like, just search it up. This way you can search something like ‘(insert text name) quotes’ and find pre-picked key quotes without having to go through the whole book. If you want you can also use the app the study the flashcards or, like I do, copy them up on paper flashcards. I like making these very early on – I made my Macbeth ones in Year 9 and now I can remember the quotes quite well as I’ve had them for a long time. Make them and learn them early!!
annotating the text

This is optional and I don’t put too much pressure on myself to do this but recently I bought new annotatable copies of the books I’m studying – Macbeth, An Inspector Calls and A Christmas Carol – so I have space when reading to make my own insights and thoughts into what it says. Linking to my last point, this also makes it easier to find quotes you individually have lots of ideas about. Obviously it’s not very necessary compared to other things but definitely read the text once or twice by yourself before the final exams so you can remember everything chronologically.
act mindmaps/summaries
This is something I’ve done recently for An Inspector Calls is make A3 mindmaps with ideas and key events from each act/chapter/stave. The way I make these is by using the CGP revision guide on whatever text you’re studying and going to the section where it talks about all the main parts of the play and which chapters they fall in. I like to highlight the quotes on my mindmaps and use a different colour pen to write where different themes/context points are shown in the play. It is kind of hard to explain but hopefully the pictures make more sense!!
theme/character notes

For every subject, I have a separate notebook aside from my class exercise book to write my revision notes in so when I revised An Inspector Calls I took notes from my tuition classes on it and my own independent notes which I find from memory and most of the time my CGP guide. For taking notes on the themes I like to make them about how something is displayed throughout the play/text, how it develops, specific parts where it is shown and quotes. For taking notes on characters the main thing I like to focus on how the characters’ manner and viewpoints develop throughout the play and I also write a few select quotes for the character in a different colour.
I’m not sure if you do the same texts as me but if you do I’ll link all the resources mentioned below and if you don’t it’s very easy to find equivalents to everything on Amazon:
Macbeth annotatable copy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1796632619/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
An Inspector Calls annotatable copy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1909608408/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
A Christmas Carol annonatable copy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1075347556/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Macbeth CGP Revision Guide: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1841461164/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
An Inspector Calls CGP Revision Guide: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1841461156/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
A Christmas Carol CGP Revision Guide: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782943099/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/en-gb
And that’s the first installment of my new little series! Let me know what subjects you want next! I hope it was helpful but feel free to ask any questions about resources or other specific things in the comments! Like and follow for more content like this! Link and stuff below.
Keep Smiling and Goodbye 🙂
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