Hi Mr Salles.
My name is Manahil and I sat my English Literature GCSE this year when I was in Year 10.
I cannot express how helpful your videos were to me when revising for this exam. Your videos and other resources helped me to attain a grade 8.
Again, thank you so much for producing effective content and I will continue to use your videos and resources for my upcoming English Language GCSE in 2024.
Kind Regards
Manahil
(she/her)
I forgot to add that I jumped from a grade 6 to my final grade 8.
The books I studied were Macbeth, Jekyll & Hyde and An Inspector Calls and I did Power and Conflict Poetry
The top things I used from your resources were
the theme videos
character specific quote videos
showing past students essays
the top grade analysis videos/ how to get top grades
the context videos
unique ideas and interpretations
In terms of what I did
I wrote pretty much everything I learnt down and then whatever was useful to me I would write down loads of times to help me remember.
For example with the poetry, I did as you said and picked 5 quotes I could say a lot about and explained it and linked it to context .
Then I explored language devices and linked it to key ideas, themes and interpretations.
Also I think by starting with the form in poetry.
And not always starting with the extract in the books.
My Thoughts
I’d like to highlight the most important word in Manahil’s revision, which is ‘link’.
In literature, you link to the method, and link the method to the author’s purpose and view about society.
In language you link the method to the way the author wants to persuade you in paper 2, or portray a character or event in paper 1.
Link, link, link.
You can see how well Manahil thinks about this in her photo - every arrow is a potential link. Notice the colour coding of methods. The coloured highlights are the most important thing to test yourself on. Then you test yourself in what you can write about them.
I’d also like to highlight that she followed my advice - starting with the extract limits your grade unless you are a genius.
‘What, Mr Salles, aren’t you going to remind us that Kindle Unlimited gives us all your guides for FREE?’
“No, not this time. I’m busy building a video course and a website to put it on. It is going to be unbelievable.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, I did say it was ‘unbelievable’!”
Thanks for motivating me Becky.
It's taken me two days of scripting, filming and editing just to do Question 2 of Paper 1! I'm hoping for November, but we'll see.
Always great to read students’ feedback, and their top tips based on your methods Dominic.
Ooh - the website and video course sound incredibly exciting; I can’t wait for that!