Syllabus
What the examination asks of you, and how to organise a year of revision around it.
The official syllabus
The subject is Appreciation of English Literary Texts, taken in Grades 10 and 11 and examined at the Ordinary Level. The syllabus is issued by the Department of English, National Institute of Education, Maharagama, on the cycle running from 2015.
It organises the prescribed poems, short stories, drama and novels by theme rather than by genre, and builds the teaching on a four-level reading model that moves from literal understanding through inference and appreciation to personal response.
School Based Assessment on the novels
One of the three prescribed novels is assessed internally by the school as well as being examined, and the teacher chooses which. This is a requirement of the syllabus itself, so check with your teacher early which novel your school has taken for School Based Assessment.
School Based Assessment plans to download
O/L Literature: Five Sample School Based Assessment Plans
RCF English
RCF English material, free to use
On the termwise plan
The Teacher's Guide sets out competencies and an assessment structure, but it does not give an official term-by-term breakdown. Any term sequence shown on this site is an RCF suggested teaching plan, not an official one.
Check the official syllabus for your year
The prescribed texts, the structure of the paper and the choices offered are set by the examination authority and change from time to time.
Confirm the prescribed texts and the format for your own examination year against the current official syllabus. This page explains what the examination is testing and how to prepare for it; it is not an official statement of the requirements, and no website should be treated as one.
What Literature actually tests
Whatever the exact format, a Literature paper is testing four abilities. Every question is one of these in some combination.
- Do you know the text? Not every word of it, but what happens, who is involved, and where the important moments are.
- Can you find the right evidence? Given a question, can you go to the part of the text that answers it, and quote or refer to it accurately?
- Can you explain how the writing works? Naming a technique is worth little; explaining its effect on the reader is worth a great deal.
- Can you build an argument? A Literature essay is an argument with evidence, not a retelling of the story.
The two kinds of question
Context questions
A short extract is printed, followed by several short questions. They test whether you can place the extract in the text, understand what is happening at that moment, and comment briefly on the language. Answers are short — often one or two sentences. Writing a paragraph where a sentence is wanted wastes time you need elsewhere. See Context Questions.
Essay questions
A statement or a question about a whole text, to be answered in a full essay with evidence from the text. These carry the largest marks and reward planning. See Essay Questions.
How to organise a year
- Read each prescribed text once, straight through, without notes. You need the shape of it in your head before analysis will mean anything.
- Then read it again with a pencil. Mark the moments that matter: turning points, decisions, changes in a character, striking language.
- Build the fifteen sections for each text yourself, in your own notebook. Building your own notes teaches you more than reading someone else's.
- Learn ten short quotations per text, chosen because each is useful for two or three different questions.
- Write one full essay per text, timed, and correct it against a checklist.
- In the last month, revise your own written answers, not new material.