Hello.
Welcome to the IGCSE English site for Mr Boucher's IGCSE English classes. All the tabs above refer to different elements and areas of study for the course. If you can't see what you're after, click on "more..." and that will give you more options (especially the Literature sections).
This page you're on now is designed to be your one-stop administrative shop for your Language and Literature courses. You want syllabus details? I got syllabus details. Mark schemes? Check. Overview of the year? All over it. How the exam works? No problems! You get the picture...
Important materials, then, but let's face it - low on excitement, and almost entirely bereft of passion. Not the most attractive start to this site.
So, before giving you all the bureaucratic materials, let's just remember (or realise for the first time) why this subject matters so much, and why we do it in the first place.
“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.” (Elizabeth Drew)
Why study English? Elizabeth’s Drew’s reason is pretty convincing – that the focus and purpose of life is sharpened through the study of literature. If that is not enough for you, though, here is another:
“Books are the carriers of civilisation. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” (Barbara W. Tuchman)
So books, and the study of English, civilise us - they make us better human beings, more aware of ourselves in the contexts of time. Another, in the words of Cyril Connolly:
“While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.”
Escapism, then - but an escapism that makes us appreciate, rather than avoid, life. Another - Salman Rushdie:
“Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.”
So books and English help us feel - they make us not just intellectually able, but more emotionally attuned to cope with the world.
Not bad for one subject.
Here is a final quote, by John Williams, from a novel of his called Stoner, which I recently discovered this summer and have become rather obsessed by. It describes why an English teacher loves English.
“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.”
That's what I love about English too: that from these little symbols, these weaving black lines on a page, from these letters and words erupt emotions and ideas and dreams and despair. The best words - written by wonderful poets, wonderful novelists, wonderful storytellers, wonderful students - make me tremble. These letters make words, which make sounds, which carry meaning, which inspire emotion, and those emotions leave a physical mark, tracking their way through my body – a tingle down my back; the hairs on my arm, humming and vibrating; a catch in my throat. I am seized by words; transported, bewildered, beguiled, emboldened by words; stilled by words; alive by words.
And everyone should feel that. That is why we study English. That is why I teach it. That is what I hope you will get from it.
So. The admin!
For a full picture, check the subject section on the school website: www.ackworthschool.com/english
Here are a whole host of important materials. Any questions, fill in the form below, or just email me.
Welcome to the IGCSE English site for Mr Boucher's IGCSE English classes. All the tabs above refer to different elements and areas of study for the course. If you can't see what you're after, click on "more..." and that will give you more options (especially the Literature sections).
This page you're on now is designed to be your one-stop administrative shop for your Language and Literature courses. You want syllabus details? I got syllabus details. Mark schemes? Check. Overview of the year? All over it. How the exam works? No problems! You get the picture...
Important materials, then, but let's face it - low on excitement, and almost entirely bereft of passion. Not the most attractive start to this site.
So, before giving you all the bureaucratic materials, let's just remember (or realise for the first time) why this subject matters so much, and why we do it in the first place.
“The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.” (Elizabeth Drew)
Why study English? Elizabeth’s Drew’s reason is pretty convincing – that the focus and purpose of life is sharpened through the study of literature. If that is not enough for you, though, here is another:
“Books are the carriers of civilisation. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” (Barbara W. Tuchman)
So books, and the study of English, civilise us - they make us better human beings, more aware of ourselves in the contexts of time. Another, in the words of Cyril Connolly:
“While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.”
Escapism, then - but an escapism that makes us appreciate, rather than avoid, life. Another - Salman Rushdie:
“Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.”
So books and English help us feel - they make us not just intellectually able, but more emotionally attuned to cope with the world.
Not bad for one subject.
Here is a final quote, by John Williams, from a novel of his called Stoner, which I recently discovered this summer and have become rather obsessed by. It describes why an English teacher loves English.
“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.”
That's what I love about English too: that from these little symbols, these weaving black lines on a page, from these letters and words erupt emotions and ideas and dreams and despair. The best words - written by wonderful poets, wonderful novelists, wonderful storytellers, wonderful students - make me tremble. These letters make words, which make sounds, which carry meaning, which inspire emotion, and those emotions leave a physical mark, tracking their way through my body – a tingle down my back; the hairs on my arm, humming and vibrating; a catch in my throat. I am seized by words; transported, bewildered, beguiled, emboldened by words; stilled by words; alive by words.
And everyone should feel that. That is why we study English. That is why I teach it. That is what I hope you will get from it.
So. The admin!
For a full picture, check the subject section on the school website: www.ackworthschool.com/english
Here are a whole host of important materials. Any questions, fill in the form below, or just email me.
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