English at University Day – Saturday 9th June 2018: 9.30am-6pm

Course Description and Rationale

This one-day course is aimed at students who are thinking of applying – or have decided to apply – to study English literature at university. It will also appeal to students in years 11, 12 and 13 who would like to experience a taste of studying literature beyond the school curriculum.

The day will provide students with an introduction to the pleasures, rewards, and challenges, of university-level work in the subject. It will familiarise course participants applying to Oxford and Cambridge with the ELAT assessment, and provide them with key strategies for preparing for, and success in, the exam in October 2018.

The day’s first class, on Greek tragedy, will introduce students to Aristotle’s theory that tragic drama evokes pity and fear, and encourage them to explore extracts from Greek tragedies with Aristotle’s ideas in mind.

The second class will take the form of a workshop on Shakespearean tragedy, encouraging students to think about what affinities Shakespeare the dramatist did – and did not – have with the ancient Greeks.

Finally, students will develop, practise, and hone, their practical criticism skills in an ELAT preparation seminar in which they will gain confidence in undertaking detailed and rigorous comparative analysis of passages of non-dramatic unseen poetry and prose.

Course Registration

To book, please download and complete the registration form, and email it to info@independent-thinkers.co.uk

Tutor Profiles

Cathy O’Neill

After graduating from St Anne’s College, Oxford with a First in English Language and Literature, Cathy completed her PGCE at the Institute of Education in London with Distinction. She also holds an MA in Renaissance Studies from Birkbeck College, London.

In a teaching career spanning thirty years she has taught at top state and independent schools, including Camden School for Girls, St Paul’s Girls’ School, and Oxford High School, where she was Head of English for many years. She has also been Head of Careers at OHS, advising students on Higher Education choices, as well as preparing them for ambitious and fulfilling working lives. She has been teaching students for Oxbridge entrance since 1982. In recent years, she has researched and presented on the ways in which students can make successful Oxbridge applications, and is regularly invited to speak at the Girls’ Day School Trust conferences on this subject.

Cathy continues to teach English at A-level and is a school advisor for The English Review. She has also been an observer on the English Literature Assessment Test (ELAT) run by Cambridge Assessment for Oxford University since its inception.

Dr Angus Vine

Angus graduated with a Double First in English Language and Literature from the University of Cambridge, where he also took his MPhil in Renaissance Literature (Distinction) and his PhD. Since then, he has held teaching and research posts at various UK universities. He was formerly Director of Studies in English at Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, where he supervised for a number of papers for the English Tripos (English Literature and its Contexts, 1500-1700, Shakespeare, Practical Criticism, and Latin) and also conducted admissions interviews, and was then Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of Sussex.

He is currently Lecturer in Early Modern Literature and Chief Examiner for English Studies at the University of Stirling. In 2005-8 he was a research fellow at the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) in Cambridge and in 2008-9 Senior Research Associate in the English Faculty at Cambridge. He has also held a fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. He is the author of *In Defiance of Time: Antiquarian Writing in England* (2010), and has recently completed his second monograph for OUP on manuscripts and the organization of knowledge in the early modern period, as well as a co-edited volume on Shakespeare and Authority for Palgrave Macmillan. In parallel, he maintains an active research interest in the history, theory and practice of education. He holds a postgraduate degree in Higher Education from the University of Sussex, in which he focused on curriculum design, and is committed in his own teaching to the implementation of established principles of pedagogical excellence and rigour. He recently won an award for outstanding teaching at Stirling.

Testimonial from ELAT course attendee of October H-T University Admissions Test & Interview Workshops

‘Dear Cal, I just wanted to let you know that Cambridge offered me a place to read English for 2018. I am so happy. […] Thank you so much for all your help with both the college info and the ELAT. Both were invaluable and helped enormously.’