American literature and GCSE English: more exam boards release syllabuses

Last week we looked into the news that American books such as To Kill a Mockingbird had been dropped from OCR's draft English Literature GCSE syllabus.

New rules mean that the syllabuses produced by exam boards have to cover at least one Shakespeare play, a 19th century novel, fiction or drama from Britain after 1914, and poetry.

This had prompted the OCR exam board to drop American novels and drama from its draft syllabus in favour of British works.

Since we published our piece other exam boards have followed suit. To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Crucible do not feature on the draft syllabuses published by AQA, Eduqas, and Edexcel. The draft courses are awaiting approval from the exams regulator Ofqual.

Students will begin studying the new GCSEs in 2015, for examination in 2017.