• The Year 9 English Assessment will take place in lessons during the Assessment period

• Your examination will last for 1 hour

• The Year 9 English assessment will be based on the Gothic Literature unit of work covered over the current term and will also draw on knowledge aquired during Year 7 and Year 8. 

Year 9 English - Gothic Assessment 2026

There is a total of 50 marks available, with the assessment divided into the following sections: 

• Section A - Reading and Analysis (25 marks) 

• Section B - Creative Writing (25 marks) 

Section A - Reading and Analysis

Students will read a Gothic extract - it is one that you have already studied in class. 

There will be a glossary available to support your understanding of the extract.

You will answer some short questions about the extract before moving on to analysis. For this, you will be given a thesis statement and will need to find quotations to match each epithet (or big idea) in the extract. You must then analyse each quotation they select. 

Strong answers will examine specific language and structural methods, explore imagery and specific word choices too.

You will connect these techniques to the character and consider the effect they have on the reader.

Section B - Creative Writing

Students will be given a prompt and asked to write the opening of a gothic story. 

You are expected to include a range of sentence types, vocabulary, punctuation and language and structural methods.

Strong answers will use paragraphs to organise their writing effectively, use grammar correctly and show an understanding of gothic conventions. 

It is expected that you should be able to write a story that is about two-pages long.