Course Outline

The English A: Language and Literature SL course focuses on the complex and dynamic nature of language. Students develop critical literacy through the exploration of the role of language in communication, their role as producers of language, and the various ways language choice, texts types and literary forms, and contextual elements all effect meaning.   Students examine and analyze a wide variety of literary forms and non-literary text types throughout the course.

The teacher of English A:  Language and Literature SL must select a total of four works.  A minimum of one work originally written in English, and a minimum of one work originally written in a language other than English, from works found in the IB Prescribed Reading List (PRL).  Two works can be freely chosen from the PRL or elsewhere. There are three areas of exploration:  Readers, writers and texts; time and space; and intertextuality: connecting texts.  The works selected cover the areas of exploration and must cover a range of literary forms, periods, and countries or regions.

The final grade comprises an external component of 70 percent and an internal component of 30 percent. The internal component (30 percent) is an individual recorded oral commentary which requires students to respond to an extract from works studied.  The external component (70 percent) is a final examination which consists of two papers; paper one requires students to write one guided literary analysis on one of two non-literary passages presented; paper two requires students to write a comparative essay based on two works studied.

For more information please go to: https://ibo.org/