Possible literary works

 Have you dealt with any of these authors in depth in MYP or pre-IB?
* Wilfred Owen OR Joy Harjo OR Seamus Heaney

* Kate Chopin

* Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

* Hendrik Ibsen

* Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

* Ian McEwan

Assessment of exam-like papers

The maximum mark you can get for a subject in IB is 7.

To achieve that, SHOW OFF your knowledge!

One way of looking at whether you are there already is to assess your work and deduce points for the following:

* illegible handwriting

* no quotes (neither direct nor indirect)

* not answering the guiding question (and not providing your own, either)

* factual mistakes

* being informal and personal

* inconsistency of style

* illogical tense use

* logic hard to follow

* excessive grammar / vocabulary / spelling problems

* a strain on the reader

* no paragraphing

Colour coding texts

 When you read something your classmates have written, follow these coding rules:

1) Use BLUE to mark any discourse markers, linkers, reader clues, i.e. anything that makes it easy for the reader to read, follow the logic and the organisation.
2) Use GREEN to mark any input that has to be there.
3) Use PINK to mark analysis, anything original the writer of this text has added to the knowledge, anything that could be called "insightful", which is a word IB uses to characterise such papers that would earn top marks.
4) Use YELLOW to mark literary jargon (e.g. words like narrator, metaphor, etc).
For assessing someone's the work, use the marking scales in the subject guide.
See that the person has followed the PEE rule (= POINT + EXAMPLE + EXPLANATION).
Add comments on their general use of language. If you know how to correct a specific mistake, correct it. Explanations are welcome. If you think something is wrong but you don't know how to correct it, add a comment to that effect.

Exam papers

Paper 1 is an examination using unseen non-literary texts assessed externally. You are supposed to write a guided textual analysis about one (SL) or both (HL) of the texts provided.

Each text comes with with a guiding question, which will be about a technical or formal aspect of the text.  You do not have to answer the guiding question, and you can propose your own line of argument about the text, it must be focused on a particular aspect that provides focus to the analysis. 
Passages for analysis may be complete pieces of writing or extracts from larger works, or from a visual text or an extract from a longer piece (e.g. advertisements, opinion columns, brochures, extracts, etc. Check the Subject Guide for more examples.
Paper 1 counts for 35% of the final grade, out of 20 marks for SL and 40 marks for HL.

Paper 2 consists of four essay questions (the same for SL/HL, and graded externally using the same criteria), only one of which must be answered during 1 hour and 45 min. You need to use two of the literary works not used in other assessments in the course for it.  Although the questions are bound to change from exam to exam, they will be broad in nature allowing a wide and diverse set of literary works to be used. 
Some sample questions, quoted from InThinking:
1. Referring to two of the works you have studied, discuss both how and why the text invites the reader to identify with situations, characters and/or ideas.
2. Often the appeal for the reader of a literary work is the atmosphere a writer creates (for example, peaceful, menacing or ironic). Discuss some of the ways atmospheres are conveyed and to what effect in two of the works you have studied.
3. Writers often choose words, phrases and names of characters and places not only for their literal meaning, but for further meanings that they may suggest to the reader. With reference to two of the works you have studied, discuss how such words and their associations contribute to your understanding and appreciation of the works.
4. How is “home” depicted in two of the works you have studied and what is its significance?
5. How do two of the works you have studied portray the struggle to be understood?
6. Some literary texts, although set in a particular place or time, convey ideas that are universal. In what ways is this true in two of the works you have studied?
7. Discuss how two works you have studied present concepts of good and bad, not as absolute notions, but as a matter of individual perception.
8. Referring to two works you have studied, discuss how the author has created a convincing “world”.

Blogs

PhilpotNew 1.9 (pp 52-57)

In 9.1, consider (not necessarily in this order): aim, formality, content, audience, layout, special features, language, visuals, personality, links
Difference between web sites and blogs: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-is-a-blog-and-how-is-it-different-from-a-website-explained/
Press release: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_release
Diary or journal: https://www.thepencompany.com/blog/diaries/difference-between-diary-and-a-journal/

Characteristics of a good blog: https://firstsiteguide.com/characteristics-of-blog/
Most popular blog types: https://makeawebsitehub.com/popular-blog-types/

Most successful: https://alphainvestors.com/blogging/examples-successful-blogs/

Student blogs: https://www.studential.com/university/student-blogs

Environmental blogs: https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/amazing-environmental-blogs.php

Some travel blogs: https://www.bucketlistly.blog/posts/best-backpacking-adventure-blogs

Race issues: https://psychologybenefits.org/race-and-law-enforcement/

https://www.enar-eu.org/Blog

Top Youtube vloggers: https://izea.com/2019/02/06/top-youtube-vloggers/

How to start a vlog: https://filmora.wondershare.com/business/vlogging-tips.html

Humans of New York: https://www.humansofnewyork.com/

Interviews with suicide survivors: https://talkingaboutsuicide.com/the-interviews/

Task: The work on blogs should result in everybody picking a blog they would like to follow because they are interested in the issues the blog covers, which also lend themselves to be treated like BOWs full of Global Issues. You will have to present this blog to your classmates, and write an analysis of it for your portfolio, and prepare 1-2 pages of it so it could be used as Paper 1 practice in class.

https://10web.io/blog/blog-online-magazine-difference/

2 documents in Tera in the How-to folder

Looking at any text from different perspectives

Any text can be looked at from different perspectives, and analysed as is suitable towards different IB aims.

Paper 1: 

Take a careful look at assessment criteria A and B, and consider how you would approach this particular text in light of the requirements of these criteria. Identify the text type and its characteristics. (See the characteristics of the text as listed in the subject guide.) You also need to be able to analyze a text to see the extent to which it follows the characteristics of the text type, or subverts them. If an advertisement, for example, does not clearly identify the product, consider the reasons why that choice was made and think about the intended effect on the audience. 

Individual oral: 

Look at criteria A and B for the IO. There are some similarities between the criteria in the IO and those in Paper 1 but the IO also requires students to make connections between extracts from a literary work and non-literary body of work (BOW). The IO must make connections with the global issue (=GI) that the student has chosen, so it is advisable to consider how a text is linked to different global issues.

HL essay:

This is an in-depth analysis of a non-literary BOW or a literary work the student has studied in class. Imagine this text is from a non-literary body of work and consider possible approaches you could take with the 1200-1500 word HL essay. This could include evaluating connections between this text and the seven central concepts in DP Language A Language and Literature.

Newspapers and news articles

Philpot U3.1 Journalism (pp 69-77, 134)

Good news: https://www.boredpanda.com/positive-news-2019-illustrations-mauro-gatti/

To complement old CC pp 175-184 (Mass communication) and PhilpotNew U1.8 News articles:

Task: When you have done p 179 in the Mass communication document (old CC) and the front page news activity there, look at the following on front pages and analysis of such, pick one front page and write an analysis of it as if it were Paper 1 (analysis of a previously unseen text). Include a copy of the front cover in your document, and put it in your portfolio. Be ready to share, discuss and comment.

Possible guiding question: In what ways does the page capture the reader's imagination?

Front pages of British newspapers. https://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/front-pages.cfm

US front pages: https://www.thepaperboy.com/usa/front-pages.cfm

Tomorrow's papers front pages (British): https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/

How to analyse a newspaper front page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w60DWBNRLsc

Mediaknowall: http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/news/news.php

Who works in a TV newsroom: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/tv-news-careers-525690

Ambiguous NP headlines (discuss what they might mean):

http://www.fun-with-words.com/ambiguous_headlines.html

Some headline fun:

https://bestlifeonline.com/funniest-newspaper-headlines-of-all-time/?nab=1

NB! If a guiding question is missing from a text that could potentially function as a Paper 1 text, use this:

Analyse the text, commenting on the significance of the context, audience, purpose, and formal and stylistic features.

Task: 2 NP articles on the same topic, different perspectives:

Introduce the texts - topics and sources.

Discuss differences in language, tone, facts, comments, pictures, etc.

Broadsheets vs tabloids: Tabloids vs broadsheets doc on Tera

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zps4qty/revision/1

Bias: https://libguides.pvcc.edu/evaluatinganewsstory/bias

(If it ever happens that the above does not work any more, hopefully the following links originally included in it still work:

Identifying Biased News Reporting

• Fake News Is Not the Only Problem

  By Gilad Lotan, from Points
• How Do You Tell When the News Is Biased? It Depends on How You See Yourself

  By Jonathan Stray, from NeimanLab
• How the Web Distorts Reality and Impairs Our Judgement Skills

  by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, from the Guardian
• How to Detect Bias in News Media

  By FAIR, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
• Media Bias

  From Student News Daily. Provides definitions for the types of media bias.
• Media Bias: Is Slanted Reporting Replacing Objectivity?

  By Robert Kiener, from CQ Researcher

See this on Tera: Recognizing Online Propaganda, Bias, and Advertising - Transcript

Types of bias: https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/types-of-media-bias/

Media bias chart: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/intro-to-the-media-bias-chart/

Media bias archive: https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/archive/example-of-media-bias/ )