Written Task 2: Critical Response 10 % OF FINAL DP MARK
| lang_and_lit_wt1_hl_essay.docx |
Aims of the critical response
Task 2 takes the form of a critical response and is a requirement of the HL course only. The aims of task 2 are:
- to consider in greater detail the material studied in the four parts of the language A: language and literature course
- to reflect and question in greater depth the values, beliefs and attitudes that are implied in the texts studied
- to encourage students to view texts in a number of ways
- to enable students to give an individual response to the way in which texts can be understood in the light of the prescribed questions.
- Task 2 is a critical response to one of these six questions. The prescribed questions are designed to be as open as possible and are intended to highlight broad areas within which students can explore and develop their responses to the texts. Word limit: 1000 words.
- Where appropriate, task 2 must reference, in a bibliography, the relevant support documentation such as the newspaper article or magazine advertisement on which it is based. Where a complete shorter text is chosen (for example, a newspaper article or an advertisement from a magazine) students may refer to other texts to support their response.
- For the literature components of the course, your essay will take the form of a literary analysis of an aspect of the text.
- The critical response is in the style of a formal essay and must be clearly structured with an introduction, clearly developed ideas or arguments and a conclusion.
Prescribed Questions:
Reader Culture and Text
Reader Culture and Text
- How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?
- If the text had been written in a different time or place or language or for a different audience, how and why might it differ?
- How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
- Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text?
- How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?
- How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects?
Essay Question:
The IB fully allows you to rework your essay question to fit your needs. It should be NARROW and SPECIFIC. The examiner will mark you on criterion B (response to the question) based on how well you have answered your written question. While it should still fall under the umbrella of the prescribed questions, it can look significantly different. Be mindful that many of the questions can remain as they are and do not need to be changed.
The IB fully allows you to rework your essay question to fit your needs. It should be NARROW and SPECIFIC. The examiner will mark you on criterion B (response to the question) based on how well you have answered your written question. While it should still fall under the umbrella of the prescribed questions, it can look significantly different. Be mindful that many of the questions can remain as they are and do not need to be changed.
How and why is a SOCIAL GROUP represented in a particular way?
Which SOCIAL GROUPS are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text?
How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects?
- How and why does Fitzgerald represent high society in The Great Gatsby.
- How and why is a social group represented in a particular way? An exploration of the 1920s new money class in The Great Gatsby.
- How does Williams use Stanley and Blanche as representative characters for men and women in 1940s America?
- How and why are females represented in Scene 3 of A Streetcar Named Desire.
- How and why does Carol Ann Duffy represent immigrants in the poem Foreign?
Which SOCIAL GROUPS are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text?
- To what extent does Fitzgerald depict the working class as marginalized in 1920s society?
- How and why are women silenced in A Streetcar Named Desire?
- In the poem "Selling Manhattan", how does Duffy show the exclusion of Native Americans and the silencing of their culture?
How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects?
- How has The Great Gatsby borrowed from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland" to emphasize the true nature of the American Dream?
- How has The Great Gatsby drawn from Greek Mythology to critique the fallacy of the American Dream?
Use this document to plan your essay. Follow the steps below as you work out your literary response.
Success Criteria:
Success Criteria:
- Narrow your focus to a specific text from Part 4 (any of the poems, The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire)
- Choose your essay question. Which question would you like to explore? Consider approaches to answering that question using your chosen text. Rewrite the question, if you see fit.
- Choose your approach. How will you answer this question? What aspect of the text will you focus on in your analysis? What characters, what parts of the plot, what aspects of context are important?
- Make notes. Using your knowledge of the text, brainstorm ideas for your essay.
- Write your arguments. Construct your thesis statement and all of your topic sentences
- Select Examples. Go through your text and find examples/quotations to support your ideas.
- Analyse examples. What literary features are employed? What does the quotation mean? How does it support your topic sentence/thesis statement?
- Write your rough draft
- Revise. Go through your draft and consider the following: Have you answered the question? Do you have sufficient examples to support your ideas? Have you taken a critical approach with this essay (literary features and analysis of themes/characters/setting etc)? Are your arguments and ideas ordered logically? Have you used correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure?
- Submit to Turnitin.com
Outline: Instead of a rationale, students are expected to complete an outline in class. Complete your outline on the form below. Use bullet points with complete sentences.
Click HERE to access the outline. Make a copy
Click HERE to access the outline. Make a copy
Prescribed Question: How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
Focused Question: In the third act of A Doll’s House, how does Ibsen use dialogue to undermine the cultural expectations of women in 19th century European society?
Text for analysis: Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House
Part of the course: The task relates to Part 3 of the course: Literature- Culture and contexts
My critical response will:
Focused Question: In the third act of A Doll’s House, how does Ibsen use dialogue to undermine the cultural expectations of women in 19th century European society?
Text for analysis: Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House
Part of the course: The task relates to Part 3 of the course: Literature- Culture and contexts
My critical response will:
- explore the values of 19th century European society towards women.
- analyze how dialogue in the play is used to undermine these values, referring to dramatic structure, tone and language.
- explore how the undermining these values relates to the meaning of the play as a whole. (needs to be more specific)
