The May 2023 examination session produced two subject reports to reflect the two different time zones in which the examination took place. They were published (this month, at the time of writing) in September 2023. The subject reports are identical in many instances, but differ somewhat, not least to reflect the different Paper 1 and 2 examinations that pertain to the two time zones in which the examination took place.

Subject reports should be regarded as essential reading for all teachers of English A: Language and Literature. They are neither optional nor superfluous. Of course, very occasionally, subject reports may be inaccurate or, you may think, contentious. In the main, however, they reflect the collected wisdom of many examiners, spread globally. Why would you not want to access that compacted insight that subject reports offer? Here is a suggestion, then: Set aside a little time, log in to MyIB, and read the subject reports, or at least the one appropriate to your time zone.

Rather than provide an overview of the subject reports – we really do want you to read them if you have not yet – we are going to provide a few recommendations for you and your students that emerge from reading the subject reports. And, in a sense, these are things that we frequently highlight as we respond to questions and comments on this site. If InThinking and IB subject reports – that is, remember, the combined insights of many experienced teachers – seem to be suggesting the same things, with some regularity, it is probably worth taking note of what is being advised. Of course, your students may occasionally pay little or no heed to your wise words of advice – you may have first-hand experience of this! –  but we continue to do what we can. Let us, then, consider each summative assessment in turn.

The Individual Oral

Get the global issue right. Identify it in the first minute of the oral, introducing it and any works, bodies of work, and texts that will be discussed. By ‘right’, we mean, in part, that the global issue should derive from what has been studied. That is, global issues are inductively derived, and can be identified in both works, albeit, most likely, presented differently in each. While the notion of ‘fields of inquiry’ could help students identify global issues, they are not global issues (at least for the purpose of this assessment task). Identifying a global issue can of course be difficult – we would not say otherwise – and it can be helpful for students to begin with a broad notion such as, say, ‘poverty’, ‘racism’, or ‘gender inequality’. However, global issues require a bit more focus, while ensuring they remain ‘global’ and not (only) ‘local’ issues. Thus, connecting one thing to another thing, perhaps where the first named thing has an impact on the second named thing can provide the level of focus we mean. As an example, a student could connect the broad notion of ‘poverty’ to the ways it can impact on ‘family life’, assuming this is apparent from a reading of texts/extracts, works, and bodies of work studied. The student could say, “my global issue is the effect of poverty on family life”. That will work.

The oral should be balanced. There should be, more or less, equal time given to texts/extracts, works, and bodies of work, both literary and non-literary in the oral. The student’s outline can – and perhaps should – help them to establish this balance, indicating not only their main ideas, but also highlighting points of transition.

Speaking skills should be developed over time, and from the beginning of the course. Not every student enjoys speaking, and very few – if any! – feel entirely comfortable in speaking about literary works and non-literary bodies of work in a challenging examination. There seems to be very little point in telling students not to practice and rehearse their orals. They will, and we want them to. This, however, is not the same as memorising the oral. To score really high marks in criterion D, students need to speak with some rhetorical flair, and this can be evidenced both prosodically and in terms of syntactic structures. This ‘flair’ needs to be taught; it cannot be left to chance. In addition, the student who memorises a 10-minute oral will, inevitably, speak differently and perhaps less authoritatively in the 5-minute question and answer (Q&A) they share with you. Probably, this, where it occurs, will negatively impact on the mark you award them in criterion D.

It is not problematic that, prior to each oral, you think about questions you could ask a student after their initial 10-minute presentation. As a teacher/examiner, you may also be a little nervous. That is understandable given what is at stake. It is, however, problematic, and frankly unhelpful, if you simply ask each student pre-prepared questions from a list. The purpose of the Q&A is to help the student improve on what they have said or have omitted to say in their oral. You can help your students improve their marks in criteria A and B, and you are most likely to do this by listening carefully to your students and to the quality of their ideas. You can help them improve their ideas, address omissions and anything that seems unclear in the Q&A only by asking relevant questions. Relevant questions develop from your awareness of the marking criteria.

The Higher Level (HL) Essay

There is no overall evidence that students write better about literary works than they do about non-literary bodies of work. Equally, there is no overall evidence that students write better about non-literary bodies of work. Since this is the case, and unless there are other local or individual factors that may complicate this general observation, encourage students to choose, literary or non-literary, from what they have studied, according to their interests. Alert HL students to the (modest) impact that writing about a literary work rather than a non-literary body of work will have on their choice of available works for the Paper 2 examination. Ensure that students who are writing about a non-literary body of work or literary work (e.g., poetry and short stories) that includes a number of texts are aware that they must write about a number of texts (a minimum of two) within the work or body of work that has been studied. Irrespective of the number of texts referenced, it is important that students try to demonstrate a critical understanding of the whole work or body of work, or a significant aspect of it. Thus, the texts selected should be representative of the work or body of work, not least in respect of the student’s line of inquiry.

The initial line of inquiry is important. Lines of inquiry that open up a discussion that is, for example, entirely sociological, biographical, or historical are inappropriate. They are inappropriate because such an approach, in effect, ignores criterion B. In all examinations, students often struggle to score highly in criterion B. While a good line of inquiry is not a panacea for this recurrent issue, it can at least mitigate it. That is, if the line of enquiry suggests a focus on literary or linguistic representation, there may be a better chance that students will, in turn, write about this. Students can, however, sometimes be a little too focused in their line of inquiry. For example, a student may set out to consider the influence of metaphor in a literary work. While this is appropriate, it is narrow and delimiting, and it fails to allow for a consideration of other forms of representation and authorial choice that shape meaning and effect.

Students should write between 1200 and 1500 words. There may be circumstances that help explain why a student would choose to write 1200 words rather 1500, and 1200 ‘good’ words are good, while 1500 ‘mediocre’ words are mediocre. Nevertheless, fewer words are almost always self-penalising when more are available. Students should not write more than 1500 words; examiners are instructed not to read beyond this limit which, in turn, is likely to impact negatively in the marking of the essay. It may be a rather pedantic examiner who stops reading at 1501 words and, in any case, this would hardly impact on the marking of the essay. However, it is good practice to insist that essays do not exceed the upper word limit; the quality of an essay is likely to improve when subjected to critical review and revision.

Paper 1

Students should include an introductory paragraph. Such paragraphs should include a thesis. There is no need and nothing to benefit from convoluted paragraphs that include, for example, a hook and extraneous detail. Students can develop a thesis from the guiding question or prompt, and they can usefully ‘recycle’ key words from the question or prompt as they develop a thesis. The thesis, ipso facto, is a promise to the reader that a particular focus will develop and be maintained. Most of the time (InThinking believe), students should respond to the guiding question or prompt. However, as suggested by subject reports, some students can and do adopt original approaches to texts, and they are sometimes successful in this. There are times where you may recommend to your students to consider an ‘alternative’ focus than is suggested by guiding questions and prompts. For example, if a student does not understand the guiding question or prompt, it will be better to develop a focus, emerging from a consideration of the text(s), that the student is more comfortable with. And, at times, a student may decide that a guiding question or prompt limits the scope of their response. For example, if a student writes about a multimodal text, but is directed to write about only the visual or written mode, this could be considered limiting, and perhaps somewhat odd. It is absolutely not wrong for students to write about, for example, intended readers and purposes. In fact, it can often be quite germane. It is not, however, the kind of detail that should be included ‘for the sake of it’.

Paper 1 responses, similar to other assessment tasks, often end with students writing pithy summaries of what they have already related. This is unnecessary. The final paragraph does not conclude in the sense that it brings about the last analysis; it is, rather, the final thing the student writes in this examination. Thus, while a strong Paper 1 is likely to remain tightly analytical, focused on text, the final paragraph may be an opportunity for students to ‘step back’ from their analysis to consider, quite briefly, the wider implication of their discussion or argument. In a sense, it can be an occasion to address the question, ‘so what?’.

Paper 2

Students must know, intimately, the works they have studied and are writing about. This may strike you as blindingly obvious. Nevertheless, too often, students give the impression that they have not, in any real sense, developed an appreciation of their works. In almost all circumstances, students who know their works will do better than those who do not.

Students need to respond to the question they choose. You need to reinforce this obvious point. Students, at times, will respond to a question – a quite different question, that is – that they have prepared for, proceeding to address this, while incorrectly thinking that the occasional ‘turn’ to the actual question will ‘do the trick’. It will not. The four questions are of a general literary nature. Students require practice in ‘unpacking’ questions, identifying key words, and learning to recognise what is being asked. This is not to suggest that questions set out to trick or deceive students; they do not. However, questions may, in fact, be asking about, for example, character development, setting, or narrative voice – those general literary things – without making this blindingly obvious in the phrasing of the question. In responding to questions, students should have a good sense of what criteria A and B assess – these criteria are obviously related, but different. As mentioned earlier, students often struggle to score well in criterion B. Not least, if, for example, a student is writing about a graphic novel or a play, it should be very apparent that that literary form is what is being written about through relevant consideration of their literary conventions. Where this is not obvious, students will do badly (sic) in criterion B.

Students need to compare and contrast in this examination, with respect to both criteria A and B. This is really quite a challenge, and students may be forgiven where they struggle. Nevertheless, the teaching of literary works needs to be informed by this requirement. As students develop increased intimacy with their literary works, they should be encouraged to make comparisons and contrasts between their works studied.

Academic writing (or speaking) is important in all assessment tasks. However, where students write about literature in an inappropriate or careless register, it is particularly noticeable. Good academic writing takes years of practice to develop. It pays to be patient, negotiating the polarised tendencies of students to write with either too much or too little formality. However, when a student introduces their essay with “in Richard Wright’s essay Native Son and Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, we read about a character who is going through stuff at the time they are living”, we can probably identify that we have something to work with. And, we may chuckle. Just a little.