I. Course description and aims

The language A: language and literature course aims at studying the complex and dynamic nature of language and exploring both its practical and aesthetic dimensions. The course will explore the crucial role language plays in communication, reflecting experience and shaping the world, and the roles of individuals themselves as producers of language. Throughout the course, students will explore the various ways in which language choices, text types, literary forms and contextual elements all effect meaning.

Through close analysis of various text types and literary forms, students will consider their own interpretations, as well as the critical perspectives of others, to explore how such positions are shaped by cultural belief systems and to negotiate meanings for texts.

The aims of studies in language and literature courses are to enable students to:

• engage with a range of texts, in a variety of media and forms, from different periods, styles and cultures
• develop skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, presenting and performing
• develop skills in interpretation, analysis and evaluation
• develop sensitivity to the formal and aesthetic qualities of texts and an appreciation of how they contribute to diverse responses and open up multiple meanings
• develop an understanding of relationships between texts and a variety of perspectives, cultural contexts, and local and global issues, and an appreciation of how they contribute to diverse responses and open up multiple meanings
• develop an understanding of the relationships between studies in language and literature and other disciplines
• communicate and collaborate in a confident and creative way
• foster a lifelong interest in and enjoyment of language and literature.

II. Curriculum model overview

Syllabus components

1. Readers, writers and texts
2. Time and space
3. Intertextuality: connecting text

III. Assessment model

It is the intention of this course that students are able to fulfill the following assessment objectives:

1. Know, understand and interpret:
   • a range of texts, works and/or performances, and their meanings and implications
   • contexts in which texts are written and/or received
   • elements of literary, stylistic, rhetorical, visual and/or performancecraft
   • features of particular text types and literary forms.
2. Analyse and evaluate:
   • ways in which the use of language creates meaning
   • uses and effects of literary, stylistic, rhetorical, visual or theatrical techniques
   • relationships among different texts
   • ways in which texts may offer perspectives on human concerns.
3. Communicate:
   • ideas in clear, logical and persuasive ways
   • in a range of styles, registers and for a variety of purposes and situations

Internal Assessment

Individual oral (20%)
Prepared oral response on the way that one literary work and one non-literary body of work studied have approached a common global issue.

External Assessment

Paper 1 (35%)
Guided analysis of unseen non-literary passage/passages from different text types.

Paper 2 (25%)
Comparative essay based on two literary works written in response to a choice of one out of four questions.

HL Essay (20%)
Written coursework component: 1,200–1,500 word essay on one literary work or a non-literary body of work studied.