Please note:  The purpose of this information is to elaborate on the nature of the IB assessment tasks, define and explain the assessment criteria and their implications, share observed challenges in students’ submitted assessment work, and offer strategies and approaches for assessment preparation. 

This post is not meant to replace a reading of the IB Language A: Literature Subject Guide or the Teacher Support Materials available on My IB.  Those resources should always be the first stop for teachers in checking the requirements of each assessment task and how the task should be facilitated. 

Paper 1 Overview

35% at SL and HL

Nature of the task

• Students are asked to engage with never-before-seen literary text(s) with the help of a guiding question. Examination papers may contain complete texts or excerpts of literary works.
  • Students are not obligated to use the guiding question to direct their response; however, if they do not, they need to choose another formal or technical aspect of the text as a focus instead.[1] (See Criterion C for “Focus.”)
  • In general, the guiding questions will draw students’ attention either to a) a specific technique, element, or authorial choice that contributes to meaning or b) a specific meaning/effect of the text whose creation students then must attribute authorial choices to.
• SL students complete one of the guided analyses provided in 1 hour and 15 minutes, while HL students complete two in 2 hours and 15 minutes. This means HL students have about 1 hour and 5 minutes per analysis with time to look back over responses.

Nature of the texts

The passages may come from any of the four literary forms on the Prescribed Reading List: prose fiction, prose non-fiction, drama, or poetry.  The guide states, “each of the passages will be from a different literary form.”[2] Similar to past years, the passages may be complete texts (such as a poem) or be extracts from a longer work.  Papers setters are likely to choose texts by authors who are NOT listed on the Prescribed Reading List and will do their best to avoid popular works that are likely to have been studied in class.

What is the Paper 1 assessing?

Criterion A:  Understanding and Interpretation (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Understanding	For this assessment, “understanding” refers to a grasp of the literal meaning and situation of the extract which include its basic elements (e.g., character, physical setting, cultural setting, conflict, dominant feelings, tensions, etc.).  Students may also consider the form, genre, and context of the text’s publication (like when and where it was published [3]), as this may be crucial in understanding the literal meaning (as well as some implications) of the passage.  Furthermore, students may show understanding by inferring meaning that is communicated explicitly, heavily implied, or self-evident.
Implications	Implications refer to the ideas the extract may be suggesting without explicitly stating them or feelings the extract may be evoking without explicitly telling the reader to feel them.
Interpretation and “reasoned conclusions”	An interpretation moves beyond literal understanding into a series of logical inferences, or “reasoned conclusions” drawn from the subtleties, (patterned) details, and implications in an extract.  Interpretations may identify complex ideas, issues, and/or feelings developed by an author and usually pay close attention to details, ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions in the passage.
References to the text	Students are expected to make references to the passage that can either be direct quotes or paraphrases. Depending on what claim they are making, one may be more appropriate than the other (claims about language and style often benefit from direct quotes; broader authorial choices can be explained through paraphrase.)

Notes

• Though students are asked to provide a “focused” analysis as per Criterion C, they should also attempt to portray an overall understanding of the passage.  Understanding may be demonstrated in the introduction through a précis or short summary that perceptively yet concisely captures the basic elements of the passage (character, physical setting, cultural setting, conflict, and dominant feelings or tensions).
• There are a few traps some students fall into when it comes to evidence use:
  – Some students use evidence for the purpose of summarizing or showing basic understanding of the text rather than supporting their interpretations.
  – Some student use evidence from only one part of the text, use quotes that are too long or short, or write vague paraphrases of certain parts of the text.
• At the higher levels of the criterion descriptors, the relationship between understanding and interpretation is inextricable: a “thorough” understanding of the literal meaning of the text will often lead to insightful interpretations as well.  A strong student might show understanding and interpretation of the text through references to moments where even the literal meaning of the text might be obscured through subtleties and apparent contradictions.
• For an unseen literary extract, students may draw conclusions that are reasonably justified through details from the passage but do not hold up to the work as a whole; this is ok.  Students are not expected to know the work the extract comes from, and therefore their “reasoned conclusions” are evaluated considering the scope of the passage.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to understanding and interpretation

Criterion B:  Analysis and Evaluation (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Analysis	To analyze is to separate and identify the parts of a whole to discover various interrelationships. The “whole” in the case of the Paper 1 is the extract or poem.  One can begin to breakdown the parts of a text by considering its form, mode, structure, genre, and use of language.
Textual features and/or authorial choices	Textual features and authorial choices are the literary aspects of the passage that make up the whole, as referenced above. In literary extracts this not only includes broad authorial choices related to structure, narrative perspective, choice of speaker, dialogue, genre, setting, characters, and motifs, but also more micro-literary features such as imagery, diction, figurative language, symbols, etc.  Form-specific features are included here as well, such as rhetoric, sound devices, stage directions, soliloquies, poetic structures,and in the case of graphic literature, images (and their related features – color, contrast, arrangement, size, shape, etc.).
Evaluation	When students “evaluate” they are calculating the importance and value of the author’s choices in the context of their interpretive meanings.  After students separate and identify the “parts of the whole” through analysis, students show appreciation for which features play a significant role in developing interpretive meaning, specifically in relation to the guiding question or their chosen focus for analysis.

Notes

• The identification of authorial choices, whether they be rhetorical, formal, or literary, can only get students so far. These features should be mentioned only if they support claims about the effect of those choices on the text’s reader in relation to the guiding question (or focus for the response).
• Students who focus too much on “small” details of the extract without considering the holistic situation, meaning, and feeling of the extract run the risk of missing the big picture. Students should be encouraged to identify and analyze “larger” aspects of the text like structural choices, narrative perspective, writer-reader relationship as well as more detailed textual features to appreciate how these authorial choices work together in light of the guiding question.
• Part of what this criterion assesses is the student’s familiarity with different forms of literature and their corresponding conventions. Students are often rewarded for considering the ways in which the writer leverages features of the form to achieve meaning and feeling in a passage.
• When the wording of the guiding question provides the student with an effect of the passage and asks them to identify the elements of the passage that contribute to that effect, evaluating authorial choices is particularly important. When a specific feature or set of features of the extract is “given” in the question and students are asked to identify the effect, they will have to use their judgment to decide what effect(s) to critically elaborate on.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to analysis and evaluation

Criterion C:  Focus and organization (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Focus	A focused response sustains its attention on the guiding question or student-selected aspect.
Organized presentation of ideas	Students have made thoughtful choices about the order in which they present their claims, references to the text, analysis, and explanation so that the points in the response build upon one another, producing a cohesive response to the passage in light of the question (or focus for the response).

Notes

• Encouraging “logical development” in responses over pre-planned structures often helps students maintain focus and achieve cohesion, especially for students who are relatively proficient at critical thinking.  Students should ask themselves, “How can I present my ideas in a way that best answers the guiding question (or develops my focal aspect for the response)?”
• Responses organized by authorial choices tend to be limiting because they struggle to appreciate the interdependency of features’ effects in communicating meaning, expressing feelings, or creating an experience.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to organization and development

Criterion D:  Language (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Clear language	Language is clear when the selection of words and the arrangement of words effectively articulate meaning.
Varied language	Language is varied when the student uses different words to acutely communicate knowledge, understanding, and meaning.
Accuracy	Language is accurate when it uses grammatically correct structures, spelling, and capitalization.
Register	The “register” refers to the style of the written language.

Notes

• A wider vocabulary gives students more language tools to express abstract and complex thought, and this should be a consideration when teaching the course. 
• A student’s correct use of terminology fitting for the study of language and literature may be considered in awarding marks in this criterion; however, jargon is not the sole focus. 
• Students are encouraged to use the language they have while exploring their own authentic ideas.  When students use vocabulary and sentence structures that are comfortably in their repertoire, they usually express their thinking with more clarity which helps every criterion. 
• A response does not need to be flawless in terms of its language to earn a 5 in this criterion. 
• Voice is welcomed in all IB assessment tasks: formal writing does not need to be turgid.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to language

References

[1] “10 tips for schools & teachers for the Paper 1”. My IB Website, IBO: 2020. 

[2] Language A: Literature Guide, First assessment 2021, IBO: 2019. pp. 37.

[3] Publication information (including the author’s name, text source, and publication year) will always be provided on a Paper 1; it usually appears at the end of the extract.

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