Parasite

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Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is quickly becoming a beloved and popular teaching choice in IB Language and Literature, and for good reason. This Oscar-winning film is rich both technically and in terms of exploring pertinent global issues. The activities for this unit focus on developing…

  • rudimentary vocabulary to talk about cinematic shots, framing, and angles in a way that is useful for the Individual Oral or Higher Level Essay
  • an understanding of the literary and filmic concept of “motif” and how a motif is used to explore an issue or idea
  • thesis-driven body paragraph writing

The resources in this unit include:

  • Pre-viewing activities to activate thinking around themes and non-literary texts
  • Analysis activities examining the film’s promotional art, its trailer, cinematic techniques, and visual motifs
  • A summative assessment: a single-text Individual Oral

Teaching Resources

Parasite Activity Portfolio (PDF)
Parasite Oral Assessment (PDF)
Parasite Activity Portfolio (Word)
Parasite Oral Assessment (Word)

A Note about the Resources

Screenplay and Film Access
Here is a link to a full version of the screenplay. Accessing the film will require purchasing it on a platform like Amazon Prime. One challenge can be finding ways to allow the students to browse the film independently to find the screenshots or scenes for both activities and the assessment. Your solution to this will depend on your school’s resources.

Summative Oral Assessment
I have only taught this film in an SL-only class with the two cohorts affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the assessment is very focused on the skills required for the Individual Oral. There are two formative writing tasks, one about the film’s trailer, and one about the film’s motifs, that could be extended into longer writing assignments, should you wish to have another assessment that is not oral in nature.

The “half” oral the students conducted was assessed on a modified version of the IB IO rubric. I modified the language so that it only referred to the investigation of the “non-literary text.”

StudioBinder
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to StudioBinder and their YouTube videos for all of the materials used to teach cinematic techniques. Their educational videos are clear and replete with examples from films both the students and I love!

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay