IB Year 1

IB English is a two-year college course designed for highly motivated high school students. This class, as part one of the two-year 11/12 curriculum, helps prepare students for IB examinations to be taken in the senior year. The class is based upon the study of classic/world literature and the technique of written literary analysis. Oral presentations, graded discussion, and formal academic writing will be our focus throughout the year. IB English extends the critical reading and writing skills refined in earlier grades to a new level of maturity and sophistication. Increasingly abstract in nature, this class seeks to connect the details of literary analysis—the function and effect of literary techniques such as imagery, diction, repetition, etc—with the historical, social, artistic, and philosophical contexts in which the works were written. Students will be expected to present original interpretations of literature which are supported by logical analysis and argumentation.

Responsibility and individual initiative are core requirements of IB students. Like other college courses, IB English Year 1 places accountability on the student. Over the course of the year, students will both earn high school credit and meet the requirements of the IB Organization (IBO). In addition, students will take the English Regents exam as their final exam in June.