IOC (Individual Oral Commentary)

The IOC is an oral assessment completed in the fall of your senior year. It's a 20-minute oral divided into two 10-minute sections, without a break in between. The first 10 minutes requires you to present an oral commentary on a Sylvia Plath poem (which you'll have studied intensively); the second 10 minutes involves a discussion with Dr. Busse on ONE of the other two texts we've studied this semester (either Shakespeare's Hamlet or Orwell's Essays). The IOC is performed one-on-one with Dr. Busse at a prescheduled time. The IOC makes up 15% of your IB Literature score.

• The IOC is assessed internally by Dr. Busse (according to the IB rubric), but recorded and sent to IB as requested for moderation.
• The first 10 minutes you will deliver an oral commentary on one of the Sylvia Plath poems we've been studying. You won't know which poem until you arrive for your commentary; you'll draw a poem at random and then have 20 minutes (on your own) to prepare your commentary.
• You'll deliver your commentary in about 8 minutes, followed by 2 minutes for Dr. Busse to ask questions (to help you fill in anything you may have left out, or to clarify, or to expand).
• Immediately after the 10-minute mark, you'll draw a question out of a box regarding either Hamlet or Orwell, and then follows a 10-minute Q&A/discussion on that text (and ONLY that text).
• At the 20-minute mark, you are done!