Identity
In the study of the course, students will encounter many characters and voices in the works and texts they study. Hopefully, exposure to a variety of perspectives ranged across time and space will both confirm and challenge the views of students. Students are also likely to consider the role of authorship in writing - how does the identity of a writer influence their works and texts? - and they will consider how their own identity as readers shapes their understanding of works and texts.
Culture
Culture may refer to contexts of production and reception, and to the interplay of values and beliefs that exist in and may influence how texts are written and received. Notions of genre and intertextuality are also relevant to the concept of culture; individual texts can be said to exist within traditions, and it is interesting to explore how one text intertextually relates to (and may deviate from) texts which predate it.
Creativity
Creativity is central to the activities of reading and writing. Writing is, very obviously, a creative act of imagination. In reading, too, creativity is required to interpret and understand a text, and to explore its range of potential meanings. Creativity is also relevant to the notion of originality. One may question whether originality is a reasonable prerequisite of reading and writing, and one may question whether originality is even possible.
Communication
The concept of communication is central to debates around readers, writers, and texts. Writers, we may assume, communicate with readers, manipulating language, style, and structure to establish ideas. Writers may write for particular purposes and for different intended audiences; it is interesting for students of English A: Language and Literature to consider how writers manipulate language and style to communicate with readers, an audience that may or may not be intended. Readers, in turn, may read more or less cooperatively. Even cooperative readers may arrive at different understandings of a text, and oppositional readers may challenge the ideas and meanings intended by a writer. Understood in this way, communication is a complex notion in which the meaning of texts may be more or less contested.
Perspective
The concept of perspective suggests that works and texts have a range of potential meanings. The potential can arise, for example, from authorial intent, reader bias, and from the time and place in which a work or text was written. Students should be encouraged to express their perspectives, motivate them, and be prepared to have them challenged by other (different) perspectives.
Transformation
The concept of transformation is bound to the idea of intertextuality. Texts may be said to exist not as isolated unitary works, but rather as intertexts in which the meanings of any one text is always bound to other earlier texts. Such an understanding highlights the connections that exist between a text, other texts, and meaning. Texts may be said to appropriate and borrow from other texts, extending, changing, and challenging in creative and imaginative ways that which has gone before. Readers too are transformed by texts where reading is understood as an act of creative construction rather than linear transmission. Moreover, the act of reading may transform readers in more direct ways. That is, reading can influence how we think and how we behave. If the IB mission statement endeavors to establish a better and more peaceful world, it can be useful for teachers to think about selecting literary works and non-literary texts that have the potential to transform hearts and minds.
Representation
Representation refers to the relationship between texts and meanings. In any given text, whether literary or non-literary - however one makes that distinction - the relationship between form, structure, and meaning is a central concern. Perspectives differ on the extent to which language and literature does, can, or should represent reality.