The more specific aims of the course include the following:
• Develop awareness and understanding of different text types across space and time
• Develop skills in reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and presenting
• Develop interpretative skills, including understanding, critical evaluation, and analysis
• Develop an aesthetic sensibility, understanding that texts may elicit pluralistic understandings
• Understand that texts acquire meaning in social, cultural, and temporal contexts, and that this contributes to pluralistic meanings
• Understand the relationship and interconnections between studies in this discipline and studies in other disciplines
• Develop skills in communication and collaboration, with opportunities for creativity
• Become lifelong learners, fostering interest and enjoyment of language and literature.
Connected to these aims are the assessment objectives that underpin all the assessments you will complete:
Know, understand and interpret:
• a range of texts, works and/or performances, and their meanings and implications
• contexts in which texts are written and/or received
• elements of literary, stylistic, rhetorical, visual and/or performance craft
• features of particular text types and literary forms.
Analyse and evaluate:
• ways in which the use of language creates meaning
• uses and effects of literary, stylistic, rhetorical, visual or theatrical techniques
• relationships among different texts
• ways in which texts may offer perspectives on human concerns.
Communicate:
• ideas in clear, logical and persuasive ways
• in a range of styles, registers and for a variety of purposes and situations
The Language A: language and literature course is divided into three areas of exploration. While the course is divided into three areas of exploration, they are not meant to be entirely discrete parts. This is also true of the literary works and non-literary texts that are taught; there is integration of both within each area of exploration.
Although the areas of exploration are not taught in isolation, they do have defining qualities about them that make them unique and different from each other. The guiding conceptual questions in the guide are a great starting point for understanding those defining qualities.
I look forward to our journey together!
The focus is on both non-literary texts and literary works. Texts and works come from a range of sources. You will need to consider how language creates meanings, with an emphasis, through close reading, on the choices writers make.
In addition, you must develop an appreciation for the way in which contexts of production and reception influence meaning.
Guiding conceptual questions
1. Why and how do we study language and literature?
2. How are we affected by texts in various ways?
3. In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted?
4. How does language use vary amongst text types and amongst literary forms?
5. How does the structure or style of a text affect meaning?
6. How do texts offer insights and challenges?
The emphasis is on things like time, space, culture, society, and politics, where you consider the ways in which such contextual factors influence meanings in texts and works.
You will develop your understanding of the ways in which texts and works are shaped by and, in turn, shape their contexts.
You will also understand that ideas and concerns potentially transcend time, whilst being contested within and between historical periods, and within and between cultural space.
Guiding conceptual questions
1. How important is cultural or historical context to the production and reception of a text?
2. How do we approach texts from different times and cultures to our own?
3. To what extent do texts offer insight into another culture?
4. How does the meaning and impact of a text change over time?
5. How do texts reflect, represent or form a part of cultural practices?
6. How does language represent social distinctions and identities?
The key emphasis is on making comparisons.
You will understand that texts and works may have particular qualities, but that they also exist in dialogic conversation with other texts and works. Understanding this dynamic exchange between texts and works within spatial, temporal, cultural, social, and aesthetic contexts enhances how you understand and appreciate texts and works.
Guiding conceptual questions
1. How do texts adhere to and deviate from conventions associated with literary forms or text types?
2. How do conventions and systems of reference evolve over time?
3. In what ways can diverse texts share points of similarity?
4. How valid is the notion of a classic text?
5. How can texts offer multiple perspectives of a single issue, topic or theme?
6. In what ways can comparison and interpretation be transformative?
Sylvia Plath poetry (HL and SL)
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket (HL only)
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (HL and SL)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Short Stories by Toni Cade Bambara (HL and SL)
The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (HL only)