https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/truth-lies-and-literature

Read the above article on truth and the narrative.

IB English A Literature

Inquiry questions

• The course (2021)

• Inquiry questions

Approaching the course through key questions

One of the exciting elements of the new course relates to the fact that you have considerable freedom to organize it in a way that makes the most sense for you and the context in which you are teaching.  One approach you might consider relates to the idea of inquiry questions.  MYP teachers will probably be familiar already with this notion -  as a means to develop a sort of course narrative, as well as encourage the notion that literary analysis engages curiosity and discovery that can lead in many different directions, and connect readers with texts and the world in all sorts of surprising ways.

  Teachers of TOK might well be used to the idea of 'taking ownership' of the direction their course takes or the 'story' it might tell.  For example, there is a great deal of potential content to cover in the TOK course, which places emphasis on the importance of constructing a meaningful way through it.  It can work well to consider this 'meaningful way' as a story about types of knowledge claim that you tell, or work through with your students.  Might you, for example, teach the course in terms of the Areas of Knowledge?  Or the Ways of Knowing?  Going further, perhaps it might make sense to begin with the idea that what you are looking for is truth and/or certainty in knowledge. With their emphasis on rigorous methodology and experimentation, the Natural Sciences provide us with a fairly robust way to approach truth or certainty, so it makes sense to start there.  And yet, it would appear that the Natural Sciences are perhaps not as robust as we might like to think:  they can be subject to human error, to conformation bias, to the possibility that they may be wrong, to the vagaries and uncertainties of perception, to the unpredictability of the imagination...  But do imagination and emotion nevertheless tell us truths, if of a different kind?  Perhaps we should move to an Area of Knowledge with which these domains are most overtly associated - the Arts...  and so on. 

Inquiry questions could potentially facilitate the development of a narrative that takes you and your students from the beginning right through to the end, or within a unit of work.  A number of questions are already provided in the Subject Guide on pages 22-24;  below are listed a few more.  They could of course be adapted and made more relevant or specific to particular works or units. 

Although each is grouped according to one of the three Areas of Exploration, many of the implications overlap so you could adapt, reword, chop and change according to the course narrative you would like to pursue.

Inquiry question Area of Exploration

• What is literature?

• What is a literary work?

• Who or what defines a work as literary or non-literary?

• Why do we study literature?

• What happens when we read and interpret literary works?

• What is the difference between reading, understanding, analysis and interpretation?

• In what ways do readers construct meaning in literary works, as well as find it?

• What are the purposes of literary works?

  • To entertain?

  • To educate morally or ethically?

  • To challenge conventional ways of thinking?

  • To see the world through another’s eyes?

  • To provide a means of escape from reality?

  • To encourage critical reflection?

  • To incite debate?

  • To create something beautiful?

  • To transform the ordinary into the extraordinary?

  • Something else?

• Can we ever know what writers ‘intend’?

• How important is the concept of change or transformation in literary works?

• When is interpretation of a literary work justified?

• What makes a literary work 'classic'?

• What is the point of metaphor?

• How does the structure or style of a literary text affect meaning?

• What are the key conventions of a particular genre?

• How does point of view affect the way meaning is presented in literary works?

• What different purposes or roles can setting have in literary works?

• What makes a work controversial?   

• What role is played by structure in the impact of a literary work?

• Do particular literary works present clarity or ambiguity in their exploration of human experience?

• What is the difference between fiction and non-fiction?  How could it be argued that both contain elements of each other?

• Why is narrative perspective important to the way literary works connect with readers?

• Can one literary work be considered ‘better’ than another?

• What constitutes reliable or persuasive evidence when providing support for a particular reading or interpretation of a literary work?

• How do literary works adhere to and deviate from conventions associated with literary forms?

Readers, Writers and Texts

• What social, cultural, and/or political factors present themselves in literary works?

• What are the different ways in which social, cultural and/or political aspects present themselves, e.g. through setting, language, character, action and theme?

• How influential is our own culture in the way we read and interpret literary works?

• What are the challenges of trying to make sense of works written in very different times or places to our own?

• How do conventions and systems of reference evolve over time?

• In what ways are voices, whether of authors, narrators or characters reflective of particular times and places?

• In what ways could we argue that literary works provide a reliable means of educating us about aspects of culture?  In what ways could we argue the opposite?

• How does language and style vary across time and space?

• In what ways might reading a work in translation be considered problematic?

• Are literary works best categorized according to place and/or time or their place in the evolution of a particular genre or style?

Time and Space

• In what ways can diverse literary texts share points of similarity?

• In what ways can comparison of different literary works provide greater clarity about the ways in which meaning is generated?

• How does the meaning and impact of a work change over time?

• In what ways do literary works explore particular ideas from different perspectives or present ideas in different ways?

• In what ways are particular texts changed when they are transformed, e.g. prose narrative into film?

• In what ways do features of particular genres, such as the Gothic, War Poetry, Satire, change over time and in relation to each other?

• What might be considered problematic about comparing works from different genres?

• What might be considered problematic about comparing works from different times, places and/or languages?

https://www.softschools.com/quizzes/literature/

https://www.softschools.com/examples/literary_terms/

https://www.softschools.com/examples/literary_terms/

https://www.coursehero.com/lit/