Links to TOK in this area revolve around the question of what kind of knowledge can be constructed from a text, how that knowledge is constructed and the extent to which the meaning of a text can be considered to be fixed.
Examples of links to TOK include:
• What do we learn about through the study of a literary text? How is this different from what we learn through the study of a non-literary text?
• In what ways is the kind of knowledge we gain from the study of language and literature different from the kind we gain through the study of other disciplines? Can the study of language and of literature be considered scientific?
• How much of the knowledge we construct through reading a text is determined by authorial intention, by the reader’s cultural assumptions and by the purpose valued for a text in a community of readers?
• Are some interpretations of a text better than others? How are multiple interpretations best negotiated?
• In what ways do interpretive strategies vary when reading a literary work and when reading a nonliterary text?
Possible links to TOK Links to TOK in this area are related to the question of how the interaction of a text with other texts, brought about explicitly by the author or established by the reader in the act of reception, influence the perception of them and their meaning.
• What are the boundaries between a literary text and a non-literary text, and how are these boundaries determined?
• What kind of knowledge about a text is gained when compared and contrasted with other texts?
• Does knowledge of conventions of form, text type and of literary and rhetorical techniques allow for a better and deeper understanding of a text?
• How are judgements made about the merit of a text? What makes a text better than others?
• Is the study of texts better approached by means of a temporal perspective, grouping texts according to when they were written, or by means of a thematic approach, grouping them according to the theme or concern they share? What impact does each one of them have on knowledge of the discipline?
• How useful are classifications of texts according to form, text type and period? How do they contribute to the understanding of communication and its development?
Possible links to TOK Links to TOK are related to the questions of how far the context of production of a text influences or informs its meaning and the extent to which the knowledge a reader can obtain from a text is determined by the context of reception. Examples of such links to TOK include:
• How far can a reader understand a text that was written in a context different from their own and which may have addressed a different audience?
• Is not sharing a world view with an author an obstacle to understand their text?
• What is lost in translation from one language to another?
• How might the approaches to a given time and place of a poet, a cartoonist or a diary-writer and a historian differ?
• Is the notion of a canon helpful in the study and understanding of literature? How does a canon get established? What factors influence its expansion or change over time?
(IBO)
Responsibility: “Be careful when speaking. You create the world around you with your words.” Diné (Navajo) proverb
Values: “The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind.” D. H. Lawrence
Explanation: A BBC article, considering the role of story-telling in helping society explain and make sense of the world.
(Dunn)
Key thinkers
TOK allows us to explore and consider the ideas of a fantastic range of thinkers. For example...
Elif Shafak - in her TED talk The politics of fiction explores the role literature plays in helping us to empathize and understand other people.
William Shakespeare - This Vox article, looks at how the play Measure for Measure is an ‘eternal’ guide to moral issues.
Philip Pullman - Discusses in this New Scientist article that to understand the world comprehensively, we need to draw on more than ‘just’ science.
Hilary Mantel - Talks in this Guardian article about using imagination to help us to understand the past.
(Dunn)
A Vox podcast, thinking about how Albert Camus’s novel ‘The Plague’ offers a model of what’s happening in the world today.
A New York Times article, looking at how (whether?) we can understand the climate crisis via new fiction.
A BBC article, looking at how art and literature can help predict the way society and understanding develops.
(Dunn)
Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the work of George Orwell
Check out Dorian Lynskey’s short video analysis of this novel.
As he puts it: “For a book to have these multiple meanings that seem to be relevant at very different times in history for different reasons is remarkable.”
Relates to many questions: how and why does our understanding of literature change over time? How do our personal and societal perspectives shape the way we understand literature? What role does literature (and the arts) play in developing our moral outlooks? (see the BQs for further guidance)
(Dunn)
Bibliography:
Dunn, Michael. “Theoryofknowledge.net.” Theoryofknowledge.net, theoryofknowledge.net/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.
International Baccalaureate Organisation. Language A: Language and Literature Guide First Assessment 2021. Wales, International Baccalaureate Organization (UK) Ltd, Feb. 2019.