Please note: all course materials, activities and lessons are now delivered via OneNote. Students have their own area plus access to shared and collaborative spaces. 

This course aims to enable students to:

• engage with a range of texts, in a variety of media and forms, from different periods, styles, and cultures
• develop skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, presenting and performing
• develop skills in interpretation, analysis and evaluation
• develop sensitivity to the formal and aesthetic qualities of texts and an appreciation of how they contribute to diverse responses and open up multiple meanings
• develop an understanding of relationships between texts and a variety of perspectives, cultural contexts, and local and global issues, and an appreciation of how they contribute to diverse responses and open up multiple meanings
• develop an understanding of the relationships between studies in language and literature and other disciplines
• communicate and collaborate in a confident and creative way
• foster a lifelong interest in and enjoyment of language and literature.

Course content

 The syllabus comprises three areas of exploration: readers, writers and texts, time and space and intertextuality – connecting texts. Works are chosen from a variety of literary forms and reflect a range of historical and cultural perspectives. Students are provided with opportunities to extend their studies and make fruitful comparisons. Standard level students will study at least nine texts/works, higher level at least thirteen. A number of texts are studied in translation.

Teaching and learning is structured around seven concepts that occupy a central position in the study of literature. They interact with the areas of exploration in numerous ways and contribute a sense of continuity in transition from one area to the next. They are: identity, culture, creativity, communication, perspective, transformation and representation.

External Assessment (70 %):

 For both Higher and Standard level

Paper 1:Guided literary analysis (35%)

Paper 2: Comparative essay (Higher level: 25%, Standard level: 35%)

For Higher level only:

An essay on one literary text or work studied during the course (1200 – 1500 words, 20%).

Internal Assessment Standard level (30%):

Individual oral

Supported by an extract from one work written originally in the language studied and one from a work studied in translation, students will offer a prepared response of 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions.

Internal Assessment Higher level (20%):

Individual oral

Supported by an extract from one work written originally in the language studied and one from a work studied in translation, students will offer a prepared response of 10 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of questions by the teacher to the following prompt: ‘Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and form of two of the works that you have studied.’