As stated on the main page, one way to organise your course and to develop the sense of a course narrative, is to structure it around a series of questions. This could lend a sense of coherence and development to your programme of study, as well as encourage independent engagement with the texts and their ideas on the part of your students. The example below is for a Higher Level course and demonstrates how key inquiry questions could be related to particular texts and also to units of work more generally.

One way of thinking about the seven defining concepts on the course is to see them as different lenses through which we can look at literary works; while it can be valuable and interesting to look at a text through one lens, it is when we combine lenses that we really start to deepen what we see in literature. These ideas also present the means to make points of connection and comparison between works studied, as well as to facilitate narratives that might take us from one work to another. In other words, alongside the areas of exploration with which they interact, they structure the teaching and learning on the course.

One challenge with designing your course is making sure that all the requirements are met; this is particularly true as we start this new course (first teaching 2019) because there have been significant changes made to the course structure (no more parts) and to the nature of the assessments, as well as the new PRL where some authors previously on the IB lists have been removed, while many more have been added. These changes are all exciting and open up new possibilities for course and unit planning, which is another reason we need to make sure that we take time to stop and check we have fulfilled the IB's expectations in terms of texts studied.

As those of you in May session schools bring the year to a close and look forward to a well-deserved holiday, we know you will also have an eye on the next academic year and, in particular, the start of the new Language A Literature course. You may well have done a great deal of thinking and planning for this already, or you may have identified this term as the time to get this done but, as is so often the way, not done as much as you had hoped as other things came in and demanded your time!

The new course invites consideration of literary works in a way that will be important to establish from the beginning. Traditional reading models locate the meaning of the work inside the text itself and encourage readers to 'find sense' in the text in front of them. More modern ways of thinking show that meaning is far less fixed and determined - existing in the space/s between the text,...

Probably the most exciting aspect of the new course is the freedom it gives to teachers in terms of planning their course, with texts no longer organised according to parts or linked to specific assessment tasks. However, this freedom also presents a challenge and, whether you are in a department of two or twenty teachers, you have probably started thinking and talking about how you might organise your course, and also possibly started to feel a little overwhelmed by the range of choices the new course presents.

As well as being a requirement for the Literature course from 2019, the Learner Portfolio is an opportunity for students to create a ‘space’ where they can analyse, explore, inquire and imagine in a variety of ways when responding to literature. It is also a place where students can record and chart their learning over the two years of the course.

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.

While students will have experience of keeping a record of their work for English, whether in note books or on computer, the concept of the learner portfolio will be a new one for them and will require some careful explanation at the start of the course. While it is important students understand that it is a fundamental and mandatory aspect of the course, this information needs to be framed with a clear rationale for its centrality: if students understand the purpose of the learner portfolio then they are more likely to engage with it and approach it with care, rigour and creativity.

Replacing the IOP and IOC, the individual oral combines aspects of both previous assessments into one internal assessment task, which is the same for SL and HL students in terms of the nature of the task, the time allocation and assessment criteria. Like the old IOC, it is delivered and recorded as an oral examination, while it also gives students a degree of choice, control and preparation time more akin to the old IOP. This page gives an overview of the essential information and requirements for this assessment in response to some of the questions teachers and students may have as they prepare for the assignment. Click on the icon below each question to see the guidance.