The new course: updates

Sunday 8 December 2019

Updates on the new course

In October 2019, the IB updated the guide for the new course and last month they published a Frequently Asked Questions document to help answer some of the questions teachers have been raising now that they have started teaching the course.  As with all IB support material, the guide and FAQ can be found on the Programme Resource Centre on My IB, but as you are all busy people, we thought it would also be useful to give you a brief overview of some of the main points here.

It is only when you start teaching a course that you truly discover what you don't know and the questions you have about how to teach and prepare students for a new set of assessments and expectations.  Now that many of us have been teaching the course for a few months, the release of this FAQ document is timely; some of the answers provide more clarity, while others may raise more questions. Find below a quick rundown of some of the most significant details from the IB's new FAQ document; if you do find you have more questions, be assured that here at Inthinking we will continue to provide thoughtful, responsive support.  We believe that teachers collaborating together is in the best interests of all our students so we welcome your questions and using this site for continued dialogue about the new course.  

Student Choice

One of the big positives of the new course is the emphasis on student choice and autonomy; of course, this is also one of the big challenges for us as teachers.   There is a significant clarification stating that students are able to choose works they personally want to study, which means that all students in a class do not have to study the same texts. However, this does not mean the course should be “self-taught” and all texts used by students for assessment components  “need to have been studied and discussed in class.” What it does mean, though, is that we can teach parts of the course through Literature circles or similarly differentiated approaches that give students more choice and autonomy with what they study. This is an exciting development that I know many English teachers will be keen to explore, although it also has implications (and complications) when it comes to planning, resourcing and ensuring that all course requirements are met by all students.  

There was also a reminder about student choice of texts for assessments: it must be students - not teachers  - who choose which texts to use for which assessments. We can give guidance but the students need to make decisions for themselves as a result of their work and reflections in their learner portfolio.   

Works Studied Form

This is a simple one page document that each student needs to complete towards the end of the course.  It can be found on My IB and needs to be signed by you and the student, and kept with the learner portfolios. The IB won’t request the form unless it’s necessary but you need to make sure you have these forms  - or copies of them - somewhere secure so that they can be found and submitted if requested. 

Writers and Literary Forms

Literary forms of writers on the PRL:  if a writer is on the PRL then we can use any text they have written, not just those of the literary form they are associated with on the PRL.

Assessment updates

Paper 1`

There was confirmation that this paper will have two extracts, each from a different literary form with any combination possible (so the major change from the previous course is that drama extracts will now be included).  It was also stated that “any of the subcategories of these literary forms could in principle be included.” So, in short, our students need to be prepared to analyse any literary form.   

It is clear that the guiding question is more significant than in the past, as the changes in timing (1 hour 15 minutes for SL students to write in response to one extract, 2 hours 15 minutes for HL students to write in response to both) means that the responses will be shorter and therefore need to be more sharply focused.  The guiding question will be focused on a significant stylistic aspect in the text (e.g. imagery) and “offers a point of entry into the text that the paper authors considered a productive one for the students to explore.” Students can choose their own “point of entry” but it needs to be a “technical or formal aspect” that is as significant and as focused as that in the guiding question. It is expected that most students will respond to the guiding question.  

Paper 2 

The questions will be the same for SL and HL, and for Literature and Language and Literature.   The course concepts will be used to construct the questions although these may not be explicitly stated in the wording.  For example, one of the questions on a specimen paper is: ‘Referring to two works you have studied, discuss how the author has created a convincing “world”’.  This question clearly relates to the course concept ‘creativity’, but, depending on the texts chosen, it could also connect to the concepts of ‘culture’, ‘representation’ and ‘transformation’. 

HL Essay

Feedback is only allowed on one complete draft, verbal or written, and must not include corrections or edits on the student’s work. Also, it is not expected that students will write more than one higher level essay, although this is not against the rules.  However, if they do write more than one, teachers can still “only provide feedback for the first draft of each essay” and teachers must not “help students pick the best higher level essay from those they have written.”  

Individual Oral

There is a little more to report on this task, although some of it may raise more questions rather than clarify.  Here’s a brief summary of the main points:

  1. Practice/mock IOs:  these need to be managed carefully as it states that “any combinations of texts and global issues used for practice will not be available for any student for the real individual oral.”  
  2. Outline form: the IB has created one and it can be found on the PRC on My IB. 
  3. Balance of big picture discussion and close analysis: this is the point that many will find most challenging, especially given the time restriction for talking about two texts and their connection to a global issue.  This is what is stated in the FAQ: “The student should be demonstrating their knowledge and understanding (criterion A) and their analysis and evaluation (criterion B) of both the extract and the work or body of work from which it was taken. There should therefore be a balance between the time spent discussing both : approximately the same amount of time should be spent discussing the presence of the global issue in each.”  With only 5 minutes per text (less if you include an introduction and conclusion), this has huge implications in terms of how we advise students in terms of choosing extracts, defining their focus and structuring their IOs.   
  4. Extracts: these must be continuous lines of text - they can’t have sections or lines missing. 
  5. Structure: this can be text by text but it is also suggested that some students might adopt a more “integrated approach which makes the connections between the two texts explicit.”  The IB are clear to reiterate that “the individual oral is not a comparative task”, so this is not an expected approach but it is an option if the extracts and the student’s line of argument lend themselves to this approach.  However students choose to structure, each work needs equal time and the connection to the global issue is the focus for the task. 
  6. Guidance and feedback can happen throughout the process via the learner portfolio up until the point that students submit their outline forms.  Once teachers have returned these with feedback, there can be no further support or guidance. Students cannot rehearse their individual oral with the teacher.