IB English 11:
Semester Two
Literature in Translation
Stage 1: Reading
TEXTS
• The Sorrow of War, Bao Ninh
(novel)
• The Collected Stories of Franz
Kafka
• Antigone, Sophocles (play)
Stage 2:
The Interactive Oral
The Purpose
Your chief goal is to explore the context of the works
you are reading. You will work together with your
classmates to explore the background of the work.
Components:
Research
Delivery of research in a presentation
Class Discussion
Each interactive oral must be at least thirty minutes.
Contexts For Research
• Relevant elements of the writer’s biography.
• The historical aspects, political or social, of
the work.
• The geographical backdrop against which
the work is set.
• The sociological or anthropological situation
of the characters.
• Cultural issues and practices having to do
with economics, gender, class or race.
Groups
• You might assign, among yourselves, particular
aspects for a brief presentation to the class, then
open up to a whole-class question and answer
discussion period.
• You may choose to present views within your
research and have different members of a panel
present various views of those ideas.
• You may offer some short presentations and then
involve the whole group in some activities such as
role playing, forum theatre and written reactions.
Stage 3:
Reflective Statement
• After each interactive oral, you will
write a response to the following
question:
How was your understanding of the cultural
and contextual considerations of the work
developed through the interactive oral?
Your reflection will be 300-400 words. I will
collect them and keep them in a file. One
of them will be submitted to the IB office.
Stage 4: Supervised
In-Class Writing
• During a 40-50 minute in class session, you
will write a short essay responding to a
prompt. You will have three or four prompts
to chose from, but you will respond to only
one.
Stage 5: Essay
• You will chose one of the three in-class timed essays
as a topic for a more in-depth essay of 1200-1500
words.
• I will look at the first draft and offer feedback and
criticism.
This essay, along with your reflective statement and inclass essay will be sent to the IB committee for scoring.