Name:______________________________
Date: ________________
Practice Written Task 1
2012 – 2013
Ms. Wiggins
IB Language and Literature
Over the two-year course, you will write a series of Written Tasks (WT) to submit for
external assessment. All students, both HL and SL, will write one “WT 1” per
semester/part; HL students will also write a “WT 2,” which has different aims and
assessment criteria, once per year. (For more details and specifics on assessment,
please see the IB Course Booklet on the wiki).
Today we are only concerned with WT 1, which all students will complete once this
semester. WT 1 is a more creative text written by students in order to examine more
closely one aspect of that part of the course in a textually creative way. It is not an
essay, and the IB is very clear about this. For example, after studying the impacts of
language on gender, a student might choose to develop and write his Written Task 1
as an editorial for a newspaper, arguing in the editorial column that people should be
more conscious of the way language impacts gender, giving specific reasons for how
and why this is the case. A formal essay, as opposed to a newspaper editorial, would
not be acceptable to the IB here. They are looking for you to play around with kinds
of texts – newspaper editorials, letters, pastiches, etc. The say “any” text type is
allowed as long as it is not an editorial and meets the criteria requirements.
The WT 1 itself is 800 – 1,000 words long and must be accompanied by an additional
200 – 300-word rationale, in which the student explains:
- How the task is linked to the part of the course (in this case, Part 1)
- How the task is intended to explore particular aspects, such as learning
outcomes
- The nature of the task chosen
- Information about audience, purpose, and the varying contexts in which
the task is set.
Today we are practicing this WT – this is not an official WT that may be sent off to
the IB, but it will be just like that in process and product. The difference is that today I
am choosing the topic and type of task you will do. For the real WT, you will choose
your own (in consultation with me). Consider this the friendly scrimmage before the
big game, which allows you to understand the format better and allows me to give you
more feedback than the IB allows on an official WT.
This will be graded for an MKIS grade but will not be sent to the IB as an official
WT.
“My Englishes”
Practice WT Instructions
Following up on our reading of Amy Tan’s essay “Mothertongue,” you will do
a practice WT 1 that explores how you use English in various settings and with
different audiences.
You must write a 800-1000-word WT 1 that is composed of two different
personal letters from you to:
1. A friend, similar-aged sibling or family member, or an imaginary pen-pal
2. A (real or imagined) ancestor from any time period in the past that you
never met, a deceased older family member you knew (such as a
grandparent), or a family elder you know and respect.
Your job in each of these letters is to explain what your family and culture mean to
you, and how both your family and culture have shaped you. The catch is that you
will write each letter in its own distinct “English” – one appropriate for peers, and one
for respected elders. You will “code switch” here, using your colloquial, familiar
English in the first letter and your formal English in the second.
When finished, write your rationale (200 – 300 words), which should explore and
explain how you carried this out in the WT, specifically addressing:
- How the task is linked to Part 1 (Language and Culture)
- How the task explores one or more of the IB Lang/Lit Part 1 Learning
Outcomes:
o How audience and purpose affect the structure and content of texts
o The impact of language changes
o An awareness of how language and meaning are shaped by culture
and context
- The nature of the task chosen
- Information about audience, purpose, and the varying contexts in which
the task is set.
**Please note that the goals and criteria are clearly outlined here and on the rubric,
and you might find that they don’t neatly fit with your own personal reality. Perhaps
you are thinking of writing to your beloved grandmother, but you speak with her the
way you’d speak to a peer, so the letters would be very similar in style – the same
“Englishes.” The answer in this case is to choose a different person to write to (such
as an ancestor you never knew) or to pretend your grandmother is someone in your
life that she isn’t. Your goal is not to write a personal, heartfelt, true narrative essay.
Instead, it is to best portray how language can be used in two different contexts for
two very different audiences. In short, show off your ability to “code switch” and then
explain how you did this in the rationale. If you need to make things up or bend
reality to do this, by all means go ahead. This is a creative exercise that aims to get
you using and thinking about language in new and challenging ways, not tell a true
story about your family.
Rubric on the back so you can see exactly how you’ll be graded – all criteria!