IB Oral (IOC) Outline
Format
IB Orals
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PART I: Initial Reading (6-7 min)
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Color mark and annotate as you go
PART II: Idea Generation (7-8 min)
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Read the two guiding questions and consider what they
are asking; they are meant to stimulate your thinking.
Do NOT make a direct reference to them!
Brainstorm a list of important points in the passage.
Work from strategy to meaning or vice-versa
After 8-10 possible strategies, go back and name the
first column
IB Orals
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PART III: Organizing the Commentary (57 min)
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Identify a thesis for your commentary by
choosing the most interesting/useful strategies
to make your point.
Make an outline of points –
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thesis at the top for your opening statement
followed by the points in the order you wish to make
them.
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Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
GUIDING QUESTIONS:
 What does the sonnet form add to our understanding of this
passage?
 What does the narrative perspective suggest about the
importance of this passage?
EXAMPLE: Brainstorming List
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STRATEGY: Use of couplet at end of sonnet (lines
13-14)
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STRATEGY: Sonnet form
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FUNCTION: foreshadows role of fate in play
STRATEGY: juxtaposed images
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FUNCTION: Shakespeare and change with couplet =
STRATEGY: References to fate
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FUNCTION: shows it is about theater/actors
FUNCTION: Foreshadows balance imagery
STRATEGY: Death imagery
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FUNCTION: foreshadows death imagery in play
EXAMPLE: Outline
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Opening Statement: Most interesting question is the problem of
why this prologue is included at all—story well-known.
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• Sonnet Form—Rhythm break at “bury” l. 8
• Overtone of money—L1, L12
• Foreshadowing of balance that structures play l.3
• Importance of death imagery l.5-11
• Importance of “fate” l. 6
• Narrative Perspective
• Role of couplet—“our” refers to troupe; “here” refers to actual
prologue. Why do we need it?
Conclusion: Couplet performs function of instructing audience that
although they have encountered, in the prologue, the traditional
interpretation of fate-crossed lovers, the rest of the play is going
to challenge that traditional interpretation and suggest that poor
decision-making had more to do with the outcome than fate did.