IB English
Welcome to Revision Village IB English in partnership with the IB English Guys! Together, we are excited to provide you with the IB English skills, mark schemes, and confidence needed to succeed in the course. As you know, IB English is a demanding class that requires students to read, write, and speak about complex texts in an academic way. Whether you are taking IB English A: Literature, IB English A: Language and Literature, or IB English A: Literature and Performance, this site has the study resources and activities necessary to achieve your goals on Paper 1, Paper 2, the Individual Oral, and the Higher Level Essay. Let’s dive in.
Course Structure and Content
Most IB English A students take either IB English A: Literature or IB English A: Language and Literature. If you’re one of the few taking IB English A: Literature and Performance, don’t worry—there’s plenty here for you as well, as all three courses have significant overlap. Let’s examine the courses.
IB English A: Literature
If you are taking IB English A: Literature, then you will be doing a deep dive into prose fiction, prose non-fiction, drama, and poetry. Simply put, you will be reading, discussing, and writing about texts like The Handmaid’s Tale, Born a Crime, A Doll’s House, and the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy. But it’s more than just reading and understanding the themes and characters in these works. You will also need to carefully examine the authorial choices and consider how the respective authors make deliberate decisions to “shape meaning” for their audience.
IB English A: Language and Literature
If you are taking IB English A: Lang/Lit, you will acquire the same skill set as the IB Lit course but with the added challenge of exploring non-literary text types, including advertisements, infographics, and films. This course offers students great real-life opportunities to see how classroom learning can be applied to the vast range of media texts encountered daily.
IB English Guys - Andrew Cohen & Dave GilesIB English A: Literature and Performance
If you take Literature and Performance, you get the best of both worlds: literature and theatre. This course dives into the dynamic relationship between close reading, critical analysis of literary texts, and the expressive, symbolic elements of performance. You’ll study everything from Shakespearean plays to modern prose, and then bring those texts to life on stage.
The Assessment Model
Paper 1:
This is a guided textual analysis of unseen texts. Regardless of the course, the task is the same—answer the guiding question while unpacking the provided text. This is the time for close reading, analyzing and interpreting, and writing a full response that shows your insight and evaluation of how authorial choices shape meaning.
Paper 2:
This assessment requires students to answer one of four questions using two literary works from the course. Students must compare and contrast ideas and authorial choices in relation to the chosen question. This is a challenging task, but it's a favorite. You can study for it, and the "Literary Hotspots" section of our bootcamps will show you how to do it.
Individual Oral
Global Issues form the backbone of this component. For this task, students must discuss extracts, works (or bodies of work) as a whole, and link it all to a carefully written Global Issue statement. If that sounds challenging, don’t worry. Our literary and assessment bootcamps will alleviate your fears and help you thrive with minimal stress. There is plenty of support for this assessment.
Higher Level Essay
HL students have an additional task, and that’s the HLE. No worries. We have the key insights and tips to help you excel in this 1500-word essay focusing on a Line of Inquiry you develop in class. This task is an opportunity to do deep thinking and research and showcase your skills to the examiner.
Tips for success
- Read the assigned texts.
- Develop close reading and annotation skills.
- Unpack textual references, pin them to authorial choices, and analyze/interpret how these choices shape meaning.
- Stay focused on the task requirements.
- Remember to use your best academic language when expressing yourself in both oral and written assignments.
More IB English Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the core aims of English A: Language and Literature?
English A: Language and Literature is a course that seeks to help students improve in reading, writing, and speaking in formal academic English. This course comprises of two parts: Language and Literature. When studying language, students will explore how creators make deliberate choices to shape meaning for readers. For literature, specific attention will be paid to how authorial choices shape meaning and elaborate on key themes found in the human condition.
What are the core aims of English A: Literature?
English A: Literature seeks to produce students who can read, speak, and write about literature in a sophisticated way that is commensurate with university standards. Students will explore prose fiction, prose non-fiction, poetry, and drama during the two-year course. Additionally, they will read both works in English and works translated into English from other languages.
What components make up the assessment model?
The assessment model is consistent across the various English courses, and all students will complete Paper 1, a guided textual analysis of a text. This will be literary for LIT students and non-literary for LAL students. Additionally, all students irrespective of course will write a comparative literary analysis for Paper 2, and all students will complete an Individual Oral assessment where they provide evidence and analysis for a Global Issue of their choosing. Lastly, all HL students will complete a Higher Level Essay, which is an academic essay centered around a Line of Inquiry of the student’s choosing.
How can Revision Village help me improve in the subject?
Revision Village has many components to help students prepare for the full battery of assessments. Key Concept videos, Past Papers, Prediction Papers, the Questionbank, and the various Literary and Assessment bootcamps are a robust set of materials created by the RV English Team to help students achieve the results they covet on their exams. Systematically working through the RV content is the best way to prepare and review for assessments.