IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature – The HL Essay Revision Notes

These revision notes condense the HL essay in IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature. They are aligned to the IB Diploma Programme subject brief Language A: literature and draw on all three areas of exploration: Readers, writers and texts; Time and space; and Intertextuality: connecting texts. They follow the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021). HL only.

For full explanations and a worked model paragraph, use the HL essay study guide. Then test yourself with the practice set. Course links: Language A: Literature hub · printable checklist · assessment revision notes.

Examples below use Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of an Hour” (1894), which is in the public domain.

Key facts from the subject brief

Fact	What the brief says
Who writes it	HL students only
Type	Written coursework component
Length	1,200–1,500 words
On what	One work studied
Weighting	20% of the final grade at HL
Internal or external	Listed under external assessment
HL weightings around it	Paper 1 35%, Paper 2 25%, HL essay 20%, individual oral 20%

Anything else, including the assessment criteria, drafting and feedback rules and deadlines, comes from your teacher. Do not rely on rumours about it.

The brief’s assessment objectives, in short: know, understand and interpret the work and its contexts; analyse and evaluate “ways in which the use of language creates meaning”; communicate “ideas in clear, logical and persuasive ways”.

Definitions

• Line of inquiry: the single, focused question your whole essay answers. It names a feature of the writer’s craft and an arguable claim about its effect.
• Thesis: your answer to the line of inquiry, in one or two sentences.
• Primary source: the literary work itself. It supplies almost all of your evidence.
• Secondary source: criticism, biography or history about the work or its context.
• Embedded quotation: a quotation built into your own sentence’s grammar.
• Works cited / bibliography: the list of every source used, at the end of the essay.

Method in steps

Building a line of inquiry

1. Re-read and log moments that interest you (quotation + location).
2. Group the log: which moments share a feature or an effect?
3. Ask the question the pattern raises: "How does the writer ... and why?"
4. Write a working thesis that answers it.
5. Test: arguable? six or more moments? fits about 1,100 words of body?

A body paragraph

Claim     -> one sentence that moves the thesis forward
Evidence  -> a short embedded quotation
Analysis  -> what the specific words, syntax, image or structure do
Develop   -> a second quotation, a contrast or a wider effect
Link      -> back to the line of inquiry

Revision passes (one job per pass)

Argument  -> every paragraph answers the line of inquiry
Evidence  -> every quotation checked word for word
Precision -> vague verbs ("shows") replaced with exact ones
Length    -> cut summary and repetition before analysis

Word budget arithmetic

Plan	Intro	Body	Conclusion	Total	Verdict
A	150	3 × 370 = 1,110	140	1,400	Safe: 100 under the maximum
B	200	4 × 330 = 1,320	180	1,700	200 over: cut a section or trim each
C	100	3 × 300 = 900	100	1,100	100 under the 1,200 minimum

Aim for a target of about 1,350–1,450 words so revisions do not push you out of range.

Worked reminders

From topic to line of inquiry. Topic: the setting of the story. Line of inquiry: How does Chopin set the “open window” against the “closed door” to stage the conflict between Louise’s private self and the role others give her?

Embedding. Weak: Josephine is outside. “Louise, open the door!” Stronger: Josephine’s plea, “Louise, open the door!”, treats the closed door as a danger, while for Louise it is protection.

Analysis, not description. Description: Louise tells her sister to go away. Analysis: “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” Two flat, short sentences replace the sobbing of the opening; Louise’s refusal is calm, and the calm is new.

Using context. A reader who knows how limited a married woman’s legal and economic independence was in the 1890s may hear Louise’s wish to “live for herself” as a claim on something the law did not give her. Use context like this only when it changes how a line is read.

Allusion inside one work. “Like a goddess of Victory” borrows the classical figure of Victory to give Louise a moment of triumph; the fall that follows is steeper because of it. That is intertextuality within a single-work essay: the work in conversation with a tradition, not a second set text.

Must-know distinctions

This	Not this
A line of inquiry: How does Chopin make the doctors’ diagnosis ironic?	A topic: Death in the story
Analysis: what the words do and why	Summary: what happens next
Context that changes a reading	Context as a history lesson
Your argument, tested against critics	A critic’s argument, repeated
One work, with its conventions and allusions	A comparison of two works (Paper 2’s task)
A quotation cited with its location	A quotation dropped in with no location
A paraphrase with a citation	A paraphrase passed off as your own idea

Referencing rules

• Copy quotations exactly, including punctuation and capitals.
• An ellipsis (…) shows words you have cut. Square brackets show words you have added or changed, for example she “[breathes] a quick prayer”.
• Give the location (usually a page number) in the style your school uses.
• List the work and every secondary source at the end.
• Credit ideas you paraphrase, not only words you quote.

Quick self-test

1. What length does the brief give for the HL essay?
2. What percentage of the final HL grade is the HL essay worth?
3. On how many works is the essay written?
4. Is it listed as internal or external assessment?
5. A plan has a 160-word introduction, three body sections of 390 words and a 150-word conclusion. What is the total, and is it within the limit?
6. Which is the line of inquiry? (i) Marriage in “The Story of an Hour” (ii) How does Chopin use the doctors’ final diagnosis to invite the reader to reject their reading of Louise? (iii) Louise Mallard’s character
7. A student writes: Louise knows there will be “no one to live for” in future. What is wrong?
8. Which area of exploration best fits: How might a reader in 1894 and a reader today judge Louise’s joy differently?
9. What is the difference between an ellipsis and square brackets in a quotation?
10. Rewrite with the quotation embedded: Louise is happy. “Free! Body and soul free!”
11. At HL, what do Paper 1, Paper 2, the HL essay and the oral add up to?
12. When should you read secondary criticism, and why?

Answers

1. 1,200–1,500 words.
2. 20%.
3. One work studied.
4. External.
5. 160 + 3 × 390 + 150 = 1,480 words. It is within the 1,200–1,500 range, with 20 words to spare, which is too tight for safe revision.
6. (ii). It names a feature (the diagnosis) and an arguable claim about its effect on the reader.
7. It misquotes. Chopin writes “no one to live for her”. Dropping “her” changes the meaning from no one living on Louise’s behalf to Louise having no one to care for.
8. Time and space: it asks how the contexts in which a text is written and received shape meaning.
9. An ellipsis (…) marks words cut out; square brackets mark words added or changed.
10. For example: Louise’s whispered “Free! Body and soul free!” claims her body as well as her mind, so the freedom she imagines is physical, not only a thought. The quotation now sits inside the sentence and is followed by analysis.
11. 35% + 25% + 20% + 20% = 100%.
12. After your own reading, so the thesis is yours; then use critics to test it and credit them.

Where marks are usually lost

• A topic in place of a question, so the essay describes rather than argues.
• Plot summary that fills a third of the word count.
• Naming a technique (“imagery”, “repetition”) without saying what the particular words do.
• Quotations that are too long, dropped in without grammar, or never analysed.
• Misquotations: a changed word, lost punctuation or a missing ellipsis.
• Context paragraphs that never return to the text.
• A secondary critic’s reading used as the thesis, or used without credit.
• A conclusion that only repeats the introduction instead of answering the line of inquiry.
• Going over 1,500 words, or falling under 1,200 after heavy cutting.

Before you hand in

• The line of inquiry appears, in some form, in the first paragraph and is answered in the last.
• Every body paragraph opens with a claim, not a plot event.
• Every quotation has been checked against the edition you used, and has a location.
• The works cited list includes the literary work itself.
• The word count sits inside 1,200–1,500 by your school’s counting rules.

For the areas of exploration behind your question, revise Readers, writers and texts and Intertextuality: connecting texts.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019).