IB DP Language A: Literature – The Individual Oral and Global Issues Revision Notes

For full explanations and a worked pair of extracts, use the study guide. These notes are for quick recall in the final weeks before your oral.

They cover the individual oral in IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature, drawing on the areas of exploration Readers, writers and texts and Intertextuality: connecting texts, at both SL and HL. It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021).

Practise with the practice questions. Course links: Literature course hub · printable checklist · assessment revision notes.

The facts from the subject brief

Point	What the brief says
Type	Internal assessment
Format	Prepared oral response
The two works	One work originally written in the language studied; one work studied in translation
Focus	The way the two works have approached a common global issue
Weighting	30% of the final grade at SL; 20% at HL
Levels	Taken by both SL and HL students

Not in the brief: the timing, the extract length, what notes you may use, and the assessment criteria. Your teacher will give you these. Do not rely on second-hand figures.

Key definitions

• Global issue – a problem or tension that affects many people across different places and that you can also see in local, everyday life.
• Theme – what a work is about in broad terms (family, power, home). A theme is where an issue starts, not the issue itself.
• Angle – your issue worded as a question you can put to both works (“How do these works show…?”).
• Work originally written in the language studied – a work you read in the language it was written in.
• Work studied in translation – a work written in another language that you read in the language of your course.
• Extract – the passage from each work you use to anchor your analysis.
• Link to the whole work – a precise reference to a moment outside the extract that develops the same idea.

Method in steps

Choosing the issue

1. List the themes each work shares.
2. Inside one theme, find a tension people argue about. That is your issue.
3. Word it as an angle with an action verb: “how communities keep speaking”, “how workers are made invisible”.
4. Check it against both works. Can you quote three specific choices from each?
5. If not, change the angle before you change the works.

Choosing the extracts

1. Choose passages where the issue is shown through images, voice or structure, not just stated.
2. Prefer a passage dense enough for two or three analytical points.
3. Check you can link it to at least two named moments elsewhere in the work.
4. Pick a pair that contrasts in method (poem and prose, first and third person, public and private setting).

Building the oral

1. Thesis: one sentence that says what both works show about the issue, and how they differ.
2. Two or three analytical points per extract, each with a short quotation and its effect.
3. One or two links from each extract to the whole work.
4. A comparison that explains the difference, not just the similarity.
5. Signpost every move aloud.

Handling the work in translation

Usually safe to analyse	Handle with care
Imagery and symbols	Rhyme, alliteration, assonance
Narrative perspective and voice	Puns and wordplay
Structure and sequence of events	Claims about one word the author “chose”
Dialogue and what characters do	Sentence rhythm
Setting and cultural context	Register, if you cannot check the original

Use “in this translation” when a point depends on a single word or sound. Give the translated work the same depth as the other one.

Must-know distinctions

• Theme vs issue. “Family” is a theme. “How economic migration divides families” is an issue.
• Issue vs real-world talk. The oral analyses how texts present the issue. History and statistics count only if they explain a choice in a text.
• Extract vs work. The brief speaks of works. The extracts are your evidence, not the limit of what you discuss.
• Author’s choice vs translator’s choice. In the translated work, some word-level effects belong to the translator.
• Description vs analysis. “The father reads the notice” describes. “Reading the censor’s words aloud turns the ban into a nightly ritual of protest” analyses.
• Similarity vs comparison. “Both works are about silence” notes a link. Explaining how differently each work treats silence is comparison.

Worked reminders

Turning a theme into an angle: “Home” → “Displacement” → “How people forced to leave their homes hold on to identity through objects and language”.

Turning a label into analysis (Original text written for Marlbridge):

The lamp in the empty kitchen burned all night, as if someone were still expected.

• Label: “There is a simile.”
• Analysis: “The comparison ‘as if someone were still expected’ makes the lamp a sign of hope that someone will come back, so the empty room feels like it is still waiting.”

Hedging a claim about a translation:

• Risky: “The author chose the verb ‘keeps’ to make paper sound protective.”
• Safer: “In this translation, the verb ‘keeps’ makes paper sound protective.”

Thesis sentences: weak to strong

Strength	Example thesis
Weak	“Both works are about migration.”
Better	“Both works show that migration separates families.”
Strong	“Both works show that the money earned abroad holds a family together while the distance pulls it apart, but the poem speaks from the home that waits, while the novel speaks from the worker who left.”

The strong version names the issue, makes a claim both works support, and states the difference in perspective that your comparison will explain.

Phrases for spoken comparison

• Similarity: “Like the poem, the novel…”, “Both works turn to… to show…”
• Contrast: “Where the poem speaks as ‘we’, the novel…”, “The novel reverses this…”
• Linking to the whole work: “This image returns later, when…”, “Beyond this extract…”
• Returning to the issue: “This matters for the issue because…”

Use one of these each time you move between works. In an oral, the listener only knows the structure if you say it.

Quick self-test

1. According to the subject brief, what must the two works in the oral be?
2. What weighting does the oral carry at SL, and at HL?
3. Is the oral internally or externally assessed?
4. Give the difference between a theme and a global issue in one sentence.
5. Turn the theme “work” into an angle suitable for the oral.
6. Name two features of a translated work that are usually safe to analyse.
7. Name two features you should handle with care in a translated work, and say why.
8. Read this line (Original text written for Marlbridge): “The border guard stamped her name smaller each time she crossed.” Name one technique and its effect.
9. Why is “Both works are about power” a weak thesis?
10. What should follow each analytical point about an extract?
11. Give one reason to choose extracts that contrast in form.
12. Which facts about the oral does the brief not give?

Answers

1. One work originally written in the language studied and one work studied in translation.
2. 30% at SL; 20% at HL.
3. Internally assessed.
4. A theme is what a work is about in broad terms; a global issue is a specific problem or tension within it that affects many people in many places.
5. For example: “How work that keeps a family alive can also keep its members apart.”
6. Any two of: imagery, symbols, narrative perspective, structure, dialogue, setting.
7. Any two of: rhyme, alliteration, puns, sentence rhythm, single-word choices – because they may be the translator’s rather than the author’s.
8. Symbolism (a figurative image): her name stamped “smaller each time” suggests that each crossing reduces her identity until she is barely recorded.
9. It names a theme and a similarity; it gives no argument about how the works present an issue or how they differ.
10. Its effect, and a link back to the global issue.
11. A contrast in method (for example poem and prose, or “we” and “he”) gives the comparison something to explain.
12. The timing, the extract length, the rules on notes and the assessment criteria.

Where marks are usually lost

• Choosing a theme (“love”, “power”) and never narrowing it to an arguable issue.
• Picking two works from the same language, so the pairing does not meet the brief.
• Talking about the real-world issue for long stretches with no reference to the texts.
• Analysing rhyme or wordplay in the translated work as if it were certainly the author’s.
• Treating the translated work more lightly than the other one.
• Naming techniques (“metaphor”, “enjambment”) without saying what they do.
• Staying inside the extracts and never linking to the rest of either work.
• Forcing the works to agree when they treat the issue differently.
• Stating a thesis in the opening and never returning to it.
• Giving no verbal signposts, so the listener loses the structure.

Official syllabus

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