IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature: Subject Overview

IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature explores the various manifestations of literature as a powerful mode of writing across cultures and throughout history. The course develops an understanding of the factors that contribute to the production and reception of literature – the creativity of writers and readers, the nature of their interaction with their contexts and with literary tradition, and the ways language can give rise to meaning and effect.

Areas of exploration and teaching hours

Area of exploration	SL hours	HL hours
Readers, writers and texts	50	80
Time and space	50	80
Intertextuality: connecting texts	50	80
Total	150	240

Works studied

The IB’s Language A: literature guide states that SL students must study a minimum of 9 works across the three areas of exploration (at least 4 written originally in the language studied, at least 3 in translation, and 2 freely chosen), and HL students a minimum of 13 works (at least 5 originally in the language studied, at least 4 in translation, and 4 freely chosen) – figures the guide itemises and states more than once. Note that the IB’s own course description webpage currently states different, lower figures (7 works at SL and 10 at HL); since it is not possible to know in advance which figure an individual exam session or coordinator will apply, treat the guide’s 9/13 as the more detailed and internally consistent source, but do not assume it silently overrides the course page’s 7/10.

Central concepts and the learner portfolio

Seven concepts – identity, culture, creativity, communication, perspective, transformation and representation – structure the teaching and learning of the course and recur across all three areas of exploration. They are not directly assessed in any component, but the guide treats them as an essential part of a student’s investigation, expected to inform discussion of every work studied.

The learner portfolio is a mandatory, central element of the course for every student: an individual collection of work built up over the two years, used to prepare for every assessment component. It is not itself assessed or moderated by the IB, but schools may be required to submit it to help establish the authenticity of a student’s work, so “not assessed” should not be read as “never seen” or “irrelevant.”

Aims

The course aims to enable students to:

• engage with a range of texts, in a variety of media and forms, from different periods, styles and cultures
• develop skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, presenting and performing
• develop skills in interpretation, analysis and evaluation
• develop sensitivity to the formal and aesthetic qualities of texts
• develop an understanding of relationships between texts and a variety of perspectives, cultural contexts, and local and global issues
• communicate and collaborate in a confident and creative way
• foster a lifelong interest in and enjoyment of language and literature.

How it’s assessed

Language A: Literature shares the same overall assessment structure as Language A: Language and Literature, though the papers focus more exclusively on literary texts. Paper 1 sets two previously unseen literary extracts at both levels, but SL students write a guided analysis of only one of the two (1 hour 15 minutes, 20 marks), while HL students write a guided analysis of both (2 hours 15 minutes, 40 marks). At SL, Paper 1 is worth 35%, Paper 2 (a comparative essay drawing on studied literary works) is worth 35%, and the individual oral is worth 30%. At HL, Paper 1 remains worth 35%, Paper 2 drops to 25%, and the HL essay – independent written coursework of 1,200 to 1,500 words analysing an aspect of one literary work or text studied during the course – is worth 20%, with the individual oral making up the remaining 20%.

The individual oral is a single prepared spoken response (10 minutes, plus 5 minutes of teacher questions) in which students examine how a global issue of their choosing is presented through the content and form of two of the literary works they have studied, supported by an extract from each – one from a work written originally in the language studied, and one from a work studied in translation. As with Language A: Language and Literature, the HL essay is the component that most clearly separates HL assessment from SL, since it is completed only by students taking the course at Higher Level.

What each area of exploration covers

Readers, writers and texts focuses on close literary technique – narrative voice, poetic form, dramatic structure – and on the specification’s central idea that reading is an active process: readers construct meaning from a writer’s choices rather than simply receiving a single fixed meaning. Because this course studies literary works exclusively, this component goes deeper into technique than the equivalent component in Language A: Language and Literature, which must divide its attention between literary and non-literary texts. A strong answer within this component does not merely name a technique – it explains what interpretive possibilities that specific choice opens up or closes off for the reader, and this skill of moving from technique to effect transfers directly into Paper 1’s guided analysis of an unseen literary extract.

Time and space examines how a work’s historical, geographical, cultural and social context of production and reception shapes both what it means and how it is read, including how the same work can be read differently by audiences separated by time or place.

Intertextuality: connecting texts is where the course’s exclusively literary reading list becomes a resource for genuine comparison across literary history and form: works can echo or pay homage to an earlier text, respond critically to it in dialogue, or deliberately subvert its conventions and assumptions, and revising this component means practising the identification of a specific, genuine point of connection – a shared theme, a shared form, or a direct reference – rather than describing two works side by side without relating them.

The individual oral in more detail

The individual oral asks each student to explore, in a single prepared spoken response of roughly 10 minutes followed by 5 minutes of teacher questions, how a global issue of their own choosing is presented through the content and form of two of the literary works studied during the course, supported by an extract from each – one from a work written originally in the language studied, and one from a work studied in translation. Students select the global issue themselves and are expected to root their discussion in close analysis of authorial choices – narrative technique, structure, form – across both works, rather than discussing the issue in the abstract, since the assessment rewards close textual grounding over general commentary on the issue itself.

The HL essay

Students taking the course at Higher Level additionally complete the HL essay, an independent piece of written coursework between 1,200 and 1,500 words analysing a specific aspect of one literary text or work studied (where the work is a collection of short stories, poems or other short texts, the essay must refer to more than one text from within that single work). Teachers give regular formative feedback throughout but must not edit or correct the student’s writing directly; only near the end of the process may a teacher give written advice on one complete draft, typically by annotating it, and the next version submitted after that draft must be the final one. Because it is produced independently rather than under exam conditions, examiners expect a more sustained, precisely evidenced argument than a timed in-class essay allows, and it is this independent-research element – not simply extra content, and not multiple rounds of drafting – that most clearly distinguishes HL assessment from SL.

Weighting across the two levels

Comparing SL and HL side by side clarifies where the real assessment differences lie: Paper 1 is weighted identically at both levels, so the guided literary analysis skill matters equally regardless of level, while Paper 2’s comparative essay is weighted more heavily at SL (35%) than at HL (25%), where the balance shifts instead toward the independently produced HL essay. Students should read this as a signal about where preparation time is best spent at each level, not simply as an administrative detail.

Source

International Baccalaureate Organization, Language A: Literature subject brief (Diploma Programme), 2019.