IB MYP Language Acquisition – Criterion D – Writing in response to multimodal texts Study Guide

This study guide teaches criterion D (Writing) for IB MYP Language Acquisition. It is aligned to the International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Language acquisition, from 2020 (first eAssessment May 2023/November 2023), and suits MYP years 4 and 5 (MYP has no SL/HL split). It applies to school-based writing tasks and, if your school enters MYP eAssessment, the writing task of the on-screen examination from the May 2023 and November 2023 sessions onwards.

MYP has no prescribed content list – schools design their own units. This page covers a skill that the brief’s criteria name: writing for an audience and purpose. The brief gives each criterion eight achievement levels (1–8) in four bands. Your teacher will share the level descriptors and task-specific clarifications.

Model texts are in English; each section ends with how to apply it in your target language.

Use this guide with the criterion D revision notes and the criterion D practice questions. For the four criteria side by side, see the criteria in practice; for emergent, capable and proficient levels, see proficiency phases. Course links: MYP Language Acquisition hub and printable checklist.

What this unit covers

Skill	What you must be able to do	Level
Decoding the task	Find purpose, audience, text type and what the stimulus offers	All phases
Planning	Turn the stimulus into a short plan with one job per paragraph	All phases
Organisation and cohesion	Paragraph clearly and link ideas with connectives and reference words	All phases
Register	Choose formal or informal language to suit the reader, and keep it consistent	All phases
Accuracy and range	Use varied vocabulary and structures that you can control	All phases; more expected at capable and proficient

What the brief says about criterion D

The brief describes criterion D in two sentences:

• You recognise and use language that suits the audience and purpose. The brief’s examples include home and classroom language, formal and informal exchanges, and social and academic language.
• You use your grasp of language, form, mode, medium and literary concepts to express ideas, values and opinions creatively and meaningfully.

For eAssessment, the brief’s blueprint names the objective “Writing in response to multimodal texts” and gives criterion D 24 marks, the same as criteria A and B. The on-screen examination has three tasks and may use any topic from the language acquisition list; the mark distribution may vary by no more than three marks from the blueprint. Courses are assessed at emergent, capable or proficient level.

A multimodal stimulus combines words with images, layout or colour. Reading it in depth is covered in multimodal texts and visuals. For criterion D, the stimulus is a springboard: you take its ideas and build your own text.

Step 1: decode the task

Before you write, answer four questions.

Question	Ask yourself
Purpose	Am I informing, persuading, describing, explaining, requesting, complaining or reflecting?
Audience	Who reads this? A friend, a head of school, teenage readers, a local official?
Text type	Email, letter, blog post, article, diary entry, speech, leaflet?
Stimulus	What facts, images and attitudes can I use? What must I add myself?

Worked example: decoding a prompt

Source A – original text written for Marlbridge. A poster for a fictional community event. The headline reads “FIX IT, DON’T BIN IT!” Below it: “Repair Café – Saturday mornings, Eastfield Library hall. Bring broken lamps, torn jeans, wobbly chairs. Volunteers repair them with you. Free. Last month: 40 items saved from the bin.” The image shows two pairs of hands stitching a jacket. A small crossed-out rubbish bin sits in the corner.

Task: Your school wants student ideas for its sustainability week. Write an email to your head of school proposing that the school runs its own repair café. Use ideas from the poster.

Decoding:

1. Purpose – to persuade (propose an idea with reasons) and to request support.
2. Audience – the head of school, an adult in authority. So the register is formal.
3. Text type – email. You need a subject line, a greeting, paragraphs, a closing request and a sign-off.
4. Stimulus – the poster gives you free repairs, volunteers, everyday objects and a result (40 items saved). The image adds people working together; the crossed-out bin stands for less waste. You must add why it suits a school and how it would run.

In your target language: decode the prompt in the target language, not in English. Underline the verb that gives the purpose and the noun that names the reader.

Step 2: plan

A plan gives every paragraph one job. Single words are enough.

For the repair café email:

Paragraph	Job	Content
Opening	State why you are writing	Sustainability week; you have an idea
1	Explain the idea	What a repair café is; the Eastfield poster
2	Give reasons	Less waste; students learn practical skills; brings year groups and families together
3	Answer an objection	Cost and safety: free volunteers, teachers supervise, no electrical repairs by students
Close	Make the request	Ask for a meeting or a trial date

Paragraph 3 answers a doubt the reader might have – a sign that you have thought about audience, not only content.

In your target language: write the plan in the target language. Next to each paragraph, note two key words and one structure to use (for example a conditional). This stops you translating from English.

Step 3: organisation and cohesive devices

Organisation is the order of your ideas. Cohesion is the language that joins them. Three tools:

1. Paragraphs with topic sentences. The first sentence of each paragraph tells the reader what the paragraph is about.
2. Connectives – words and phrases that show how ideas relate.
3. Reference words – this, these, it, such a project – which point back to something already said, so you do not repeat the same noun.

Function	English	French	Spanish	German
Adding	furthermore, also	de plus, aussi	además, también	außerdem, auch
Contrasting	however	cependant	sin embargo	jedoch
Result	therefore	donc	por lo tanto	deshalb
Example	for example	par exemple	por ejemplo	zum Beispiel
Sequencing	first, finally	d’abord, enfin	primero, por último	zuerst, schließlich

A connective must match the logic: however introduces a contrast, not an extra point. Some also change word order: German deshalb at the start of a clause puts the verb second (“Deshalb ist das Projekt billig”).

Weak cohesion:

The café would be free. Volunteers would help. Students would learn skills. Families could come.

Stronger cohesion:

The café would be free, because volunteers would do the repairs. This would also give students a chance to learn practical skills. Furthermore, families could come along, so the event would bring the whole school community together.

The ideas are the same; because, this, also, furthermore and so show how they connect.

In your target language: build your own connective table with at least two items per function. Tick each one off the first time you use it correctly in a piece of writing.

Step 4: register

Register is how formal your language is. It depends on audience and purpose – what the brief asks you to recognise.

Feature	Formal	Informal
Greeting and sign-off	“Dear Ms Okafor” / “Yours sincerely”	“Hi Sam” / “See you soon”
Address	Polite form where the language has one	Familiar form
Contractions	Avoided (“I would”)	Common (“I’d”)
Vocabulary	Precise, neutral (“reduce waste”)	Everyday, sometimes slang (“stop chucking stuff out”)
Sentences	Complete, often longer	Short, with exclamations

Register is a scale. One idea at three points on it:

• Informal (message to a friend): “We should totally do a repair café at school – it’d be so fun!”
• Neutral (school newsletter): “A repair café at school would be a fun and useful event.”
• Formal (email to the head): “I would like to propose that the school hosts a repair café during sustainability week.”

The commonest register error is drift: a formal email that ends “Anyway, let me know, thanks!” Choose a register when you decode the task and check every paragraph against it.

In your target language: the form of address is the biggest register signal. French uses tu or vous, Spanish tú or usted, German du or Sie. In a formal email to your head of school, use the polite form throughout and check that every verb and possessive agrees with it.

Step 5: accuracy and range

Range is the variety of vocabulary and structures you use. Accuracy is how correctly you use them. The two pull against each other: the more you try, the more you can get wrong.

Ways to widen your range:

• Tenses and moods. Past (the Eastfield visit), present, and future or conditional (what the school café would do).
• Sentence types. Mix simple sentences with complex ones that use because, although, if and which.
• Vocabulary. Replace general words with precise ones: good → useful, practical, worthwhile.
• Opinions with reasons. Not just “I think it is good”, but “I believe it is worthwhile because it teaches skills that last.”

The rule: use range you can control. At emergent level, aim for short, accurate sentences joined by basic connectives. At capable level, add reasons, more than one time frame and some complex sentences. At proficient level, aim for precise word choice, varied structures and idiom used naturally – the brief lists word choice and idiom among its related concepts.

A checking order for the end:

1. Verbs – endings, tense and agreement with the subject.
2. Agreement – gender and number of nouns and adjectives, where your language has them.
3. Word order – especially after connectives.
4. Spelling and accents.
5. Register – one last read as the audience would read it.

In your target language: keep a personal error list of your three most frequent errors, and check for those first.

Model response (English)

This model answers the repair café task.

Subject: Proposal: a repair café for sustainability week

Dear Ms Okafor,

I am writing to propose an idea for this year’s sustainability week: a repair café run by students.

Last month I visited the Repair Café at Eastfield Library, where volunteers help people fix broken lamps, torn clothes and wobbly chairs for free. According to their poster, forty items were saved from the bin in one month. Our school could achieve something similar.

There are three reasons why this would be worthwhile. First, it would reduce the amount of waste our community produces. Second, students would learn practical skills, such as sewing and basic woodwork, which they could use for the rest of their lives. Finally, such an event would bring students, parents and staff together, just as the poster’s image of two people repairing a jacket suggests.

I understand that you may be concerned about cost and safety. However, the café would cost almost nothing, because volunteers would give their time. Teachers could supervise each table, and students would not repair anything electrical.

Would it be possible to meet next week to discuss this proposal? I would be happy to organise a trial session.

Yours sincerely,

Amira Haddad, Year 10

Why it works: each paragraph has one job; First, Second, Finally, However and because link the ideas; such an event refers back; the register stays formal; past, present and conditional all appear; and the stimulus, including its image, is used, not copied.

Common errors

• Copying phrases from the stimulus instead of reusing its ideas.
• Starting formal and drifting into informal language near the end.
• Using however or therefore where the logic does not support it.
• One long paragraph, so the plan cannot be seen.
• Mixing polite and familiar forms of address in the same text.

For the layout of each text type, see text types and conventions. Then test yourself with the criterion D revision notes and practice questions.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Language acquisition, from 2020 (first eAssessment May 2023/November 2023). This guide follows the brief’s description of criterion D, its statement that each criterion has eight achievement levels in four bands, and its eAssessment blueprint. Level descriptors and task-specific clarifications come from your school.