IB ENGLISH STANDARD LEVEL - COMMENTARY DETAILS

IB ENGLISH STANDARD LEVEL
ORAL COMMENTARY 2015
DETAILS

The commentary will take place on Thursday 25 June. Preparation time will be 20 minutes followed by the exam of 10 minutes. You should plan to speak for a minimum of 8 minutes on the extract provided and be prepared to answer questions for a further 2 minutes from the examiner – me if necessary.

 

Morning session

DETAILS				STUDENT NAME
Prep	Room	Exam	Room
9.10	1A15	9.30	1A11	Marina Toranzo
9.40	1A15	10.00	1A11	Max Muehler
10.10	1A15	10.30	1A11	Nicolo Motano Parolini
10.40	1A15	11.00	1A11	Mathieu Haskins
11.10	1A15	11.30	1A11	Natasha Haider
11.40	1A15	12.00	1A11	Lorenz Frehe

 
Afternoon session

DETAILS				STUDENT NAME
Prep	Room	Exam	Room
1.40	1A15	2.00	1A11	Sophie Elburn
2.10	1A15	2.30	1A11	Janira De Lorenzi
2.40	1A15	3.00	1A11	Martin Chevreau
3.10	1A15	3.30	1A11	Tristan Boss
3.40	1A15	4.00	1A11	Diana Adamczyk

 

A2 LL - CUPCAKES RECAST TASK - DIARY

Read the source material and answer both questions:

Text A is from an article entitled [Report on the Fall of the Berlin Wall] by [Ann Lesley]. It was first published in the [Daily Mail in 1989].

Imagine that you are one of the students referred to by Ann Lesley in the text and produce a diary entry for this day, recording your thoughts and feelings on this historic occasion.
Adapt the source material, using your own words as far as possible. Your [diary] should be approximately 300 – 400 words in length.

In your adaptation you should:
• use language appropriately to address purpose and audience

• write accurately and coherently, applying relevant ideas and concepts.

(25 marks)

AND

Question 3

Write a commentary which explains the choices you made when writing your [diary]commenting on the following:

• how language and form have been used to suit audience and purpose

• how vocabulary and other stylistic features have been used to shape meaning and
achieve particular effects.

You should aim to write about 150 – 250 words in this commentary.

(15 marks)

A2 LL - RECAST FORMATS - ENCYCLOPEDIA

A2 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
ELLA 3 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND TEXT ADAPTATION
RECAST FORMATS - Encyclopedia

Definition: a book, set of books, optical disc, mobile device, or online informational resource containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject.

Example of short encyclopaedia entry
 
Migration is the process by which individuals, families, or groups move from one country of residence to work or settle in another. Originally used to refer to the temporary movement of people to find seasonal or longer-term employment, migration is now more commonly used to refer to a wide range of processes and phenomena that involve movement from one country to another for a variety of reasons. It is also common for individuals to migrate within a country as well as between two states, for example, between rural and urban areas. The academic study of migration therefore involves a wide range of phenomena, such as labor migration and types of forced migration.

Labor migration refers to the movement of individuals seeking employment in another
country. A number of trends have historically been associated with this term, among them the movement of rural populations to urban centres during the process of industrialization in Western Europe and the United States, the movement of indentured labor during the colonial period for the building of railways or mines, and contemporary migration of workers in hightech industries that require specialized knowledge and technical skills. Labor migration has also been actively encouraged within some economic areas, such as the European Union (EU),here citizens of member states are granted freedom of movement to work in other European countries.

Another prominent area of migration is that of forced migration. This term refers to the
migration of people who may be fleeing persecution, civil war, or humanitarian crises such as genocide; people who have been smuggled or trafficked; and those fleeing natural disasters, such as flood or famine. Forced migration is commonly used to refer to all these cases and is concerned with individuals as refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced people (IDPs) rather than as migrants. The right to asylum and refuge from instances of persecution and crisis is guaranteed under the 1951 Geneva Convention and is overseen by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Individual states and regional organizations such as the EU draw on UN conventions in formulating their own immigration and asylum policies. Individuals may also be forced to migrate within their own states and are referred to as IDPs. UNHCR estimates that twenty five million IDPs have been displaced by conflict, persecution, and humanitarian crises of various kinds.

Migration is sometimes used synonymously with immigration, but the two should not be
confused. Many different types of migration refer to more complex phenomena than the
process of leaving one country to settle in another.

421 words

SOME FOLLOW UP WORK

 

 

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Read the example  ENCYCLOPEDIA entry above and identify conventions, key features, identify how the text addresses audience and purpose, uses genre conventions and creates specific effects from an audience.

 

KEY FEATURES -ENCYCLOPEDIA  – generally public audience - may be specific for example newly married couples, children, parents etc. – may have range of purposes but mainly informative but may be persuasive and entertaining.  Read the question carefully to check this. 

 

CONVENTIONS – a way in which something is usually done –such as structure, layout, address heading[s] – see above.

 

COMMENT – on function[s] of the convention within the context of the diary

 

TEXT - Link to the private audience, purpose, genre, wider context, attitudes to topic[s]and topic[s]themselves

 

EFFECT – identify the intended effect of the CONVENTION on an audience / reader

 

LANGUAGE FEATURES – identify language and literary features common to DIARIES. Find a good quotation - short and contains strong language features - comment on these and show effects on readers.

 

 

FOLLOW UP

 

READ and become familiar with ENCYCLOPEDIA EXTRACTS. You will find many examples online. They are usually relatively short, accessible and on interesting topics.

 

Identify a 300 - 400 extract and identify conventions, language features, good quotations, make brief comments about function of the language feature and on effects on readers.

 

 

 

A2 LL - RECAST FORMATS - LEAFLETS

A2 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
ELLA 3 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND TEXT PRODUCTION
RECAST FORMATS - Leaflet

 

Defintion:a printed sheet of paper containing information or advertising and usually distributed free.

 

Synonyms: pamphlet, booklet, brochure, handbill, circular, flyer, handout, advertisement, bulletin, mailshot, bill, notice;

 

Example of a leaflet text

 

Christian Aid Work With HIV

 

We are committed to ensuring that wherever we work on HIV, we help ensure our partners' responses include addressing other related health risks, in particular malaria and tuberculosis.

 

We have 148 partners working on HIV in 40 countries who are brilliantly placed to incorporate a response to malaria, TB and other poverty-related health issues into their community-based structures.

 

A community-led response

 

The majority of our HIV partners are in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV-related diseases are now the leading cause of death. Two-thirds are already working on other poverty-related diseases.

 

Most of our partners rely on networks of dedicated health volunteers who are able to assist those in their own communities. Often these are hard-to-reach communities with poor access to even basic health facilities.

 

For example, in Nigeria – where 300,000 children die of malaria every year – our partners working on HIV are also distributing long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

 

The most vulnerable, including pregnant women, children under the age of five, people living with HIV and the elderly, receive these nets as a priority, but distribution also goes on to include all families in the areas where they work.

 

We also have numerous health programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Middle East.

 

Our priorities in this area of our work are:

 

·         community-based HIV, malaria and TB prevention, care and support

 

·         working with leaders of all faiths to challenge HIV-related stigma and promoting HIV prevention

 

·         defending the human rights of people living with HIV

 

·         reaching out to youth in new and creative ways

 

·         support for orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV and malaria

 

·         HIV work in fragile states, and in conflict and post-conflict areas.

  

Back in the UK and Ireland, we keep health issues high on the agenda of our supporters and donors through advocacy, campaigning, education and fundraising.

 

HIV and SAVE

 

Christian Aid supports the SAVE approach - originally developed by our African partner organisation ANERELA+ - as a way of working more effectively to prevent HIV infection.

 

SAVE provides a holistic way of preventing HIV. It incorporates the principles of the ABC approach  (Abstinence, Be faithful and Condom use) while also providing comprehensive information about other, non-sexual routes of HIV transmission and prevention, promoting support and care of those already infected and actively challenging HIV-related stigma and discrimination, discrimination and denial. Find out more about SAVE and how you can help support this work by donating money and volunteering on a regular basis. Contact………………….

SOME FOLLOW UP WORK

LEAFLETS  - Read the example LEAFLET above and identify conventions, key features, identify how the text addresses audience and purpose, uses genre conventions and creates specific effects from an audience.

KEY FEATURES - LEAFLETS  – public audience – often informative and persausive. Titles and sub titles, prose, bullet points, action points, imperatives

CONVENTIONS – a way in which something is usually done –such as structure, layout, address heading[s] – see above.

COMMENT – on function[s] of the convention within the context of the LEAFLET

TEXT - Link to the audience, purpose, genre, wider context, attitudes to topic[s]and topic[s]themselves

EFFECT – identify the intended effect of the CONVENTION on an audience / reader

LANGUAGE FEATURES – identify language and literary features common to LEAFLETS. Find a good quotation - short and contains strong language features - comment on these and show effects on readers.

FOLLOW UP

READ and become familiar with LEAFLETS. You will find many examples online. They are usually relatively short, accessible and on interesting topics.

Identify a 300 - 400 extract and identify conventions, language features, good quotations, make brief comments about function of the language feature and on effects on readers.

 

 

RECAST FORMATS - DIARIES

A2 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
ELLA 3 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND TEXT ADAPTATION
RECAST FORMATS - Diary

Definition: a book in which one keeps a daily record of events and experiences.
Synonyms: journal, memoir, chronicle, log, logbook, weblog, blog, vlog

Example 1

Tuesday 20 October 1942

Dearest Kitty,

My hands still shaking, though it’s been two hours since we had the scare. I should explain that there are five extinguishers in the building. The office staff stupidly forgot to warn us that the carpenter, or whatever he’s called, was coming to fill the extinguishers. As a result, we didn’t bother to be quiet until I heard the sound of hammering on the landing (across from the bookcase). I immediately assumed it was the carpenter and went to warn Bep, who was eating lunch, that she couldn’t go back downstairs. Father and I stationed ourselves at the door so we could hear when the man had left. After working for about fifteen minutes, he laid his hammer and some other tools on our bookcase (or so we thought!) and banged on our door. We turned white with fear. Had he heard something after all and did he now want to check out this mysterious looking bookcase?

It seemed so, since he kept knocking, pulling, pushing and jerking on it.
I was so scared I nearly fainted at the thought of this total stranger managing to discover our wonderful hiding place…

Extract from Anne Frank's diary

Example 2

28 May 1911

"A typical day starts at 8 for breakfast at 8.30 – tho’ some are always late…

For breakfast we have porridge, tea and coffee, bread and butter and some dish such as fried seal and bacon or scrambled ‘Tru-egg’. The porridge is excellent but as all 25 of us like it there is never quite enough.

Afterwards I start work immediately, which consists of cutting sections, learning German, using the microscope, writing the diary or reading books. When fine I go for a walk, but walks in the dark are most uninteresting. The others fill in their mornings in various ways. Sunny Jim and Charles are always busy with their meteorological gadgets, setting them up, repairing or taking them down. The ponies are regularly exercised when the weather permits.

Cherry puts in the day typing copy for the South Polar Times or building a stone-hut in which to flense sealskins. Bill is always sketching or painting and Teddy Evans has plenty of work with chart making and working up the summer’s surveying data. Ponting is regulalrly engaged in taking prints form negatives he made in the summer, or in taking flashlights.

Lunch is at 1.30 and consists of bread (or biscuit) and butter with potted meat, jam and cheese on alternate days, also tea and cocoa. Dinner is at 6.30 and is always a 3 course meal – soup, meat and pudding. After each of the meals a good many sit at the table smoking and talking for a long time. The table breaks up into 2 or 3 groups each with its own subject and there is a general buzz of conversation."

A diary page from Frank Debenham, an Australian on the British Antarctic Expedition 1910 to 1913

DIARY WRITING - TIPS

• Write a greeting / salutation – ‘Dear Diary’
• Use relevant date, a refer to place of writing
• Selectively use an informal register – ellipsis, elision, contractions, note form, colloquial lexis
o However be selective and make sure you refer to a number of these features in your commentary to show you understand the conventions of diary writing
• Address your future self - ‘Don’t ever forget that feeling of being part of a team.’
• Include action / follow up points – ‘Tomorrow I’m going to take plenty of water with me.’

SOME FOLLOW UP WORK

DIARY - Read the example DIARY EXTRACTS above and identify conventions, key features, identify how the text addresses audience and purpose, uses genre conventions and creates specific effects from an audience.

KEY FEATURES - DIARY – private audience – future self / next day or years. Sometimes diary writer’s consider the possibility of their diary being published at some point in the future.
For the purpose of the exam – write a greeting salutation and a completing salutation to end. Use a selective informal register. Use selectively – ellipsis, elision, contractions, colloquial lexis, bullet points or note form – listing sentences. If you use informal register you MUST make sure you refer to this in your commentary with a variety of quotations / examples.  Refer to your future self and refer to follow up or action points. Rember the content of the source article is the primary information to be addressed.

CONVENTIONS – a way in which something is usually done –such as structure, layout, address heading[s] – see above.

COMMENT – on function[s] of the convention within the context of the diary

TEXT - Link to the private audience, purpose, genre, wider context, attitudes to topic[s]and topic[s]themselves

EFFECT – identify the intended effect of the CONVENTION on an audience / reader

LANGUAGE FEATURES – identify language and literary features common to DIARIES. Find a good quotation - short and contains strong language features - comment on these and show effects on readers.

FOLLOW UP

READ and become familiar with DIARY EXTRACTS. You will find many examples online. They are usually relatively short, accessible and on interesting topics.

Identify a 300 - 400 extract and identify conventions, language features, good quotations, make brief comments about function of the language feature and on effects on readers.

A2 LL - RECAST FORMATS - SPEECHES

A2 LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
ELLA 3 INTEGRATED ANALSIS AND TEXT ADAPTATION
RECAST FORMATS - SPEECHES
Speech: a formal address or discourse delivered to an audience

Synonym: talk, address, lecture, discourse, oration, disquisition, peroration, declamation, deliverance, presentation;

Speech example

28 August, 1963, Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Martin Luther King March on Washington Square

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
America has given the Negro people a bad cheque which has come back marked 'insufficient funds'
But 100 years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
And so we've come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of colour are concerned. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad cheque which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we've come to cash this cheque - a cheque that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: in the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realise that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights: "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied and we will not be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning: "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California.
But not only that.
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Click here for a link to a recording of the speech

FOLLOW UP AND NOTES

SPEECHES - Read the example SPEECH above and identify conventions, key features, identify how the text addresses audience and purpose, uses genre conventions and creates specific effects from an audience.

KEY FEATURES - SPEECHES often present subjective and biased points of view. They use material highly selectively and are spoken to promote a specific point of view. Often these form part of a national debate often challenging, contriversial, highly charged and emotional. Speeches will use a combination of factual information and personal response. There will be a combination of these two features in a speech.

CONVENTIONS – a way in which something is usually done –such as structure, layout, address heading[s] 

COMMENT – on function[s] of the convention  within the context of the
TEXT - Link to audience, purpose, genre, wider context, attitudes to topic[s]and topic[s]themselves

EFFECT – identify the intended effect of the CONVENTION on an audience / reader

LANGUAGE FEATURES - identifylanguage and literary features common to SPEECHES. Find a good quotation - short and contains strong language features, comment on these  and show effects on readers.

FOLLOW UP

READ and become familiar with SPEECHES. You will find many examples online. They are usually relatively short, accessible and on interesting current topics.

Identify a 300 - 400 extract and identify conventions, language features, good quotations, make brief comments about function of the language feature and on effects on readers.

A2 LL - RECAST FORMAT - EDITORIALS

A2 ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
ELLA 3 RECAST FORMATS
EDITORIALS

Editorial: a newspaper article expressing the editor's opinion on a topical issue

Example of a broadsheet editorial

The Guardian view on the future of war: critical questions need to be asked

Saigon fell 40 years ago this week. The defeat of the United States seemed at the time to be a world-changing event, which demonstrated that even the planet’s foremost power could not prevail if resolutely opposed. But it was the second time the mistake had been made: 20 or so years before, schoolteachers in French provincial towns had wept in front of their pupils as the impossible, the unbelievable news came in that the army had been vanquished in Dien Bien Phu.

Yet France went on to repeat its errors in Algeria. The United States could not imagine it would meet the same fate as its predecessor in Vietnam, but did. The Soviet Union, ignoring both the French and the US experience, blundered into a quagmire of its own in Afghanistan, which the US then inherited. Today, American forces are still fighting in Afghanistan, even though President Barack Obama months ago declared that the US had ended combat there. The Americans are deploying drones and special forces rather than large units, but this is still war. Is it a “good” war or a “bad” war? Ask President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, and he will say he needs it until his plans for reform and renewal bear fruit. It is not a bad answer but it is a debatable one as well.

The record suggests that most wars do not “end”. Perhaps Vietnam eventually did, although there was a long aftermath of hostility between Washington and Hanoi. But other conflicts seem to lead on to new ones. Even the one supposedly indisputable victory of western forces in the second half of the 20th century, the Kuwait war in 1991, was not that, for it led to a series of conflicts which, in the shape of the campaign against Islamic State (Isis), is still going on today. There are chains of consequences here that we ignore at our peril. How to break them is a truly critical question.

The costs for the western powers who have tried to order the world by force were high, but even the victors have had cause to repine. “The future lied to us, there in the past,” the Vietnamese novelist Bao Ninh wrote, reflecting on a war that he had fought not merely to throw out the Americans but also to create a fair society, one which Vietnam is still far from achieving. Some thought, back in the Vietnam war days, that a western–ordered oppressive world was going to be replaced by a far better one in which strong socialist states would set the pace. That did not turn out to be the case. The new socialist states even had wars with each other.

“Oh, when will they ever learn?” wrote Pete Seeger. Until quite recently, the heartening thing was that we did seem to be learning. The cold war ended. There were, suddenly, fewer wars and more peace agreements. Fewer people were killed. United Nations peacekeepers went out to more countries. It was still terrible but it was less terrible. A time of civility, optimists thought, might be on the horizon and, for all the mistakes and imperfections, the liberal interventionism of the 1990s was a product of that optimism. A new attempt at collective security could contain outbreaks of atavistic nationalism like those in former Yugoslavia.

Then Iraq discredited big western interventions. Good, many would say. Yet what has now emerged is even more worrying than in the era of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. On the one hand there are wars of extreme viciousness such as those waged by Isis, al-Qaida, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, all of them with the potential to reach Europe and America at any time. On the other there is the shadow war that Russia is waging in Ukraine, a war both more difficult to counter or to settle by diplomacy since it is so insidiously below the radar.

The military strength of western countries, Britain very much included, is in decline. The slashing of defence budgets has gone too far, but that does not mean that the principal response to these new developments in war should always be military. We need to react more intelligently. The principal response should be to pay attention to underlying causes, to global warming, over-population, failures of governance, resource shortages and to extremes of inequality. We supposedly do, and yet we don’t. Any observer of Britain’s election campaign, for instance, would imagine that we are still a secure nation sitting in a secure world. Wars are symptoms of the fact that we are not.

FOLLOW UP AND NOTES

EDITORIALS - Read the example radio script above and identify conventions, key features, identify how the text addresses audience and purpose, uses genre conventions and creates specific effects from an audience.

KEY FEATURES - EDITORIALS present subjective and biased points of view. They use material highly selectively and are written to promote a specific point of view. Often these form part of a national debate often challenging, contriversial, highly charged and emotional.
CONVENTIONS – a way in which something is usually done –such as structure, layout, address heading[s]  

COMMENT – on function[s] of the convention  within the context of the

TEXT - Link to audience, purpose, genre, wider context, attitudes to topic[s]and topic[s]themselves 

EFFECT – identify the intended effect of the CONVENTION on an audience / reader

LANGUAGE FEATURES - identifylanguage and literary features common to EDITORIALS. Find a good quotation - short and contains strong language features,comment on these  and show effects on readers.

FOLLOW UP

READ and become familiar with editorials. You will find many examples online. They are usually relatively short, accessible and on interesting current topics.

Identify a 300 - 400 extract and identify conventions, language features, good quotations, make brief comments about function of the language feature and on effects on readers. 

   
 

A2 LL - CHECKLIST OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TERMS

INTRODUCTION

Click here for a link to a table of core analytical terms covering all analytical frameworks.

Click here for a link to a glossary of analytical terms, definitions and examples

CORE SPOKEN LANGUAGE TERMS


CORE LANGUAGE TERMS

GRAMMAR

Identify verbs, nouns and adjectives.
Refer to proper nouns, concrete and abstract nouns
Refer to verbs and adverbs
Refer to adjectives - pre / post modifying, comparative and superlative

LEXIS

Refer to denotation and connotation
Refer to low frequency and high frequency lexis
Refer to monosyllabic and polysyllabic lexis
Refer to lexical fields


REGISTER

Refer to informal and formal registers

SYNTAX

Refer to simple, compound and complex sentences.
Refer to declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives and exclamatives

CORE LITERATURE TERMS

Imagery - metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, pathetic fallacy,

CORE POETRY TERMS

Refer to form - stanza, metre, free verse, sonnet, quatrain
Refer to

CORE RHETORICAL TERMS


CORE WRITING STYLES

Refer to descriptive and reflective writing.
Refer to dialogue.
Refer to action writing.

IB ENGLISH SL - EXAMPLE OTHELLO QUESTION

Comment on the significance of this exchange between Desdemona, Cassio and Emilia. You might like to explore ideas of dramatic irony, the role of a wife and women in general, the presentation of Cassio or any other features that interest you.


The garden of the castle.  
  Enter DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and EMILIA.  

DESDEMONA  Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do  
  All my abilities in thy behalf.  

EMILIA  Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my husband,  
  As if the case were his.

DESDEMONA  O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,  
  But I will have my lord and you again  
  As friendly as you were.  

CASSIO  Bounteous madam,  
  Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
  He's never any thing but your true servant. 
 
DESDEMONA  I know't; I thank you. You do love my lord:
  You have known him long; and be you well assured  
  He shall in strangeness stand no further off  
  Than in a polite distance.

CASSIO  Ay, but, lady,  
  That policy may either last so long,  
  Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,  
  Or breed itself so out of circumstance,  
  That, I being absent and my place supplied,
  My general will forget my love and service. 
 
DESDEMONA  Do not doubt that; before Emilia here  
  I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,
  If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it  
  To the last article: my lord shall never rest;
  I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;  
  His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;  
  I'll intermingle every thing he does  
  With Cassio's suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;  
  For thy solicitor shall rather die
  Than give thy cause away.  

EMILIA  Madam, here comes my lord.  

CASSIO  Madam, I'll take my leave.   

DESDEMONA  Why, stay, and hear me speak.  

CASSIO  Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease,
  Unfit for mine own purposes.  

DESDEMONA  Well, do your discretion.