Paper 2 - what do they mean by 'context'?

[johanna0616]

I'm doing Eng Lang & Lit HL (using Persepolis & The Pickup)... one thing I'm not entirely sure on is the 'context'. Do we need to write a separate paragraph on the texts history (as context normally mean background), or by context they simply mean we have to integrate our understanding of the book into the analysis?

[flinquinnster]

I'm not sure about Language and Literature specifically, but I would suggest that you integrate your context in. They don't want to see a separate paragraph on it, unless it happens to be a major 'idea' that you are discussing and which you can link back to the text using quotes/visual analysis. So generally, I would suggest that you integrate your context into the introduction and into each paragraph. It depends on the question, but I gather that most questions aren't that context-heavy, so you should be fine with whatever you can integrate into each paragraph.