IB English Lang and Lit

[Shreyashi.98]

Hey,

I have to decide my subjects in a few months. For english, I had originally decided to take SL language and literature, as I haven't studied literature at gcse level. However, after looking through the IB options booklet, I realized that Lang and Lit is 70% exam, where as Lit is only 45%. Which is easier?? English is not something I really enjoy and I'm just looking for an easy way out. Pls recommend appropriate.

Thanks

[Masoomali fatehkia]

First of all I will correct you on one point. Lang&Lit A is not 70% exams, it is 70% external assessment, out of which only 50% comes from final exams. The other 20% is a written task which is done along the course (you actually do three) and the best gets submitted.

In my class, many of the students who hadn't done literature before, preferred to do Lang&lit since it has a language component and thus the literature load is lesser than for those doing Literature. So perhaps you could consider doing Lang&lit as it has language components to it which could be slightly easier for you. If you do not have any experience with literature or literary analysis, the Literature course could be slightly more challenging as you will be reading lots of novels, poems and plays and will be analyzing them from different perspectives.

However, don't get me wrong, both courses are equally challenging but from my experience students who have never done literature before usually consider doing Lang&Lit A. So you could perhaps consider what I said in your decision making.

It would also be a good idea if you could talk with students who are doing any of these two syllabuses and see how they find it. You could also probably have a look at some of their classwork, the books they read and the kind of assessment they are doing.

[theboro76]

I have found a couple of examples. The first is here

http://ibpublishing.ibo.org/live-exist/rest/app/tsm.xql?doc=d_1_a1lan_tsm_1105_1b_e∂=3&chapter=8. This also has examples of other Lang & Lit assessments.

I have found other ones, but cant find them right now. If I do I will add them to this post.

[cclina32]

Haha I am currently procrastinating studying for my maths exam on Monday, but since this is sort of IB related I don't feel too bad! I personally do Lang/Lit (actually had my final exam on the Monday) and if you don't feel all that confident about literature then I would strongly recommend you do Lang/Lit.

I am actually quite strong in English but I decided to do Lang/Lit just because I am not crazy about literature, and thought the language component of the course could be interesting. I am really glad I chose Lang/Lit and I feel that if you choose it over World Lit you'll find that your texts are more interesting than classical literature (we looked into colloquial language and advertising).

This is how Lang/Lit gets marked (HL - not sure if it differs for SL):

25% - Critical Essay (on part II text) + Written Task (can be something creative on any area of study in the Lang/Lit course)

25% - IOC (verbal commentary on part II text) + FOO (not sure if this is the common term, but what my school calls)

25% - Paper 1 Exam (unseen commentary - comparative if HL)

25% - Paper 2 Exam (comparative essay of two texts in part III - not sure if SL is also comparative)

Good luck in making your decision!

[Blackcurrant]

Just a small correction:

The FOA and IOC are 15% each.

Part 1 and Part 2 exams 25% each

WT (x2) 20%

There is no difference in the weighting between SL and HL

Edited November 8, 2013 by Blackcurrant