HL Essay Overview

20% at HL

Nature of the task

• Students are asked to develop a line of inquiry of their choice in connection with a work studied in the course.
• In this context, teachers serve as advisors.  The HL essay is an opportunity for students “to develop as independent, critical and creative readers, thinkers and writers”[1] which suggests there should be some degree of autonomy in choosing a work and determining the line of inquiry.
• The final essay is a focused argument critically examining a broad literary perspective in one of the works studied in the course.
• The essay should be developed “over an extended period of time”[2].  Adequate time should be given for students to refine their ideas, plan their arguments, draft, and revise their essays.  Teachers are expected to play an active role guiding and facilitating this process.
• The essay is formal and should adhere to the conventions of an academic essay in its structure and use of citations.  
• In the marking of the assessment task, there is equal quantitative value placed on the ideas presented in the essay (10 marks) and the essay’s organization and use of language (10 marks).  Maximum: 20 marks.[3]
• The final essay produced for submission needs to be 1200-1500 words in length.  Examiners will not read more than 1500 words.[4]

Explanation of the task

• It is important that students develop a line of inquiry that is focused, literary, and analytical before they begin researching and writing.  Students do not need to name literary features in their question; however, the question should lend itself to an analytical literary investigation of the work.
• The seven course concepts (identity, culture, creativity, communication, transformation, perspective, and representation) may serve as a starting point when developing a line of inquiry.[5]
• The discussion, ideas, and inspiration for the HL Essay will ideally come from the student’s Learner Portfolio.  Students may expand on an idea, activity, or smaller-scale assessment explored in class as inspiration for selecting a topic and developing a line of inquiry.  Students may also explore their own, self-generated lines of inquiry.
• Each student’s line of inquiry should develop from their own work or ideas about the work.  Ideally, the learner portfolio will document this evolution (in some form).

Selection of work

• Students base their essays on one work studied in the course. Students may choose any work, except for the works used for the Individual Oral or the works chosen for the Paper 2 exam. 
• Students should consult with their teachers when selecting a text or work to ensure the material is rich enough to support a focused, analytical argument of this length.
• Bodies of work (e.g., collections of short stories, poetry, essays, etc.)
  • Students may base their essay on one text in a body of work (e.g., one short story in a collection), however students need to be careful to sustain a “broad literary investigation” as opposed to a close reading or commentary.  They are expected to make explicit connections in the essay between the text and the author’s body of work.[6] 
  • In most cases, it will be appropriate for a student to reference at least 2-3 texts in an author’s body of work. 
  • Students may explore and use any texts from an author studied in class, even if the specific texts were not part of the course study.  This might be appropriate if the student’s specific literary investigation cannot be supported with the specific texts studied but could be supported with other texts by the author.[7]

Determining the topic (and line of inquiry)

• The essay needs to be focused on a broad literary investigation that addresses a concept developed in the work. 
• Students who struggle to identify a suitable concept can use one of the seven course concepts as a starting place to develop their line of inquiry (e.g., What does the work communicate about…? In what ways does the work transform our perspective on…?  To what extent does the work represent…?)
• Students should be encouraged to explore a concept that is significant to them and their reading of the work. 
• Teachers can advise and coach students through the process of selecting a topic and developing a line of inquiry, but teachers are not supposed to assign topics (or works) to students.[8]

What is the HL Essay Assessing?

Criterion A:  Knowledge, understanding, and interpretation (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Knowledge	Knowledge of a work is shown by recalling details (related to plot, characters, conflicts, setting, use of language, etc.) from a work or specific details about a work (such as its genre, era, style, etc.).  These details are clearly evident and verifiable in the work.
Understanding	Understanding may be demonstrated through summary, interpretations, inferences, and explanations because they require students to construct meaning from the work.  In this construction, students use their general knowledge and understanding (of people, relationships, cultures, literary principles, etc.) to process or infer meaning that is communicated explicitly, heavily implied, or self-evident.
Interpretation	An “interpretation” is an argument about a work’s implicit meaning.  Sometimes this “meaning” is thought of as the “author’s purpose” but works might also communicate meaning to a reader unintended by the author.  Interpretive arguments identify complex ideas and issues developed by an author and usually pay close attention to details and ambiguities in a work.  Because the communication and deconstruction of implicit meanings is a complex process, interpretations tend to appreciate tensions and contradictions in a work as well as the ways in which a work’s culture or the reader’s culture might influence interpretive conclusions.  In all cases, interpretations are persuasive arguments that need to be supported with clear references to the work.
Implications	Implications refer to the ideas the work may be suggesting without explicitly stating them or feelings the work may be evoking without explicitly telling the viewer or audience to feel them.
References	Students are expected to make references to the work that may include direct quotes, screen shots, or paraphrases. Depending on the student’s claim, one may be more appropriate than the others (e.g., claims about language and style often benefit from direct quotes; broader authorial choices can be explained through paraphrase.)

Notes

• Students need a clear, cohesive thesis statement in the introduction of the essay that states the conclusions the student has drawn in response to the line of inquiry.  The “conclusions” are the student’s central argument for the essay. 
• Students need to understand the difference between demonstrating understanding of a work and offering interpretations of the work’s meanings.  An essay must offer interpretations of the work’s implications to score at least a “satisfactory” mark in Criterion A.
• Good to excellent knowledge and understanding comes from knowing the works very well which usually requires multiple readings.  Clear references, explanations, and detailed analysis in support of asserted interpretations are a more effective demonstration of knowledge and understanding than summary. 
• When analyzing texts from a “body of work”, students are expected to make claims and connections to the body of work.  If the focus of the essay is on an individual text (such as a short story or poem), it is important that the analysis be treated as a “broad literary investigation”.  Teachers will need to evaluate the extent to which this is possible for each individual text.  It may be helpful for teachers and students to consult articles in scholarly journals to see examples of how a broad literary investigation can be approached with a shorter, individual text.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to knowledge, understanding, and interpretation.

Criterion B:  Analysis and evaluation (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Textual features	Textual features are aspects of the work that enhance the reading experience.  These include aesthetic features (images, graphs, bold, italics, etc.), organizational features (such as a table of contents, headings, index, etc.), supplemental features (such as a glossary, footnotes, primary source material, captions, etc.), literary features (such as figurative language, analogies, conceits, etc.), and linguistic features (such as rhetoric, sentence structure, ellipses, parentheses, etc.).
Broader authorial choices	“Broader” authorial choices are embedded throughout the work and effect the work as a whole.  These might include choices in structure, narrative perspective, genre, style, setting, characters, repeated patterns of imagery or figurative language, motifs, etc.
Analysis	To analyze is to separate and identify the parts of a whole to discover its interrelationships. The “whole” is the work.  One can begin to breakdown the parts of a literary or non-literary work by considering its form, mode, structure, features, and use of language.
Evaluation	When students “evaluate”, they are appraising the author or creator’s choices in the context of their interpretations.  Students show appreciation for the features that play a significant role in developing interpretive meaning and producing relevant effects by critically examining the strengths and limitations of choices made within the work.
Meaning	Meaning can refer to the ideas the author or creator consciously or unconsciously conveys to the reader or audience as well as the feelings created for the reader or audience in relation to those ideas.

Notes

• This criterion asks students to critically analyze, evaluate, and compare how meaning is constructed and communicated in a work or body of work.
• The discussion, analysis, and evaluation of literary features must work to develop the line in inquiry and central argument for the essay.  This is a common shortcoming in student essays.
• The interrelationships of authorial choices and their effects may be complex, which requires thoughtful organization in the planning stage of the essay. 
• Assertions that make judgements about a writer’s competency or simply state a preference for an author or style are not literary evaluations.
• An insightful literary analysis usually includes an appreciation of form-specific features.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to analysis and evaluation

Criterion C:  Focus, organization, and development (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Focus	A focused essay sustains its attention on developing the line of inquiry.
Organized	An essay is organized when claims, details, references, and analysis are purposefully arranged.  On an essay level, students carefully consider how to most logically and persuasively develop the line of inquiry based on the points and evidence they have collected in support of their central argument.  On a paragraph level, students consider how to arrange their claim, evidence, analysis, and evaluation so that the paragraph’s point is effectively communicated to the reader.
Cohesive	On an essay level, paragraphs work together to effectively develop an argument.  On a paragraph level, the evidence, analysis, and evaluation are connected entities that effectively develop the paragraph’s claim.
Developed	To develop an argument is to gradually make the argument clearer and more detailed as claims, references, explanations, and analysis build upon one another in an illustrative manner.
Supporting examples	Supporting examples can be references, quotes, or excerpted images from a work; but they can also come in the form of a précis[9], which is helpful when students are analyzing broader authorial choices.
Integrated	Supporting examples are integrated when they are infused with the explanation, analysis, and evaluation that develops the essay’s central argument.  This includes: (1) embedding quotes, fragmented quotes, or references into the essay’s sentences, (2) embedding relevant images into the body of the essay, (3) effectively using complex and compound sentence structures so that references to the work are connected to the essay’s analysis and evaluation.

Notes

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to organization and development

Criterion D:  Language (5 marks)

Defined Terms

Clear language	Language is clear when the selection of words and the arrangement of words effectively articulate meaning.
Varied language	Language is varied when the student uses different words to acutely communicate knowledge, understanding, and meaning.
Accuracy	Language is accurate when it uses grammatically correct structures, spelling, and capitalization.
Register	The “register” refers to the style of the written language.

Notes

• A wider vocabulary and knowledge of sentence structures gives students more language tools to express abstract and complex thoughts. 
• Correct use of literary terminology may be considered in awarding marks in this criterion; however, jargon is not the sole focus. 
• When students use vocabulary and sentence structures that are comfortably in their repertoire, they usually express their thinking more clearly.  When students stretch to use words or sentences structures with which they are not familiar, they risk miscommunication.
• An essay does not need to be flawless to earn top marks in this criterion, however the expectation for language to be clear, varied, and accurate is higher in this component.  This is because students have an opportunity to revise their essays.
• Voice is welcomed in all IB assessment tasks: formal writing does not need to be turgid.

Activities and protocols that develop skills related to use of language

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References

[1] Language A: Literature Guide, First assessment 2021, IBO: 2019. pp. 44.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid, pp. 46-48.

[4] Ibid, p. 44.

[5] Ibid, p. 45

[6] “Selection of work”. Language A: Literature Guide, First assessment 2021, IBO: 2019. p 44.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Language A: Literature Guide, First assessment 2021, IBO: 2019. p. 45.

[9] Definition:  a short statement of the main points.

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