Every year, the IBO releases examiner reports which offer valuable insights for teachers and students for each type of assessment. These can be turned into a useful guide what to do and NOT do on exams.
(Taken from the 2013 IB Subject Report for SL/HL.)
The range and suitability of the work submitted
The common ingredient that often made these productions so successful was ‘emulation’; of a writer’s sensibility and style, whether literary, journalistic or promotional. The ingredients for such excellence are surely to be found in a candidate’s preliminary work on purpose, audience and context combined with research into the characteristics and conventions of a type of text that had been judiciously chosen to suit the objectives of the task. That the task should be – must be – clearly linked to the literary texts or language topics or aspects studied is a requirement that, unfortunately, far too many candidates ignored.In the Written Task, whether of the media type (HL Task 1 and SL Task) or the critical response type (HL Task 2), context is a significant feature of preparing for and producing tasks. Again here, not enough candidates have yet grasped the importance context has. Students need to understand better the connection between text and context and guide them to see the ways in which context shapes meaning.
Clarification: Short literary texts may be used to complement the study of a topic in parts 1 and 2. Thus a written task exploring an aspect studied in those parts may also include some reference to these short literary texts, but they should not form the basis of the candidate’s investigation.
It is unsuitable to base a written task on stylistic imitation alone. An editorial, a speech or an advertisement, for example, is not a topic, it is a text type. An editorial – or any other type of text chosen by the candidate – needs to deal with a language and culture topic not just be used as a vehicle to show the candidate’s ability to use that particular form. A candidate may produce a highly accomplished advertisement, the content of which may be consistently appropriate to the task chosen and demonstrate excellent understanding of the conventions, but absolutely cannot be awarded high marks for understanding of an appropriate topic or text if it is an advert, say, for a shampoo.
Some media tasks, advertisements, DVD covers or graphic novels, for example, were very short. While there is of course no penalty for this, they are not always easy for the examiner to assess. Some candidates are compensating for short tasks by including an additional explanation or analysis as part of the task. This is not appropriate; the task itself needs to stand alone, the rationale offering a brief explanation of its objectives.
It can be observed that the more inauthentic a task is, the more unsuitable it is. A speech by Osama Bin Laden in English to members of Al-Qaeda on prime-time television should have struck even the candidate as being highly implausible and thus an inappropriate choice. One does not want to discourage students from casting the net wide in the search for interesting and relevant topics to write about but there were a fair number of examples of tasks based on media sources that cannot have been part of the candidate’s programme, for they were not in English. Some candidates wrote articles or letters aimed at non-English speaking audiences, yet in English.
Please note that candidates must present no more than one text type. However, it is acceptable to produce more than one text, as long as the text type is the same (for example, an exchange of letters, and a series of diary entries or of advertisements.)
Characteristics and conventions of certain text types
It was evident that many candidates were not very familiar with the form, style or conventions of the text types they had chosen. It is essential once choice of task and text type have been made (in agreement with the teacher) for the candidate to find examples to emulate.Candidates frequently lost marks as a result not only of choosing an unsuitable text type to fulfil their objectives (for example a private diary entry is hardly the best way of drawing the attention of the world to burning issues) but also because they assumed they were familiar with the conventions of a type when, actually, they were not.
Some specific comments about certain text types
‘newspaper article’ or ‘magazine article’: this is not precise enough. What kind of article: news, opinion, feature, editorial? Each of these has its particular characteristics and purposes. Note that many candidates submitted ‘articles’ that were to all intents and purposes formal essays that, typically, demonstrated little more than superficial familiarity with media styles. It cannot be stressed enough that the formal essay – naked or disguised – is not an acceptable text type for the Written Task 1.‘editorial’, ‘letter to the editor’: the conventions of these two are quite distinct as should be evident to the candidate who has read and studied examples of both forms.
‘blog’, the blog was quite a common choice of text type. When done well it proved an effective alternative to writing a more conventional media task. There were those candidates who interactively tried to engage a target audience, laying out the blog as it would appear on a screen. The more a task takes on the layout features of the type of text emulated, the more the candidate shows an awareness of the full range of the text type’s conventions. If the conventions of the text type cannot be reproduced for technical reasons, significant aspects of those conventions should be referred to in the rationale. At the other end of the scale, there were blogs that distinguished themselves little, or not at all, from similar forms, such as opinion or feature articles and where format and layout had been given little thought.
‘speech’: there was often a problem of authenticity here. To write an effective one as a task, it is very important to establish clearly who the speaker is, what his or her qualifications for speaking on a subject are, which audience is being targeted and in what particular context. Once again, the topic of the speech must be linked to a topic or aspect studied.
diaries, letters, memoirs, etc. were usually more suitable and effective when done in relation to literary works – as long as they did not confine themselves merely to summarizing plot. A word about the diary: as mentioned above, it is not a very suitable format for dealing with issues that would normally be aired in the media. Diaries are sometimes written with publication in mind but, for the most part, and in the first instance at least, they are not written for the eyes of others. Thus they are most appropriate to reveal events that others do not know about or unspoken thoughts and feelings of a more or less intimate nature. A diary entry has a date, usually refers principally to what has happened that particular day and does not bother to tell the diarist things s/he already knows about her/himself or others. Furthermore, a diary is not a letter. Candidates should be aware that while some adolescents adopt the ‘Dear diary’ form of address, the vast majority of adults do not. The candidate who chooses to write the diary entry of an adult should be encouraged to read some diaries or at least an anthology of diary entries rather than make assumptions about this type of text.
pastiche: a popular choice and done brilliantly in certain cases. Some outstandingly imaginative examples that come to mind are pastiches of Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘world’s wife’ poems, an introductory pamphlet for new recruits in the employ of a European company operating in the Congo (Heart of Darkness) and the voice of The Fish from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem. However, candidates should be discouraged from taking on stylistic or poetic forms and language that are hard to master. Shakespeare was a predictable stumbling block for many.
Candidate performance against each criterion
Criterion A – Rationale
It is worth drawing attention to what is required of a rationale (Subject Guide 41). It should explain:
Which part of the course (text or topic) the task is linked to: Surprisingly, this requirement was entirely or partly ignored by many candidates, leaving the examiner to scrutinize the programme summary in search of illumination.
How the task intends to explore particular aspects of what has been studied and the nature of the task chosen: Here it is a question of showing the suitability of the choice of text type as a means of meeting the candidate’s objectives. The formal conventions of the text type should be referred to and how they relate to the aims of the task. On the whole, this requirement was not thoroughly done.
Information about audience, purpose and context: Particularly important for media tasks, these aspects were frequently ignored by candidates despite being the ABC of effective communication.
Criterion B – Task and Content
Obviously the task carried out should now correspond to what has been explained in the rationale. If there is no deviation from this plan, there can be few reasons to lose marks on this, the weightiest of the criteria in terms of points awarded. Both content and ability to replicate the text type are being assessed here. The candidate needs to do both well in order to score high marks.
Criterion C – Organization
Most of the written tasks submitted were at least ‘organized’, often ‘well organized’, so candidates often scored good marks on this criterion. 2 marks are taken off the score for this criterion if the task exceeds the 1000 word limit, even by one word.
Criterion D – Language and Style
Language was generally clear and effective, often with a good or very good degree of accuracy. Register and style were often generally appropriate or appropriate. ‘Confident and effective’ often went hand-in-hand with manifest familiarity with the characteristics and conventions of the text type chosen.
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