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Telling the Time

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This text was provided by the IB as an example of what kind of writing to expect in Paper 1, so it’s worth paying attention to. In the past, there have been several examples of something you might call ‘general interest scientific writing,’ whether the journey of a water molecule through the universe, an investigation into declining bee populations, or an article about robotics and artificial intelligence. You shouldn’t be worried about needing any specialist knowledge to understand these texts – remember, Paper 1 is primarily a language analysis exercise. As such, you should be more concerned with the formal and stylistic features of the text than having to understand esoteric concepts. After you’ve practiced once or twice with texts like this, you’ll also realise that this kind of scientific writing is carefully balanced. Of course, it has an inherent appeal to people interested in and knowledgable about science. But casual readers can follow these texts too: the authors often explain ideas clearly, use comparisons to help you visualise, and employ technical language carefully.

Arcadia

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While Paper 1 is not a formal essay ( you only have 1 hour and 15 minutes to compose your answer), you are still required to organise your response. In fact, 25% of your marks are gained through the way you structure and focus on the ideas you want to write about. You should probably spend the first 15 minutes working with the text, annotating the formal and stylistic features and collecting your ideas. You then have an hour to write your response. Make sure you demonstrate your paragraph skills when writing your answer; while not explicitly required, paragraphs are the basic building blocks of written organisation, and learning to write in manageable ‘chunks’ will help you both focus your ideas and cover a reasonable range of points. This response has been written to demonstrate that, if you are struggling with organisation, some texts lend themselves to sequential analysis: look how the response follows the layout of the advert.

Further Education

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Persuasion in one form or another is an element of many mass media texts. You may find yourself studying all kinds of texts and topics in order to learn the language of persuasion: speeches, emotive appeals, adverts, even propaganda posters from the past. It’s unlikely you’ll cover all the possible types of persuasive text; so something you may have to do when you’re sitting Paper 1 is to transfer your learning from other parts of the course into this exam. This is especially true if the text type you are given is unusual like this colourful ‘banner’ that you might encounter at a recruitment fair. Once you’ve recognised this as a recruitment campaign, you should be able to analyse how the formal features (in this response, visuals, slogan, and copy) are designed to tap into timeless appeals such as the need to achieve or affiliate.

Return to Oz

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Less a text type, and more a category of writing, texts which appeal to children might appear in Paper 1. Whether a website with accessible or interactive features, a text book designed to educate or, like this text, a story presented in an engaging way, learning to identify features of texts written for children is a skill you can transfer across a variety of text types. Read the story of Tiktok and the Nome King and see how many of features that might be designed for a young reader you can pick out for yourself. Then examine the answer below to see how you might construct an analytical response.

A Brush with Celebrity

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When preparing for Paper 1, you are encouraged to explore as many different text types as possible; nevertheless, it’s impossible to predict what might come up in your exam. The Lang and Lit subject guide states explicitly that you are not meant to try to memorise features of every text type. Instead you should transfer your learning from one part of the course to another where you can. This article is written in the form of an interview, so the response engages with the most obvious features such as the question-answer format, and noticed the theme of ‘participation’ in celebrity culture as well. However, there are other elements of this multimodal text that you could write about if you choose differently, like the photograph of Ben.

Self Help Guide

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The ability to be a critical and independent thinker is highly prized by the IBDP. Attributes such as ‘inquirer,’ and ‘thinker’ are boiled in to the IB Learner Profile, providing clues as to how to approach your learning and assessments. In that spirit, here’s a more challenging past paper from a long time ago when the Language and Literature syllabus was very different. While recent texts haven’t had such a dated feel, nevertheless it was an interesting exercise to try to write a sample response thinking about the expected outcomes for Paper 1 as it is set today. Before you read the answer that follows, spend 15 minutes or so thinking how you might answer the question of how the writer conveys values that are important to him, selecting a manageable number of elements from the multimodal extract.

Tasmanian Caves

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Travel writing in different forms is a relatively popular text type that you might encounter when you sit your Paper 1 exam. Travel writing is very flexible in form; it may be autobiographical, descriptive, literary or, like today’s text, persuasive. Travel guidebooks and brochures seek to arouse a reader’s curiosity, giving them a tantalising glimpse of the experiences and adventures that await in a particular destination. They appeal to our desire to find out more information, or to go on a journey of discovery. Today’s post was written by Azaliia Kaibysheva as a practice analysis. Writing like this in Paper 1 will certainly let her score high marks – perhaps even 20/20? What do you think?

Hot or Not?

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In many ways, the Language and Literature course relates more closely to Theory of Knowledge than any other subject. This text has a definite ToK feel to it. While the topic of the text is Climate Change, careful reading reveals the author is interested in the way some people jump to conclusions based on their own perceptions and have a habit of denying other, more compelling, evidence. Always read the text carefully and, when approaching multimodal texts like comic strips, be careful not to ignore the words. The guiding question for this text reminds you to treat words and images equally and the sample response below shares analysis comments between visual and textual elements.

The Smith Family Appeal

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Charity appeals are a sub-genre of advertising and, as such, you can easily transfer your learning about advertising techniques – especially persuasive techniques – onto appeals. The topic of a charity appeal could be anything from homelessness, to famine, to refugees from war, animal adoption, and more. As a reader, it’s impossible to believe that you, one individual, can solve crises such as hunger, poverty or sickness. But it’s very easy to believe that you can help a particular individual out of a dire situation. Charity appeals are aware of this, and often introduce you to a victim of suffering, giving you a bit of information about their life and family background, and explaining that the situation they are in is out of their control. In this way, the appeal creates that empathetic connection you need in order to take action.

Chicken Tikka Masala

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This text is an extract from a persuasive speech given by a politician to a ‘think tank’ in London. Good public speakers always know who their audience is and shape their use of language to appeal to their listeners. This response shows you how to begin with this in mind; then you can make much out of certain turns of phrase or choices of words and evaluate the likely success of the speaker’s arguments.