Course Description

The Language A: Literature programme, offered at the Higher Level and the Standard Level, is designed to meet the needs of students for whom Language A is normally their best language.  The close study of literature, including literature in translation, is the main focus of the course.

Aims and Objectives

In the language A: literature course, students will learn about the various manifestations of literature as a powerful mode of writing across cultures and throughout history. They will explore and develop an understanding of factors that contribute to the production and reception of literature, such as:
•the creativity of writers and readers
•the nature of the interaction with the writers’ and readers’ respective contexts and with literary tradition
•the ways in which language can give rise to meaning and/or effect
•the performative and transformative potential of literary creation and response.
Through close analysis of literary texts in a number of forms and from different times and places, students will consider their own interpretations, as well as the critical perspectives of others. In turn, this will encourage the exploration of how viewpoints are shaped by cultural belief systems and how meanings are negotiated within them. Students will be involved in processes of critical response and creative production, which will help shape their awareness of how texts work to influence the reader and how readers open up the possibilities of texts. With its focus on literature, this course is particularly concerned with developing sensitivity to aesthetic uses of language and empowering students to consider the ways in which literature represents and constructs the world and social and cultural identities.

Programme

Higher Level

This programme is designed to meet the needs of very fluent speakers and highly competent writers, especially students of Arts and Humanities who may intend to pursue literary studies at university level.  Over two years, candidates study thirteen works, drawn from a minimum of four genres, four places and three historical periods across three areas of exploration.

Standard Level

Over two years, candidates study nine works, drawn from a minimum of three genres, three places and three historical periods and across three areas of exploration.

Three areas of exploration:

1. Interactions between readers, writers and texts.

2. How texts interact with time and space.

3. Intertextuality – how texts connect with each other.