English World Lit

[Shorty]

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on how to write this?

Edited January 3, 2008 by Shorty

[watever]

to help you out, which world lit are you doing? 1 or 2?

which books does your school use?

The main thing to remember is to choose a topic/research question that does not only interest you, but you feel comfortable attacking, and something you know about, for example, if you didnt read the book, don´t write a commentary on it, if you have to write a commentary on a book that you haven´t read, read some summaries online, and ask your teacher if he has any suggestions on an extract which you could write a good commentary on. I, for example, only have The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka left as choice, but i found the book ridiculously boring, so read the first chapter and never picked it up again, (which caused me to loose the book, and have to ask a friend to scan the first pages 3 days before the world lit 2 rough draft was due). I hence have chosen to write a commentary on only the opening (first 30 lines) of metamorphosis. (Don´t forget that you have to say WHY you chose the extract you´ve chosen, just write up some sentimental bull****, for example, this extract is an essential to the book because it describes not only what Gregor Samsa´s main conflict will be both internally and externally throughout the novella, but also introduces the main setting and describes his characteristics.. blah blah blah... you get the point).

So you´ve figured out what your doing, TAKE NOTES, do research, read, take notes, reread, take more notes, figure out what you can write about in your commentary, remember to find relevant things. This is essential, as if you just start writing you world lit, you´ll get half way and realize that your interpretation might be wrong cuz of something new you discovered, and you half to start over again, or start winging it.

Then make a plan! REMEMBER TO MAKE IT ASPECT DRIVEEENN!!!! dont take the work line by line. it helps if you make a list of aspects, i dont kno em of them of the top of my head, stuff like : Imagery, Structure, Diction, Setting, Themes, Style, Characterization: then write down what the most important relevant info is that make part of each aspect!! Also, remember that the info may be linked between different aspects, for example... blah blah uses vivid imagery which is evident in blah blah blah through the use of diction which builds on the setting in the story, this is important because blah blah blah. (this is a very vage example, but whatever)

hope it helps, watever

[LukasLunacy]

I've just started writing my second world lit paper on the Inferno and Siddhartha, so I already have one under my belt. A few things to keep in mind is that if you are making your paper a compare and contrast, make sure the question is very specific and you mention only certain aspects in it (such as the ones mentioned above.) If you ask a question using all literary aspects in the book you'll find yourself pretty cramped for space and also your essay may be really scattered. What I've also done that I found really helpful was to choose something about the work as a whole or how a certain theme applies to both books. That way you don't have to look for random quotes in the books, but you can focus them on this particular idea.

Well I hope this helps, let me know if you have anymore questions

[Shorty]

Hey thanks for the reply guys, I have just submitted my World Lit Draft to my teacher following both of your suggestions.

Hope it turns out ok.

[Forester]

I can't finish my set texts for world lit. They are impossibly boring. You are telling me that you can write a world lit without reading the text and still get a 7?

[Shorty]

Probably not, I suppose if you know a thing or two about each text and do a little research on sparknotes then it shouldnt be horrible difficult to write a world lit paper.

[akshat]

take a common theme

look for it in both the texts

and analyse a bit

and dont frget to mention the style, diction, imagery etc......

i would suggest you read your text

[Lotte]

I've gotta do mine soon too.. I got 11/20 in my draft, and my teacher says some bits of it are great, and other bits are really waffly and all... So I'm a little worried about it.

But reading this sorta helped a bit.

[chileanbob]

Well I got a 3/20 on my A Doll's House draft... and I did better than most of my classmates (who got 0/20's). The highest score in my class was a 13/20 so that goes to show something =\

[nanki_c]

my teacher never gives us any grades for drafts . He just tells us what's wrong with it.. very vaguely. Not very helpful, actually haha. Are any of you guys doing creative pieces for world lit 2?

[Ashika]

Oi vey! That sounds terrible haha.

We don't get grades on our rough drafts.

But, our teacher is pretty good for pointing out where we can make improvements.

[hellogoodbye]

i don't think our teachers are allowed to grade our drafts

thats just what im told.

i heard they are allowed to give like general/vague feedback, but aren't allowed to give you and actual score.

[macuserx]

I thought you cannot summit your essay to your direct english teacher? For my school, we had many different english teachers so each class interchanged their essay for teachers in other class to review and give feedbacks.

[Sandwich]

I thought you cannot summit your essay to your direct english teacher? For my school, we had many different english teachers so each class interchanged their essay for teachers in other class to review and give feedbacks.

This is just your school. The actual guidelines are basically that the teacher (can be your direct one too.. actually I think this makes more sense as they're more likely to know about the book you're doing!) can look at it but they have to be vague in terms of helping you, and not give you a score or comment directly on anything you've put. At least so our teachers told us, and they're the sort of people who definitely read and researched the extent of the guidelines! Of course some schools do and some schools don't, but that's just how the IB is. Ours wrote vague points on a separate piece of paper to go with our coursework.