A1 World Literature

[brastu]

Hey,

I have the 2 world lit assignements due in 2 weeks. But the truth is I do not know how to write a world lit!!!! I love english and write quite well but I feel that we have been very poorly instructed on how to wrtie world lits at my school... not surprisingly, everyone always ends up with a 5!

I have read pride and prejudice, the outsider, antigone, oedipus, no exit and the great gatsby.

I want to do the assignement where we only use one book on Gatsby, but I don't know what format it should take. I want to talk about gatsby's character but I don't how I should go on about it in terms of format and title formulation... should I rely heavily on the passage and quote often? should I take a strict essay format and analyze certain aspects that built his character? what should I do???? I really really need help and would appreciate it very much?

Also, i am thinking about doing the story telling thing, where I would write an extra passage for the book. I have heard that this includes having to write about your own passage or something but once again, I don't know what that is supposed to be like.

Finally, there is the other assignement, the one where we compare two books. for this one I have no idea what I should do!!

I know I seem (and in fact am) completly lost and have way too many questions, but if anyone could please guide me through how to go about my 2 world lits in terms of the IBs expectation and recquirements I will thank you forever!!!

[Tilia]

The very first thing you should do is to read the IB instructions and the criteria. Start with that. It's very important.

OK, you have an idea about WL2, that's a start. Think about how you want to do it, creatively or formally? If you choose the creative one, think about how you would do it and try to make an outline. The formal one is just like any English essay. Here I recommend BOW - brainstorm, outline, write! Take a piece of paper and write down everything you'd like to mention in the essay. Then you leave it for a while, come back and organize it into an outline, then you write the essay.

The big thing about the WL1 essay is that it is comparative. Don't just write about two books, compare them! Use phrases such as "Novel X is more... than novel Y", "In contrast to the previous novel...", "..., which is similar to novel X". If you aren't using this sort of sentences, you aren't comparing enough. This is the most important thing about WL1.

As for choice of topic, we can't really help you there. You have to come up with it yourself, but honestly, there must be some common aspect in two of the novel that's struck you? Maybe two people with the same profession/interest, maybe a similar use of technique/symbolism, a similar environment, a similar theme, etc etc. It does not have to be identical features either, you should compare and contrast, so it's quite OK to have huge differences between the books as well.

There are plenty of other advice on this site about WLs, so I suggest that you look around a bit more as well.