Help with deciding Lang lit or literature

[RainDodger]

Hi everybody!

Im planning start doing IB Diploma next year and have stumbled upon a road block which is deciding between Language literature and Literature. Although English is not my mother tounge, I am quite confident in my English profiency and love literature, English language and creative writing.

To my knowledge, the main difference between these 2 subjects is that Literature solely focuses on the analysis of books, poems, short stories, plays, or anything academical.

While lang lit is more broad, practical(in terms of real life usage) and focuses on the analysis of mediums such as song lyrics, films, social media, adverts and what not.

Both sound highly intriguing to me and hence I could not decide between the the 2. I love creative writing but ironically, the syllabus of Literature only consists of literary analysis. Ever since discovering that creative writing is in the syllabus of Lang lit, ive been leaning more towards choosing lang lit, with the factor holding me back being that the school of my choice does not teach lang lit, hence the dilema. Could someone give me a better overview of the syllabus of lang lit, what the actual learning experience is like and whether there is big enough difference for a student to look for another school and go through the whole school searching process again? And is creative writing a big part in the overall course?

Any response is deeply appreciated

 

[Allemande135]

Hi @RainDodger !

Will you be choosing this to be your HL or SL subject?

I also had the same problem when I was choosing my subjects last year. Eventually, I switched from Lit to Lang Lit for two main reasons:

1) More students get 7s in Lang Lit than in Lit.

Of course, it's difficult to get a 7 in both subjects, but it's just more possible. You can find online 

2) There's much less to memorise.

In HL Lang Lit, my current subject, we have to do six books. In Lit, you have to do twelve. To remember quotes and other things for that many books was way too much for me.

Hope this helps!

[RainDodger]

@Allemande135 Yes I will be choosing this as my HL.

Hmm.. What you said does sound concerning. Apart from analysis of books, what else do you analyse in lang lit?

And as for the creative writing part, what exactly are you tasked to write in lang lit? Is it short stories, poems, scripts or adverts? Or all of them? haha

[Allemande135]

My teacher said that basically anything that has been written could come up in an exam. But we've focused on many different text types: opinion pieces, letters to the editor, speeches, advertisements, propaganda posters, satirical cartoons, comics... The list is basically endless. 

It might not sound that interesting, which was the main reason why I did not choose lang lit at first, but once you actually see some examples, then you really understand what the subject is about.

In lang lit, you have to do a Paper One where you get two questions, with one question covering two unseen texts. You pick one of the questions and then you compare and contrast the two texts. The two texts always have a common theme. In my end-of-year exam, the first question was about a diary entry from the First World War (poems and excerpts from books also come up though!) and a 1967 film poster for "The Incredible Shrinking Man", while the second one was this Lifehacker web blog post (https://lifehacker.com/what-kind-of-stuff-do-employers-search-for-when-i-apply-609209318) and a song called "Watching Me" by Jill Scott (https://genius.com/Jill-scott-watching-me-lyrics). 

About creative writing: in lang lit, you have to do at least two FOAs and some written tasks. I'll explain what these are.

An FOA is a further oral activity where you do a presentation and analyse some texts. Think of it as an oral essay or analysis, if you like. It doesn't necessarily have to be presentation, but that's what my class mates generally did. One pair who analysed a song/poem (I'm not really sure what it was tbh) actually created their own song/poem thing, similar to what they were analysing, so it's not all that dull.

A written task is much more creative. It can be anything BUT an essay. You find a text or event to respond to and then you respond to it by writing, e.g., an opinion piece or letters to the editor. So far, I've only done one which responded to an event by writing an opinion piece in the voice/style of a specific columnist.

I did hear something about there being one written task which is slightly different from this type, so I would recommend you to google the specifics since I'm not sure!