This video guides viewers through the metacognitive process of establishing a strong line of inquiry for the IB English Higher Level Essay, emphasizing the crucial link between literary/linguistic features and a rich, relevant idea.
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hi I'm Dave and I'm Andrew and we are
the IB English guys and today we want to
talk about how to establish a line of
inquiry for the higher level essay Mr
Giles why are we doing this video well
we've done a lot of videos about the
higher level essay in which we gave you
a line of inquiry that was the final
product and today we want to talk about
the process of how we arrive at that
line of in looking at that metacognitive
process is often difficult to understand
and we're going to do it for you today
all right Mr Giles in this 12 to 1500w
higher level essay what are some of the
components of a good line of inquiry
that we need in ours yeah aside from the
question word and the title in the
author we want to think about the
literary or linguistic perspective and
establish that in our line of inquiry
and we want to connect that to a rich
idea yeah of course you want to have the
author the genre the name of the text uh
context if possible what do you say we
take a look at some of the ones we've
explored in earlier videos and we'll
like this up I'll take the first one Mr
Giles how and to what effect does Arial
dorfman's characterization of Paulina in
the play death in the maiden illustrate
the struggle for freedom and a post
dictatorship light it upil okay first of
all we've got the question word we've
got the author title but we're going to
focus on the characterization of Pina I
like that that's that's a clear again
literary perspective and more
importantly I would say is that we're
talking about the struggle for freedom
in a post- dictatorship so there's our
Rich idea yeah we got the context as
well let's try the other one in another
video we did Giles it's how how does
Constantine kavafied spatial proximity
in his poetry to illustrate the
oppression of homosexual men in late
19th and early 20th century Egypt light
it up wow great specificity I really
like this one spatial proximity is a
very interesting literary perspective
literary aspect and again it's dealing
with a global issue and that oppression
of homosexual men in the 20th century
and I think that's really interesting
yeah again folks the higher level essay
must link a literary or link istic
aspect to a rich idea so both of these
lines of inquiry have accomplished that
task Jes what do you say we try to
develop one of our own you ready that's
great and I think again the way that we
do this is by asking questions and these
are questions that you can ask yourself
you can look at the handout down below
but I think also you can have somebody
else pepper you with the questions to
get you to think about yeah it's really
great you know you've read these texts
with your entire class with your teacher
it's nice to sit down with somebody else
who's an expert in the text and have
this great academic conversation that
will help you generate ideas what do you
say Jes you ready let's do it yeah let's
give it a try here we go folks this
isn't rehearsed here we go we're just
going to see what happens all right
Giles we've studied a lot together in
the last two years what's a text that
you love and I'm going to be writing
down some of his ideas to help me ask
better question a text I love I brought
the book it's called Sing unburied Sing
This is a powerful novel by Jasmine Ward
um I I this has really spoke to me and I
think this is the the text I'd like to
choose all right I I love that text as
well now Giles there's so many thematic
ideas that she presents what are some of
the the main ideas of the text that
really resonate with you yeah I think
the the ones that resonate with me are
are drug addiction uh parental neglect parental
parental
neglect uhuh got it systemic racism oh
yeah systemic racism yep and the idea of
generational trauma oo good one these
are these are I think really powerful I
got to add one more is poverty all right
right uh so I've jotted these down folks
that's five now Mr Giles I it's a great
text but you can't have five ideas in
your higher level essay so of those five
ideas drug addiction parental neglect
systemic racism generational trauma and
poverty which one do you remember you're
going to spend some time with this work
so which one do you love which topic do
you love here well one that I learned
about by in more specific terms was
generational trauma and I read an
interview with Jasmine Ward and she
talks about this and it really stuck
with me it really made me think about um
racism and how that's a legacy that uh
that people carry with them all right
I'm going to write that word legacy down
I like that as well all right Giles now
you're talking about generational trauma
the Legacy
now we need to think about the text now
what are some moments of the text that
really portray this idea of generational
trauma okay so just specific moments I
think throughout the novel we hear pop
telling stories and he tells stories to
Jojo his grandson and in those stories
are many examples of the trauma that he
felt uh in the past as he's telling JoJo
about it I think that's important I like
that one pop storytelling I think that's
okay The Motif any other moments I also
see the presence of given's ghost uh
Gibbon is a young man who who suffered a
violent death and we see his appearance
throughout the text uh and I think the
appearance of his ghost is definitely
evidence of of trauma that people feel
okay uh I like this idea the ghost we
got the stories of joj any other moments
in the text that you can think of that
just jump out at you with generational
trauma remember we're on generational
trauma another ghost is Richie and we
see clear references to uh to
generational trauma through the
appearance of Richie's ghost uh again in
the latter half of the text his ghost
really plays a really dominant role and
we also see this idea of singing because
he's singing in the text um and this
singing I think is really connected to
the idea of the sort of Haunting voices
of the ghost of the past okay here's our
keyword so far we've got generational
trauma we've got racism we've got ghosts
we've got singing okay now I'd like you
to choose one you've given me three
really awesome moments of the text we've
got pop story telling with JoJo given
and The Ghost and Richie of the ghost
I'd like to pick one moment like of
these three which one do you really want
to dive into and look at language yeah I
would say if let's look at Richie's
ghost and this would be that's the end
of the yeah this would be um right
around chapter
13 which is like page 247 we see this
whole chapter is about I'm there okay
yeah so JoJo's the narrator and he's he
Richie the ghost is with him and this is
in the same chapter that Richie's death
is described by his grandfather so this
is really a powerful moment yeah now Mr
Giles jasine Ward is a powerful writer
and we talk about signature moves and
things that Writers
Do What are some of the the key
authorial choices that we talked about
with our teacher in class that maybe you
see in this particular extract well I
think this is a realistic scene where we
see a grandson and his and his
grandfather and they're having a
discussion about the past but but then
it has this whole magical element with
the ghost I heard the words realistic
and magical yeah me it's again this sort
idea of magic realism that jesmond W is
using and I I think magic realism is a
really interesting element in the novel
because we see the ghosts and they're
really they're I think they're very
interesting to talk about I'm going to
push you a little bit here you're
talking about magic realism you're also
talking about singing in ghost can we
assign a literary feature or a literary
aspect of that word of ghost and singing
well we see that singing is a motif
throughout the text so I mean it's
called Sing unburied Sing um so we see
the whole idea of the unburied being the
ghosts so we see that motif of singing
being quite prominent all right Giles uh
this is great we've really drilled down
let me give you some keyw and we're
going to try and build a sentence you
ready for some key words key words we've
got ideas generational trauma
racism ghost singing magic realism
Motif our author is jine Ward okay all
right so I think first of all we're
gonna talk about hold up I'm gonna type
this out all right so we're gonna think
about um we need our question word how
how I like the how question how and to
what effect we might as well do the
effect as well how and to what effect uh
does jasmine
Ward uh utilize
magic magic realism all right uh I like
the singing and the motif of singing
they go together because the ghosts are
singing so I think we can talk about
both of those things so magic realism
and the and the motif of singing to
illustrate what she illustrates the idea
that that yeah that to illustrate the generational
generational
trauma illustrate generational trauma
now I need to be I need to Define so
felt by
many contemporary africanamerican commun
unities all right here's what we got so
far we've got we're going to have to
word Smith this guys it doesn't just
come out we're teachers it doesn't just
come out how and what effect jine Ward
use magic realism and the motif of
singing hey is this a novel is this a
play What's This Thing Called oh yeah
it's a novel we need to see the title in
the novel in the novel sing and bued
saying okay to illustrate the
generational trauma felt by contemporary
African American communities Mr Giles
read it back to yourself and tell me if
you're happy with it there it is the
whole thing
yeah I like it I think I think again I
think jesmond Ward would would would you
know again I want to think about would
she agree with this is this an
appropriate line of inquiry and I I I
think having read some of her interviews
this is essentially a key idea that she
wants to convey among among many others
there's not just one idea conveyed in
any text yeah folks I just want to put
it through our test we've got question
words how to what effect we've got the
author jine Ward we've got broad
linguistic or literary aspects magic
realism motif of singing we have the
textt type novel we have the name of the
work Sing unburied Sing We have a rich
idea generational trauma felt by and we
have that precise context modern
African-American communities Mr Giles I
dare say that this meets all the
requirements of our line of inquiry that
we've established cool that was that you
know again it's um fun to come up with
that but again we could probably if we
we peel it back we could look at another
idea and peel it back and think about
the same question so we can come up with
different lines of inquiry based on IDE
that I found interesting teachers and
students please note this has taken us
about 10 minutes I would encourage you
to do this multiple times until you
really find one that you love and you're
willing to spend some time with because
ultimately it's a 1500-word essay that
you're going to be working on for a
while okay folks in closing we hope that
this video sort of pulled back the hood
a little bit and showed you what's
processed the metacognitive thinking to
craft a line of inquiry for the higher
level essay please stay with the channel
let us know in the comments what you
need we'll keep responding to your
messages and providing videos for you
and please please like the video if you
liked it share it with others um let's
And subscribe because we really want to
keep this alive we want to keep the
project alive and if you made it to the
end of the video congratulations you're
the minority thanks guys again thanks so
much and we'll see you on the flip side
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