FOR JUNIORS...

WORKS IN TRANSLATION (WIT) ESSAY PREPARATION: 5 STAGES


STAGE 1: The Interactive Oral

1. Class will be divided into groups for Interactive Oral Presentations of the three works that we studied in Part I: Oedipus Rex, A Doll’s House, and Blood Wedding. This is an IBO Requirement!

2. Each group will produce a HANDOUT on their Interactive Oral Presentation and give to the teacher –I will make copies for the class in advance and hand them out on the day of the presentation(s). The information needed is what any educated reader wants to know (before they read) about culture and historical context. (Please realize that we are deconstructing the text since we have already read these.)

a) What would you have to know in order to better understand the text?

b) What element of culture/context are they talking about?

c) Some guiding questions for the Interactive Oral are:

1c) In what ways do time and place matter to this work?

2c) What was easy to understand and what was difficult in

relation to the social and cultural context and the issues of

the text?

3c) What connections did you find between issues in the work

and your own culture and experience?

4c) What aspects of the work’s technique seem connected to its

particular context?

3. Students listening to presentations MUST take notes on each Interactive Oral Presentation!! (Both students and the teacher should take part in the Interactive Oral discussions.)



STAGE 2: The Reflective Statement



All students will write a REFLECTIVE STATEMENT of 300-400 words about EACH oral presentation in which they answer this question:

HOW was your understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work developed through the Interactive Oral?

*Please be aware that this statement will be attached to your

Final Essay!!

STAGE 3: The Supervised Writings

1. The teacher will provide 3-4 PROMPTS for each of the three works to direct students’ written responses.

2. In class students will respond to EACH of the three works studied/presented in Oral presentation in a written exercise. Students will choose one prompt that is interesting and potentially worth pursuing for their 1200-1500 word essay. Students may use their text for the writings. Students will have between 40-50 minutes to write each written exercise on each work presented. At the end of the timed writing, students will hand in the writing to the teacher who will keep the unedited copy on file at school. Students will do 3 Supervised Writings (one of each work). Supervised Writings on presentations of all three works should take about 2 class periods.

3. Once students have decided on which piece of supervised writing to develop for the essay, a copy of the appropriate piece will be returned to the student (students will have already completed 3, one for each work). Students will choose ONE of their pieces of Supervised Writings and develop that into the WIT Essay. The Supervised Writing and the final essay MUST show an apparent connection!! Students must title

their essay!

STAGE 4: Writing the Final Essay

1. Working from the supervised writing, the student must now produce an essay of 1200-1500 words.

a) The teacher will give a handout on “Organizing the WIT Essay” to students to be filled out and returned to the teacher at the time of the teacher-student conference. The CONFERENCE with the student about his/her ideas for an essay must show that those ideas are derived from one of the pieces of supervised writings. The student should communicate clearly his/her ideas for the essay to the teacher.

b) The teacher will give students a copy of the RUBRIC for the WIT Essay.

c) The student must finish the essay of 1200-1500 words on his/her own. He/she must do individual work!

d) The teacher then reads the first draft and provides general comments on the potential of this draft to become the final essay. The teacher MUST NOT re-shape or edit the essay draft for the student!

STAGE 5: Essay due

1. Students will hand in a hard copy of the essay by a specified date

(Your DUE DATE is December 16, 2011.) Students will also email a copy of the essay TO BOTH ME AND MS. BECNEL by that date. In addition, each student will save two copies of the essay—one on a flash/jump drive, and the other on his/her home computer in Documents. This back-up system protects the student against any possible loss of the essay.

2. The Teacher completes the IBO cover sheet and attaches it and the reflective statement to the final copy of the essay and delivers it to the IB Coordinator. (The cover sheet has to have both the student and the teacher’s signature, indicating that the student did his/her own work!)