During the two-year course, you will investigate how a range of texts connect clearly to a variety of global issues. You will then explore the ways in which these issues are present in your booklist and how different authors and texts represent, reflect and/or explore them through their choice of literary form, structure, language use or literary devices. The global issues you select will shape your focus for the individual oral.
Properties of a global issue
A global issue incorporates the following three properties:
• it has significance on a wide or large scale
• it is transnational
• its impact is felt in everyday, local contexts.
From Language A: literature school supported self-taught student guide, p. 19.
This study could focus on the way in which works explore aspects of family, community, class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality and nationality, and the way that these impact on individuals and societies. You could, for example, examine issues concerning migration, multiculturalism, colonialism and nationalism.
One global issue which could be examined here relates to the way that identities are constructed and the
role of the community in shaping or suppressing identity.
From Language A: literature school-supported self-taught student guide, p. 19.
Explore the links below.
The study could focus on the ways in which works explore aspects of aesthetic inspiration, creation, craft, and beauty, the shaping and challenging of perceptions through art, and the function, value and effects of art in society.
One global issue that could be explored within this field of inquiry is the role of the artist in the world of the work. If any of the characters in the work is an artist, it could be interesting to consider what view of the role of the artist and of art is expressed through this character.
From Language A: literature school-supported self-taught student guide, p. 19
Explore the links below.
You could focus on the way in which works explore the beliefs and values nurtured in particular societies and the ways they contribute to the shaping of individuals and communities. You could investigate the tensions that arise when there are conflicts and the value and effects of education.
One global issue in this field of inquiry that you could examine is how different individuals and
communities respond to change and whether their system of beliefs resists or accepts change.
From Language A: literature school-supported self-taught student guide, p. 19.
Explore the links below.
The study could examine the ways in which works explore the relationship between humans and the natural environment, the implications of technology and media for society and the consequences of scientific development and progress.
One global issue you could explore here would be the extent to which science is presented in the work as
realizing the potential of human beings or threatening and limiting it.
From Language A: literature school-supported self-taught student guidex, p. 20
Explore the links below.
The ways in which works explore aspects of rights and responsibilities could be looked at, along with the workings and structures of governments, the hierarchies of power, the sharing of wealth and resources, equality and inequality, the limits of justice, and the law, peace and conflict.
One global issue which could be explored here is how the relationships of power are represented in the works and whether there is any individual or group which is deprived of power and silenced or marginalized.
From Language A: literature school-supported self-taught student guide, p. 19.
Explore the links below.
The individual oral means speaking for 15 minutes focusing on this prompt:
Examine the ways in which the global issue of your choice is presented through the content and form of two of the works that you have studied.
The prompt requires you to discuss two works, one originally written in your language A and one that has been professionally translated into your language A, which can be brought together by a common global issue. The presence of the global issue in both works should be significant enough to be able to talk about it in relation to each one of the works. You will then choose one extract with a maximum of 40 lines from each work. These extracts should be a good example of how the global issue is shown in the work and should give you a chance to demonstrate how the presentation of the global issue is shaped through choices of language, form and structure.
You should use the extracts to focus your response upon precise issues, such as style, specific devices and other distinct techniques used to present the global matter. You do not need to learn quotations from the wider work. In the individual oral, you will discuss the extract and the work as a whole and will always use the global issue as a lens for your discussion. In the case of collections of literary texts such as short stories, poems or essays, you will need to draw connections with the other texts read as part of the study of the same author.
Knowledge of the global issue itself—beyond the treatment given to it in each of the works—is not expected.
From Language A: literature school-supported self-taught student guide, p. 42