The Menu

The Menu

Remember that the Medium is the Message; Each text type in and of itself has an internal message to its very form.
(speak to that as you analyse it, and criticise if the content clashes with the means of delivery/medium)

What is the text type?
How is the piece presented overall?
How is it divided up? (if at all)


How do the visuals speak to/inform the text (and vice-versa)?


How do the visuals work?

Right to left?
Rule of thirds?
Hierarchy?
Eye-line?
implied movement?
hard or soft edges? (remember the video in the office)
Colour?
graphics?
and where are the visuals in proximity to the written text, to each other (if more than one)





What rhetorical devices are employed to focus the reader and why?

contrast/ juxtaposition
listing (rule of three)
repetition (anaphora, alliteration, consonance, assonance, rhyme)
hyperbole
understatement
use of 'facts'
jargon
naming
attempts to engender empathy
attempts to engender sympathy
appeal to desire
appeal to fear
appeal to authority  (and what kind in each instance)
syllogisms
analogies

propaganda techniques
straw man
bandwagon
what about 'ism
transference

glittering generalities

diction

syntax




What poetic devices are used?

stanzas

caesura

enjambment

What literary devices are used?

Imagery

figurative language

• metaphors
• personification
• similes
• onomatopoeia

Who is/are the audience and why?

Serif, Sans Serif

 

TOK Essay videos and exemplar 2020

 

The actual essay is here

the scoring rubric is here

Another A TOK essay here

Scoring of that paper here

analysis of that paper in videos with yours truly here 

A how to guide here

Some board notes here

another exemplar of sorts, colour coded

 

exemplar sort of

 

HL Essay

Consider how a suitable line of inquiry might arise using concepts as starting points. The following are some examples of how this could be done.

• Identity—how does Ralph Ellison, in his novel Invisible Man, succeed in making his narrator a convincing spokesperson for the concerns of African-Americans in the 20th century?

• Culture—how does Robert Capa represent post-Second World War France to qualify/exemplify the brutalities of the French population on former Nazi collaborators in La Femme Tondue? (Language A: language and literature only)

• Creativity—how do Mario Testino’s portraits manage to convey the personalities of those portrayed in original ways? (Language A: language and literature only)

• Communication—which view of love does Matt Groening convey in Love is Hell? (Language A: language and literature only)

• Transformation—in what ways does The Alan Parsons Project’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination offer a transformative re-reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales?

• Perspective—how does Mary Shelley’s protagonist in Frankenstein use the motif of dangerous knowledge to show the perspective of fear and anxiety of excesses in scientific enterprise in early 19th century Europe?

• Representation—through what means does Juan Rulfo successfully convey the representation of realistic and non-realistic characters and situations in Pedro Páramo?

However, using the seven concepts is neither prescriptive nor exhaustive. Other literary focuses, theoretical approaches or areas of exploration could lead to lines of inquiry such as:

• How does F. Scott Fitzgerald foreshadow how Gatsby’s unnatural attachment to the past causes his downfall in TheGreat Gatsby?

• In what ways would Marxist theory about the stratification of wealth and power explain the violence that runs through the action of the novel A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez?

• To what extent was the characterization of the protagonist in Patrick Süskind's Perfume influenced by Franz Kafka´s The Metamorphosis?

Death of a Salesman