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https://images.app.goo.gl/TM9x4nJjoezuvph3A

https://images.app.goo.gl/6ihuph3GaEZZgkQ67

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In his dark room he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black and white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs 🤬
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.

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IBDP Eng L&L workshop final course revision by Grace Wong

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The global issue I’m exploring today is as old as mankind and as recent as yesterday - that of the brutality and dehumanization of war. Recent events in Afghanistan have caught the world’s attention and again we cannot help but wonder how these will impact the people involved, especially the innocent civilians. Through the daily bombardments of newsreels and intense coverages by the international press, images of another time and another war come flooding back and already comparisons have been made between the present afghan war and the Vietnam war from half a century ago, running commentaries from political experts and politicians from around the globe are pounding the press everyday, while hundreds and thousands are suffering silently, the majority is looking on helplessly.

To show the brutality and dehumanization of war effects, The texts I have chosen today are Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’ and Nick Ut’s Vietnam war photo series.

Carol Ann Duffy’s War Photographer, originally published in Standing Female Nude in1985, was inspired by her friendship with a war photographer, in the poem Duffy describes the challenges these people face in their job - to witness and record horrific events without being able to help the suffering. The other text I’m using is Napalm Girl by the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Nick Ut, from his photo series of the Vietnam War, the photo, taken in 1972, depicts local children fleeing from a napalm bombing of a village during the Vietnam War. Both texts explore and reveal the brutality and dehumanization of war on humans.

Firstly, I’d like to talk about napalm girl, originally named The Terror of War. Nick Ut is a Vietnamese American photographer who was working for the Associated Press as a combat photographer at the time. His job was to photograph and record images of the refugees and planes dropping bombs throughout Vietnam. In his photo series, he often portrayed innocent civilians caught between the conflicts of the north and south. On June 7 of that year, a bomb mistakenly hit a civilian village and villagers were forced to flee from the ensuing napalm bomb.  The photo shows children running and crying, their faces showing extreme fear, in the background plumes of black clouds rise up into the sky, blocking out the sun, effectively portraying an image of hell on earth,our focus are naturally drawn to the little girl in the centre of the photo, running naked down a dirt road towards the camera, with her arms flailing and screaming in pain, without the outlines of the clothing, her nudity gives the girl an almost animalistic appearance, it highlights the brutality of war and how it can strip one of one’s identity and dignity as human being. The soldiers in the background strolling leisurely with their weapons contrast greatly in their mannerism, they’re shown clearly protected in their helmets, the dark coloring of their uniforms gives the impression that they have emerged from the black smoke and are herding the children like cattles along the path, showing no emotion and paying little attention to their plight.# The use of black and white photography urges the reader to focus on the subject matter and take in the composition around the central element. Ut uses this technique throughout his photo series to tell the human stories of the individuals he captures with his camera, framing their pain and helplessness for eternity.#

In another photo from the same series,Ut shows a local woman carrying a dead boy in her arms, again she’s shown to be heading towards the camera while a straggling of soldiers are headed in the opposite direction seemingly oblivious to her presence. Her face is expressionless, her lips tightly sealed, helplessness is written all over her face. the boy in her arms has only strips of cloth hanging off his body , parts of which are peeling from what seems to be severe burns. The woman’s placement in the foreground of the photo and the contrast between her white garment to that of the soldiers’ dark uniform clearly reflects the two polarized worlds each occupies. The soldiers are often faceless in Uts photos because the stories are rarely about them.

In her poem War Photographer, Duffy floods the dark room with a single red light to create a strong imagery of the bloody battlefield, the simile ‘ as though this were a church and he a priest..’ portrays the photographer, like a priest, often deals with death and suffering.

The sibilance ‘spools of suffering set out’ in stanza 1 slows down the pace of the poem and intensifies the hushed tone one finds familiar in a church setting, showing the dark room to be a somber place of respect.

Duffy creates an analogy between the photographer and a priest through the semantic field of religion- ‘ordered rows’, ‘church’, ‘mass’ and ‘priest’, this shows Duffy’s admiration and respect for the photographer whose job often puts him in dangerous and horrific situations in which he’s expected to perform in a professional way with sensitivity while remaining detached, just like a priest.

Third person pronouns are used throughout the poem to describe the photograph, the reader realizes that the photographer must create a distance between himself and his work, the repeated use of ‘he’, ‘his’ takes away the personal identity of the photographer and removes him emotionally from the trauma of his job whilst absolving him from his guilt for not being able to do more for the victims of war.

The onomatopoeia ‘ solutions slop in trays’ takes on a double meaning, not only do the solutions reveal the terror of war but also the photographer’s hope that his photos may give voice to the victims and help to put an end to the conflict. Lines 11-12 ‘to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat’ echo the vivid image from Nick Ut’s Napalm girl.

The opening line ‘something is happening’ in stanza 3 adds an eerie undertone to the dark room, ‘ a half formed ghost’ carries with it the picture of a dying man as well as the ghost that the photographer has brought home with him,’ he remembers the cries of this man’s wife’, from whom he has sought silent approval for his intrusion on an intimate final moment in order to be part of the solution.

Duffy then went on to criticize the lack of emotion that the editor and his reader show ‘the reader’s eyeballs with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers’, she questions how we react to images of human sufferings. With centuries of war and conflict, perhaps, we the readers, have also been stripped of our feelings to a point that we are numbed to the pain around us?

In conclusion, both the Napalm Girl photo series and the war photographer poem demonstrate the global issue of brutality and dehumanization of war, the effect is evident in all of us, the soldiers, the victims, the story tellers and the silent public.

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The student clearly compared the differences between the two texts on the issue of ‘female promiscuity’. She quickly identified techniques used in 13 reasons why and described the images of the actors. Her comments were clear but more evidence was needed to be convincing. The student talked about the degrading effect on females in the tv dialogue, but again did not give details on the terminology. She mentioned the close-up shot of Hannah, I feel she could have explored further the effect of body language on the audience.

The student identified lines from the poem ‘Salome’ to support the poem’s message, and showed some understanding of authorial choices through relevant examples.

The student stayed on task albeit with some lapses and repetition. Her tone and language were appropriate and easy to follow. On the whole, the presentation was adequate and the student showed understanding and demonstrated her knowledge in literary skills, but she fell short of delivering a more cohesive oral.

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IBDP Eng L&L workshop syllabus construction Grace Wong

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Question 1 - IB mission statement

The ideological biases that exist in the IB mission statement can be gleaned from the words : knowledge, caring, peaceful and intercultural, which can be interpreted as intellectual, emotional, political and cultural biases. IB goes on to say that international education is the key to world peace, the assumption that the world’s woes could be fixed through knowledge alone reflects the degree of bias.

Question 2 - IB learner profile

The dominant reading in this piece shows the IB learner to be intelligent, compassionate and all-encompassing.  He is a problem solver, a concerned global citizen and a freedom fighter.

An oppositional reading might be that the IB learner is such a perfect human with noble ambitions to save the world that this person does not exist . Given the increasingly volatile atmosphere that young people face today, this would be a tall order.

Question 3 - The tone created is efficient, empowering and objective. The author achieves this through the words “develop, communicate” and “foster.” These are words with positive connotations; the repeated use of “develop” emphasizes the sense of growth and achievement. It is the author’s aim to encourage and inspire with the promise of fulfillment.

Question 4 - Standards and Practices

The words “ learning” and “community” have positive connotations of nurture and tolerance. The reader feels welcomed and valued as part of the IB community and looks forward to growing stronger together. The phrases “ lifelong learners” and “ a lifetime of learning” drive home the message that learning is a lifetime commitment.

Question 5 - Creativity, activity and service

The words “created, participated” and “produced” together with the phrase “…to raise awareness about a global issue…” demonstrate the ideological perspective of the text. IB promotes the ideology of live and learn and urges the students to constantly question events that take place around and beyond their local environment, offer creative solutions to problems and embrace those who are different from themselves.

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WHY

The learning portfolio is your go-to for all you have learned in the IB course. A place where you can revisit learned knowledge at your own pace. You can explore and reflect upon texts that you have learned and respond to feedback from both teacher and peers.

WHAT

The learning portfolio is the place for you to keep class notes and assignments, your personal thoughts on texts you have read, tidbits from group discussions that you find interesting and helpful to the course components. From these you will practice your skills required by the course and develop your focal point for the individual oral.

WHERE

We all have different ways in how we organize our work.  It should be easily accessible by you at all times, and it should also be user-friendly for your teacher and fellow students so that information can be shared and accessed easily. To this end, it is best to allocate individual space for the necessary categories, eg. Analytical Writing, Creative Writing, Feedback, Group Project or Assignments, and anything else you might want to include in your portfolio.

HOW

The learning portfolio is an on-going development throughout the two year period, it is to be used as you wish and when you wish. It is your platform to voice your thoughts and ask questions about different elements in the texts you read, these could be characters, key passages or quotations; here you can build links between texts being studied and previous ones you have read.

WHO

Your learning portfolio will be shared with your peers and teacher on a regular basis. Through various feedbacks and guidance, you will broaden your knowledge of not only the prescribed texts but also the relationship among text, culture and identity.

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1. Thinking - good thinking skill is based on delving deep into one's memory. Every time we think, we inadvertently revise our knowledge base.

2. Communication - to understand and to be understood is a big part of survival in any culture

3. Social - good social skill can mobilize an army

4. Self-management - this is #4 because those with the above skills will stand a good chance of success.

5. Research - this is becoming ever easier with the advancement in technology, that’s why I’m placing this last.

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1. Teaching based on Inquiry - we’re all curious by nature, and I find appealing to students’ sense of curiosity sits well with their concept of learning. By encouraging students to ask questions gives them a sense of ownership to the topic being discussed. This is also a good opportunity to teach the students to ask the right questions.

2. Teaching focused on effective teamwork and collaboration - collaboration promotes social integration. Recognition from peers and teachers can boost one's confidence, students can broaden their knowledge through each other’s experience and develop a clearer sense of identity and self-worth.

3. Teaching focused on conceptual understanding - concepts are hard to grasp, it comes with experience. The concepts of identity, culture, creativity, communication, representation, transformation and perspective are embedded in our life and are interdependent in order for us to make sense of our world.  I believe this approach is consistent throughout the course.

4. Teaching developed in local and global contexts - everything local has a global context and visa versa. The internet has expanded our reach, with the various world movements by young people, students automatically connect and empathize with their counterparts in other countries. The reason I put this after conceptual understanding is that I believe students should develop a sense of self before they can effectively compare their situations to others.

5. Teaching informed by assessment - again I feel this is a constant in teaching. Students need regular feedback to give them impetus to move on. I’m placing this thus far down the list as I take it this refers to formal assessment.

6. Teaching designed to remove barriers to learning - I believe teaching is about removing barriers to learning.  The knowledge is always out there for all to have, it is looking for the path with the least resistance that makes the teacher’s job so rewarding.

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I teach at a small school in Hong Kong.  Being small has its advantages; our classes are small and intensive, and all our students have ambitious goals for their future. I guess this is typical of students in Asia.

I teach IB diploma in English A: Language and Literature as well as Literature at Standard Level. I am taking this course to update my knowledge and learn new skills in the program. I like reading and going to the movies; I find them relaxing and inspiring. Last year was a new challenge as the IOC became IO, and for the first time in Literature a poem was not offered in the assessment, this fazed one of  my literature students as she had devoted her time mainly to poems; luckily all turned out fine for her in the end.

My most pressing question about the IB is how to guide students in their choice of global issues and explore these in their given texts. I am looking forward to working closely with my colleagues in this online experience and achieving good knowledge to share with my students.