I chose the majority of the above words due to their positive connotations of working together in making sense of a chaotic world.

The repeated use of the triple structure gives the reader the ideas that the IB is the authority on the subject of the standards and practices used to facilitate the learning of the students, also placing emphasis on the words themselves individually. What student wouldn't want to study in such a place? It's quite a blissful persuasive text.

5. What words or phrases demonstrate the ideological perspective of this text?

The verbs used (creates, develops, plans, celebrates) all show that these are important in the planning part of the CAS learning experience. The verb participate show that it's not just the planning part that is important.

Some people are inspired by another's words while others are taken aback and offended, confronted by what they don't want to face. Texts can make us laugh, cry, smile, weep. Some texts might not want to be read again while some will be read repeatedly, loved and passed on to our children. Some may make us stop in our tracks while others will cause us nightmares.

3. In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted?

Meaning comes from many different places while reading: our schema, our dreams. It can be done by someone telling us, "This rose means love" but when we do our own negotiating, our own analysis, we may come up with a different meaning. "Oh, no, this rose means death." Our experiences, our "knowledge," our conversations and comparisons will bring meaning from the words on the page to our hearts and to our souls.

4. How does language use vary among text types, and among literary forms and genres?

If we take a news report, the language will be dry and emotionless. It will be factual with the only life coming from the quotations used by those involved in the event. If we take a similar text, an editorial, we will see the persuasive techniques coming alive, with facts interspersed with opinion. The words used will have an agenda--one to sway you to agree with the author. Even in two texts that can both be found in newspapers, the language will vary considerably. The same holds true with autobiographies and poetry. If we focus on the content, the audience and the purpose, then the language will change... If the author wants you to become frightened before turning off your light, the language he or she uses will be the language that scares you. If they want you to reflect on old age, the language used will be the language used to make you melancholic or peaceful.

5. How does the structure or style of a text affect meaning?

This question makes me think about E. E. Cummings. Without his use of atypical structure, his poems would not mean as much as they do.

6. How do texts offer insights and challenges?

By getting into an author's or his or her characters' heads, texts can offer human experience. They can challenge us to become better people, to think, to be more like the Hero or Heroine and less like the Villain.

Poems can make us reflect and think and wonder and inspire change.

Take, for instance, the first poem that actually ever hit me in the gut: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/first-snowfall

This poem got me thinking on various levels as a student, a teacher, a mother, a daughter... It inspired me to make the best of this life and to protect my children as much as I can while still living the life I'd wanted.

In my experience as a teacher, I spent a lot of time teaching both the literature and the history in which the works were written. I taught both American Literature and British Literature at a university level and I can't imagine just giving the students a text without explaining when and why it was written. Can you imagine teaching A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift without students knowing about the issues between England and Ireland or Protestants and Catholics? It wouldn't make any sense. For our students to make sense of the world, they need to see it from different viewpoints and one of those viewpoints is the historical context of a literary work. 

2. How do we approach texts from different times and cultures to our own?

I think they need to be approached with an open mind and without bias. We can then compare and contrast how far we've come if the work is racist, sexist, true to the times...and celebrate the similarities if it feels it could have been written yesterday.

3. To what extent do texts offer insight into another culture?

I think this depends on how close the text is to the reader's culture. We can certainly learn about what a society holds close and understand some aspects of their values and beliefs. If it is a translated work, we have to rely on the translator to pick up on the nuances of the language in order to make sure the real meaning behind the words translates into something we can understand.

4. How does the meaning and impact of a text change over time?

Shakespeare popped into my head with this question. For instance, these days, while Reading Hamlet, most people (myself included) skip over the historical political ideas presented in the drama and focus just on the relationships between Hamlet and those around him. While his relationships can still be relatable to us in 2019, a lot of the meaning in the text doesn't have as much of an impact on us these days.

5. How do texts reflect, represent or form a part of cultural practices?

This, I think, goes together with the third question. Chinghiz Aitmatov, for example, is a highly revered author here in Kyrgyzstan. His life and death changed Kyrgyz culture. He represents the post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and special weeks, like Kyrgyz Language Week, celebrated in schools, now incorporate units of study on Aitmatov.

5. How does language represent social distinctions and identities?

I used to work with a Professor of Philology quite closely and he used to ask me this question a lot, inviting me to write an article for journal publication with him on this topic...and I couldn't do it because this question is too philosophical for me to even start to wrap my head around. I hate admitting this in public but I tried for years to understand language and identity.

By adhering to the conventions associated with, fictional prose, for example, we can expect to have a beginning, middle and end of the story, with dialogue mixed in with narrative, following the traditional plot structure.

If we take Ernest Hemingway in the Modernist Movement, we can see how he (and others) deviated from the traditional fictional prose writing by sticking us right into the middle of the action in many of his short stories. He (they) disregarded the beginning, middle and ending of the stories and, oftentimes, just gave us the middle where we would have to infer the beginning and ending.

2. How do conventions and systems of reference evolve over time?

As time moves on and people keep adding their own ideas and style to writing, writing evolves. Writing from the 1700s varies a lot from the writing of the 1300s. And they both vary from writing of today. Thematically they may be similar, but with the evolution of language, religion, politics, cultures, etc. the writing will change.

If we look at Chaucer, who wrote in Middle English (the language of the common folk), we can see how it evolved literature as it was deemed okay to write in English rather than the language of the monarchy or the Church. I can imagine the same things might have happened globally due to different circumstances in different times.

3. In what ways can diverse texts share points of similarity?

I think thematically we can find similarities between texts that are very different from one another. Jane Eyre, for example, has a theme of love. So do Pablo Neruda's Love Poems. One is a fictional story of an Englishwoman in the 1800s and the other is a collection of poems, written by a Chilean poet in the 20th century, yet they both share a common theme.

4. How valid is the notion of a classic text?

I think if we take a look at the definition of what makes a text a "classic" (being a noteworthy example of a work), then there is some validity of the notion of a classic text. Unfortunately I do worry that if we only pay attention to the classics, a lot of literature can be lost or ignored.

5. How can texts offer multiple perspectives of a single issue, topic or theme?

I think in various ways but what sticks out the most to me is by changing the narrative. In William Faulkner's As I lay Dying, for example, every chapter has a different narrator. This is an unusual example, of course.

Another way may include the characterization the author uses for all characters (we can see Atticus Finch's goodness in To Kill a Mockingbird, for example just as we can see Robert Ewell's ignorance).

6. In what ways can comparison and interpretation be transformative?

If we have students who have had a limited worldview study works from different times, different places, different genders, we can almost guarantee that their experience will be transformative. They will, we hope, understand that, through their comparisons of what they "know" and what they've read, learned, and newly experienced, that the world is a small place and we're all just people after the same things: love, happiness, maybe some success, etc.

 

The global issue explored is the manifestation of racial bias and discrimination in the Deep American South using Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the closing argument (speech) of Atticus Finch’s in the film adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

Introduction

 

A. Summary of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1. Racial bias in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

            a. example

            b. example

            c. example

2. Racial discrimination in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

            a. example

            b. example

            c. example

B. Summary of To Kill a Mockingbird

1. Racial bias in To Kill a Mockingbird

a. example

            b. example

            c. example

2. Racial discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird

            a. example

            b. example

            c. example

C. Similarities and Differences 

            1. Example

            2. Example

            3. Example

 

Conclusion

Took some ideas from here:
http://itcher.com/mag/to-kill-a-mockingbird-harper-lee-vs-the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-mark-twain/
https://www.youthvoices.live/2017/05/16/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-racism/
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/themes/slavery-and-racism
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/huckfinn/quotes/page/4/