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IB Reflective Statement: Szymborska
The Task: Please write a reflective statement on how ONE of the interactive orals deepened your understanding of the cultural, historical, and/or biographical context of the literature we have been studying. Please write only about ONE presentation.
The focus of this piece should be your understanding—how the presentation helped develop your awareness of the background of this literature. Since you are reflecting on your own mental processes, please use the first person (“I”). You may refer to student presenters by name if appropriate. Organize your statement into coherent paragraphs. Think of this as a short reflective essay whose thesis answers the question “How was your understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work developed through the interactive oral?”
Format: 300-400 words, typed, double-spaced.
Scoring: This assignment is worth 15 points:
15/15 points: Reflection on the interactive oral shows development of the student’s understanding of cultural and contextual elements. Equates to 3/3 for IB.
12/15 points: Reflection on the interactive oral shows some development of the student’s understanding of cultural and contextual elements. Equates to 2/3 for IB.
9/15 points: Reflection on the interactive oral shows superficial development of the student’s understanding of cultural and contextual elements. Equates to 1/3 for IB.
0-8/15 points: The work does not reach a standard described by the descriptors above. Equates to 0/3 for IB
Submission: Do not turn in a paper copy. Instead, submit your paper to by 10:00 p.m. ____________________________. See instructions below for if you have not already registered for for this class.
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1. Go to .
2. If you don't already have a account, click "New Users Click Here." If you do have a account, skip to #4.
3. Under "New Students Start Here," click "Create a user profile." On the "Create a New Turnitin Account" page, click "student." Follow the instructions for creating a new account. Please make sure that you are enrolling in the correct class.
|Class Name |Class ID |Class Enrollment Password |
|Senior IB Lit Section 11 (Cohort A, has Lit on A and | | |
|C days) |7043491 |hooray |
|Senior IB Lit Section 12 (Cohort B, has Lit on A and | | |
|B days) |7043495 |hooray |
If you are under 18, you will need to get your parent/guardian to give approval for you to create a profile and agree to the terms of use.
4. Once you have a account, return to the home page and log in.
5. You should see your literature and instructor listed. (If you don't, click "enroll in a class" in the left-hand column and enter the class ID and enrollment password.). Please enroll in the accurate class, on the chart above.
6. Click on your literature class. You will see an assignment list. Click the green "submit" icon next to the assignment you wish to submit.
7. Follow directions to browse for your paper and upload and submit it (from your computer desktop, hard drive, flash drive, etc.). (If you are not using Word or WordPerfect, save the document as a plain text file or submit the paper by cut and paste rather than file upload.)
8. Once you have successfully submitted your paper, you will see your "Turnitin Digital Receipt." You're done! (You do not need to print a copy of the receipt for me.) If you're using a shared computer, don't forget to log out of .
Notes from IB about the Reflective Statement (from IB Teacher Support Material):
“Context” refers to all possible contexts. It is intended to embrace the cultural underpinnings of the works by looking at specifics such as:
• the time and place in which the work was written;
• information about the author (particularly as it relates to the way in which the author’s ideas as presented in the work do, or do not, accord with situations in the contemporary society);
• philosophical, political and social contexts;
• ideas that the students themselves bring to the work.
“Developed” is the other key word in the question. It is a personal statement that is most likely to be written in the first person, and should be an honest account of the evolution of understanding. If the student feels that they have not really learned anything, then they should reflect on what they still do not understand.
The aim is to ensure the focus of discussion is sufficiently challenging so that students will be stimulated to think more deeply about some aspect of the work.
The criterion by which students are assessed uses the same words as the question on which the reflective statement is based. If they answer this honestly and fully, then they should be able to achieve the three points.
Note: The word limit for the reflective statement is 300–400 words. If the word limit is exceeded,
1 mark (out of 3) will be deducted.
Below is a sample reflective statement from IB, with examiner’s comments at the bottom. Please note that, strangely, this sample is under the required word limit—your paper should be between 300 and 400 words.
Reflective Statement on “A Chronicle of a Death Foretold”
I was really glad that the second interactive oral on our translated works went further into the issue of honor in Latin American cultures. It was useful that John pointed out, first, that “Latin American Culture” is in itself an over-simplified label and that the Colombian context of this novel is not that of the Argentinean culture of Borges. Honor is one thing is a Colombian village, but the honor among the gauchos of Borges is not quite the same.
Honor in this Colombian novel became, in this presentation, much more clearly connected for me to the terms “marianismo” and “machismo” that we heard a little about in the first presentation on “Chronicle.” It’s worth seeing that while Angela’s mother is deeply connected to family honor, to the older ideas of women being like the virgin Mary, and the need for everyone in the family to protect the honor of their women, Angela doesn’t really buy into those ideas completely. She and her friends know ways to fake virginity, which itself says something about how much they are impacted by the previous generation’s ideas. They don’t seem particularly worried about honor even though that’s what leads to Santiago’s death.
And I found it useful to see that even the “machismo” (supposedly) of Angela’s brothers was really undermined by the author,(is this irony?) even though the ending was a bloody macho event in defense of honor. I can see that all these terms can be used a bit too loosely, as Melody showed with her three statements including the terms, all of which could be questioned and misinterpreted. I’m seeing I need to be careful about using these terms if I use them at all when I write my essay.
(Word count: 289)
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Marks and comments
Although the reflective statement ranges, perhaps, a little too widely, there is clear development of thinking here, and deepened understanding of some elements of the culture and context of this novel. Terms are clearly undergoing a process of refinement, and a more judicious attitude about using them is developing. The aside—“is this irony?—may possibly be the most useful phrase, possibly promising an angle for an essay. In spite of the breadth, there is an inherent connection among all the perceptions of this reflective response, and the writing merits the mark of 3.
Here is another sample reflective statement from IB.
Question: How was your understanding of cultural and contextual considerations of the work developed through the interactive oral?
Work used: Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
During the discussion, several articles were presented to the class. The subjects brought to light were the Russian economy during the 1850s, serfdom, and the question of whether Turgenev was obsolete or not. The articles on the Russian economy explained the state of transition the Russian economy was in during the mid-1850s. Prior to this period, there were members of the society called serfs. These were essentially slaves who worked on the fields of rich peasants, or the upper class. However, at this time Russia began to move away from serfdom.
After this discussion, it would appear Turgenev places great importance on the time, place, and culture of his novel, as serfdom and the existence of social classes are a predominant feature in Fathers and Sons. I found this discussion interesting, as it clarified some aspects of the novel. For example, in Fathers and Sons, Nikolai is a relatively well off land owner, and he ‘owns’ many serfs. However, as the system begins to evolve, the serfs and their owners have some trouble adjusting to the new system of land ownership. The serfs are misbehaved and irresponsible, and these aspects of the culture and context form the setting of the novel.
The article on the ‘Turgenev Question’ was interesting as well, because it highlighted some of Turgenev’s techniques, and what he’s famous for. According to the article, the art of Turgenev is in understatement: he manages to capture large philosophical, social, and historical movements as manifested in everyday life.
This can indeed be seen in Fathers and Sons. Turgenev paints a picture of commonplace Russian life with characters like Nikolai Arkady, Pavel, Bazarov and Fenichka, using barely any overly dramatic devices. Yet, through the characters’ thoughts and interactions with each other Turgenev explores ideas such as familial relationships. Furthermore, he portrays other aspects of Russian life, including the wide gap between social classes and the idea of young people rejecting all authorities.
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Examiner’s Comments: The length of the statement is 321 words. It is clear that, after listening to the discussion on the articles that were presented, the student has furthered to some extent his understanding of the cultural and contextual elements of the novel. The student has tried to include rather a lot of quite complicated information and ideas, which takes the sharpness off the reflection, but there is no doubt that he has at least started to think about issues in the novel in a different way as a result of the interactive oral. That would place the reflective statement in the middle range of the descriptors for criterion A: fulfilling the requirements of the reflective statement.
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