Humor and Irony, Elusive Terms

October 17, 2018

In my own classroom, we often struggle with clarifying what constitutes humor in writing, how it is to be handled critically and how to write successfully about it. One (of many) complementary problems is being sure what we mean by irony.   These terms have long been...

Advice for Successful Individual Oral Commentaries

August 24, 2018

At some point, sooner or later, whether you are a HL or SL student, you’ll see that IOC coming toward you.  You’ll be thinking such things as ‘how am I going to get through this?’ or ‘what can I do to prepare?’  Your teachers will...

A Wider World (Part 1)

June 22, 2018

Assuming that you’re on this site because you’re interested in the kind of reading and writing that your literature and language courses may or may not involve, these three (or maybe more) blog entries will be looking outside and inside of conventional...

Greek Terms (3)

March 30, 2018

This post adds two much larger terms to the series. There is no possibility that we can provide the range and depth the terms involve but may at least give you some brief references to two significant treatises by Aristotle.  And in the case of both, you will likely...

Coming to Terms with Greek Terms (2)

March 2, 2018

In this pair we are dealing with one term that you may encounter but are less likely to actually use in your own critical writing, and another that you might actually find usable.  Either way, your knowledge of these ‘terms of art’ can work to expand your...

Some Ideas for Thinking about World Literature

January 8, 2018

I’ve been poring over some materials I’ve used in workshops on ‘Literature in Translation,’ and thought it might be useful to share some of these resources and add in a frequent question about the Written Assignments. These articles are...