Text: Ebert, Roger. “The Waterboy.” https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-waterboy-1998.
Before you read the “spoiler” bullet points below take a careful look at the text. Imagine it is a text you are using for your DP Language A Language and Literature assessments ( Paper 1, the individual oral, the HL essay,) and analyze it accordingly. This text would not be appropriate for Paper 2.
Paper 1: first take a careful look at criteria A and B . Then, consider how you would approach this particular text in light of the requirements of criteria A and B.
Individual oral: Start by looking at criteria A and B for the IO. There are some similarities between the criteria in the individual oral and those in Paper 1. However, the individual oral also requires students to make connections between extracts from a work and body of work. The individual oral must make connections with the global issue that the student has chosen. Consider how this text is linked to different global issues.
HL essay: The HL essay is an in-depth analysis of a non-literary body of work or a literary work the student has studied in class. Imagine this text is from a non-literary body of work and consider possible approaches you could take with the 1200-1500 word HL essay. This could include evaluating connections between this text and the seven central concepts in DP Language A Language and Literature.
Some elements of this text to consider:
- How the first paragraph indicates that the reviewer had given previous Adam Sandler movies poor reviews, but also indicates the reviewer approached this movie with an open mind.
- The start of the second paragraph “
- How the first paragraph indicates that the reviewer had given previous Adam Sandler movies poor reviews, but also indicates the reviewer approached this movie with an open mind.
- The start of the second paragraph “
- How the first paragraph indicates that the reviewer had given previous Adam Sandler movies poor reviews, but also indicates the reviewer approached this movie with an open mind.
- The start of the second paragraph – “Then Adam Sandler spoke, and all was lost.” – shows the review’s distaste for the movie. This sentence is quite powerful and funny given that it is placed right after the opening paragraph.
- The variety of ways in which the reviewer finds fault with the movie
- How the reviewer uses language when making his points: “His character’s voice is made of a lisp, a whine, a nasal grating and an accent that nobody in Louisiana actually has,” “the plot is that exhausted wheeze of a sports movie formula” etc.
- The review is not completely negative – it does give credit to one part of the movie in the fifth paragraph.