Text: “More Muted CNY as Dragon Dances Cancelled, Lion Dances Banned from Neighborhood Centers.” The Straits Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/a-more-muted-cny-ahead-as-dragon-dances-cancelled-lion-dances-banned-from-neighbourhood
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:
- The audience for this website and this article in particular considering it is a Singapore news website and the news topic is local
- The text does not include any explanation about what the dances are which indicates the editors expect that readers will already be familiar with them. The article does, however, explain some other parts of the story.
- The use of a bright, saturated image at the top of the article
- The quite short length of sentences and paragraphs
- Specific details as to difference between the celebrations in a normal year versus this year due to COVID restrictions
- The links in the “More on topic” section that is embedded in the middle of the article