IB DP Language A Language and Literature -Toyota FJ Cruiser ad

Text: Toyota. FJ Cruiser.

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: the individual oral, the HL essay, or Paper 1 and analyze it accordingly. (This text would not be appropriate for Paper 2).

Some elements of the text to consider:

  • The emphasis on visuals in this ad – text is only used to identify the car manufacturer and model
  • The rugged setting – a remote, windy mountain route
  • The depth of field of the ad and the long distance from foreground to background highlighting the remoteness of the location
  • The guardrails bent into to the road implying that the FJ Cruiser was traveling off-road, smashed through the guardrail, and has returned to the road. This comedic exaggeration plays on the audience’s expectations that broken guardrails indicates a vehicle has lost control, crashed, and has left the road.

2 thoughts on “IB DP Language A Language and Literature -Toyota FJ Cruiser ad”

    1. Paper 1, the Individual Oral, and the HL essay all involve different kinds of textual analysis. In the Individual Oral students need to tie the analysis to a global issue of their choosing. Look at the first part of the 9-10 band for Criteria A and Criteria B of the IO.

      Excerpt from criterion A: “There is excellent knowledge and understanding of the extracts and of the work and body of work and a persuasive interpretation of their implications in relation to the global issue.”

      Excerpt from criterion B: “Analysis and evaluation of the extracts and their work and body of work are relevant and insightful.”

      The text analysis points in the blog posts are starting points – students then of course need to make connections to whatever global issue they have chosen which is highlighted in the second part of Criteria B:

      “There is a thorough and nuanced understanding of how authorial choices are used to present the global issue.”

      (Quotations are from pages 64 of the DP Language A Language and Literature guide (first assessment 2021).

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