Demonstrating Connections in your Learner Portfolio (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

Making connections is one of the core purposes of the Learner Portfolio. As you progress through the course, your portfolio should document how your understanding develops and show meaningful links between the texts you study. But what does a connection actually look like in a portfolio entry?

The following guide to demonstrating connections includes:

• Types of connections

• How to demonstrate them in your Learner Portfolio

Types of connections

There are several distinct types of connection you need to understand and demonstrate:

• Connections between texts (literary to literary, literary to non-literary)

• Connections between texts and the Areas of Exploration (AoEs)

• Connections between texts and the seven central concepts

• Connections between texts and global issues

• Connections between your portfolio entries and those of your peers

• Connections between assessment components

Connections between texts

The most common type of connection in the portfolio is between two or more texts. You should establish links between the works you are currently studying and previous ones you have read. You can do this by identifying, across different texts:

• Similarities

• Differences

• Recurring themes

• Contrasting perspectives

• Shared authorial choices

A strong textual connection identifies a specific point of comparison and then explores what it means. 

For example, a connection between the visual form of Persepolis and the prose narrative of The Kite Runner might begin by noting that both are retrospective first-person accounts of political upheaval. But a genuine connection explores this further: for example, how does Satrapi’s choice of graphic memoir allow her to represent experiences that prose cannot easily capture? This moves beyond just noting down a similarity to asking questions about how form and meaning interact with each other.

Connections to the Areas of Exploration

Demonstrating a connection to an AoE means showing how a text, or a relationship between texts, highlights the central questions of that area.

For example, Readers, Writers and Texts asks how meaning is made between writers and readers, and how context shapes interpretation. A portfolio entry connecting a text to this area might explore how your reading of a text changed when you learned something about the author’s background or historical context, or how a wider piece of reading altered your interpretation of a passage.

Connections to the seven central concepts

A portfolio entry that demonstrates a connection to one of the seven central concepts — identity, culture, creativity, communication, perspective, transformation and representation — does not simply label a text against one of these words. It explores how the concept operates within and across texts, and what studying those texts reveals about the concept itself.

Connections to global issues

Global issues are particularly important in the Learner Portfolio because they directly underpin the Individual Oral. A global issue must:

• Have significance on a wide scale

• Be transnational

• Connect to everyday life

It is therefore a good idea to record potential global issues as they emerge throughout your course, and note which texts they connect to and how.

A strong connection between a text and a global issue is specific and evidence-based. For example, a strong connection between a text and gender inequality should identify the specific ways the text engages with this issue, and name precise moments in the text where this engagement is most visible.

Connections across your own portfolio entries and to your peers

A powerful form of connection is looking back at an entry you wrote in the first term of Year 1 and reflecting on how your understanding has developed since then. One practical way to build these connections is to return to earlier entries every so often and add a brief annotation, such as: “I was wrong about this because...” You can then also use your peers’ observations and perspectives to draw comparisons and conclusions with your own.

Connections between assessment components

You can use the portfolio to record decisions about the most appropriate and useful connections between specific texts and your final assessment components, such as Paper 2 or the Individual Oral.

How to demonstrate connections in your portfolio

To physically demonstrate these connections in your portfolio, you can consider:

• Written reflections: 

  • Write formal or informal reflections specifically dedicated to exploring the connections across a range of texts you have studied

• Visual representations: 

  • You can create visual diagrams, such as mind maps, to visually chart the connections between texts

• Summary sheets: 

  • As mentioned in previous revision notes, you can use a tracking table or summary sheet for each text

  • This allows you to explicitly map out how a text links to the course concepts, AoEs, other texts (for comparative essays), and global issues