Choosing and Refining your Global Issue (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

Choosing texts using a global issue allows you to connect your literary and non-literary works to broader, real-world concerns. This section is designed to help you understand how to select and refine a global issue for your Individual Oral (IO) and how to link it to your texts. It consists of:

• Choosing a global issue

• Connecting your texts to a global issue

• Writing a global issue statement

• Top tips

Choosing a global issue

Choosing a global issue is crucial in preparing for the IO. Before choosing your texts, it is important to understand what qualifies as a global issue.

The IB guide states that your global issue should meet the following three criteria:

• It has significance on a large or wide scale

• It is transnational

• Its impact is felt in everyday local contexts

You can choose to focus on a global issue in different ways. You may already have a strong interest in a particular issue or you may notice a shared global issue emerging from some of the texts you have read during your course. This process is not always strictly linear, though here is one useful approach:

Below are some common approaches that you could use to choose a global issue. 

Using IB fields of inquiry and key concepts

When selecting your global issue, you may find it helpful to use one of the IB’s:

• five fields of inquiry, or 

• seven key concepts 

These can be treated as broad starting points and can enable you to refine your focus into a more specific global issue. 

It is important to remember that these are broad global areas, not global issues. For the IO you must focus clearly on a specific and clearly defined global issue. This means you need to refine a broad area into a focused and arguable issue that can be explored in detail through both of your chosen extracts and texts.  

Let’s explore how these broad areas could be linked to some specific global issues.

Connecting your texts to a global issue

Once you have identified a potential global area or issue, you need to ensure that it is clearly present in:

• One literary text

• One non-literary text or body of work

As a starting point, it’s useful to create a list of all of your studied texts like this one:

Once you have made a list of your texts, you should begin to link them to some of the possible global areas and issues they explore. Here is an example:

Remember, your chosen texts must explore the same single global issue even if they both approach it in very different ways.

Writing the global issue statement 

Developing a strong global issue statement is a key aspect of your assessment. It involves refining your initial ideas and selecting suitable texts to build a clear and sustained argument.

A strong global issue statement should aim to demonstrate these four key features:

Let’s explore how we might use this framework using a global issue. 

Selecting your extracts

Once you have chosen your texts and refined your global issue, you can begin to select your extracts. Each extract will form the focus of your analysis and must clearly demonstrate how your global issue is presented by both creators. Here are some guidelines which you must follow when selecting your extracts:

Let’s explore an example of how you might choose a specific extract from a literary text which links to a global issue. For this example, we will focus on George Orwell’s 1984.

There are many other different extracts that you could choose to use from this text. However, it is important that your selected extract provides enough depth to support a detailed analysis of authorial choices. Remember, your selected extracts will form the core of your presentation. 

Top tips

• Start with a broad global issue first and then refine it:

  • Use your texts to shape your final ideas

• Choose your texts carefully:

  • Ensure you have selected one literary text and one non-literary text

• Write your global issue as a statement rather than as a question:

  • It should be clear and arguable

• Choose extracts that support your analysis:

  • Ensure both have clear authorial choices to analyse

• Keep your focus on the global issue:

  • Only use one global issue for both texts

  • Your discussion should centre on how the global issue appears in both texts