Part 3 Written Task 2: Overview, 6 Questions

Sizwe Bansi is Dead or A Streetcar Named Desire

What is Written Task 2? WT2 is a critical response (i.e. an essay) to one of the 6 prescribed
questions for the HL additional study. It is not a creative writing piece like WT1 but rather a
well-organized essay. Other information about WT2:

HL Students submit one Written Task 2 for external assessment (worth 10%).
WT2 should be in the form of an essay with an introduction, clearly developed ideas or
arguments, and a conclusion
WT2 should include a Works Cited page and parenthetical citations whenever needed
WT2 must be 8001,000 words in length and should be accompanied by a short outline
that is created in class using a specific IB form

The aims of task 2 are:

to consider in greater detail plays studied in Part 3: Sizwe Bansi is Dead or A Streetcar
Named Desire
to reflect and question in greater depth the values, beliefs and attitudes that are implied in
the play you are analyzing
to encourage students to view texts in a number of ways
to enable students to give an individual response to the way in which a text can be
understood in the light of one of the prescribed questions.

The six questions you may write your WT2 on:

Reader, culture and text

1. How could the text be read/watched and interpreted differently by two different
readers/audience members?
Hint 1: one of the readers/audience members should be from the intended target
audience; the other from an opposite group
Hint 2: select 2 or 3 key passages from the play and indicate how the two readers
would interpret them differently (these passages should be cited)

2. If the text had been written in a different time or place or language or for a different
audience, how and why might it differ?

Hint 1: Dont try to cover all of these possibilities. Keep your essay focused and
coherent. Remember to cite key passages from the play to support your points.
Hint 2: This prompt is all about context: the cultural, social, historical, or linguistic
context in which a work is produced and interpreted. So you need to show some
evidence in your essay about how the different context would affect the work.

Power and privilege

1. How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
2. Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text?
Hint: Choose one social group (e.g. women, a particular minority group, the
mainstream cultural group, homosexuals, etc.)

Text and genre

1. How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of drama/theater, and for
what purpose?

2. How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects?
The Six Questions in greater detail (from page 45 of the Lang & Lit Guide)

Reader, culture and text

1. How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?
The following are examples of texts that may be studied for student responses to question 1:
The study and analysis of possible readings of the final pages of part 1 of the novel The
Outsider by a French and Algerian reader at the time of the Algerian war of independence
The study and analysis of possible readings of an extract from the screenplay of La
Grande Illusion by a French public in the early 1930s and late 1930s
The study and analysis of a political speech by a world leader that excludes references to
certain groups or issues (those excluded will read the speech differently)
The study and analysis of different views of an article on obesity (this article may be
viewed differently by someone from a country with problems of poverty and famine and
by someone from a wealthy consumer society)

2. If the text had been written in a different time or place or language or for a different
audience, how and why might it differ?
The following are examples of texts that may be studied for student responses to question 2:
An article from a newspaper and how it would be written in a different newspaper
A comic book or graphic novel for teenagers in the 1950s rewritten for teenagers in the
21st century
The study and analysis of a literary work on the theme of prejudice that highlights
different assumptions about race, religion, and so on
The study and analysis of an article about social class from a country that has a very
hierarchical class

Power and privilege

1. How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?

The following are examples of texts that may be studied for student responses to question 1:
The study and analysis of an article in which an urban tribe is represented in a negative
way
The representation of social groups in the novel The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al
Aswany

2. Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text?
The following are examples of texts that may be studied for student responses to question 2:
Chinese fiction in which the figure of the intellectual is either revered or condemned
Representations of the Roma in the contemporary popular press

Text and genre

1. How does the text conform to, or deviate from, the conventions of a particular
genre, and for what purpose?
The following are examples of texts that may be studied for student responses to question 1:
The study and analysis of an authors reworking of fairy tales
The study and analysis of a novel that uses dramatic dialogue, poetry, letters, accounts of
journeys
The study and analysis of media texts with a particular format, style and register
2. How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects?
The following are examples of texts that may be studied for student responses to question 2:
The study and analysis of how a particular character from a work of fiction is re-imagined
in a song lyric
The study and analysis of religious imagery and references in political speeches
The study and analysis of one of the stories from Borgess Ficciones
The study and analysis of the use of the courtly love tradition in Romeo and Juliet




Sample written task 2 Question 4
Outline

Prescribed question: Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced

within the text?

Title of the text for analysis: Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 2000

Part of the course to which the task refers: Part 3: Literature text and context

My critical response will:

show how Marjane Satrapi grew up under oppression during the Islamic
Revolution in Iran,
show how secularists, like Satrapis parents, also suffered and made
sacrifices during this period,
show how others, such as nationalists and even Muslims, were tortured,
executed and locked up,
demonstrate how the Marjane Satrapi uses various conventions of the graphic
novel to achieve these ends.

Written task 2

It is often said that literature is a voice for the oppressed. Marjane Satrapi proves this
point in her graphic novel / memoir Persepolis, in which she shows how children,
secularists, nationalists and even Muslims were marginalized, excluded and silenced
in Iran during the Islamic revolution in the 1980s. Her work serves as a voice for
those who were oppressed.

From the first page of the graphic novel the author explores the theme of growing up
under oppression. She introduces herself and the troubles of the Islamic revolution
through the symbol of the veil. The first frame of the first page presents a portrait of
Marjane Satrapi wearing the veil, looking expressionless and without identity. The
caption reads, This is me when I was ten years old. This was in 1980 (p. 3). The
text and image could not be simpler or more to the truth. The reader hears the voice
of the author, looking back on her childhood, showing us a picture of herself, veiled
and depressed. In the next frame, you cannot tell Marjane from the others in her
class photo, as they are all covered and depressed. Through cartooning, the author
is able to exaggerate these features and simplify complicated matters. Furthermore
the graphic novel allows her to explore this theme further in the splash at the bottom
of page 3, where the reader sees many children on the playground, jumping rope
with several veils tied together, using the veil as a monster mask, and taking off the

Brad Philpot, InThinking
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veil because it is too hot. One veiled ten-year-old chokes an unveiled ten-year-old
and says execution in the name of freedom. From this point, the reader knows that
Satrapi is going to juxtapose the innocence of childhood with the seriousness of the
Islamic Revolution in order to show how oppressive the Iranian regime was.

In her memoir, Marjane Satrapi continues to explore the theme of oppression.

Besides focusing on her own troubles of growing up during the Revolution, she also
sheds light on her parents struggle with the ruling Islamic Party. She comes to
realize that her parents beliefs are opposite to those of the regime. While her
parents drink alcohol, read intellectual books, have parties and enjoy a wealthy
lifestyle, the Guards of the Revolution police this behaviour, execute such secularists
and hate any signs of wealth. In one frame Marjane helps her mother pour alcohol
down the toilet, as the police threaten to search their apartment (p.110). In another
frame, Marjanes mother puts tape on the windows, as a safeguard against the Iraqi
bombings, and black curtains over the windows, to prevent the neighbours from
seeing their parties (p.105). She tells this story of her parents living in fear through
very stark, black and white drawings, which show the contrast between the evil
theocratic regime and her good secular parents. This contrast culminates in the final
page of the novel, when her parents send her to Austria to protect the life of their
only child from the horrors of war and the dangers of the Islamic regime. In one
frame a bearded guard is searching through her suitcase at the airport. In the next
frame her mother faints from sorrow as she says goodbye to her daughter (p.153).
This scene shows the sacrifices that the elite secularists had to make at the hands of
fundamental Muslims.

As one reads this graphic novel, one understands how so many people in Iran, not
only Marjane and her secular parents, were systematically silenced. When the
Islamic Revolutionists overthrew the Shah in 1979, they imprisoned Persian
nationalists and the Shahs military, including the fighter pilots who were needed
during the Iraqi attacks (p.83). This is one of several stories that Satrapi tells of
people who were hurt, killed or locked up by the extremists in government. These
stories are signs of the times in which she lives, which she can easily tell through
voiceovers, jumps between comic frames, dialogue bubbles and iconic images. She
depicts how even devout Muslims were oppressed by their own beliefs, as one frame
shows a man flogging himself and another frame shows an army of veiled women
beating their chests and making chants about martyrs (p.96). Through these devices
she is able to give the reader a birds eye view of the atrocities that everyone
suffered and the frenzy in which society found itself. One starts to feel sorry for the
children who brag to each other on the school square about how often they pray
each day (p.75).

Brad Philpot, InThinking
www.englishalanglit-inthinking.co.uk 2




To conclude, Marjane Satrapi tells how she, her parents and so many others were
silenced and oppressed in the 1980s in Iran. The graphic novel, as a medium allows
her to depict black and white, stark images that emphasize the conflicts of the times.
It makes such atrocities very accessible, and it allows the reader to easily identify
with the narrator and main character. For an outsider, Satrapis images of Iran and
the stories she tells are very shocking, because ones sees how such injustice can
happen in the name of freedom and religion.

(937 words)

Works cited

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003. Print

Brad Philpot, InThinking
www.englishalanglit-inthinking.co.uk 3
Examiner's comments on Student Written Task 2 on
Persepolis

Criterion A - Outline - 2 marks

The outline clearly states the focus of the task

2 out of 2 - The outline gives a good indication of which social groups will be discussed in the
structure of the critical response.

Criterion B - Response to question - 8 marks

Student explores all of the implications of the prescribed question chosen. The critical response must be focused on and
relevant to the prescribed question. Furthermore, the response is supported by well-chosen examples from the text(s).

6 out of 8 - To a great extent the student explores the implications of the question by focusing on
secularists, Muslims and elitists in Iran in the 1980s. However, the candidate could have
commented on and defined better the notion of 'silence, marginalize and excluded'. The response
mentions the veil and imprisonment, but only in passing. Not all paragraphs had the depth of the
first body paragraph, which analysis the importance of the well-chosen examples from the text.

Criterion C - Organization and argument - 5 marks

The response must be well organized and effectively structured in order to score top marks for this criterion. The
response should make a case and develop it thoroughly.

4 out of 5 - Generally speaking the essay is very well organized. Each paragraph is directed by a
topic sentence. The final body paragraph, however, seems vague in its focus. It is not clear how the
fighter pilots contribute to the main argument. It is also not clear how Muslims are oppressed under
an Islamic regime.

Criterion D - Language and style - 5 marks

The response must be written effectively and accurately. Students should use an academic register and strong style.

5 out of 5 - The essay uses appropriate terminology to describe the features of a graphic novel,
including words such as 'splash' and 'voiceover'. Furthermore, sentence structures are complex and
fluent.