WT2 Questions

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 structure (the significance of language that identifies class distinctions is of primary focus)
  

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 author’s 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 Borges’s Ficciones
  
• The study and analysis of the use of the courtly love tradition in Romeo and Juliet