IB Diploma · session May 2027
English A: Language and Literature
Amended guide, first taught September 2024, first assessed May 2026.
Readers, writers and texts
Nothing matches that.
The course in one page
The course in one page. Standard and higher level, for the amended guide, first taught September 2024, first assessed May 2026 — the guide May 2027 candidates sit.
What changed in the amended guide
- Paper 2 is 25 marks, assessed across criteria A, B1, B2, C and D. Criterion A falls from 10 marks to 5, and the old criterion B splits into B1 for the individual works and B2 for the comparison, at 5 marks each. C and D are unchanged.
- The number of works did not change for this course. The IB cut the required works in Language A: literature, from 9 to 7 at SL and 13 to 10 at HL, but deliberately left this course alone, because cutting works here would have narrowed the range of text types the course exists to cover. This course studies at least 4 literary works at SL and at least 6 at HL, alongside non-literary texts taking equivalent teaching time, with a minimum of two works in each area of exploration. That is the figure in the guide, and it is not the same as Literature's.
- Paper 1 texts carry no line or paragraph numbering, from May 2026, in the digital and the paper format alike. The IB's own Diploma Programme updates of March 2025 states it, and adds that line citations are neither required nor rewarded. Locate by quotation instead, and make the quotation short and exact: that is the skill the change is testing.
What the course is, and how it differs from Literature
Language and Literature studies literary and non-literary texts together, on the principle that an advertisement, a political speech and a novel are all constructed artefacts working on an audience — and that the same analytical skills apply to all three.
The practical difference for you is Paper 1: where the Literature course gives you a poem or a prose passage, this course gives you a non-literary text — an opinion column, an advertisement, a public health campaign, a speech, a blog post, an infographic, a cartoon.
That changes the questions you ask of it. A poem asks how does this make meaning? A non-literary text asks something sharper: who made this, for whom, to do what to them, and by what means?
The course is available in 17 languages. Three areas of exploration:
| Area | The question it asks | |
|---|---|---|
| RWT | Readers, writers and texts | How does a text work on its audience? |
| TS | Time and space | How do context and culture shape meaning? |
| IN | Intertextuality: connecting texts | How do texts speak to one another? |
Assessment
| Standard level | Higher level | |
|---|---|---|
| Paper 1: guided textual analysis | 75 min, 20 marks | 135 min, 40 marks (two analyses) |
| Paper 2: comparative essay | 105 min, 25 marks | 105 min, 25 marks |
| Individual oral | internally assessed | internally assessed |
| HL essay | — | externally assessed coursework |
Educerie models the written papers only.
How Paper 1 is marked
Four criteria, five marks each at SL:
| Criterion | Out of | |
|---|---|---|
| A | Understanding and interpretation | 5 |
| B | Analysis and evaluation | 5 |
| C | Focus and organisation | 5 |
| D | Language | 5 |
The one thing to internalise
Purpose and audience come first, and everything else is evidence for them.
In a literary analysis you might reasonably begin with imagery. Here, beginning with a device before you have established what the text is for produces an answer that describes techniques floating free of any argument. Establish in your first paragraph:
- Who produced this — a government, a charity, a newspaper, a brand — and what that implies.
- For whom — and how you can tell, from register, references and assumed knowledge.
- To do what — persuade, inform, sell, reassure, provoke, mobilise. Usually more than one, and the interesting texts have purposes in tension.
Then every observation answers: how does this serve that purpose on that audience?
Text types you should recognise on sight
Advertisement · opinion column · editorial · news report · speech · public information campaign · brochure · blog · social media post · infographic · cartoon · interview transcript · travel writing · memoir · letter · manifesto · packaging.
Each carries conventions, and the analytically productive moment is usually where a text breaks one. An advertisement that looks like a public health notice, or a charity appeal that adopts the register of a legal summons, is making a deliberate move — and naming the convention it departs from is a fast route into criterion B.
Visual texts
If the text has images, layout or typography, they are part of it and ignoring them forfeits marks. Analyse: what is largest, what comes first in the reading path, colour associations, the gaze and posture of any figure, what is in focus and what is blurred, the relationship between image and caption — do they reinforce each other, or does one undercut the other?
Educerie · written from the published IB Diploma Programme structure for Language A: Language and Literature, amended guide, first assessment 2026. Original text. Paper durations and mark totals checked against the May 2027 examination schedule. Last reviewed 5 September 2026.