hi I'm Andrew and I'm Dave and we're the IB English guys today we're going to talk about literary forms otherwise known as genres and why it's so important to consider really the literary form before we launch into our analysis that's right Mr Jaws we've been looking at paper twos higher level essays individual orals and it always strikes me how it seems like some students don't really consider the literary form hence we're making this video Mr Giles what are some or something to think about and why is it so important to consider literary form well first of all we want to think about understanding so when we're looking at our literary forums and we're thinking about that where this helps us with our understanding of that tax we're thinking about how the author is doing things in this literary Forum to shape meaning and talk about rich ideas this is about our understanding yeah of course that's Criterion a for most assessments when you think about Criterion B you're thinking about those authorial choices it's really helpful to consider the literary form obviously if you're looking at drama you're thinking about stage directions and sound and what you can see if it's a novel you're thinking about narrative perspective and structure so knowing the literary form really does assist you when making choices and thinking about authorial choices lastly we want to think about when we're writing a paper too we're asked to compare things and look for similarities and differences and of course the literary forms can help us find great comparative points if we choose two different literary forms like drama and novel this gives us rich things to talk about right if we're if we're talking about the same literary for Forum that can also provide us with some interesting comparative points so I think that's another another aspect that's helpful yeah now Mr Giles now that we've talked a little bit about why it's so important to talk about the genre in the literary form let's look at some specific ones and talk about the attributes of each individual form why don't we start with novels yeah absolutely novels are written in prose they're meant to be written they're again it's about the reading experience and usually it's a rich reading experience that that you do over multiple sittings and we want to think about the richness of novels and how complex they are yeah you might want to think about the narrative point of view who's narrating does the narrator change is the narrator reliable is it someone you can trust so really considering the narrative point of view and how it might alter change throughout the novel is very important to consider yeah absolutely of course we want to think about character development how characters evolve over time how they change what their relationships are so thinking about character is a great thing to talk about with novels structure of novels is also something to consider you might want to ask yourself is this a linear novel is this non-linear are there huge gaps in time how is the author crafting the structure of the novel to help communicate the theme or the rich idea that's great and then of course we've got the beginning middle end of the structure we also think about the passage of time how much time elapses is this over over the course of two weeks is it actually multiple generations of 50 years how what is the passage of time that's really interesting to talk about of course we're looking specifically at the language itself you'll be looking for figurative language descriptive language dialogue all those Rich features that novelists use you'll be paying attention to that but we really want to make sure that we have that novel in our mind and remember hey this is a novel I should be talking about these aspects yeah that's great let's go on to the next literary form and that's drama drama is meant for the stage unlike a novel a a play is meant to be seen it's meant to be witnessed and whenever I teach drama I always want my students to see the plays so by all means make sure you engage with the play what are some things we want to think about with drama Mr Giles the theatrical elements is the first thing I think about them think about lighting sound props costumes stage directions blocking where people are standing how they're positioned this is so many great things to think about you can find those in the stage directions quite often yeah that's awesome we also we don't have a narrator usually with with drama we don't have someone standing on stage narrating so we want to look at dialogue this is how we learn about the characters and what they say and how they act so again dialogue's important also you want to think about structure with drama as well how many acts is it the traditional three-act play is it a five-back play what's going on and how is that play structured and what did the author gain by structuring the play in that particular fashion yeah we also think about that story mountain with Exposition rising action Climax and falling action and the resolution that's all part of this you like that story about don't you yeah I do I think it's helpful okay we also much like drama we want to think about characters how do the characters you know undergo a journey in the in the text how do they change how they evolve and where their relationships okay let's go on to the next literation poetry Mr Josh I love poetry poems are just these little self-contained complete texts what are some aspects we want to think about when we look at poetry I think we want to think about first of all you know we want to think about the speaker and the point of view who is the Speaker of this poem and how can I talk about that speaker and how they are reflecting the ideas yeah because it's a poem it's going to be very rich in imagery and figurative language most likely so you want to really take our time and unpack those and think about similes metaphors personifications think about the different types of imagery don't just say imagery be specific and think about exactly what type of imagery yeah we might want to think about the metrical and rhythmic patterns in poetry that we can talk about you know is it free verse is it a certain Rhythm it's at a certain meter these are things to pay attention to we also want to think about the structure of poems as well we can also think about the form kind of the shape can you talk a little bit about that Mr Giles yeah well is it broken down into you know equal equal um stanzas is it is it broken down is it is it a one stanza poem how how is that structured and how is that put together does it have a lot of enjambment uh is again these are all structural elements of poetry we want to think about sound as well we want to listen for plosives is there euphony is there cacophony we want to think about you know is there alliteration how how do the sounds manipulate the meaning of the poem and remember poets are very intentional about how they make those sound devices pop yeah and the last thing is that poetry is emotional poetry is beautiful we want to think about the emotions we're going to look for tone shifts and think about the emotions that are conveyed don't forget that if you're writing on the paper too short texts need friends you need to talk about more than one poem preferably three poems that you're going to unpack and discuss in the paper too same thing with hlsa one poem doesn't cut it short text needs friends now one thing we would like to really focus on now is graphic novels we have seen many students write about persepolis uh in other graphic novels sadly students often don't do it correctly Mr Giles can you talk about the importance of the graphic novel when we're thinking about genre what do we need to focus on well we want to think about first of all it's the interplay between visual art and and written text and written narrative so it's storytelling plus the visuals so we want to think about this sequential art how the sequence of panels how the panels are put together this is again a starting point maybe you have one large panel that takes up a whole page maybe you have multiple frames and panels taking up Pages think about that how is the sequence established also when looking at those panels you want to think about the shading you want to think about color graphic weight symbols you know really getting into the the visual aspect because as Mr Giles said it's the interplay between the visual and the language we can't do one without the other we can also think about point of view we can think about the perspective again we can almost look at a panel like it's a camera so we're thinking about the perspective and how that is how that's shaping our thing this is an extreme close-up is it a long shot that's what we're thinking about with perspective lastly you might want to think about the character design look at the body language look at the facial expressions think about uh the scale are they large are they small those can really give a lot of information and help you articulate late the main ideas of the piece that's great okay the last literary form we want to talk about briefly is short stories again very concise and contained form of Storytelling yeah there's your story Mountain again Mr Giles you have Exposition and citing incident you have rising action climax falling action resolution definitely talk about these aspects if you're exploring short stories yeah okay stories are usually about characters and we want to think about that character development and who does that character undergo change and transformation what can we say about the characters relationships Etc yeah because short short stories are quite short you'll often see the setting in the atmosphere packed in really tightly sometimes at the beginning and see how authors really bring out that time and space early through that descriptive language look for that that will help you shape meaning yeah much like novels we want to think about narrative point of view and how the point of view is going to again shape our thinking and shape our shape meaning that's another great talking point you're doing great take the last one okay but this one's just imagery and Rich figurative language again these are very concise and Powerful Stories We want to think about are there some different symbols or aspects we can talk about with figurative language yeah folks in the end we wanted to make this video to remind you that yes sometimes you want to get into the minutia the nitty-gritty of the text but we can't forget these overarching macro elements looking at the literary form and considering a genre in closing Mr Giles that's important because it's important because we have it's going to help us understand the text better and talk about the text better and I think stepping back and thinking about the literary form is a great entry point so students don't forget to step back and look at that and then step back in and watch us in our next video we'll continue with talking about some other broad authorial choices thanks for joining the channel see you next time bye guys