IB English A Lang & Lit Choosing Your Global Issue Notes

Step-by-Step: How to Craft a Strong Global Issue

1. Crafting a strong global issue matters because it’s the anchor of your entire IO.
   1. If it’s vague or weak, your analysis won’t hold up.
   2. Examiners want to see depth and real-world relevance, your issue should clearly connect your texts to something meaningful.
2. It also helps keep your presentation focused.
   1. A solid issue gives your analysis direction, so you don’t go off track.
   2. When the global issue is well thought out and specific, it makes extract selection, technique analysis, and point structure easier.

3. A precise global issue makes the rest of the IO more manageable.

Step 1: Understand the IB Definition

1. A global issue must:
   1. Be relevant across multiple regions or societies
   2. Significantly impact individuals or communities
   3. Arise in everyday or familiar contexts, not just extreme cases
2. IB's Five Categories
   1. Culture, identity & community
   2. Beliefs, values & education
   3. Politics, power & justice
   4. Art, creativity & imagination
   5. Science, technology & the environment

3. A global issue does not have to come from one of the IB's five categories and many strong IOs do not use them.

Step 2: Start Broad, Then Refine

1. Begin with a general theme, then narrow it down:
   1. Broad: Censorship
   2. Refined: The psychological consequences of state censorship on personal identity

Step 3: Link to Both Texts

1. Check that the issue is clearly present in both texts.
2. Check that techniques and authorial choices can be analysed through the issue.
3. Check whether the representations are comparable or contrasting.

Step 4: Phrase It Effectively

1. Frame the global issue as a specific, insightful topic:
   1. Strong: The impact of trauma on female agency in patriarchal societies
   2. Weak: Trauma

Step 5: Test for Depth

1. A strong global issue should allow for:
   1. Multiple perspectives (e.g. oppressed vs oppressor)
   2. Thematic nuance (e.g. control, resistance, moral ambiguity)
   3. Literary technique analysis (e.g. structure, symbolism, voice)

70 Global Issue Ideas

1. Culture, Identity & Community

1. Loss of cultural identity through assimilation
2. Generational conflict in migrant families