The HL essay
Baccalauréat international · IB Diploma · Language A: Literature · HL Sujet 4 3:44 Narration en anglais · Sous-titres anglais + 中文 incrustés
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Transcript
Emily Dickinson wrote most of her poems around 1860, in small hand-sewn booklets nobody saw until after her death.
艾米莉·狄金森的大部分诗写于 1860 年前后，装在手缝的小册子里，生前无人见过。
Her first editors corrected them: they replaced her dashes with commas and removed her capital letters.
她的首批编辑“修正”了这些诗：把破折号换成逗号，去掉了大写字母。
Later readers restored them, because the strange punctuation is part of the meaning.
后来的读者把它们恢复了，因为这些奇特的标点本身就是意义的一部分。
A question about one small feature, like Dickinson's dashes, can open up a whole body of poems.
一个关于小小特征的问题，比如狄金森的破折号，就能打开一整组诗。
That is how a good HL essay works.
好的高级论文就是这样写成的。
The HL essay is a formal essay of twelve hundred to fifteen hundred words on one literary work.
高级论文是一篇 1,200 至 1,500 词的正式论文，论述一部文学作品。
It is written during the course, marked by the IB out of twenty, and worth twenty per cent.
在课程中完成，由 IB 评分，满分 20 分，占总成绩 20%。
You may not use a work from your individual oral or Paper 2.
不能用个人口试或试卷二中用到的作品。
The course has seven concepts: identity, culture, creativity, communication, perspective, transformation and representation.
课程有七个概念：身份认同、文化、创造力、交流、视角、转变和再现。
Linking your topic to one of them, and then to a feature of the writer's craft, turns it into a question you can answer.
把话题与其中一个联系起来，再与作者的某个写作手法联系，它就变成一个可以回答的问题。
Narrow step by step.
一步步收窄。
The work: Dickinson's poems.
作品：狄金森的诗。
A topic: death, hope and the mind.
话题：死亡、希望与心灵。
A concept: representation.
概念：再现。
A feature: dashes and capital letters.
特征：破折号和大写字母。
And the line of inquiry: how do they make abstract ideas feel physical?
探究线索：它们如何让抽象的观念变得可触可感？
Death in Dickinson's poetry is too broad.
“狄金森诗中的死亡”太宽泛。
How does she use dashes and capitals to make death feel physical is focused.
“她如何用破折号和大写字母让死亡变得可感”就聚焦了。
A good line of inquiry names the work, points to the writer's choices with how does it use, and leaves room for an argument.
好的探究线索点明作品，用“如何运用”指向作者的选择，并为论证留出空间。
Plan the words.
规划字数。
An introduction of about a hundred and fifty words, with the work, the question, a little context and a thesis.
引言约 150 词，包括作品、问题、少量背景和论点。
Three or four body paragraphs of about three hundred words, each one step in the argument.
三到四个主体段落，每段约 300 词，各推进论证一步。
A conclusion of about a hundred and fifty.
结论约 150 词。
The thesis: Dickinson's capitals turn ideas into characters and objects, and her dashes make the reader feel time, hesitation and silence, so that hope, death and fear are experienced in the body rather than explained.
论点：狄金森的大写字母把观念变成人物和物件，她的破折号让读者感受到时间、迟疑与沉默，于是希望、死亡和恐惧是用身体去经历的，而不是被解释的。
Four paragraphs.
四个段落。
Hope as a creature: the dashes keep the stanza open, like the song that never stops.
希望是一只生灵：破折号让诗节保持敞开，就像永不停止的歌。
Death as a person: a polite gentleman with a carriage.
死亡是一个人：一位驾着马车的彬彬有礼的绅士。
The mind as a place: a funeral inside the brain.
心灵是一个地方：脑中的一场葬礼。
And why she writes this way: tell all the truth but tell it slant.
以及她为何这样写：“说出全部真相，但要斜着说。”
Four criteria, five marks each: knowledge, understanding and interpretation; analysis and evaluation; focus, organisation and development; and language.
四项标准各五分：知识、理解与阐释；分析与评价；重点、组织与发展；以及语言。
Quote briefly, a few words in your own sentence.
简短引用，把几个词嵌进自己的句子。
For poems, show line breaks with a slash.
引诗时用斜线表示换行。
Use the present tense: the speaker rides with Death.
用现在时：说话者与死神同乘。
And say which edition you use, because Dickinson's poems appear with different punctuation in different editions.
并注明所用版本，因为不同版本中狄金森诗的标点不同。
Cite every quotation and every idea from another writer, in one referencing style, with a list of works cited.
每条引文、每个来自他人的观点都要注明出处，使用统一的引用格式，并附引用文献列表。
Your teacher can comment on one draft only, so make it complete.
老师只能对一稿给出意见，所以这一稿要完整。
Using someone else's ideas or writing, including AI-generated text, without citing it is academic misconduct.
使用他人的观点或文字（包括 AI 生成的文本）而不注明，就是学术不端。
To finish: narrow from topic to concept to feature to question; write a thesis that answers it; one step per paragraph; short quotations with slashes in the present tense; and cite everything, with one draft for feedback.
总结：从话题到概念到特征再到问题，逐步收窄；写出回答问题的论点；每段推进一步；简短引用，用斜线和现在时；一切注明出处，只有一稿获得反馈。