01
How does an unreliable first-person narrator construct guilt and self-deception?
Approach · Close-read narration, diction and unrevealed information across three scenes; argue how unreliability is built into the form.
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English A: Literature · IA research questions
12 IB English A: Literature IA ideas
Written and cross-checked by IB Diploma graduates: Alexander (41), Alejandro (40), Martina (40), Victoria (38), Martin (35), Maria (34)
· Checked against official IB guidance · Editorial policy
A strong English A: Literature HL essay picks one literary text and pursues a focused literary concern — voice, memory, power, identity, form — through close reading of specific moments. The question should be arguable.
Scope: Work from three to five carefully chosen moments, not plot summary. Use literary terminology precisely. 1,200–1,500 words.
02
How does a playwright use silence and stage direction to construct marginalisation?
Approach · Analyse pause, offstage space, lighting instructions and minimal speech; argue how absence becomes meaning.
03
How does a poet use enjambment, caesura and white space to construct contested memory?
Approach · Map line breaks and visual layout against semantic disruption; argue how form enacts remembering and forgetting.
04
How does Gothic setting construct female anxiety beyond what the narrator states?
Approach · Close-read architectural description, sensory detail and spatial movement; argue how setting carries repressed fear.
05
How does child perspective moralise adult violence without simplifying it?
Approach · Analyse diction, register and knowledge gaps; argue how innocence is a rhetorical device, not just a character trait.
06
How does a postcolonial novel reframe the journey motif to challenge imperial progress?
Approach · Analyse travel imagery, displacement and repeated departure; argue how journey form resists linear narrative.
07
How does dramatic irony construct audience complicity with injustice?
Approach · Analyse audience knowledge versus character knowledge across three scenes; argue how irony becomes ethical.
08
How does a poet construct grief as bodily rather than emotional through natural imagery?
Approach · Close-read simile, rhythm and sensory verb choice; argue how nature physicalises mourning.
09
How does epistolary form construct intimacy and unreliability simultaneously?
Approach · Analyse letter content, gaps, addresses and withheld replies; argue how form controls reader access to truth.
10
How does code-switching construct cultural identity inside dialogue?
Approach · Analyse language shifts, register mixing and power relations; argue how bilingual form resists assimilation.
11
How does dystopian setting construct surveillance as ordinary?
Approach · Analyse domestic space, routine description and normalised violence; argue how banality is the mechanism of control.
12
How does animal imagery destabilise human superiority in an animal-centred narrative?
Approach · Analyse metaphor, focalisation and narrative voice; argue how animal perspective reframes ethics and empathy.
Sources & verification
Primary-source references used to verify key assessment facts on this page. Last source check: September 22, 2026.
These English A: Literature ideas are original iBacalao starting points, not official IB research questions. Check the current English A: Literature subject guide, your assessment session and your school's safety/ethics rules before committing to a question.
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