One of the many highlights of an IB English student is presenting their IOC. For the school year 2015-2016, there are five IB English HL II classes and two IB English SL classes. IOC stands for Interactive Oral Commentary. This presentation consists of students analyzing the interpretation of Sylvia Plath’s many poems. One other part of the student’s IOC is discussing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The students discuss and answer open ended questions from their teacher. AHS’ IB English students present the literary and overall meaning of the poem to their current English teacher for this school year. The time duration of the IOC for HL students is forty minutes. The students have twenty minutes to annotate the poem, ten minutes to analyze the poem, and lastly ten minutes to answer the questions about one of the novels.

“I believe my overall presentation was good. I messed up a little bit in the but I corrected myself which helped give me momentum to continue without messing up,” Senior and IB English HL Vinh Tang said. “One big piece of advice I would give is to remember to be calm and speak clearly so you don’t trip yourself up between thoughts. You should make sure to understand what is in your literary piece so you can be prepared.”

Originally, the IOC’s were supposed to begin on January 25, 2016. Alas, due to the snow days, IOC’s were pushed to February 1, 2016. The students who were scheduled to present had to be scheduled for another day. To some students, their IOC being scheduled for another day was great news because they had more time to prepare. On the other hand, students who felt like they were prepared for their presentation were upset.

“The snow days did not affect me as my time stayed the same. It did not give me an advantage or disadvantage.” Tang said.

The IOC is worth a portion of the student’s final grade in the class. It is very important that the students prepare well and earn a good grade.

Due to the reason that the IOC is crucial for a student’s final grade, Senior and IB English SL student Chris Han says, “I took advantage of the many snow days that we had. It gave me more time to prepare for my IOC and to really understand what I am presenting.” Han says.

The IOC’s will be continuing through the week of February 1-12, 2016.