Every winter and spring, students in IB Literature 2 and IB Language and Literature 1 take their course’s IB Internal Assessment, a 15 minute oral analysis known as the Individual Oral (IO).

Over the past two weeks, seniors in Lit 2 have been taking their exams in the IB office in the library. As of yesterday, all IOs have been completed after Lit 2 teachers Kylie Vera and Karen Chu spent their days listening to back-to-back presentations as over 120 students rotated through tightly packed 15-minute time slots.

“The purpose of the IO is to show student’s skills of literary analysis in the [traditional] written way, but also to show the development of their oral analysis and how their thinking connects between their elements and their effects or conclusions in a variety of formats to ensure comfortability with it,” Vera said.

For both the Lit and Lang & Lit IOs, students are required to analyze two texts they studied during their course. They must analyze their texts under a shared global issue, though not comparatively, with only a 10-bullet point outline to assist them. Teachers then ask five-minutes worth of questions following their analysis.

Lit students analyze one English and one work-in-translation text in Dec. of their senior year, while Lang & Lit students analyze one literary and one non-literary text in May of their junior year.

IO preparation in Lang & Lit begins earlier and is spread out across the year. Lang & Lit teacher Kathleen Mathis incorporates several speaking activities to prepare students, while also focusing on reducing anxiety around oral presentations.

“I try to give them opportunities to speak in low pressure ways during the year, so that they slowly build the confidence to speak because I know it’s very daunting,” Mathis said. “I try to put the students’ minds at ease and tell them leading up to it that there’s no outside source judging them.”

Similarly, IO preparation in Lit is also woven throughout the course. Almost every lesson involves group discussions and oral analysis of texts through socratic seminars and fishbowl discussions.

“Whether you all notice it or not, we’re intentionally building on steps of the IO with each summative,” Vera said. “Students have been given all of the resources and opportunities to be prepared and successful on their IO.”

Vera highlights that proper time management remains as one of the biggest challenges for students both in the days leading up to the IO and on the day of itself.

“Students struggle not only in how they’re spending their time outside of class [to prioritize] important assignments over non-important ones, but also with knowing how to pace themselves in their oral analysis,” Vera said.

“Frequently, even students who have practiced run out of time within the presentation and don’t get to do all of their analysis.”

Another common mistake students make is missing the connection between their analysis and authorial perspectives or global issue, which reduces the effectiveness of their presentation across several categories of the rubric.

Students are recommended to practice with a script, a lightly annotated outline and a clean outline as they progress through their practice and improve memorization. Studying for the Q&A portion is also crucial to performing well.

“I planned a cafe study date with my friends so we can all practice together and ask questions to one another that our teacher will likely ask us at the end of our IO,” senior Hannah Tran said. “Before my set IO time, I planned to skip my W2 to ease my nerves as I tend to freak out before tests. I hoped eating a yummy breakfast and having time to actually process and accept my thoughts [would help] me feel ready and confident.”

Even with extensive preparation, nerves can still take over when students go to present their IO.

“Students tend to feel a lot of anxiety the day of the exam. Last year what they did to help quell [their] anxiety before the exam was jumping jacks, walking around the library, practicing square breathing and grounding,” Vera said.

Completing the IO often brings a sense of accomplishment relief, especially for those juggling multiple IB classes with other assessments and exams.

“I know for a fact I will feel so relieved after my IO because it will be another thing to check off my list as an IB candidate,” Tran said.

Students expect to receive their grades the week after Winter Break. To accurately grade them, Vera and Chu moderate their scores by grading 5 of each other’s IOs.

While students may be anxious to receive their scores, the IO only serves as a portion of their t

Mathis reminds students that the IO, “might be hard, but they can do hard things.”